A Culture of Ambiguity: An Alternative History of Islam.

In arguably the most important chapter, "The Islamization of Islam", Bauer rounds on the fallacies that Islam is somehow more inherently a religious culture than any others and that religion and life are inseparable in the tradition. The lens for Thomas Bauer's critique of modern appraisals of Islam is one he terms "tolerance of ambiguity." Indeed, Bauer suggests this ambiguous character of medieval Middle Eastern Islam (roughly 900 to 1500 CE) was not merely tolerated but rather celebrated by Muslims as being endemic to Islam. [Extracted from the article]