Islam: a Mosaic, Not a Monolith.(Book Review)

Middle East Quarterly, January, 2005 by Schub, Michael B.

Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith. By Vartan Gregorian. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2003.164 pp. $19.95 ($12.95, paper).

Gregorian's survey of contemporary Islam is well intentioned and disheartening. Its introduction announces that "there is a disconnect between our passions about Islam and our knowledge of it." Its coda offers a treacly plea for "mutual knowledge and understanding" by eliminating stereotypes and the like.

Gregorian, the famed former head of the New York Public Library and Brown University, and now president of the Carnegie Corporation, is by training an Afghan specialist--not a specialist on Islam. Unfortunately, it shows. The introductory chapter is a soppy apologetic. "Suggesting that the Qur'an had human authors...

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