Customer Reviews

Islam, the Alternative

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In the current age when Islam is under criticism a lot of misinterpretations are being made. This book clarifies these mishaps and most of the issues discussed these days are mentioned.

Are we a product of our enviourment, loving to hate what our religious cults have been teaching us over centuries ?
A mind that is completely shilded from other ideas and thougthts is like a room with no windows.
The book opens many windows, letting us see outside And also helping us look inside ourselves.
A MUST READ.

"We Hate what we do not Know." Such is how the book starts. Mr Hofmann sheds the lignt in a very concise and summarized manner to some of the major misconcetpions about Islam, a religion so much misunderstood by the West. This book,written by a German dignitary convert,is an excellent introduction to Islam to the West.Simply put: a Must Read.

Murad Hoffman is a contradictory figure it seems to me. He was a senior German diplomat stationed in a Muslim country while at the same time a Muslim himself by faith. With the long history of Western manipulation and defilement of Muslim countries, I wonder how he reconciled his duties to God and Country.

Be that as it may, in ISLAM: THE ALTERNATIVE, he is simply brilliant. There are hardly any good introductions to Islam by Muslims themselves, in English that is. The latest major effort in this genre, A BRIEF ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO ISLAM, is a vivid, and tragic, reminder of how far behind Muslims are in there presentation skills. Not Murad Hoffman though.

In, Islam: the Alternative, he writes a book for the educated, intelligent, perceptive modern man. This is a book you can unabashedly give to your dentist before surgery or your professor before the finals. Its that good. Hoffman tackles a variety of pop media mis-representations and self-doubts of Muslims in this frank potrayal of Islam. And the title, Oh! the title! "Islam, the Alterantive" simply a beautiful representation. For indeed Islam is the only alternative lifestyle to what is increasingly becoming a homogenous defacto materialistic model. No other religion can stand up and offer a viable alternative, and the failure of Christianity to do so is for all to see.

STRUGGLING TO SURRENDER by Dr. Jefferey Lang is the other book that comes to mind of similar intelligent forthrightedness.

gives an insight to the religion islam as well as a summary of the other faiths .

a good book to read even if religion is not of your main intrests .

Mr Hofmann is a very well eductaed man who belongs to both Islam and the west. In his book Islam the aternative he takes us into a wonderful well reviewed journey of both Islam and the western world. In it Mr Hofmann uses an elaquont language to describe the hidden treasures of Islam that the west does not know. He also tries to narrow the gap between both ways of life showing that there are common pathways that they both share. It is worth every minute to read as you will gain access through it to a wealth of reviewed literature by Mr. Hofmann. My God reward him.

Few non-Muslims are even aware of the Hadith, a huge collection of the sayings of Mohammed and episodes from his life. However, reading those documents is very revealing. The misogyny is unrelenting. Mohammed is directly quoted as stating that women are deficient in intellect and that is why the Koran counts their testimony as being half the value of that of a man.
Islam is suffused with the cruelty of slavery. Mohammed left many rules for slaveowners and over 11 million Black Africans were kidnapped from their homes for service in the Ottoman empire and its precursors.
The Hadith reveal Mohammed as the violent war lord that he was.