In the Name of God: The Role of Religion in the Modern World: A History of Judeo-Christian and Islamic Tolerance

A groundbreaking book on the history of religious tolerance and intolerance that offers an essential narrative to understanding Islam and the West today.

Christianity is tolerant, Islam is not. Islam is an inherently violent, ossified religion which can never come to terms with the Enlightenment. How right or wrong are these assumptions? Selina O'Grady asks how and why our societies came to be as tolerant or intolerant as they are. Whether tolerance can be expected to heal today's festering wound between Islam and the post-Christian West. Or whether something deeper than tolerance is needed. From Umar, the seventh century Islamic caliph who led what became the greatest empire the world has ever known, to King John (of Magna Carta fame) who almost converted to Islam; from alWahaabi, who created the religious-military alliance with the House of Saud that still survives today, to Europe's bloody Thirty Years' War that cured Europe of murderous intra-Christian violence but probably killed God in the process, Selina O'Grady takes the reader through the intertwined histories of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths. In the Name of God is an essential book that offers brilliantly answers to questions surrounding contemporary Islam and Christianity and the role of religion in the modern world.

Selina O’Grady was a documentary film producer at BBC Television for many years. She is the author of And Man Created God and has written for the Guardian, and the Literary Review in Britain. She lives in London.