Malise Ruthven’s introduction to Islam was interesting on a couple different levels. As you’d expect, the author does a good job making a 1,400 year-old religion understandable in 150 pages. On another level, it was fascinating to read a history of Islam that was published before 9/11.

One of the things I learned about the religion was its lack of formal leadership (aside from the Shi’i minority tradition). There is no equivalent to a pope. Instead, there is a “crisis of authority – political, intellectual, and legal as well as spiritual” (8). This leaves the interpretation of tradition and its modern legal adaptation in Muslim majority states to a variety of educators, religious authorities, and judges.

Parallels with Christianity were front-of-mind as I read. I was surprised to read how their view of family structure parallels the hard complementarian views in some sectors of American Christianity:

The Muslim family is the miniature of the whole of Muslim society and its firm basis. In it the man or father functions as the imam in accordance with the patriarchal nature of Isalm. The religious responsibility of the family rests upon his shoulders. (Nawsr in Ruthven, Islam, 107)

Ruthven concludes by playing a dangerous game: predicting the future.

It is my own belief that, despite historical differences in the relations between the state and civil society, the Muslim world will develop along the lines previously traveled by the post-Christian West. For all the protestations to the contrary, the faith will be internalized, becoming private and voluntary. (142)

While I suppose this picture may be true for some Muslims in non Muslim-majority cultures, it’s certainly not the case for all. Ruthven’s last sentence is, unfortunately, too prescient: “Sadly, more blood can be expected to be spilt along the way” (142).

Ruthven, Malise. Islam: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP, 1997. Very Short Introductions 7.