Omar Saif Ghobash

This book is an act of bravery and an act of love. Ghobash dispenses fatherly wisdom through the prism of his Muslim faith. He urges his sons, 17 and 13 to seek truth and to learn to sift through shades of gray, rejecting the easy answers of black and white, binary thinking. As a citizen of the UAE and an ambassador to Russia, he has an extraordinary world view and a compelling grasp of Islamic history. His own father was a victim of violence, assassinated (mistakenly) by a PLO member in the 70s when Ghobash was just 6 years old. The urgent need to protect his own sons from violence and radicalism was always on my mind as I read through this collection of letters. All are addressed to his older son, though I'm sure he has both in mind, and they seem to be written for a larger audience too, though each begins with a term of endearment. There is both depth and breadth here as he gives a pretty thorough overview of the history of Islam as well as explanation of the more recent conflicts in the middle East as they are entangled in the religion, but I still found it challenging to grasp and sort out. His big-picture view of Islam shows its development since its inception in the 7th century and really it has followed a similar trajectory to Christianity in its evolution of understanding, interpretation and control, though it is a few hundred years behind. But Ghobash himself is forward-thinking in looking at the role of women, the dissemination of information and the need to engage outside viewpoints rather than shunning them. Ultimately, fundamentalism doesn't do any favors for any religion. This is a hopeful book, a touching book and a book that promotes understanding and dialogue.… (meer)