An exhaustive resource for believers, a fun diversion for others.
A reference guide to Jinn, the supernatural beings central to Islamic cosmology.
Invisible to humans, Jinn, sometimes called genies or djinn, loom large in Islamic theology. According to the Quran, they are creatures Allah formed from fire, unlike humans, who were constructed from clay. According to Ahmad, Jinn frequently interact with humans, but rarely in positive ways. He says that while some jinn are devout Muslims, others are evil demons, including the most evil Jinn of all: Iblis, known in the West as Satan. Evil Jinn–which appear in a variety of forms, including ghosts, vampires and demons–delight in causing problems for humans. Ahmad claims that some wicked Jinn even fall in love with humans and use deceptive tactics to have sex with them with predictably disastrous results (for the humans anyway). Not all Jinn are evil, however, and this book includes a chapter about the various ways good Jinn can aid humans. The author draws primarily from the Quran and other sacred Islamic sources to present this overview. To the average non-Muslim reader, the most interesting sections are bound to be the collected Jinn stories that Ahmad has culled from the Quran, but these readers are likely to find his more conjectural musings somewhat suspicious. Less skeptical readers interested in the supernatural will appreciate the author’s efforts to tie Jinn to more traditional Western-oriented paranormal topics, including UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle. Doubters–a group that probably includes most potential readers–will raise an incredulous eyebrow toward these “unseen beings,” but they’re still likely to appreciate this look at unorthodox religious views from another culture’s perspective. Although this book does feel repetitive at times, it’s at least well written and often entertaining.
An exhaustive resource for believers, a fun diversion for others.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2008
ISBN: 37.00
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An intriguing examination of the circumstances surrounding the 1948 murder in Israel of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. Marton (The Polk Conspiracy, 1990, etc.) interweaves two stories as she traces the paths that led to the killing of Swedish nobleman and diplomat Bernadotte on September 17, 1948. The first story is about Bernadotte himself, who, Marton contends, was a well-meaning amateur in over his head. He had been sent by the UN to end the war that began when Arab armies invaded the newly declared state of Israel. Bernadotte's diplomatic fumbles, such as his proposal to turn Jerusalem over to Jordan, she writes, were misperceived as a mortal threat by Israelis, especially by the militant Stern Gang. The second story is about the Stern Gang, whose members, according to Marton, were driven by an understandable but misguided post-Holocaust paranoia; the resulting kill-or-be-killed attitude blinded them to the ineffectuality of Bernadotte and the UN itself. Marton has done a remarkable job of reconstructing the events leading up to this largely forgotten incident, which seriously threatened Israel's standing among its supporters. If Marton falters slightly, it is in her attempt to draw larger cautionary tales from the assassination. One has to do with the UN's continued inability to end conflicts because it lacks the will to apply meaningful force. The other involves Yitzhak Shamir, the leader of the Stern Gang and eventually Israel's prime minister. Marton contends that the mentality that justified the Stern Gang's terrorism remains a significant factor in Israeli society. She may be right on both counts. But these are highly complex issues, and her generalizations remain superficial in the absence of far more analysis and corroboration. Still, a rare glimpse behind the curtains of a terrorist act, instructive both for the light it sheds on a 46-year-old assassination and for the issues it raises relevant to today.
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-42083-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
An alternative, conspiratorial retelling of major events of the last 75 years, from the authors of Unholy Trinity (1992). Former Justice Department Nazi-hunter Loftus and Australian journalist Aarons would have us believe that much of recent Western history has had as its common theme ``Get the Jews.'' However, they are far more convincing in arguing that the underlying motivations for most of the evil plots they describe were fanatical anti- communism and/or greed; Jews—mostly pre-1948 Zionists and post- 1948 Israelis—sometimes got in the way. Thus wealthy Americans invested in prewar Nazi Germany because there was money to be made, and Nazis were welcomed to postwar America as fighters against communism; the State Department and American boardrooms were filled with Arabists who had no sympathy for a Jewish state not because it was filled with Jews, but because it was empty of oil. Loftus and Aarons undermine their work by its enormous scope, which makes it virtually impossible to distinguish one chess-gambit conspiracy from another. Also, the sources for their most explosive revelations are ``confidential interviews'' with unnamed veterans of an alphabet soup of espionage agencies: Little hard evidence is presented. Still, like all good conspiracy books, this one offers plausible and intriguing explanations for gray areas of history. These range from how American companies wrested control of Saudi Arabia's oil fields from Great Britain in the 1920s and '30s to the way countries were convinced (blackmailed, say the authors, in a convoluted plot involving Nelson Rockefeller, who was allegedly selling oil to the Nazis all through WW II) to support the creation of Israel in 1948. The book is also enlivened by a rich rogues' gallery, including double (or maybe triple) agents Jack and Kim Philby; and John Foster and Allen Dulles, accused of subverting American foreign policy to their insatiable greed. A conspiracy book offering tasty morsels if one reads with a grain of salt and disregards its sensationalized and misleading title. (16 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-09535-X
Page Count: 640
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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