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	01/05 Stuart is currently reading: How to Prepare for the Fundamentals of Engineering FE/EIT Exam (Paperback) by Masoud Olin bookshelves: currently-reading	my rating:
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Stuart's recent updates (rss)

March 28

Stuart gave

to:
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (Paperback)
by Richard Dawkins (Goodreads author)

my rating:

Stuart said: "This is a real eye-opener. Rather than the corny fiction that the title initially suggested, this is a journey back along our family tree...THE family tree, rather, between ourselves and the origins of life. Any speculation or tenuously evidenced the...more "

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Stuart gave

to:
No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (Paperback)
by Reza Aslan

my rating:

read in March, 2009

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March 18

Stuart gave

to:
The Great Gatsby (Paperback)
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

my rating:

read in December, 2008

Stuart said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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January 22

Stuart made a comment on Morgan's review of Guards! Guards! (Discworld, Book 8)

Stuart wrote: "The books start out as rampant fantasy satire, lampooning movies, books and the standard races and t...more "

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January 17

Stuart read and liked Conrad's review of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam:

"An astounding work. This book really took the top of my head off. Aslan is an excellent writer, and the book isn't too academic, but his command of Arabic and, at the same time, comprehensive familiarity with not one but at least three or four differ...more An astounding work. This book really took the top of my head off. Aslan is an excellent writer, and the book isn't too academic, but his command of Arabic and, at the same time, comprehensive familiarity with not one but at least three or four different English translations of the Quran (and the misunderstandings that result therefrom) makes this well worth reading.

Aslan makes a strong case for the Hijaz as a place of prelapsarian cultural intermingling for Jews, Christians, and Muslims; his portrait of Muhammad makes the Prophet both a divinely inspired revolutionary and a reformer with secular concerns and family problems of his own for whom it would be impossible not to feel sympathy. Aslan also touches on the liberalizing effect of the spread of Islam, which allowed adherents of the three monotheistic religions to live peaceably in Spain for a time, introduced strict laws limiting legal retribution and encouraging forgiveness, redistributed wealth with an eye to enriching the impoverished, and spurred reforms in the way women were treated in inheritance laws.

The book also discusses the Iranian revolution, and the vexed relations between Iran and the United States. Aslan seems to think that the aims of Iran's revolutionaries and those of American liberals were/are more alike than either group bothers to recognize now. This is a perspective that I would imagine is unlikely to make Aslan many friends in either country, both of which are now run by cynical men. How unfortunate.

My only objection to the book, and it is a minor one, is that Aslan spends a lot of ink criticizing the Ulama (conservative academic interpreters of the Qu'ran) over the past several hundred years, but he does not specify exactly who these people are, saying only that the Ulama did this and the Ulama did that and everything they did was always all wrong. This could use a little more parsing; I find it hard to believe that the Ulama is quite as univocal as that, even if it is as stultifying and traditionalist as he suggests.

Anyway, this is an excellent book, readable, relevant, profound, subtly ideological but also very persuasive. Prepare to leave this book with a very different perception of what it means to be Muslim than you will ever get from Christiane Amanpour.(less) "

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January 05