This is a short and to the point book, written as a primer on Islam for a Western Christian audience. Its goal is to give a sense of the real history and teachings of Islam to people usually overfed with sensationalized fear-mongering, and I would say it succeeds.

I'm sure most of us know the type of deeply Christian person who shares poorly-made, inflammatory graphics about ISIS on Facebook and supports legislation banning "Sharia law" in the United States. Kimball is reaching out to this person and every Christian who wishes they understood better how to connect with their Muslim neighbor, trying to give us tools to reach out ourselves.

I found his chapters on the Five Pillars of Islam and what Islam has both in common and in contrast with Christianity to be the most useful. I have studied Islam quite a bit historically, but much less in an actually theological way, so that was helpful. The least useful content he includes is the chapter on the history of interfaith relations, which reads like a list of conferences and church councils with acronym names.

However, his point is still well taken. It would be wonderful if Christians in general could spend less time fomenting unnecessary worldly strife. A so-called "clash of civilizations" is irrelevant to our faith; the gospel is spread through human connection, not vicious culture wars. Islam has been set up by much of our media as the perfect straw man enemy, and person-to-person conversation and understanding go a long way toward erasing that false image.

"Our struggle is not against flesh and blood... but against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Eph 6:12)