Book: The Messengers And The Messages, Umar S. al-Ashqar

The fourth of eight in the Islamic Creed Series (previous reviews here). This time, the author covers both the Messengers and Books in one volume, one part for each.

Pretty strange, considering that they're usually considered as separate articles of faith. But still, Al-Ashqar presents the topic in a consistent way, talking about The Message as an abstract quality of Messengers rather than a material book.

Unfortunately, the book itself seems to be the driest of the series so far. In fact, I had to take a break from it since I was beginning to lose interest a few chapters after the half way point. I didn't feel that much was said in the 300-plus pages, there was a lot of labouring and repetition and, in my opinion, TMATM could have been much shorter . On the positive side the topic did provide the opportunity to present some basic seerah (stories of The Prophet) and history from the lives of the other prophets.

As part of the range it is a required read, if only for completeness. As a reference it's ace, but as a book it disappoints, especially when compared to its sibling volumes.

Book: The World Of The Jinn & Devils, Umar S. Al-Ashqar

The third of eight in the Islamic Creed Series (previous reviews here) . This volume, as the title suggests, covers what are called the Jinn.

The blurb boasts of the book being a relatively detailed account of these invisible living beings, but after completing it I remain unconvinced. A lot of the evidence seems forcibly interpreted at best, but even bearing that in mind the book seems a bit unfocused and confused as to exactly what it wants to talk about.

So instead of continuing to talk about the behaviour and origin of Jinn (which to be fair it does for a while), it goes on to talk about good and evil, halal and haraam and sinning and worshipping in general. It's this recurring attitude that makes the reader a bit unreceptive to some of the more amazing claims about the effects of and interactions between the Jinn and mankind, some of which have pretty big implications with regards to free-will and accountability. In short: although TWOTJAD talks about the existence of Jinn successfully it seems to do little else.

Perhaps there aren't many books about the topic is because there isn't much to say? Unfortunately instead of filling this gap, this book appears to just perpetuate it.

Book: The World Of The Noble Angels, Umar S. Al-Ashqar

Part two of the Islamic Creed Series (read about part one here) turned out to be a pretty quick read. Of course there's probably much more to say about God than His angels so this may not be surprising.

The book lists cleanly and with ample references the qualities and attributes of angels in Islam, including how they interact with man and other creations of God. As such, much of this might not be new to some, but like the first part it turns out to be a easy going read anyway. Consider it a revision guide for all those things you learned at madrassa...

Book: Belief In Allah, Umar S. Al-Ashqar

Y’know, I’ve found it pretty hard finding an in-depth, non-wishy-washy (and I don’t mean non-liberal by that) book on Islam. The few I’ve recorded on this blog have either been too much of a reference or socio-political (here, here and here). Which is fine, of course, but I think there is a need to balance these with something a bit more literal and straightforward.

Part one of eight (the others covering Angels, Jinn, The Messengers, The Final Day and Destiny) this book covers the concept of God according to the Quran and Sunnah. Specifically this means the evidence of God’s existence, the sign’s of His actions, the oneness of Him, the history of Aqeedah, and then a comparison with the concepts of God as held by other people (that is, non-Muslims). Despite the size (450 odd pages), weight and at times hard English (it actually has been translated from Arabic) of the book, it did feel like it got through it pretty quickly and easily.

I actually took this from our own bookshelf at home, which was lucky since it was actually close to what I was looking for. There were some things that made me roll my eyes a bit – things like the proofs (which, as someone who thinks that a full proof of correct faith isn't possible, sometimes seemed a bit circular) and the comparisons with other faiths. Having said that, the reader should be able to appreciate both and use them as a start of any further research or debate.

I’m guessing that God and Aqeedah will be the hardest of the topics that this series of books cover, and so I am kinda looking forward to reading the other (less sizable) volumes. Hopefully they won't disappoint!