Book details

Faith at War

A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Baghdad to Timbuktu

Author: Yaroslav Trofimov

Faith at War

Faith at War

$11.99

About This Book

An eye-opening political travelogue that reveals the Muslim world as never before

Drawing on reporting from more than a dozen Islamic countries, Faith at War...

Page Count
336
On Sale
06/09/2015

Book Details

An eye-opening political travelogue that reveals the Muslim world as never before

Drawing on reporting from more than a dozen Islamic countries, Faith at War offers an unforgettable portrait of the Muslim world after September 11. Choosing to invert the question of what "they" have done to "us," Wall Street Journal reporter Yaroslav Trofimov examines the unprecedented American intrusion in the Muslim heartland and the ripples it has caused far beyond the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. What emerges is a penetrating portrait of people, faith, and countries better known in caricature than reported detail. The ordinary Muslims, influential clerics, warlords, jihadis, intellectuals and heads of state we meet are engaged in conversations that reveal the Muslim world to us from a new, unexpected perspective.

In Mali, one of the most successful democracies in Africa, we encounter Ousmane Madani Haidara, an influential cleric who sees Wahhabi extremists, rather than his country's secular government, as the real enemy of the true faith. In Saudi Arabia, we explore the bizarre world of exporting dead bodies from a kingdom that bars the burial of non-Muslims. On a US Navy aircraft carrier floating just off the coast of Pakistan in October 2001, we witness the mechanics of war: the onboard assembly of bombs that, hours later, are seen on T.V. exploding in Kabul. And in Iraq, we accompany Trofimov as he negotiates his escape from an insurgent mob, rides in a Humvee with trigger-happy GIs, and gets lectured by a Shiite holy man on why America is the foe of mankind.

Whether exploring the badlands of the Sahara or a snow-covered village of Bosnian mujahedeen, Faith at War helps us understand the hidden relationships and often surprising connections, so crucial to America's future, that link the Islamic world to our own.

Imprint Publisher

Henry Holt and Co.

ISBN

9781627796705

In The News

"Essential for readers walking the minefield of U.S.-Arab relations-for anyone trying to follow the news."—Kirkus Reviews

"Stylishly written, keenly observed dispatches."—New York Times

"An illuminating arrival in this season of fog . . . I felt grateful for his detailed eyewitness accounts and independent point of view. Wherever the road twists next, American readers can only hope that its journalistic travelers include more like Trofimov, who has the language and courage to climb over daunting barriers to report plainly on what he sees and hears and feels on the other side."—Washington Post

"[An] epic tour of the post-9/11 Islamic world."—San Antonio Express-News

"
The cosmological description [of the Islamic 'universe'] is apt: The countries Trofimov visited seem, in their values, outlooks, and aspirations, very distant from our own. Faith at War serves as a kind of wormhole, through which we can enter that parallel universe and begin to comprehend it. . . . This book deserves a wide readership. The Muslims don't understand us, we don't understand them. Faith at War goes a long way toward solving the second part of that dismal equation."—New York Times Book Review

About the Creators

Faith at War

Faith at War

$11.99