The Oxford History of Islam by John L. Esposito

The Oxford History of Islam Reviews

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  Czarny Pies

  This book is the best introduction to Islam that I am aware of. It is beautifully illustrated. Being very long, it covers all topics in considerable depth: culture, literature, theology, military arts, science, architecture and painting.
  
  The focus of the book is on what is good and admirable in the Islamic world. The approach is similar to that of a Western Civilization book that urges you to admire Mozart, Michelangelo, Imago Jones, Shakespeare, Isaac Newton and Jean Jacques Rousseau simultaneously.
  
  This is the only approach to take. Too many books on Islam view it as problem to be solved or eradicated if necessary. I know that the Americans practiced slavery, massacred Indians, stole territory from the Mexicans, dropped Atomic bombs on the Japan and sprayed Napalm all over Viet Nam. However to truly understand America you need understand that it is the country that created the first Modern democratic state and then exported it all over the world. America has also given us great writers like Louisa May Alcott, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry James and many others. It has produced architects like Louis Sullivan and William Jenney. Amerian scientists have won numerous Nobel Prizes.
  
  The Islamic world deserves the same treatment. Look and understand its greatness before you try to fix it. The Oxford History of Islam tells the magnificent story of the wonderful achievements of this culture.
  
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  Ailed

  The Oxford History of Islam offers an amazingly detailed and informative history of the religion.
  
  I wanted to learn more about Islam since I know so little about it. Islam is victim to very harmful stereotypes, especially in the West, and we goodreaders know that the best way to dispel stereotypes is to read (and travel!). It's amazing how much information this book packs and all of it it's really interesting. The book is divided into chapters that explore a variety of subjects related to Islam: history, science, philosophy, law, etc. And it's so well written that a novice like me could understand everything. I definitely recommend it to all Westerners, especially in the times we are living in.
• 
  Lisa

  This is dated in terms of approach. It is beautiful and the maps are super useful.
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  John

  Although I would rate Marshall Hodgson's "The Venture of Islam" series the best overall history of the Islamicate world of the books I've read, I think "The Oxford History of Islam" does an excellent job, and I would say it is the best overall history of the Islamicate world for those without much previous knowledge and/or non-students or scholars of Islam. "The Oxford History of Islam" covers all (or most) the important basics of the Islamicate world from a variety of top-notch scholars. It provides a good historical grounding that goes beyond the traditional Arab and Middle-Eastern bias of many histories of the Islamicate world, and it does a good job explaining the issues facing the modern Islamicate world. Again, while not the best overall book for scholars, it has an advatntage over many scholarly books in that it is in a much easier to read format, including color photos.
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  William West

  I read ALL 700 pages, and I think I learned A LOT about Islam.
  
  Having said that,like all "Oxford Histor"-ies, this book is a collection of works by a very mixed bag of academics: some know exactly what they should provide to their audience and how (the chapters on ancient and modern Islam), and some utterly clueless sight-seekers (the chapter on Islamic art- "filled with illustrations from fancy books").
  
  As a totality it left me, as a reader, feeling both enlightened and guilty of orientalism...
  
  Hey, at the end of the day, I feel less clueless about the world around me. Hard to call that a bad thing.
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  Phillip Welshans

  Obviously didn't read the whole thing. Focused on the chapters covering theology, philosophy, and the development of Shariah. Really interesting and just reading those chapters give you an idea for how complex and multifacted Islam actually is.
  
  I'll likely return to this to read other chapters down the road.
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  Shnobz

  Huge book. Serves as a reference that one can keeping coming back to. I enjoyed it & did not get bored reading it because of the many authors & sources involved in each chapter. Great work.
• 
  Elliott Bignell

  This is probably the most thorough and comprehensive treatment of the history of Islam that I have so far encountered. It covers areas about which I had previously not read at all, including the history and nature of Islam in West Africa and China and the reform and renewal efforts of Islamic thinkers and ideologues in the last two centuries. The interactions of Muslim immigrants with their host countries are also examined. The book is divided into a series of thematic sections written by specialists, who seem to know their material and to take a neutral stance. Unfortunately it is generally rather dry and as an Oxford history left me spluttering with outrage into my Earl Grey over its use of American "spelling". (I am getting flecks of cucumber sandwich on the screen even as I type.)
  
  The treatment of the origins, predisposing conditions and earliest history of Islam struck me as perhaps a little brief. It has long been my conviction that one can hardly understand Islam without reading the biography of Muhammad and understanding how that biography is framed in Muslim terms, as his life is both the source of the Hadith and the explicit examplar of the perfect Muslim life. As this book attempts to synthesise a vast amount of material concerning more than half the world over 1400-odd years, there is only so much space that one can devote to any given period. Still, I feel that this period is so key to understanding Islam, and so well documented, that it could have been given a deeper treatment.
  
  This work exploded a few beliefs that I had managed to retain even after about 25 years of reading about Islam. Key among these was the position regarding representative art, which had been puzzling me for a while as I have seen artwork in other works which seems to conflict with this supposed proscription. In fact, as the book demonstrates, representative art was never actually forbidden in Islam. Muhammad "cleansed" the Ka'aba of idols, and Muslims immediately adopted the convention of banning images from mosques as a possible focus of idolatry. However, the distaste for representation more generally developed over many centuries, and has never become universal.
  
