Beginning with Muhammad and his historical and cultural context, Rollin Armour, Sr., brings the historian’s eye for the telling detail as he recounts the tale of the nearly 14-century-long encounter of Western and Islamic civilizations. Informing the story from beginning to end is the validity of the contemporary question raised by Samuel P. Huntington in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. Armour avoids the extremes of the contemporary debate in a book that epitomizes the goals of the Faith Meets Faith series. He shows us what has happened and why. He uses the best of contemporary research to show how events such as the Crusades and the Reconquista of Spain have indelibly shaped the mindset of the West toward Islam. He reveals how the modern political and economic system—marked by capitalism, technology, and science—has been perceived by the Islamic world as a godless secular assault on all that is holy. He ends with the Arab-Israeli conflict as the latest and most concrete manifestation of this tragic encounter between the three “People of the Book.” Orbis Books.
