Seventh Century Islam Today

Two new histories look at what happened to Islam - which means why do some of the cultures informed by this religion still believe in stoning? Or, as the reviewer says, "The Muslim world seems to be caught up in a crisis that shows no end in sight. If there is a single image that reflects this ongoing catastrophe, it is captured in the haunting eyes of a dying Neda Soltani, the 24-year-old woman shot dead on the streets of Tehran."

The two books are:
THE CRISIS IN ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION
by Ali A. Allawi
Yale University Press, 320 pages, $33.50
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LOST IN THE SACRED
Why the Muslim World Stood Still
by Dan Diner
Princeton University press, 214 pages, $35.95

The Globe and Mail reviews these two books here.

Until the 15th century, bloodshed and oppression were not an exclusive domain of the Muslim world. The rest of humanity, from India to China, from Africa to Europe, lived through similar travails. However, after the Reformation, Renaissance and Enlightenment, Europe slowly started on the long road to democracy, freedom, liberty and secularism, with religion and race separated from state and politics, at least in spirit if not in practice.

However, in the Muslim world, time seems to have stood still for the past five centuries. The once glorious civilizations that flourished in Baghdad, Cordoba and Delhi now seem to me mere myths that sustain the ossified existence of a billion people, trapped in the past and seemingly unable to break loose from chains of conformity intertwined with superstition and a contempt for joy itself.

Interestingly, the readers' comments are hostile - complaining that the West didn't stop being bloodthirsty in the 15th century, but has eclipsed Islam before and since.

There's some truth to that, but doesn't explain what happened to Islam.