Rating: 
Summary: An Outline History
Review: Truth in advertising: This is a "short history." For a brief introduction to the Islamic experience, I encourage you to peruse these pages. You'll get a whirlwind tour of 1400 years of Islam. The prose is serviceable, if sometimes dry, especially towards the middle of the book; you may get the feeling that you're reading one of those lengthy, well written articles found in former editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For early twenty-first century Americans, this book should be required reading. Armstrong opened my eyes to a subject I know little about, and has sent me searching for further information on some of the important Islamic literature she describes--if using an economy of words.
Rating:
Summary: She could have done more research.
Review: I truly applaud those writers who go against the "Let's make some bucks off the bigots and bash Islam" trend, which has given us such raving rants like those by Robert Spencer and Serge Trifkovic.However, if you're going to defend Islam, do it right. For example, there's the way Ms Armstrong defends what Muhammad did after the Battle of the Trench -- namely, the execution of the seven to nind hundred Banu Qurayza combatants, who were going to let the Meccans into Medina so they could slaughter the Muslims. The problem is, this so-called "massacre" never happened. The proof that the massacre is a legend has been out there since 1976, when W.N. Arafat published his article "New Light on the story of Banu Qurayza and the Jews of Medina," in a historical scholarly journal. (Today, you can find the entire article through your favorite search engine.) Since Ms Armstrong didn't bother to find it with hers, she only gets four stars here.
Rating: 
Summary: I don't accept this apology
Review: In the years soon following the death of Muhammad, the Islamic armies burst out of the Arabian peninsula, shattering most of the armies that stood against them, and soon held dominion over Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. And for what purpose? For the spreading of the holy word of Allah? As wars of forced conversion? No, silly westerner, these wars against non-Muslims were simply to promote community spirit. 'they wanted plunder and a common activity that would preserve the unity of the ummah.' It wasn't about Islam at all. This is the sort of defensive argument you will read about in Armstrong's Islam: A Short History. Karen Armstrong is an apologist for Islam. Her tone of defensiveness fills the book with far more examples than I could cite here. Although she sometimes concedes that a few impure so-called Muslims occasionally misbehave, the reader gets the distinct impression that they never act in groups larger than three or four at a time. And since this is an apologist book, I will evaluate it as such. It fails. The book opens with an account of the life of Muhammad. Although I will grant that many of the specific facts cited in the book (and there are a ton of them) are carefully researched, I had the distinct impression that the discussion in the beginning was not presented very critically. It sounds like something out of an Islamic equivalent of Sunday school. No doubt it is the way Muslims prefer to think of him, but is some historical analysis too much to ask for in a history book? After a short account of his life and the years immediately following, we are treated to a fast paced recitation of leaders and dates and movements within the religion. A fair portion of the remaining book is done is this style. It is impossible, of course, to remember all the details on first reading, but it will present a basic outline of the course of Islamic theology for several centuries. Periodically Armstrong takes a breathing break and does some editorializing. Thus, we read her extremely brief account of the Crusades with words like 'tragically', 'massacred', and 'aggressive Western intrusion'. Earlier, of course, we learn that though the Muslims were stopped by Charles Martel from invading France in 732 from their recent conquest in Spain, it turns out that they didn't really want Europe anyway because the weather was so bad. I guess they changed their minds when the Ottomans invaded the Balkans and went as far as Vienna, where I understand the sun shines three hundred days a year. And the jihad under Selim I (1467-1520) is called 'phenomenally successful', even though it was also directed at Syria and Egypt, just like the Crusades. Am I being petty? The book is full of these, some not so glaring, some worse, but this forum does have a word count limitation. The last section is