Understanding Islam A Guide for the Judaeo-Christian Reader by Jerald F. Dirks (Beltsville, MD: amana publishers, 2003. 394 pages.)

Abstract

Amidst the current struggle to accurately apprehend and explain Islam, various
works have appeared since the 9/11 tragedy. Into this array of publications
comes Jerald Dirks, who offers his contribution as an attempt to present
an undistorted introduction to Sunni Islam based almost exclusively on
the Qur’an and the Sunnah and aimed primarily at the western Christian
reader. Dirks is an American Christian convert to Islam who has written on
such diverse topics as clinical psychology, Arabian horses, and, recently,
inter-religious issues: The Cross and the Crescent: An Interfaith Dialogue
between Christianity and Islam (amana publications: 2001) and Abraham:
The Friend of God (amana publications: 2002).
Divided into ten chapters, Understanding Islam attempts to outline
Islam’s beliefs, doctrines, and practices in a manner accessible to the average
non-Muslim western reader. One could offer a broader outline, noting
that chapters 1 to 3 deal with the basic history of Islam unfolded through
prophetic history; chapters 4 to 6 cover the faith’s sources, doctrines, and rituals; and chapters 7 to 9 focus upon the singular issue of jihad, its meaning
and applications as “war” within the teachings of Islam and in wider history.
The final chapter acts as a simple summary and exhortation to learn
more through recommended Qur’an translations and other materials.
The introduction discusses Islam’s two primary sources, the Qur’an and
the Sunnah, along with the overall purpose and preview of the book’s contents.
This is followed, in chapter 2, by a systematic comparative summary of
such major pre-Islamic events as creation and God’s revelation through His
prophets. Here, the author compares and contrasts Islamic, Christian, and
Jewish accounts, including such non-Biblical sources as the pseudepigraphal
and the apocryphal writings. The third (and longest) chapter, covering
roughly a third of the book, introduces Prophet Muhammad, his life and call
to prophecy through to the Makkan and the Madinan periods, and ends with
his death. Dirks tries to locate Muhammad’s coming within the Jewish and
Christian scriptures and tries to focus on issues that a western reader might
be biased against, such as the Prophet’s multiple marriages and the treatment
of Madinah’s Jewish tribes. He acknowledges more than once the inadequacy
of covering Muhammad’s life in such a brief chapter, and therefore
refers interested readers to more complete biographical accounts ...