All You Wanted to Know about Islam (But didn't know where to look)

As a Catholic theologian interested in ecumenical matters I started to make a dossier on the subject of Islam a few years ago which up until recent times was not of much interest ecumenically.  Ecumenism in this country was mostly an inter-Christian thing with some dialogue on Jewish-Catholic dialogue back in the he early 1960's.  In fact, I instituted the very first Catholic-Jewish dialogue in the U.S. when I was a priest-professor at St. John Vianney Seminary back in East Aurora, New York in 1962.  It went fabulously well until a local bishop was appointed who was not much interested in ecumenism.  I lost my job and was farmed out to the boondocks for a number of years.

Matters concerning Islam changed in this country in three ways.  The Israeli-Palestinian struggle became paramount in this country in the past twenty years.  The notion that some Muslims actually could approve morally of suicide-murder-human bombers intrigued me immensely.

Secondly, great numbers of Muslims came to this country after a wider opening to immigration in 1985 who professed a strange religion on these shores and starting in 1993 with the first bombing of the WTC, caused Americans to start examining what made this strange religion tick.  There was a real shortage of books and information on this religion.  At the time I had become local counsel for the Arab Anti-Defamation League in Houston, Texas, besides my professional duties as professor of law at South Texas College of Law in Houston.  My thirst for more knowledge grew because I had to know more about the people (mostly Muslims) I was defending.  I was very interested in the masters of thought that had created radical or fundamental Muslims better known as Islamists or radical Islamists. 

Then came the third and decisive events of 9/11/01 with the attack by radical Muslims against the WTC, the Pentagon and the failed attack in Pennsylvania, killing thousands of Americans.  This singular event not only precipitated the present war on terrorism but a demand for more knowledge of a religious group which had declared its own war on the U.S. as the Great Satan - jihad.  Hardly anyone knew what the elements of this religion were, its history and background, its doctrines and rituals, its attitude towards women and non believers - and much more.  People wanted to know more about these basics.

Some books rapidly went on the market.  Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia; Patrick Buchanan, The Death of the West; William Bennett, Why we Fight; Caleb Carr, The Lessons of Terror; D. D’Souza, What’s So Great About America,  etc.  These and other books are very good but partial studies about the background and specifics of Islam itself.  People wanted to know about Islam itself.  None of these books give us an overall explanation of the tenets and beliefs as well as the history of Islam.

That is why I have written this book.  It is not a learned treatise, it isn’t even very much of an in depth book on the subject.  But what it does is to give a general perspective about Islam, its history, doctrines, rituals and sacred books. I have divided the book into many small chapters with little discussion but giving a general perspective on such subjects as jihad, Wahhabism, the holy places of Islam, rites and rituals, Islam’s history, the women in Islamic teaching, the clergy, who can speak for Islam, juridical schools and much more - all in short, concise chapters. At the end I have places three appendices: a glossary of Arabic terms, the table of dates and a modest bibliography for those who desire a more in depth view of what was described in this short book.