about contemporary times. As I expected by the time I reached it, it was a laundry list of denials about the Islamic world's hatred of the West. Sometimes she seems to be simultaneously saying that they don't hate us, and besides, they have good reason to so don't be so surprised. She cites the Soviet Union as an example of how enlightened societies are not always peaceful. Hello? Who called the USSR enlightened? She points out that the non-Islamist government of Iran in the twenties and thirties had soldiers rip veils off women and cut them up (the veils) with bayonets. She makes no mention of what Khomeini's rule was like, or how people suffered at the hands of the religious police, but reminds us only of how Khomeini deviated from 'true' Islam. In the end, one gets the impression that we should judge a religion only by the actions of a few thousand followers in the time of Muhammad and not by the billions that have followed. This seems to be a common attitude in many religions, and Armstrong is no exception. I bought this book knowing full well that I would probably get an apologist's view of Islam. I really was hoping that she would make some sort of dispassionate argument that explained why Islam is seen so poorly in the West (if it is, but I'm not sure that's really the case). I deliberately read it before some of the harsher books I ordered to give it the full benefit of the doubt. It wasn't as bad as it might have been, but even if it is really her goal only to clear up misconceptions, she has failed. I give the book credit for apparently exhaustively researched facts and data, but in tone and omission I simply cannot recommend this book to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Somewhat Informative
Review: I really have to confess that as I have done more study on Islam, this book has left more to be desired. It is written almost as an apologetic for Islam; in retrospect, Armstrong's reporting looks more and more biased. Although the bias isn't so ridiculous that one wants to throw the book across the room, it isn't so great that I would recommend it as a great place to start on Islam, either. For one, Armstrong is very interested in contrasting Islam and Christianity. She notes throughout the book that Islam is less interested in orthodoxy than orthopraxy. However, anyone with any knowledge of Sufism - a mystical stream within Islamic thought - knows that the Sufis were regularly persecuted and martyred for their beliefs. Although Christianity may focus on theology to a larger extent than Islam does, that does *not* mean in any way that Islam is not interested in theological discourse. Secondly, Armstrong seems very interested in portraying Islam in the best possible light. Islam has had great periods of tolerance but, like any other religion, it has also had violence perpetrated in its own name. In all truth, Islam is no more or less violent than any other religion. She notes that the Crusades were a defense launched by the West against Islam, but only devotes about 1 page to the Crusades (which is odd, since she has written a tome about them). One is left not knowing what happened and so a big piece of Islamic history is left out, as are questions about why the Muslims were invading in the first place. She also seems interested in putting her own value judgments onto Islamic history. She writes that after Muhammad, Islam was "hijacked by men" which comes across less like a well thought out discussion of the history of women in Islam and more like a knee-jerk reaction. A lot of Muslim women like that they are not expected to be like men in Islam - most of the Muslim women I have known have felt that way. That a white Westerner such as Armstrong wants to impose ideas of equality upon a different culture seems rather arrogant and imperialistic. All of this is not to say that this book is a waste, however. It contains a lot of information and is a pretty intense read. The development of fundamentalism is certainly interesting, as are the deviations that Islamic fundamentalism was considered to have when it first arose. However, the trends in Islamic thought that gave rise to Islamic fundamentalism are not noted. As any scholar of religion would tell you, texts leave themselves open for interpretation, for better or for worse. The developments that led to Islamic fundamentalism aren't noted, which is a disappointment. This book is an okay place to start if you plan to do more study on Islam. However, if you are looking for a one-time introduction, I suggest that you look elsewhere (John Esposito's book Islam: The Straight Path would be a better place to start).
