Islam in History: Ideas, People, and Events in the Middle East

Description

From secular-minded autocrats like Saddam Hussein to religious fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden, powerful voices in the Islamic world have been united by a fierce hatred of the West. If we want to know why they think the way they do, we have to understand the history of Islam and its continuous interactions with the West. This masterly collection of essays by a leading expert on Islam and the Middle East ranges over the whole sweep of Islamic history and Western attempts to comprehend it.;Title Page; Preface; PART I -- THE WESTERN APPROACHES; 1 -- The Study of Islam; 2 -- Some English Travelers in the East; 3 -- The Decolonization of History; 4 -- On Writing the Modern History of the Middle East; 5 -- On Nationalism and Revolution; 6 -- Slade on Turkey; PART II -- MUSLIM HISTORY AND HISTORIANS; 7 -- Sources for the Economic History of the Middle East; 8 -- In Search of Islam's Past; 9 -- The Use by Muslim Historians of Non-Muslim Sources; 10 -- The Cult of Spain and the Turkish Romantics; PART III -- MUSLIMS AND JEWS; 11 -- The Pro-Islamic Jews.