The 10 Things You Need to Know about Islam
by Ron Rhodes
Published by Harvest House Publishers
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Reviewed by Nick Capo, Assistant Professor of English, Illinois College
The greatest strength of The 10 Things You Need to Know about Islam is also its greatest weakness. The book embodies a clear purpose and is aimed at a particular audience: it introduces Islam to an audience of devout Christians. It is well organized and firmly grounded within a literal reading of the Christian Bible.
Author Ron Rhodes holds two degrees, including a doctorate in theology, from the Dallas Theological Seminary, and he uses this training in this introduction to Islam. The first six chapters offer an overview of the major doctrines and beliefs of Islam. In its last four chapters, Rhodes’ book is a Christian rebuttal to the perceived challenge of Islam. As Rhodes writes, “The denials Islam makes regarding Christianity relate not to peripheral issues over which people can feel free to disagree in an agreeable way. Rather, Islam’s denials cut to the very heart of Christianity. . . . In other words, Islam denies what Christianity regards as nonnegotiable.” This book’s intellectual context allows for compassion and understanding but not for compromise or uncertainty.
The book engages in an active defense of Christianity’s primacy and discusses the two religions in agonistic terms as “colliding faiths.” How readers react to this book will depend upon their beliefs about the relationship between logic and faith and upon their definition of the term fact. For some, facts can be received from authoritative texts like the Bible; for others, they must be agreed upon after the gathering of empirical evidence. There is little room for compromise in the book’s claims: “How heartbreaking to know that Muslims die every day, hoping that Allah might have mercy on them and bring them to paradise. The reality is that to believe in Allah is to believe in a false god.” From one perspective, this statement is obvious truth grounded in Scripture; from another, it demonstrates the limitations of logic when applied to the mysteries of faith.
This book likely will please devout Christians who believe in the Bible’s inerrancy; it will displease Muslims and the adherents of the world’s other major religions.
Armchair Interviews says: Interesting perspective with food for thought.