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Release Date: 01-01-2002
Label: Sounds True
Catalog Number: AW00627D
Barcode: 600835062725
Musical Style: Spoken Word / Islam
Description:
The story of Islam is one we urgently need to hear. Now Huston Smith, the legendary authority on comparative religions, summons a lifetime of scholarship and insight to offer this welcome listener’s guide to the most “persistently misunderstood religion in the world.” Smith takes us back to Islam’s founding lineage, revealing its inspiration in Greek philosophy and common roots with both Judaism and Christianity. With so much in common - most of all the precept of one all-powerful God - how has Islam come to inspire fear and bewilderment in the West? Join Huston Smith as he makes accessible this difficult subject, including:
The prophet Mohammed’s founding of Islam in the seventh century, his flight to Medina, and final battle to bring one God to the tribes of the Mideast
The Koran: its sacred law mentions mercy 192 times, and vengeance only 17 times, yet is perceived as a tool for violence far beyond Islamic borders
Women under Islam: the surprising truth about the rights of women as described in the Koran, and much more
Distilled from Huston Smith’s monumental work Religions of the World audio seminar, and complete with a new, updated introduction, Understanding Islam brings a voice of understanding to this most challenging of the wisdom traditions.
Note: excerpted from the full-length audio course Religions of the World.
Biography:
Through his landmark books and documentary films, Huston Smith has opened the eyes of the world to the invisible geometry that shapes human spirituality. Born in China over 80 years ago to missionary parents, Huston Smith served briefly as a pastor in the mid-west. Since the 1950s, he has held teaching positions on the faculties at MIT, Syracuse, and the University of California-Berkeley. Dr. Smith's books include the classic Religions of Man, Beyond the Post-modern Mind, and Forgotten Truth. He holds seven honorary degrees, in addition to the Ph.D. he earned from the University of Chicago.
