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Between Cross and Crescent: Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Malcolm and Martin. AUTHOR: LEWIS V. BALDWIN AND AMIRI YASIN AL-HADID UNIVERSITY PRESS OF FLORIDA, 2002 PRICE: $34.00 ISBN-W: 0813024579 HARDCOVER
This book is the culmination of more than ten years of ongoing impeccable research, lectures, dialogues, and debates between Lewis V. Baldwin and Amiri YaSin Al-Hadid. Baldwin (a Christian professor of religious studies at Vanderbilt University) has been prolific from a literary standpoint. His knowledge of both Malcolm and Martin is impressive. Al-Hadid (a Muslim professor of Africana Studies at Tennessee State University) is a master of the basic ideas and practices of the Nation of Islam and Sunni Islam He does an excellent job of providing instruction on the differences between the teachings and practices of the Nation of Islam and mainstream Islam (Chapter 2). He paints a picture of Malcolm's Islamic consciousness as it evolved through three distinct stages (50). The reader learns of five pillars of true Islam (54-9), as well as five different schools of thought through which to interpret the complex personality and life of Malcolm (60-3)
The book is comprised of an introduction and nine chapters the table of contents informs the reader that the introduction and chapter nine were co-authored. Al-Hadid is credited with writing chapters 2, 4, 7, and Baldwin the remainder. The combined breadth and depth of the authors' knowledge of the two men has...