An important collection of essays that range over a wide area: violence, human rights, punishment for crimes, morality and family planning among others. The author's central focus in these essays has been to examine the misconceptions and stereo types regarding Islam in the community (by demonstrating certain attitudes and practices as un-Quranic) and the non-Muslim world, by pointing to the specific socio-historical contexts which fostered the stereotypes about Muslims held by them. Engineer makes a strong case for rethinking or re-evaluating Islam on the part of both the Muslims and the non-Muslims. By emphasizing the distinction between what is normative and what is contextual, what is part of Quranic ethics and what is part of the historical context, the author invites and enables the reader and the practitioner (and non-practitioner) to sift and choose from Islamic practice to the core, universal, unchanging values embodied in the Quran and to modify and even reject such practices and traditions as arose in the prevailing sociological and historical conditions in Arabia, and which are no longer relevant in the modern world. This is an important contribution to our understanding of Islam, of religion in the modern world and of the identity of a religious minority in a pluralist secular society. (Source: www.alibris.com)