books
October 1, 2006 13:12:21.878
I've got two books that look interesting in my queue, but haven't started reading them yet. These are both history - I'm still not really in the mood for fiction.
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Given current events, I figured it would behoove me to learn more about the history of middle east, and about religious currents there. If you look back through these posts, you'll see that I've had a few looks (I can't recommend "A Peace to end all Peace" enough, for instance) in this direction. This one takes a look at Wahhabism, which is the Sunni sect behind a lot of the extremism. At some point, I need to look into the "12th imam" business that seems to motivate many of the Shia extremists as well |
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I know far less about Napolean's time than I'd like, so I picked this up to get started. Before the 20th centuries' horrors, France and Napolean were the bugbears of European history - and his rampages across the continent set the table for all of that. It looks like a good read. |
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Sunnites
[Jarda] October 1, 2006 16:24:42.000
Regarding the Sunnites and extremism, you may want to read some more fundamental literature, for example collection of ahadith (narrations about the life of Muhammad). I would recommend to start study with chapter 52 from Bukhari's collection, "Fighting for the Cause of Allah (Jihad)", if you are want to understand the motivation behind extremism on more fundamental level then just historical.
Bukhari's collection is being considered sahih, or authentic, by most sunnites (in fact it's one of two most authoritative sources), and can be found online here:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/