cover image Remembering God: Reflections on Islam

Remembering God: Reflections on Islam

Charles Le Gai Eaton, Gai Eaton. Kazi Publications, $19.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-1-930637-08-5

Eaton, a British convert to Islam, has published several books under the auspices of British and Iranian Islamic societies and has lectured widely on the topic of Islam and the modern world. Like many converts from Europe and America, he finds Sufism, or ""mystical"" Islam, to be the most meaningful form of religion. Eaton's book is a sort of religious editorial, an effort to prescribe a cure for a spiritually dead society. This cure is ""remembering God."" In Sufi practice, remembering (dhikr) often refers to the meditative repetition of the names of God. As an outline of one man's faith in God and his vision of the well-lived life, Eaton's writing contains much beauty and truth. His observations on the effect of pluralism on modern religious life are insightful and honest. Yet the book falters on the frequent occasions that it sinks into condemnation. Eaton is often accusatory, not of other religions--refreshingly, he believes that all religions can be valid--but of diverse ways of living meaningfully. He begins and ends with the opposition between ""Islam"" (in many of his anecdotes, he seems to equate this with ""Arab"") and ""the West."" The West is degenerate and spiritually dead, while Islam is traditional and spiritually beleaguered by the West. Unfortunately, the book dwells on the perceived evils of the West as much as it does on Eaton's particular version of Islamic life. (Mar.)