In the Name of God

Selina O'Grady was a producer of BBC1's moral documentary series <i>Heart of the Matter</i> presented by Joan Bakewell Channel 4's live chat show <i>After Dark</i> and Radio 4's history series <i>Leviathan</i>. She is the author of <i>And Man Created God</i> and has written for the <i>Guardian</i> <i>Mail on Sunday</i> <i>Literary Review</i> and <i>The Oldie</i>. In this groundbreaking book Selina O'Grady examines how and why the post-Christian and the Islamic worlds came to be as tolerant or intolerant as they are. She asks whether tolerance can be expected to heal today's festering wound between these two worlds or whether something deeper than tolerance is needed. <br><br>Told through contemporary chronicles stories and poems Selina O'Grady takes the reader through the intertwined histories of the Muslim Christian and Jewish persecutors and persecuted. From Umar the seventh century Islamic caliph who laid down the rules for the treatment of religious minorities in what was becoming the greatest empire the world has ever known to Magna Carta John who seriously considered converting to Islam; and from al-Wahhab whose own brother thought he was illiterate and fanatical but who created the religious-military alliance with the house of Saud that still survives today to Europe's bloody Thirty Years war that wearied Europe of murderous inter-Christian violence but probably killed God in the process. <br><br>This book is an essential guide to understanding Islam and the West today and the role of religion in the modern world. <b>An original and groundbreaking history of religious tolerance that offers an essential guide to understanding Islam and the West today and the role of religion in the modern world.</b> A timely history... Sweeps through the centuries with panache. In a wide-ranging study that has urgent contemporary relevance Selina O'Grady casts a cool eye over the battlefields of power fanaticism and faith that have caused so much devastation in a world of competing beliefs. This is a very important and highly illuminating book. Lucid incisive and comprehensive it raises one of the key questions of our time: in a world divided in so many ways and most especially by religion how are its peoples to find a way to live together? Through an examination of the history of tolerance and intolerance and an analysis of the concept of tolerance itself O'Grady asks whether 'tolerance' is even the right concept to use - and asks: if it is not what is? This is an important book written with an engaging zeal to try to improve our world. It encompasses a deep cultural hinterland a vast geographical landscape and a narrative of 1700 years... This is history with a clear mission for our own times. A tightly focused study of why various regimes have practised tolerance. A dazzling lucid history of evolving tenuous religious toleration... This perceptive masterly history will change how many readers think about toleration and the supposed clash between Christian and Muslim worlds. O'Grady's work will fascinate anyone wishing to plunge into the histories of Western Christianity and Euro-proximate Islam... She treads the narrow path between being mired in minutiae and grandly sweeping through events and instead provides enlightening entertaining stories while including key events for both Christianity and Islam... fans of history religion or ideas will revel in the comparative study of these two faiths long kept apart in history books whose pasts are inextricably intertwined. A timely history... Sweeps through the centuries with panache. In a wide-ranging study that has urgent contemporary relevance Selina O'Grady casts a cool eye over the battlefields of power fanaticism and faith that have caused so much devastation in a world of competing beliefs. This is a very important and highly illuminating book. Lucid incisive and comprehensive it raises one of the key questions of our time: in a world divided in so many ways and most especially by religion how are its peoples to find a way to live together? Through an examination of the history of tolerance and intolerance and an analysis of the concept of tolerance itself O'Grady asks whether 'tolerance' is even the right concept to use - and asks: if it is not what is? This is an important book written with an engaging zeal to try to improve our world. It encompasses a deep cultural hinterland a vast geographical landscape and a narrative of 1700 years... This is history with a clear mission for our own times. A tightly focused study of why various regimes have practised tolerance. A dazzling lucid history of evolving tenuous religious toleration... This perceptive masterly history will change how many readers think about toleration and the supposed clash between Christian and Muslim worlds. O'Grady's work will fascinate anyone wishing to plunge into the histories of Western Christianity and Euro-proximate Islam... She treads the narrow path between being mired in minutiae and grandly sweeping through events and instead provides enlightening entertaining stories while including key events for both Christianity and Islam... fans of history religion or ideas will revel in the comparative study of these two faiths long kept apart in history books whose pasts are inextricably intertwined.