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An Introduction to Islam in the 21st Century
By Aminah Beverly Mccloud, Scott W. Hibbard, Laith Saud. 2007
This engaging introduction to Islam examines its lived reality, its worldwide presence, and the variety of beliefs and practices encompassed…
by the religion. The global perspective uniquely captures the diversity of Islam expressed throughout different countries in the present day.A comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, and global introduction to Islam, covering its history as well as current issues, experiences, and challengesIncorporates key new research on Muslims from a variety of countries across Europe, Latin America, Indonesia, and Malaysia Central AsiaDirectly addresses controversial issues, including political violence and 'terrorism', anti-western sentiments, and IslamophobiaExplores different responses from various Islamic communities to globalizing trendsHighlights key patterns within Islamic history that shed light upon the origins and evolution of current movements and thoughtThomas Jefferson's Qur'an
By Denise A. Spellberg. 2013
In this original and illuminating book, Denise A. Spellberg reveals a little-known but crucial dimension of the story of American…
religious freedom--a drama in which Islam played a surprising role. In 1765, eleven years before composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson bought a Qur'an. This marked only the beginning of his lifelong interest in Islam, and he would go on to acquire numerous books on Middle Eastern languages, history, and travel, taking extensive notes on Islam as it relates to English common law. Jefferson sought to understand Islam notwithstanding his personal disdain for the faith, a sentiment prevalent among his Protestant contemporaries in England and America. But unlike most of them, by 1776 Jefferson could imagine Muslims as future citizens of his new country. Based on groundbreaking research, Spellberg compellingly recounts how a handful of the Founders, Jefferson foremost among them, drew upon Enlightenment ideas about the toleration of Muslims (then deemed the ultimate outsiders in Western society) to fashion out of what had been a purely speculative debate a practical foundation for governance in America. In this way, Muslims, who were not even known to exist in the colonies, became the imaginary outer limit for an unprecedented, uniquely American religious pluralism that would also encompass the actual despised minorities of Jews and Catholics. The rancorous public dispute concerning the inclusion of Muslims, for which principle Jefferson's political foes would vilify him to the end of his life, thus became decisive in the Founders' ultimate judgment not to establish a Protestant nation, as they might well have done. As popular suspicions about Islam persist and the numbers of American Muslim citizenry grow into the millions, Spellberg's revelatory understanding of this radical notion of the Founders is more urgent than ever. Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an is a timely look at the ideals that existed at our country's creation, and their fundamental implications for our present and future.The Power of Oratory in the Medieval Muslim World
By Linda G. Jones. 2012
Oratory and sermons had a fixed place in the religious and civic rituals of pre-modern Muslim societies and were indispensible…
for transmitting religious knowledge, legitimizing or challenging rulers, and inculcating the moral values associated with being part of the Muslim community. While there has been abundant scholarship on medieval Christian and Jewish preaching, Linda G. Jones's book is the first to consider the significance of the tradition of pulpit oratory in the medieval Islamic world. Traversing Iberia and North Africa from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, the book analyzes the power of oratory, the ritual juridical and rhetorical features of pre-modern sermons, and the social profiles of the preachers and orators who delivered them. The biographical and historical sources, which form the basis of this remarkable study, offer abundant proof of cultural exchange between al-Andalus and the eastern regions of the Islamic empires, as preachers traveled back and forth between the great cities of Cordoba, Qayrawan, Baghdad, and Cairo. In this way, the book sheds light on different regional practices and the juridical debates between individual preachers around correct performance.Islam For Dummies
By Malcolm Clark. 2003
Many non-Muslims have no idea that Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews, and that Islam preaches compassion,…
charity, humility, and the brotherhood of man. And the similarities don't end there. According to Islamic teaching, Muhammad founded Islam in 610 CE after the angel Gabriel appeared to him at Mecca and told him that God had entered him among the ranks of such great biblical prophets as Abraham, Moses, and Christ. Whether you live or work alongside Muslims and want to relate to them better, or you simply want to gain a better understanding of the world's second largest religion, Islam For Dummies can help you make sense of this religion and its appeal. From the Qur'an to Ramadan, this friendly guide introduces you to the origins, practices and beliefs of Islam, including: Muhammad, the man and the legend The Five Pillars of Wisdom The Five Essentials beliefs of Islam The different branches of Islam and Islamic sects The Qur'an and Islamic law Islam throughout history and its impact around the world Professor Malcolm Clark explores the roots of Islam, how it has developed over the centuries, and it's long and complex relationship with Christianity. He helps puts Islam in perspective as a major cultural and geopolitical force. And he provided helpful insights into, among other things: Muhammad, the Qur'an and the ethical teachings of Islam Muslim worship, customs, and rituals surrounding birth, marriage, and death Shi'ites, Sunnis, Sufis, Druze, and other important Muslim groups Islam in relation to Judaism and Christianity In these troubled times, it is important that we try to understand the belief systems of others, for through understanding comes peace. Islam For Dummies helps you build bridges of understanding between you and your neighbors in the global village.Love's Ripening: Rumi on the Heart's Journey
