The Closing of the Muslim Mind How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis by Robert R. Reilly (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2010. hbk. 244 pages.)

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Frank Griffel

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Abstract

This book looks like a serious academic study in Islamic theology. It
is divided into nine chapters that build on an overall argument and
has a great number of endnotes, quoting Muslim sources and literature
pro-duced in the field of Islamic studies. The book’s author works
with-in Washington’s circle of government institutions and think
tanks. His book comes with a foreword and no fewer than ten
endorsements by colleagues of Reilly, which praise his erudition,
insight, and abil-ity to analyze and explain the Muslim mind. I
wonder whether they were all aware that the book they endorsed is, in fact, a Catholic refutation
of Ashʿarite Muslim theology, the leading branch of Sunni theology.
However, Reilly exempts Shiite theology from his harsh criticism ...

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