Islam in Modern History by Smith, Wilfred Cantwell - 1959

New York: New American Library/A Mentor Book, 1959. Book. Very Good. Soft cover. First Printing of this edition which is a reprint of the original 1957 Princeton University hardbound edition. x, 319pp, "Insight into Islam" (introduction), Preface by author, index. 12mo/18cm. Illustrated paper, light rubbing and edgewear, stamp of American Book Company, Rawalpindi on ffep, otherwise clean, tight and very good. Laid in is an anonymous 2-page review from the December 19959 issue of The Islamic Review of Woking, England. A final paragraph from this review is revealing: "Professor Smith likes to have himself regarded by Muslims as a sympathetic student of Islam. He claims his observations to be objective, but a careful reading of this book will clearly reveal to any sincere thinking Muslim how abysmal are the depths of his hostility. Unfortunately this kind of thinking is representative of the majority of so-called "Orientalists". Their basic enmity of Islam differs from that of the old-fashioned missionary only in that it is expressed in a much more subtle way." However, the review finishes with the sentence, "This book should be read by all Muslims who seek to understand the magnitude of the problems they must face in dealing with the West." The Islamic Review was the organ of the Woking Mission founded by Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din in 1913. It was connected to the Lahore Ahmadiya Movement from its initial publication in 1913 to the 1960s when the Mission was closed. A broad and incisive survey by a leading Islamic scholar. Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916-2000) was the founding Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University at the time of writing. Later he moved to Harvard to head the Institute of World Religion. He was generally considered to be one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century in the field of comparative religion..