Karen Armstrong

Mohammed was not an apparent failure. He was a dazzling success, politically as well as spiritually, and Islam went from read more

Mohammed was not an apparent failure. He was a dazzling success, politically as well as spiritually, and Islam went from strength to strength to strength.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, every single leading Muslim intellectual was in love with the west, and wanted read more

At the beginning of the twentieth century, every single leading Muslim intellectual was in love with the west, and wanted their countries to look just like Britain and France.

And sometimes it's the very otherness of a stranger, someone who doesn't belong to our ethnic or ideological or religious read more

And sometimes it's the very otherness of a stranger, someone who doesn't belong to our ethnic or ideological or religious group, an otherness that can repel us initially, but which can jerk us out of our habitual selfishness, and give us intonations of that sacred otherness, which is God.

There are some forms of religion that are bad, just as there's bad cooking or bad art or bad sex, read more

There are some forms of religion that are bad, just as there's bad cooking or bad art or bad sex, you have bad religion too.

Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at least, a read more

Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at least, a man dying in a devastating, disgraceful, helpless death.