Heart of Islam
In the introduction the author states this book was ?written with express purpose of explaining certain basic aspects of Islam and widely discussed issues in a manner acceptable to mainstream Islamic thought and comprehensible to the general western public.? He does an excellent job in achieving his purpose. In some respects the work is similar to Khaled Abou El Fadl?s excellent book, "The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists." Both have injected history into their discourse and both explain key elements of Islam. "Heart of Islam" provides more of the philosophy in a straight manner. El Fadl?s book uses the dichotomy between ?puritans? and moderates to show the differences in interpretation. Both books should be read to understand that much of the misunderstanding of Islam is due to erroneous interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah by both Muslims and non-muslims.
