BOOK REVIEW:  Islam and Global Dialogue: Religious Pluralism and the Pursuit of Peace

M.A. Khan

Posted Nov 8, 2006      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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Islam and global dialogue: religious pluralism and the pursuit of peace.  ed. by Roger Boase.  Ashgate , 2005. 310p bibl index afp ISBN 0-7546-5307-2, $99.95 .

Reviewed in 2006jun CHOICE. 

  This compilation of articles by twenty renowned authors aims to avoid dogmatic secular paradigms while explaining Islamic discourse on war and peace. Most of the authors point out the sharp difference between the core universal teachings of Islam and the failure of contemporary Muslim nations to follow these core teachings to achieve peace among themselves and between the Muslim world and the West. The book’s criticism of Muslim failure is neither one-sided nor overly biased, and colonial domination over Muslim nations has been taken into consideration in explaining the Muslim failure at global levels. The editor has argued that, in principle, the Islamic faith is very favorable to fostering interfaith causes and issues, based on the Quranic teachings of its Abrahamic traditions. He points out that Muslims need to regain this religious rationale to establish Islam’s appropriate role and place on the global stage. Some Muslim contributors suggest that Islam is almost totally corrupted by Wahabism, a radical utopian fundamentalism. This weakens the book’s focus on Islamic core paradigms of universality and interfaith relations as the more hopeful basis for a viable future role for Islam in global dialogue. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduates through faculty. —M. A. Khan, University of California, Davis

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