Akbar, an Indian journalist and author of five books about India, offers an enthralling, though uneven, history of Muslims at war. Focusing on the jihads
inspired by the attacks of Christian Crusaders, Akbar downplays what Muhammad labeled the more important, "Greater Jihad"—the inner struggle against temptation to sin. He also hints at the role of Muhammad's "Lesser Jihad"—the duty of Muslims to protest corrupt Muslim leadership—and how it yielded another category of jihad
targeted at countries like the U.S. for propping up and installing such leadership. Akbar's analysis is lacking, and he generalizes too often about the Muslim community. He dangles the charged term jihad
ominously, but without concrete explanation of whether it is a valid religious motivator or simply a convenient borrowing of Islamic vocabulary for military-political purposes. As a result, the promise made by the book's subtitle is never fulfilled. As a historian, however, Akbar, fares better, his rhythmic writing bringing Islamic heroes like Saladin to life. Akbar effectively shows that most encounters between the Islamic world and Christians have resulted in violence, often instigated or spurred on by the Western-Christian actors, which led to the massive discontent exposed by September 11. His accounts of the detached cruelty of Western colonial powers and American oil companies in balkanizing the Islamic world for their own benefit are a gloomy reminder of what happens to those who fail to learn from history. (Sept.)
