Rating: 
Summary: Karen! Please do not do Wahabi a Favor
Review: I enjoyed the comments of Karen's on CNN, however her book is full of errors. The following are a few of her errors:
1. "Arabs never had a prophet before." There were many Prophets in Arabia i.e. Prophet Abraham, Ishmael, Lot and Saleh etc.
2. She calls the Koran "stern" while each Chapter starts with "in The name of the Merciful and Compassionate Allah"
3. Page 7-8 "previous prophets and reformers built on pagan rights and Muhammad did the same" This is an outrageous statement to describe a prophet who fought to break away from worshipping the pagans' idols. On the contrary, Prophet Muhammad reference is the revelation, for example when Jews and others asked Prophet Muhammad about spirit and the Day of Judgment he waited for the Arch Angel Gabriel to bring him the answers.
4. She said the Ansars (people of Medina) could not afford to keep the Migrants of Mecca for FREE so they started to raid Caravans. She has forgotten that the Koran responded for migrants to fight the caravans to collect what had been stolen from them
5. I think false writing about Islam causes a more fanatical fever and overlooks the great spirituality of Islam, why don't we write about the great spiritual gurus of Islam such as al Ghazali, Ibn Arabi and the like, these Gurus are the enemy of wahabis, in other words error prone writing is doing the wahabis and al qaeda a favor. Not to mention Karen used on the front cover of her book a picture of the Wahabi Saudi King Faisal who was the first person ever to use oil as a weapon!
6. There are many other critical errors that we feel too embarrassed to report. We recommend the reader to read the better and more accurate work
"The Millennium Bibliography of the Holy Prophet Muhammad" of the Mosque.com of the Internet.
Rating: 
Summary: Think About It
Review: I have to disagree with many of the other reviewers of this work. It is, or seems to me, an impartial history of the Islamic religon. Karen Armstron starts with the very roots of Islam, beginning with Muhammed, and traces the development of Islam through to the present day. She takes time to explain both the effect Islam had on historical events, and the affect other historical events, especially the rise of western culture, have had on the development of Islam.Don't just read the book, think about what Karen Armstron is saying. I think some reviewers expect to find that at it's core Islam is a violent and demeaning religon for those with the philosphy of "to the victors go the spoils", but that is not what is Islam is about. That Islam has been changed or perverted by many Muslims is not in doubt. The author provides enough information for a person to see the development of the religon and why it's development has been altered by some for either personal and selfish reasons, or more recently, why it seems to have morphed into a suicidal and warlike system of beliefs. The author does not explain these changes, which do not seem to affect the majority of muslims, but provides the history and reasoning behind the religon that should allow a person who really reads this text to explain these changes to themselves. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Islam through rose colored glasses
Review: karen Armstrong is probably a nice person. Or, at all events, she is probably a nice person to know since she is the kind of person who looks at the world a s sees it as it ought to be. Certainly Islam ought to be a religion that respects women, treats the poor with kindness, and tolerates difference. English-speaking readers, however, come to a one-volume history of Islam to discover why it is that so many Muslims live under backward, corrupt regimes, opress women, keep slaves, and believe that murdering Americans is justified by their religion. After reading about Ms. Armstrong's kind and gentle Islam, you will be as unenlightened as you were before you opened the book. Bernard Lewis, Islam in History, is a far superior one volume introduction to the rich and complex world of Islam.
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Summary: The "Why can't we all just get along?" version of Islam
Review: This is a tough one to review. After reading the book, you want to believe that there are forces in the Muslim world that want peace for all. But then you read other accounts from other authors on how much bad has been perpetrated on the world from this form of thinking. And then you read the newspapers everyday. And you have to wonder how such a belief that claims to be peaceful has so many of it's members willing to apply terrible carnage to anyone who doesn't believe along their lines. The book's purpose is to show that there is a theoretical good side to Islam, that, if practiced, would result in that world of harmony we all would like to have. And when it does reference the writings that believe in this, as well as those that practice it, it stays on the mark. It is true that there is a certain percentage of the Islamic world that abhors the killing of innocent people in the name of God. This part of the book succeeds very well. If one wants to learn about the good things the religion preaches, then this is a very good book. However, it fails in two very important ways. While stating that it is showing the good parts of Islamic teaching, it is whitewashing the issue by making the reader think that everything there is for peace and love. To have a balanced presentation, a work like this HAS to show the writings that are, at best, misinterpreted. At worst, some of these writings also seem to flat-out state that anyone who is not a believer is an infidel. It's like reporting what a wonderful producer of cotton the United States was before the Civil War without stating that it took forced bondage of human beings to bring this about. The second part is more unfair. The book claims to use as it's cornerstone the core teachings of the faith. But then it delves into the personal live of it's founder, and makes you think he's just one swell guy who only wanted the best for the world. If you are going to present personal traits that are good, let's also present the traits that make him a monster in the eyes of many. Western/Judeo/Christian history is filled with many bad marks. Some as recently as proppiing up a terribly corrupt Shah of Iran government. And this side does things on a regular basis that one can see would bug the hell out of the other side. But this is now, and for the most part, the West is a LOT more tolerent and respectful of how people want to lead their lives. To write a book like this, which essentially says that this is what Islam is REALLY supposed to be, and that we should give them a chance to progress THEIR way is like telling people that the Easter Bunny will bring you eggs if you just be good and believe in him.
