The Islam Book, a DK book with varying contributing authors. (2020, ISBN  978-1-4654-9148-0).

This book is an easy introduction to Islam.  However, it is not very objective. The authors appear to be "true believers".

Purchased from Amazon on 2020-12-10 for $17.10

 

The Oxford Dictionary of Islam edited by John L. Esposito. 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-512559-7. This is a dictionary, a reference book, and therefore not meant to be read from cover to cover. I have read part of the beginning and will probable continue to read a few pages from time to time. So far I am not enjoying this as much as the Thomas Hughes book. That book is much older and much bigger and not as politically correct, but it was more interesting to read than this book. The entries were usually longer and frequently contain references to the Quran, etc.

The Islamic Invasion by Robert Morey. 1992, ISBN 0-89081-983-1. Subtitled Confronting the World's Fastest Growing Religion. This book is critical of Islam. The book makes some good points, but is mostly everything negative the author could find to say about Islam. The author is a Christian who seems to feel the need to defend his religion by attacking others. Besides books on Islam he has written books about Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Roman Catholicism, Masons, etc. I guess these books are meant to enlighten the Evangelical Christians on how to deal with everyone else who believes something that they don't believe.

Virgins? What Virgins? by Ibn Warraq. 2010, ISBN 978-1-61614-170-7. A book of previously published essays about Islam. Excellent reading, well written. I enjoyed this book very much. If you are interested in learning about Islam this book provides a "middle of the road" rational approach to understanding the many confusing issues. Islam is frequently a highly charged subject, but this book avoids the mania of the true believers, either for or against and just presents well researched facts, etc. Purchased at Borders, 11-02-2010 for $19.00. I hope to read more of his work soon.

The Koran translated and with notes by J. M. Rodwell. 1909. ISBN 978-0-486-44569-4. This Dover Thrift Edition is an unabridged republication of the 1909 edition with the notes and the chronological ordering of the Suras. It is amazing how much different translations can vary. See here for example. A PDF of this book can be obtained at books.google.com. I purchased this copy at Borders sometime last winter (2010) for $5.00.

Interpretation of the Meaning of The Noble Quran Translated into the English Language By Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali Ph.D. and Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan. This is a pocket sized edition of a popular translation of the Quran. According to the Wikipedia article, this translation of the Quran is disliked by Western Muslims (what is a Western Muslim? verse 3.149 and an associated Hadith by Samara bin Jundab indicate that Muslims shouldn't live in the land of al-shirk, i.e. western countries. See here number 2781.) because it is too blunt, contains grotesque misogyny, and is more like a supremacist Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian polemic than a rendition of the Islamic scripture. Harsh. The book has both Arabic and English, 975 pages for the Quran and about another 130 pages of preface and appendix. There are many notes attached to the Quran translation taken from Hadith, etc. Here is the text of the translation.

Dictionary of Islam by Thomas Patrick Hughes. ISBN 978-812060672-2. This book was originally published in 1885. It has been re-published in recent times by several companies. There is also a PDF version available for free.
I find it interesting to read, even though it is out of date in many areas.

Muhammad, The Prophet by Gabriel Mandel Khan. ISBN 1-59223-401-1. This book is well written and illustrated with many photographs. The author is clearly pro-Islam. In fact after reading this book one would think that everything good in the world was created by the Islamic peoples (and conversely everything bad by the non-Islamic peoples, especially the Europeans.) Since this is not the case, this book can be viewed as biased in favor of Islam. Still it might be worth reading, you just need to remember that the point of view is tilted towards Islam. Ironically, it appears that the author lives in Italy. You would assume that someone who is so pro-Islam would prefer to live in an Islamic country.

Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World by Karen Armstrong, ISBN 0-385-72140-4. This books is about the European attempt to gain control over the Jerusalem. She discusses the reasons this was done and the effects it has had on the people of Europe and the Middle East since. In particular she discusses how the current Israeli-Arab conflict is affected by this history.

Biography and Mission of Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab by Jalal Abualrub. First edition June 2003, ISBN 0-9703766-5-0. This book is the opposite of the "Moon-o-theism" book. This author is very much a true believer in Islam, in particular, the brand endorsed by the subject of the book. At least that is the impression I got while reading this book. This book is a bit difficult to read because of the extensive footnotes. Almost all pages have footnotes and about half the time the footnotes are more than half the page. These footnotes contains much of the actual text of the book, not just the usual references. The author spends a great deal of time quoting from other books and then, generally, describing why those other authors are incorrect. The subject of the book is the founder of the Wahhabi movement. Followers prefer to be called Salafi or Muwahid.

Moon-o-theism is a two volume 1100+ page book by Yoel Natan. ISBN 1-4116-0106-8 and ISBN 1-4116-1765-7. The full text of this book is available on books.google.com (see the links above.) The main idea of this book is that the god of Islam is a moon and war god of ancient Arabia. This is not the generally accepted idea that most Muslims would have about their faith. The book appears to be the result of a massive amount of research as there are 4800+ footnotes and references to other books. The author finds it difficult to contain his sarcasm, however, frequently referring to academics that he disagrees with as "acaDhimmis". (See wikipedia for a description of a dhimmi.)

The Koran, translated with notes by N. J. Dawood. I purchased this many years ago, but just recently got around to reading it. It is plain prose and the chapters are not in traditional order, but it is fairly easy to read. There is an index at the back that you can use to find chapters according to their traditional order. The verses are marked, but only every few paragraphs, e.g., it has 15:49 and 15:64, if you wanted to look up an exact verse, this would not be the best book for that. This book is the 1974 printing of ISBN 0-14-044052-6. There are other editions of this book. ISBN 0-14-044542-0 is a revised edition with the text in the traditional order and also has the arabic text.