Book Review: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Islam

Last week a book title caught my eye.... during my usual stroll in the google world, hoping to fetch articles related to my FD research.

The book was entitled "Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Islam", offering an easy-to-comprehend explanation about Islam. Much alike the concept offered by "Learning for Dummies" series.

I was about to buy the book from online shopping service, when it struck my mind that I might just as well whip my luck and find the free e-book somewhere. So I did and I found the torrent file, and successfully got the pdf version. I am now still reading the book and far from finished, since I just recently reached chapter 2 (The Spiritual World of Islam). However after I got passed the first chapter (Introducing Islam), already I had some remarks and reflections.

The Introduction of Introduction

The foreword and introduction chapter really caught me. Apparently this book was written by an American Islam convert, Yahya Emerick, whom his friend Qasim Najar (who wrote the foreword for this book) dubbed as "a man juggling his American identity and his Islamic soul and gracefully striking a balance."

Within the introduction chapter, Emerick really did convince me that he was about to offer a breath of fresh air. A writing that would accommodate true Islamic teaching with soft, friendly "liberal" approach. He presented the idea that true Islam shares similar characteristics as Judaism and Christian, thus brought the proof that those three world's largest, foremost monotheistic religions were brought by messengers who shared the same mission. Hence, they were inspired by the same source - God almighty itself. I personally thought that it was a very effective opening statement, leading the readers to open their mind that "all religions are true.... if they were all embraced truthfully." Much the same concept as Liberal Islam, only that it was of course more politically correct. Emerick also argued that the teaching of Islam, true as it is, offered the answers to many problems we face in this contemporary world such as how to release stress from our daily hectic career-oriented life, how to make peace in today's violence-saturated world, all in all the ultimate philosophical teaching to live our life in this world. Just as what the other philosophical teaching offered us, such as the teaching of Buddha and Taoisme. A very, very universal opening that put readers at ease.

In this introduction Emerick also told the history of relation between Islam and Christian world, as well as to the Judaism world. Although there were evidences of many years of war and disputes, the history between the three also saw some era of fruitful relationship, mutual respect and toleration.

I personally loved how he concluded the introduction chapter with a very sound statement inviting everyone to welcome Muslims in the modern world : "...as Muslims take their place in the melting pot, I hope we all can see that the flavors they will add will enrich our lives for the better."

However, when I got into the next part, which is where Emerick explains the importance of knowing Islam in nowaday's world, I could see that he became more "hardliner". He presented the impartiality of today's media in portraying Islam, and tried to convince readers that Western world especially has become far from civil when presenting Islam.

This, I think, could put the readers back in their hard feet, presuming that Emerick tried to raise hate towards the Western world. He explained, however, that since there are so many stereotypes that Islam might face in present days, it is important for everyone to learn first about what Islam truly is to prevent themselves from seeing just one side of the story. It is wiser to listen to both Western and Muslim tells and explains, so that in the end it would be the readers themselves who has the liberty to conclude everything. It was a good, logical idea, of course. But again, since within the next paragraphs there was an urge to be "ganging up" against Western side, it could promote a rather negative tone for the readers who might has already been put in ease after a very inviting and friendly introductory argument.

On the other side, sometimes being hard towards Western's unfair treatment to Islam might be just as wise. If we look around us we could see many examples that being too liberal is nothing but big mistake, for example the case of liberal Islam. We could learn that the approach of Liberal Islam, liberal and accommodative as it is, is nothing but clear inconsistency. Dubbed themselves as Muslim, but what they roared around is an obvious opposite to Islam teachings. Thus, I believe that there are still many ways to be friendly and adaptive but at the same time consistently standing within true Islamic core values. A balanced approach, so to say.

I just hoped that the next chapters which I am now about to read would embrace that balance approach, to clear the juxtapositions Emerick might have brought up in the Introduction chapter.