Making War in the Name of God

As religious zeal and sectarian strife set the opening years of the new millennium ablaze, they ushered in the latest chapter of a story that began centuries ago. From Bali to Beirut, we have inherited an idea that is as old as religion itself: killing in the name of God. In this engrossing book, renowned historian Christopher Catherwood vividly recounts a saga of passion, prejudice, and imperialism that laid the foundation for our own troubled age. Beginning in the year 632, Muhammad--as much political leader and general as prophet--commenced the breathtaking spread of Islam that, under his successors, eventually conquered an empire larger than Rome's at its height. Even as this vast realm broke apart into Sunni and Shiite factions, the Christian retaliation--ruthlessly and unscrupulously unleashed in 1095 with the First Crusade--sparked a clash between East and West that continues to this day.