This book by Kenneth Cragg is superb. Cragg has a heart for people, all people, and at the same time, a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ, King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is an articulate and scholarly Mother Theresa.

The first half of the book describes Islam and its beliefs. He apparently has the approval of Muslims, who say that his descriptions are accurate. He does not shrink from spelling out the problems and issues within Islam, nor its radical differences from Christianity.

The second half of the book describes how Christians can helpfully relate to Islam. It ought to be required reading for missionaries and all Christians for its powerful perspective on how to reach out to persons of other beliefs.

Cragg wrote the book in 1955, when Islamic peoples were just coming into modernity and finding their own national identities, largely because of WWII and the collapse of the colonial empires. Charges of terrorism were even then being leveled. The book is a superb introduction to the Islamic world leading up to the present confrontation with terrorism from within their ranks.

Cragg does not deal with the issues of terrorism as we see it half a century later, but he does help the reader understand how Islam must inevitably drift in that direction. Allah is a distant deity, whom one never gets to know personally, never as "Father". One gets to know only the law of Allah. That kind of distant, almost deist, deity is guaranteed to inspire deep feelings of resentment and anger in its worshippers. Just as with a human father of like character. It is a religion without grace in the Christian understanding of the word.

Cragg describes the plight and yearnings of the Muslims with great sensitivity, and with clarity on how Christians can maintain their worship of the Triune God and at the same time reach out with social and political as well as religious integrity.

It would be hard to imagine a better introduction to Islam, especially in light of the current spiritual warfare developing (yet once again) between Islam and Christianity. Christians are very ill equipped to deal with spiritual warfare on almost any front. They would do well to learn about Islam from someone who sees their need for Christ, and at the same time loves them deeply.

Blessings,
Earle Fox