Rating: 
Summary: A good introduction to a hot topic
Review: In the past 50 years the religion of Islam has pushed into the western consciousness, extremely more so since September 11th. But very many people have no idea what Islam is and represents, and those who do know something often know wrong information. Armstrong tries to fill some of this knowledge void. She admirably takes 1500 years of history and condenses it down to under 200 pages - giving the reader an idea of the scope of it's history and how it developed. This book is for the new reader, who wants to learn, but is off put by the length of history, or the plethora of Arabic names and terms. She is able to give you an idea of how the crusades interacted with the development of Islam, without taking you through a detailed history of all the crusades. There is a bibliography to help you find more detailed information on a topic you are interested in. What is useful is the conciseness of the writing, and providing a glossary of Arabic terms, as well as a who's who of important figures in Islamic history. Through the spread of Islam over the centuries you can see how we have come to the fractioning that we have today in the geo-political realm. If you invest some time in this book you will come away with a greater understanding and appreciation of one of the major world religions. And it is information like this that is so necessary to combat ignorance about our neighbors in the world.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Ms. Armstrong has managed to pack this small book with first rate insights in to the past and present of Islam. I am specifically impressed with the way in which she deals with what I believe to be the two most misunderstood and important facets of this faith. The first is that Islam is more than just a religion that one observes on the weekend while going about their secular life. Islam is a complete system for living. Between the Koran and the Hadith, almost every aspect of daily living is reviewed and directed. Secondly is the wide ranging and profound impact of western colonialism on the Muslim people and their governments. Without a sense of the importance of these two issues, it is impossible to arrive at an understanding of Islam today. Ms. Armstrong writes clearly and thoroughly, without posturing or pretense.
Rating:
Summary: Goes down easy...
Review: Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God, writes well. She has a gift with words and a style that eases the reader through very difficult material. I was highly enthused when I first got hold of this book. Like her other books, it is easy to read and highly engaging. She summarizes a very complex history nicely and covers major points of this history in encapsulated prose. If you are looking for a good overview of their history this is a great place to start. Now for the bad news. She, in attempting to make the book palatable and not bogged down in theology and the 'warts and all' of historical detail, only skims the surface. I was left wondering what went wrong with Islam. If the view of Islam presented here is the 'true' Islam, how do we grapple with what it has become (at least its presentation in the more popular Western media outlets)? This book does not seek to answer those questions. Some have accused her of 'whitewashing' Islam's history. I suppose we must look at her intent. I believe she has attempted to write a good entry-level book in order to engage the reader to the positives rather than the negatives (which are much too easy to find) in order to even desire to understand it rather than attack it outright. In this she has succeeded quite well. If you wish to understand the deeper meanings and varied histories of Islam's history, you may start here but do not be fooled. This book only scratches the surface.
Rating:
Summary: A history of Islam¿short but brilliant!
Review: When I first saw this rather small book (Islam- a Short History), I thought I might not get too much from it. Well, I am a Muslim and I have some knowledge about the history of Islam. But with turning the last page of the book, I was astonished by how much new I learned from it. It was much deeper than the few much more detailed history books I have read about Islam. It covered the history of Islam over a period of 14 centuries in a brilliant and comprehensive analysis, without being consumed by too many details. However, I found the last two chapters of the book to be most interesting. They describe the tragic turning point of the Islamic civilization from being the major leading civilization of the middle ages to the backward situation it is in right now. Armstrong tried to answer, quite convincingly, a question many beg to know: What went wrong? She presented a deep and honest view of many immensely important events that reshaped the history of the Muslim nation forever. For example, she described the causes, circumstances, and consequences of the closure of "the gates of ijtihad" (or the use of independent judgment by Muslim scholars) by the end of the 15th century. Armstrong, also adequately covered the profound effects that had been created by the Mongols, and latter on by the colonial powers of West Europe on how Muslims think and live.
I highly recommend this book for those who know little about Islam and for those who know a lot. It is a great book. It deserves a full five stars.