  The treatment of Islamic science is illuminating and covers material of which I was also hitherto unaware. Far from merely being transmitters of Greek and Hindu concepts of science, Mediaeval Islam engaged in a dynamic and active study of physics, medicine and philosophy and achieved many unique achievements of their own, not least the concepts of algebra. Their medical tradition was firmly Galenic and based on the now-discredited doctrine of the Four Humours, but they made concrete gains all the same. Interest in astronomy was intense, as the fixing of astronomical events and the stellar orientation of the qibla is central to Islamic belief. In later times, reformers have advanced the idea that secular science must be accepted and Qur'anic cosmology be viewed as allegorical, albeit against stiff resistance. The interesting question once again springs to mind as to why neither Islam, nor India, nor the Greek-speaking Byzantines reached the "critical mass" to initiate a scientific revolution, as arose in Europe.
  
  Islam and its relationships with other cultures are a subject of intense interest all over the world today. Tens of millions of Muslims live as minorities in non-Islamic host cultures, and both sides are locked in debate as to how to deal with this. The Muslim countries themselves are often based on borders and governed by institutions imposed by European colonial rulers, sometimes still subject to violent interventions, and mosques in the USA have been subjected to terrorist attacks since the 1980s while revolutions in the Middle East boil over onto European streets. The Islamic world splits about evenly between Parliamentary democracies with varying degrees of participation, like Pakistan, Malaysia and Turkey, and outright autocracies like the Gulf states. Ironically, the Iranian Republic, with an elected President and Prime Minister and the rights both to vote and to take elected office guaranteed for women, has received perhaps the most opprobrium from Western states allegedly supporting precisely these principles. One of the most repressive regimes on Earth and the source of the 9-11 team, Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, seems to be able to do no wrong.
  
  Outside of North Africa, where universal Islamisation was enforced by Sunni fundamentalists, Muslim countries themselves are ethnic and confessional patchworks, having often retained substantial non-Muslim populations even after a millennium of Muslim rule. The Islamic empire expanded with explosive speed, as a state appeared on the bridge linking Europe, Asia and Africa just as the two empires which it separated were nearing exhaustion. As such, the new state acquired territory to govern long before it showed any interest in conversion, which was in any case discouraged by the interests arising from Islamic taxation. Missionary activity was associated as much with trading along the Silk Roads and the Indian Ocean rim as with military conquest. All this leads to both a highly complex and now pressingly vital question of coexistence, to which the book devotes the last few chapters. We seem to have stumbled into a World War, and explaining how we failed to see it coming is not entirely easy.
  
  This compendium acts as a welcome antidote to much of the simplistic and prejudicial rhetoric to be heard from all sides in recent years.
• 
  Robert

  Whenever I get interested in a topic, I like to go "all the way" and devour what material I can to better inform myself. Such was my intent in taking up this massive tome. I don't consider myself religious, by any means, but the subject of religion is interesting to me. Islam, in particular, has become a huge point of contention no matter what side you consider yourself to be on. And, in reading this book, I found Islam to be more diverse and nuanced than any mass media or politician would probably admit. Does that mean I up and convert? No, but understanding something is better than wholesale rejection and demonization. As far as the book itself is concerned, I'm pretty sure this would make a good textbook for an Islamic Studies course, if it already isn't somewhere (after all, it IS an Oxford History). In telling the history of Islam, it is divided into 15 chapters (really, extended essays) that take a loosely chronological approach, but is also topical. The most valuable chapters to me were those on the earliest history of Muhammad, Islam's philosophical underpinnings, Shariah, theology, and (what was then) current/modern Islam. I also found the chapters on Islamic science, art and architecture to be quite interesting, further evidence of its cultural value. The chapters dealing with the rise and fall of the different Islamic empires was also valuable, but more of a World History refresher (and a bit dry at times). There's also a detailed chronology and selective bibliography for those who want to read further on the plethora of topics that the book addresses. I also appreciated explanation of the many Arabic terms that are central to an understanding of Islam, and which is reinforced by some overlap in the various chapters. However, if there's any one thing I took away from the book it's that, as a religion, Islam is as diverse and multi-faceted as its Judeo-Christian counterparts. It's just that nowadays, fundamentalists seem to have hijacked (for lack of a better word) the conversation and all of the media attention, reinforcing stereotypes and prejudices held by all sides. If there's one area where this book is lacking, but through no fault of its own, is the recent developments of Al Qaeda and ISIL as further neorevivalist/neomodernist movements. But as a pre-9/11 examination of Islam, I doubt you'd find a better, more concise, introduction to it than this. I'd like to close with a quote from the book's last chapter: "Like believers in their sister traditions, Judaism and Christianity, the critical question is the relationship of faith and tradition to change in a rapidly changing and pluralistic world." As I read through the book, I couldn't help but mentally draw parallels between Islam and Christianity as experienced here in the US. Hopefully, the various religions realize that they share a common struggle, even if the particular beliefs differ, and learn to coexist peacefully. Highly recommended for the serious (and open) minded reader, or student of religion.
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  Randy Lynn

  This is a VERY interesting book. It is a text book from my daughter's university course of a few years back. I didn't read every chapter, but learned so much from the history chapters at the front.
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  Juan

  Islamic history, of religion, science, art, literature. A very good introcution to Islamic history.
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  Jp

  I can't claim to have read this whole book, it really isn't meant to be read that way. I think this is the best reference I have on the Islamic world.
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  Carlos

  A comprehensive introduction to Islam, which while having quite fascinating chapters on science, technology and its empires, was also bogged down by overly detailed chapter on theology and law.
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  Richard Shulmistra

  It is an encyclopedia. I read several chapters for historical perspective...
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  Lena Denman

  One of the best reference books and histories regarding Islam for the American reader today.