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Summary: "Romantic" Islam
Review: Ms. Armstrong has produced what is undeniably an entertaining and encouraging (in that it presents a positive view of Islam)book. It must be emphasized, however that this cannot be seen as a work of scholarship, as Ms. Armstrong is content to accept uncritically too many "facts" from sources which are completely biased. This said, one is left wishing that the founder of Islam(If, in fact there actually was a historical Mohammed)and its subsequent propagators really were as Ms. Armstrong presents them. In any case, readers wishing to obtain a balanced view of the sociocultural phenomenon now widely know as "Islam", will find it useful to compare this idealised presentation with that of more critical treatments.
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Summary: Will clear misconceptions about Islam!
Review: This is a clear, readable survey of the story of Islam suitable for the educated, nonspecialist adult. Armstrong (The Battle for God, CH Nov'00) follows a traditional periodization that emphasizes the life of Muhammad, the expansion, the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, the "gunpowder empires," and Islam in the colonial and contemporary world. There is a comprehensive chronology, glossaries of key individuals and Arabic terms, and a bibliography of major works in English divided into subject areas. This is primarily a political history, with little mention of Muslim artistic and scientific accomplishments. Embedded in the historical survey are several arguments that those familiar with Armstrong's other works, such as A History of God (CH, Apr'94) and Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (CH, Nov'92), will find familiar. The book is written with a laudable goal: to counter the misconception that Islam is a violent, authoritarian religion bent on world domination. However, Armstron g makes several sweeping claims that would be sharply disputed by some scholars. Wherever possible she emphasizes the egalitarian and inclusive aspects of Islam, downplaying those historical events that do not accord with this description--a perspective that could lead to misunderstanding if this were the only survey of Islam known to a reader. Undergraduates; general readers.
Rating:
Summary: Unbias reporting
Review: Karen Armstrong does an excellent job of producing a clear and unbias look at the third dimension of the Hebrew faiths. Her ability to remove any preconditioned bias is applaudable. She is as near as a Westerner can get to be on te mark with Muslim lifestyle, perspective and culture. Her work is well researched and thorough. Any excellent resource.
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Summary: Compact history of Islam aims to clear misconceptions.
Review: Karen Armstrong is an unusual woman. She was a nun for a while, early in her life. She teaches in a Jewish educational institution for rabbis. She's won awards from Moslem religious groups for her writings. And she writes and teaches about all three religions. You would expect, from all of this, that a book she writes that's a history of Islam would be good, and full of information. What you wouldn't expect is for it to be in 187 mostly painless pages, easy to read and follow. I feel I should also respond or at least address some of the issues brought up by some of the other reviewers, to explain how I could rate a book so highly when many others didn't. First, of course it's short. The format of the series is short books on essential topics, and the subtitle says it's a short history. Complaining about its brevity in such an instance is tantamount to reviewing a book for not being something it was never intended to be. Second, there seems to be a tendency, especially among Christians, to pan this book because it doesn't show the inferiority of Islam to Christianity. This is a silly critism on several points: first, regarding the religion as inferior would make it hard to write an objective history of it, second, the author isn't a Christian these days anyway, third, the author's whole point is that the religion has evolved over the centuries since its formation, so saying it's one thing is a bit misleading. It's many things. On this same last note, someone criticized the author's supposed double standard in refusing to hold the Muslims in the book to the same moral standards Christians are held to elsewhere in the text. This is misleading, as the passage he was quoting referred to an Arab reaction to something Christians did, not whether that action was regarded as moral by the author. It's hardly the author's fault if Muslims themselves aren't always objective. Islam is the subject of much study recently, given September 11 and the situation surrounding Israel. From what I gather here and elsewhere, there are a lot of misconceptions, caused by people who have either distorted the religion itself, both bigots who misunderstood what they were seeing, and Muslims themselves, justifying the way they choose to run their governments or oppose them. This book spends most of its space discussing how the religion has evolved since Muhammad, and the various doctrinal differences between the groups that worship differently. It's explained in a clear, lucid text that was understandable even to me, an ill-educated military historian who's not too well-versed in religious history in the first place. I feel I gained a great deal from the book, and would recommend it highly to others.
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Summary: A Historical Approach for a Historical Faith
Review: I must admit *blush* this is the first Karen Armstrong book I've read. But everything I have heard about her is confirmed in these few pages: she's lucid, logical, and compelling. Of course, in a work of this size (let's be clear about her subtitle: this is a SHORT history), there is need to reduce extremely complex forces and phenomena manageably. That she does so in such a successful manner is a tribute to her clarity of thought and mastery of the subject matter. Islamic history is bound to be confusing, if only from a linguistic point of view, to those who have had little or no exposure to the subject at all. Armstrong has done an admirable job of avoiding the pitfall of supplying her readers with "too much information" in terms of transliteration of foreign names and concepts, while still giving the uninitiated a sweeping view of how a faith that was "born in the full light of history" came to understand itself through its history, and in turn came to mold history itself.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Introduction
Review: This book gives a good introduction to the history of Islam, focusing exclusively on the Arab world. It really destroyed some misconceptions I had about the religion and made me realize that it is nowhere near as monolithic as it seems to be depicted by the media. There have always been many different strains of thought running through it like every other religion. I particularly found the section Islam's response to the west fascinating. The book lost one star for its extensive use of Arabic terms and names without giving a pronunciation guide. I felt like I could never describe to anyone what I learned since I didn't know how to say the names of the people or the ideas involved. In addition, the Glossary and Key Figures sections seemed sometimes to be lacking important terms and people.
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