The history of Islam freed from myths

"Murder at the mosque", by Hela Ouardi.

© Editions Albin Michel

By: Geneviève Delrue

1 min

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World Religions - Sunday, September 19, 2021 - 11.10 a.m. - 12 p.m. (Paris time)

With

"Murder at the Mosque" (Albin Michel)

, the Tunisian Islamologist 

Hela Ouardi

 closes the cycle of

"Cursed Caliphs"

by drawing the portrait of Caliph Umar assassinated in 644 by a Persian slave after ten years of undivided power. His sudden disappearance is a major political event that will change the course of the history of Islam until today. However, the circumstances of the death and the life of the second caliph have never been the subject in fourteen centuries of a study against the tide of the official and hagiographic Sunni narrative. By bringing together and comparing the various sources of the Muslim tradition, Hela Ouardi puts together the puzzle of a politico-religious affair and such a police investigation provides clues to understand who, in the entourage of the caliph, had an interest in eliminating him. .

A scientific and educational work which tells how the succession of the Prophet Muhammad was carried out in violence.

A story that deconstructs the mythical dimension of primitive Islam to “bring the history of Islam back to the real world, that is to say to the cruel games of power” (Hela Ouardi). 

“Cry and hope of the poor”

 is the title of the diary kept by 

Father Daniel Godefroy

, priest of the 

Congregation of the Sons of Charity,

 who has lived for twenty years in the heart of a slum in Manila. 

There are many testimonies about the extreme misery and violence that prevail in these districts of the capital of the Philippines, but Father Godefroy also underlines how outbursts of fraternity can change the course of a life. 

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