Abdelmumin Aya

Islam Is Not What You Thought

Original title:

El Islam no es lo que crees.

About the book:

Islam is not what you thought

- This is a straightforward yet masterly account of Islam, the religion that we speak most about and know least about.

- We talk and read much about Islam, but the truth is that Islam is one of the great unknowns.

- Up until now Islam has been explicated by means of easy identifications and cross referencing with Christianity or informed by Arabist world projections.

The book will be worthwhile reading both for Moslems and those working in the media, and for the  intelligent reader who wishes to get to know the authentic Islam.
The author is one of the leading voices in interreligious dialogue in Spain.

This book shows us how from the first dictionaries made by Christian missionaries  down to the Arabism of the present time, Islam has been explained by means of easy parallels and identifications with Christianity, which radically distort the prophet Muhammed's vision of the world. A rigorous methodology is adopted to enable us to know what the Islam of Muhammad really was, concluding that it was –unlike Christianity – a religion without dogma, a morality without sin, a spiritual path without asceticism and an approach to mysticism without the idea of union with the divine. In sum, a spiritual universe which is quite different from the religion that, from one side or another, we have been led to believe that it is.

About the author:

Abdelmumin Aya is one of the most profound and sharply honed thinkers in present day Islam in Europe. He is the author, among other works, of El secreto de Muhammad: la experiencia chamánica del profeta del Islam (Muhammed's Secret: the Shamanistic experience of the Prophet of Islam, Kairós, 2007) and coauthor, together with Xabier Pikaza of the Diccionario de las tres religiones (Dictionary of the three religions).