Religious Historian Karen Armstrong talks about her book "Islam: A Short History," which traces the origins and growth of the Islamic faith from the revelations Muhammad (PBUH) received in the seventh century to the present. She also talks about how and why the faith is often misunderstood. Her book was published by Modern Library.

Brian Lam, host of Booknotes, conducted this interview at the Modern Library in New York. This talk was broadcast on C-Span on September, 22, 2000.

About the Book:
No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular imagination as an extreme faith that promotes terrorism, authoritarian government, female oppression, and civil war. In a vital revision of this narrow view of Islam and a distillation of years of thinking and writing about the subject, Karen Armstrong’s short history demonstrates that the world’s fastest-growing faith is a much more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest.

“A small gem bristling with insight.” —The Washington Post

“A valuable corrective to the hostile caricatures of Islam that circulate in the English-speaking world. . . . Engaging and provocative.” —The New York Times

“Karen Armstrong, a respected and popular author of several books about religion . . . takes on a useful and formidable task in presenting the history of Islam in a single short volume. As many other such works have been written either by apologists or by those hostile to Islam, Armstrong’s comprehensive and sympathetic work is welcome.” —Los Angeles Times

“In Armstrong’s brisk narrative, the clichés evaporate fast. . . . A book like this is suddenly essential." —Entertainment Weekly

Purchase the book at:

https://www.amazon.com/Islam-History-...

Karen Armstrong is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She attended St Anne's College, Oxford, while in the convent and majored in English. She became disillusioned and left the convent in 1969. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.

C-SPAN, an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a public service. C-SPAN televises many proceedings of the United States federal government, as well as other public affairs programming.

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