Waterstones The Battle for God
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Price: £12.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: Britain's greatest religious historian chronicles the rise and rise of fundamentalism. One of the most potent forces bedevilling the modern world is religious extremism, and the need to understand it has never been greater. Focusing in detail on Protestant fundamentalism in the United States, Jewish fundamentalism from sixteenth century Spain onwards and Muslim fundamentalism over the last four hundred years, Armstrong examines the patterns that underlie fundamentalism. These evolve from the clash between the conservative pre-modern mind that is governed by a love of myth, and the progressive rational society that relishes change. Fundamentalists view the contemporary world with horror, rejecting its claims to truth, and a state of war now exists over the future of our culture. They are not terrorists, rather, they are innovative, existing in a symbiotic relationship with an aggressive modernity, each urging the other on to greater excess. The Battle for God is original in its thesis and in its understanding; as a history of religious ideas it is fascinating, and as an explanation of one of the most destabilizing forces at large in the world today it is extraordinary.
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9780006383482
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9780006383482
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Author: Ukhuman1st
Rating: 5
Review: I endorse everything in the 5-star rated reviews already published - this book is one of the best I have ever read. I believe it makes a profoundly important contribution to understanding the 'backs-to-the-wall' mentality of people who feel so deeply threatened by the onward march of materialistic progress that their only recourse is to delve back to an idealised mythological past, when God was on their side, to try to rediscover the magic formula that will enable them to shake off the yoke of oppression and find their true destiny. It also demonstrates the inherent conflict between different types of fundamentalist thinking: between those who believe that the secret for success lies in turning their minds away from the world and inward towards God, restricting their lives to the correct observance of ancient rituals, and those who see the way forward as being to engage with the political process and fight for what they believe in, no matter what the cost in human lives or suffering (including their own). It not only explains the clash of different religions with each other and with secularism but also offers significant insights into the factional disputes that cause huge rifts within religions. Such insights seem to me vital to understanding that the politics of the Middle East is not just a bi-partite struggle over a piece of land but something far, far more significant. One minor criticism of the book is a slight frustration, as a secular humanist, at what sometimes seems a religious apologetic. Thus she says(as quoted in the main review of this book above)things like "By the 18th century, however, ... people ... began to think that logos was the only means to truth and began to discount mythos as false and superstitious." The implication, stated more explicitly elsewhere, is that mythos is in some sense 'true' even though it is not 'literally true', which might be taken as indicating some sympathy for those who revert to it. She also talks about people perceiving spiritual 'realities' and uses phrases like 'the ground of Being' as though this meant something. I guess this shows that I am fully steeped in 'logos', but it would have helped if she had set out more clearly what exactly she meant by 'truth' and these obscure mystical terms. One other thought that has struck me after reading this book is whether it is possible to have secular fundamentalism. In my view, one reason that scientific rationalism took off in Western Europe was the liberation of individualist thought from the shackles of organised religion following the invention of the printing press and the Reformation. This gave rise to a whole economic system based on individuals pursuing their own self-interest on the basis that an amoral market would allocate resources efficiently for the common good. Yet, as the recent credit crunch graphically illustrates, rational behaviour by individuals in an unregulated market can spell disaster for society as a whole... something that the exploited poor of the countries discussed in this book have long been well aware of. Could it be that disaffected secularists might one day search their evolutionary roots to work out what went wrong and join the religious fundamentalists in opposing a system that puts a price on everything and a value on nothing?
Author: Jennifer
Rating: 3
Review: The writer makes the fatal mistake of equating the religions of Abraham and God with Islam the religion of Allah, the one pagan god of Arabia. Muhammad was the messenger of Allah, not God. In Arabic and the entire Qur'an, the title of Almighty God is Ilah, and Allah is 'the god' the one pagan god of Arabia and Islam. The names of Almighty God in the Qur'an are Ar Rahman, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful, the Most Gracious. Qur’an 41:84 It is He Who is the only God in the heaven and the only God on the earth. Ibn Kathir: This means He is the God of those who are in the heaven and the God of those on earth. Qur’an 43:84 It is He Who is Ilah, God in the heaven and on the earth. Qur’an 19:65 Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, so worship Him and abide patiently in His worship. Do you know of any other with His Name? Ibn Kathir: Ibn Abbas says, ‘There is no one named Ar-Rahman (the Most Beneficent) other than Him, Blessed and Exalted is He. Most Holy is His Name.’ See Quran chapters 19, 21, 25, 26, 36, 37, 41, 43, 67, etc. Allah is always and only named Allah in Arabic and English. Qur’an 43:84 It is He Who is Ilah, God in the heaven and on the earth. Qur’an 6:3 And He is Allah in the heavens and in the earth. Ibn Abbas: He is the One who is called Allah in the heavens and on the earth. The Shahada, the Muslim pledge of faith, denies God: La ilaha ill-Allah, there is no God/god but Allah. The sentence comprises a denial and an affirmation. Negation: 'La ilah' negates all forms of God or god. Affirmation: 'illAllah' affirms that there is only Allah. Before you can say ‘I believe in Allah’(illa Allah) you have to reject or disbelieve in any other god or God (La illaha). Question 179 Islam Q&A [...] Questions 114, 6703, 11819, 20239, 20815 Only Islam has a religious obligation to fight, to kill and be killed, to rule supreme over all other religions and laws: Jihad. The final commands of Allah in the Qur'an chapter 9 state clearly that the most holy law in Islam is Jihad, religious war, and the subjugation and destruction of the people of the Book, Jews and Christians. Allah's holy Law of War is in fact the most important religious duty in Islam, obligatory for all Muslims. This is absolutely clear in the Qur'an, the Hadith-traditional stories, the very first valid histories by Ibn Ishaq and Tabari, and Islamic law. Islam must reign supreme over all other religions and laws. Jihad is the pinnacle of Islam. Qur’an 9:29 Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. The phrase la ilaha illa allah in the Qur’an: in Mecca 37:35, 38:4-10 and Medina 47:19. In these it means religious war for supremacy against all disbelievers. Qur’an 47:19 Muhammad So know that La ilaha illallah, there is no god except Allah. Maududi says: This was at the time of the battle of Badr. It is also entitled al-Qital, the Fighting, because it gives the firm command for Jihad, and its theme is to prepare the Muslims for war against disbelievers and to give them instructions about those who kill and those who are killed: Qur’an 9:111 Qur’an 9: 111 Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their properties for (the price) that theirs shall be the Paradise. They fight in Allah's cause, so they kill and are killed.
