Fairly flat and superficial - expected more

The book is set up as a long series of Frequently Asked Questions - sadly, the answers don't extend beyond the typical FAQ format either. It is a very basic bird's eye view of some of the history, religious tenets and practices in Islam.

Given Professor Esposito's resume, I was hoping for a deeper and more coherent religious and sociological perspective. Instead, he remains at the very surface of belief and history.

In addition, he weaves in a steady undercurrent of perhaps necessary, but just very tired-sounding affirmations of the peacefulness of Islam and of the overwhelming majority of those who practice it. That's all well and good, and probably can't be said often enough (even within a single book), but that can't be ALL everyone needs to know about Islam? I, for one, would like to know more.


(Perhaps this is just not meant to be an audiobook... the questions do not build on each other very much, so a lot of information is repeated in various spots. Maybe a good book to have on the shelf for the odd Islam question that might come up, not a very satisfying listen though.)

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6 people found this helpful

Destigmatizes Islam

Understanding Islam is essential to protect ourselves from the oppression of Islamophobia. I love the way Esposito lays out the facts of the Muslim faith. It's important for anyone living in the modern world to gain a basic understanding of the Muslim faith. More than a billion believers across the globe, countries, and cultures adhere to some form of Islam.

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A great overview, but with constraining bias

The author seemed to capture the general mind of the modern muslim and the modern muslim beliefs, which is invaluable in understanding and outreach to the Islamic community. This is what I bought the book for, so for me personally, it was a home run. The book is written in Q&A form, answering the questions the scholar finds as the most frequent from the public. But one of example of the constraining bias was with the Q&A format. The questions sounded like the vague FAQ of progressive college freshmen, and not deeply convicted or mature people of any other faith or viewpoint.

The author, well suited for the freshmen audience, only asked himself softball questions with the implication that progressive ideals were ultimately the good that Islam needed to achieve, a view, that historical Islam would find laughable and insulting. The author was caught between his progressive ideals, and his islamic ideals, and ultimately mashed them together to reveal a clear bias in how He sees the muslim world. The author did not make a good defence for the sake of the conservative muslim, who was not well-represented in this work.

The author, when comparing and contrasting Islam with other religions, gave a good idea of what a modern muslim may think of Christianity, but did not represent modern Christianity accurately. So the author contrasted his modern, progressive view of Islam the often a conservative view of Christianity. When defending Islam, the author cited the quran, but failed to cite the Bible in any groundings of what He considered Christianity. Therefore, many of the comparisons lay flat, either in a comparison with the modern general view of both, or in a comparison of the Holy books.

I found myself agreeing with the authors views of reformed progressive Islam, which he clearly prefered, and I found myself understanding the thinking of a typical modern muslim. But for deep scholarly research about many aspects of conservative Islam, or the the idea of Islam being the one true religion and muslim apologetics, you could see this book as an overview, and then look elsewhere.

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Fantastic piece about a beautiful religion

Would you listen to What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam, Second Edition again? Why?

Absolutely. It is rare to find an unbiased look at Islam, but John Esposito nailed it. Was incredibly impressed.

What other book might you compare What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam, Second Edition to and why?

No God But God

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Informative 101 Material

Would you consider the audio edition of What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam, Second Edition to be better than the print version?

I did not read the print edition.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

There is not a story to change. It is a non-fiction book in question and answer format.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The presentation was very matter-of-fact.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I was not particularly moved, however I did learn about Islam.

Any additional comments?

This book describes the main tenents of Islam. The book does tend to make the argument that all of the extremist violence that the world has seen from Islam is the result of misinterpretation. I tend to agree with that premise. However, probably to understand the faith more completely, one should probably read the Quoran. No immediate plan to do that.

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Incredibly disappointing

I was hoping this would be an apologetic of a comparison between the beliefs of Islam compared to other religions. It was interesting to hear details on the roots of Islam from Judaism and Christianity.

However, repeatedly calling Judaism and Christianity as “corruptions” of God’s teachings that Islam corrects and at the same time saying extremist views in Islam are small outliers to the peaceful tenets of Islam (without labeling such extreme views as “corrupting” the Muslim faith is confusing his opinion as fact that has become typical of what masquerades as academic research.

Skip the last chapter which is nothing but a series of internally inconsistent anti-West bromides with no substantiation. If the plight of Muslims in the US and Europe is so dire, one would think the author could more evidence than comments by Rush Limbaugh (taken out of context) and Ann Coulter (truly deplorable, but hardly proof “most Americans feel this way”

Finally, I was amazed that all of his rhetoric about intolerant American opinion is attributed to shadow “right wing media personalities”, but nothing about the intolerance of Islam by the extreme left. This group lumps any devout religion (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) as unacceptable in the public square. But give Mr. Esposito sits in New York, it’s not shoring he doesn’t take on that hornets’ nest.

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