This is another book on Islam which is quite fascinating at times. One may refrain from adding adjectives such as “well timed,” “ill-timed,” “relevant,” and “irrelevant” because all could be true depending upon one’s perspective, background, political, ideological, and even epistemological orientations. Many concepts in the book are either taken for granted without a thorough examination such as treating “Islam” as a block, even though the author is careful about indicating that Islam is not monolithic. Yet, the book’s title suggests just that.
The title is itself a political program, even though it is a scholarly work. The list of references is impressive in length and variety, yet one cannot but note a glaring absence of Arab authors and their Arabic writings. This is not to say that the author has shun away from Arab references, but he did rely...