Rating:
Summary: Useful Crash Course on Islam
Review: Although Islam, as Edward Said pointed out, is too complex and diverse to be summarized easily, Karen Armstrong does an excellent job of it here. Armstrong corrects many Western misconceptions of Islam, and also points out many of Islam's flaws and weaknesses throughout history. This book will prove useful and rewarding for people of any political belief or faith who simply want to learn about Islam. Extremists who are either for or against Islam, however, will probably not enjoy the objective and analytical nature of this book. Some of Armstrong's salient points are contained below. ISLAM ACCEPTS OTHER FAITHS
Throughout most of its history, according to Armstrong, Islam has been remarkably accepting of other faiths. The Koran instructs Moslems to accept other people "of the book" including Christians and Jews, and many Islamic scholars argue that had Mohamed been aware of Buddhists and Native American shamans they would have been included in this requirement. In most of the places where Islam triumphed, it allowed other religions to coexist with it peacefully. For example, in Moslem Spain before the rise of Ferdinand and Isabella, Christians, Jews, and Moslems practiced their faith in peace and harmony. The strain of violent intolerance in today's Islamic fundamentalist sects, according to Armstrong, is a response to modernization and foreign occupation that is only decades old. ISLAM IS NOT A RELIGION OF AGGRESSIVE CONQUEST
Armstrong demystifies the age-old Western notion, that Islam is an aggressive juggernaut. Islam owes its early military successes, not to its ideology or fervor, but to fundamental sociological shifts among many of the Arab tribes that derived their income through plundering pilgrims on their way to Mecca. (The Pilgrimage to Mecca predates Islam). Because Islam does not permit one member of its faith to attack or rob another, this mode of income was no longer viable. Consequently Mohamed and subsequent leaders directed these tribes toward external conquests. In most cases throughout its history, Islamic conquest were the result of a complex amalgam of military action and diplomacy that usually resulting in accommodating the belief systems of the conquered. THE CRUSADES
Western history has frequently characterized the crusades as a Christian liberation of the Holy Land from a violent horde. In fact, Christians, Moslems, and Jews lived more or less harmoniously in Jerusalem and were able to practice their religions freely until the arrival of the Christians, who massacred Moslems and Jews and left their corpses in the streets for months. The eventual re conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin, which is viewed as a catastrophe in Western history, ended years of brutality and mass murder. SOCIAL JUSTICE
Islam contains powerful provisions of social justice and egalitarianism that are derived from the ancient tribal values of the Arabian Peninsula. Wealthy and powerful Moslems are required by law to go to the aid of poorer and weaker ones. It is interesting to note that whether one agrees with them or not, many terrorists who practice Islamic fundamentalism, justify their actions in this context. UNIFIED MONOLITHIC ISLAM
Armstrong points out that contrary to popular Western conceptions, Islam is not a monolithic and unified belief system but a diverse one that is fragmented according to religious and cultural differences as well as geography. In terms of belief, Islam is roughly divided into Shiites, who advocate a strict imitation of Mohamed's life, Sunnis, who advocate following Islamic laws and jurisprudence, and Sufis, whose practice centers around mystical and metaphysical issue. Within these groupings are additional ones, such as Wahabbism, the virulent fundamentalist sect followed by Bin Laden, and the Saudi royal family. Islam also differs from place to place. The attitudes of Moslems in Turkey for example will probably differ considerably from those in Saudi Arabia or Western China. This is a particularly interesting point considering the highly generalized manner in which Islam is treated by Western news and politics. It also casts questions on the sort of "us and them" theories in Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of World Order". Why, for example, did Huntington distinguish certain Christian civilizations as "Western, Orthodox", and "Latin" because of religious, racial, or geographic differences, but fail to apply the same types of distinctions to Moslems. Using the same set of criteria, even if Huntington referenced something like "Shiite civilization, Sunni civilization, Sino-Islamic civilization" and "East Asian-Islamic civilization" he would still be lumping very different types of people together in overly broad categories. WEAKNESSES
Armstrong does not hesitate to point out many of Islam's weaknesses the most notable of which is its failure to reconcile religious law with the exigencies of modernization, a problem that arguably plagues much of the Islamic world to this day. Armstrong's study provides an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to obtain a general understanding of Islam from a lucid and accessible text. Reading this book, however, will not make anyone an "expert" on Islam and it should probably be supplemented by additional material.
Rating: 
Summary: Educational
Review: This book was already on the printing presses when Sept 11, 2001, attacks took place.
By chance, it was timely, and for those with little time on their hands this is a good brief overview. I found it helpful but left me wanting to chew on more.
An excellent starting point for someone wanting to learn about Islam would be to combine this small tome with a modern translation of the Koran, avalable on bookstores (and online, for free).
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