By Kabir Helminski, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, Ahmad Rezwani. 2008
Love is the meaning of our existence, the raw material of transformation, the glorious way of access to Divine intimacy.…
This teaching infuses the lyric verse of Rumi (1207-1273), the greatest of the Sufi poets. The poems in this collection, taken from among the master's many volumes of work, focus on one of his greatest themes: how love grows and matures for those on the spiritual path. Kabir Helminski and Ahmad Rezwani have crafted a translation that remains faithful to the original Persian while giving eloquent expression to the joy of Rumi's astonishing encounter with the Divine.Rumi's World: The Life and Works of the Greatest Sufi Poet
By Annemarie Schimmel. 1992
This book (previously published as I Am Wind, You Are Fire) celebrates the extraordinary career of Persia's great mystical poet,…
Rumi (1207-1273), through the story of his life, along with an enlightening examination of his ecstatic verse. Rumi lived the quiet life of a religious teacher in Anatolia until the age of thirty-seven, when he came under the influence of a whirling dervish, Shams Tabriz, and was moved to a state of mystical ecstasy. One of the results of this ecstasy was a prodigious output of poems about the search for the lost Divine Beloved, whom Rumi identified with Shams. To symbolize this search, Rumi also invented the famous whirling dance of the Melevi dervishes, which are performed accompanied by the chanting of Rumi's poems. Professor Schimmel illuminates the symbolism and significance of Rumi's vast output and offers her own translations of some of his most famous poems.Islam on YouTube
By Ahmed Al-Rawi. 2017
This book offers empirical insight into the way Muslims reacted online towards various controversial issues related to Islam. The book…
examines four cases studies: The Muhammed's cartoons, the burning of the Quran controversies, Fitna and the Innocence of Muslims' films. The issues of online religion, social movements and extremism are discussed, as many of the cases in question created both uproar and unity among many YouTubers. These case studies - in some instances - led to the expression of extremist views by some users, and the volume argues that they helped contribute to the growth of extremism due to the utilization of these events by some terrorist groups in order to recruit new members. In the concluding chapter, social network and sentiment analyses are presented in order to investigate all the collected comments and videos, while a critical discussion of freedom of expression and hate speech is offered, with special regards to the growing online influ ence of far right groups and their role in on-going YouTube debates.Dante and Islam
By Jan M. Ziolkowski. 2014
Dante put Muhammad in one of the lowest circles of Hell. At the same time, the medieval Christian poet placed…
several Islamic philosophers much more honorably in Limbo. Furthermore, it has long been suggested that for much of the basic framework of the Divine Comedy Dante was indebted to apocryphal traditions about a “night journey” taken by Muhammad. Dante scholars have increasingly returned to the question of Islam to explore the often surprising encounters among religious traditions that the Middle Ages afforded. This collection of essays works through what was known of the Qur’an and of Islamic philosophy and science in Dante’s day and explores the bases for Dante’s images of Muhammad and Ali. It further compels us to look at key instances of engagement among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.At Freedom's Limit: Islam and the Postcolonial Predicament
By Sadia Abbas. 2014
The subject of this book is a new “Islam.” This Islam began to take shape in 1988 around the Rushdie…
affair, the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the first Gulf War of 1991. It was consolidated in the period following September 11, 2001. It is a name, a discursive site, a signifier at once flexible and constrained—indeed, it is a geopolitical agon, in and around which some of the most pressing aporias of modernity, enlightenment, liberalism, and reformation are worked out. At this discursive site are many metonyms for Islam: the veiled or “pious” Muslim woman, the militant, the minority Muslim injured by Western free speech. Each of these figures functions as a cipher enabling repeated encounters with the question “How do we free ourselves from freedom?” Again and again, freedom is imagined as Western, modern, imperial—a dark imposition of Enlightenment. The pious and injured Muslim who desires his or her own enslavement is imagined as freedom’s other. At Freedom’s Limit is an intervention into current debates regarding religion, secularism, and Islam and provides a deep critique of the anthropology and sociology of Islam that have consolidated this formation. It shows that, even as this Islam gains increasing traction in cultural production from television shows to movies to novels, the most intricate contestations of Islam so construed are to be found in the work of Muslim writers and painters. This book includes extended readings of jihadist proclamations; postcolonial law; responses to law from minorities in Muslim-majority societies; Islamophobic films; the novels of Leila Aboulela, Mohammed Hanif, and Nadeem Aslam; and the paintings of Komail Aijazuddin.The Conference of the Birds
By Attar, Sholeh Wolpé. 2017
Award-winning translator Sholeh Wolpé recaptures the beauty and lyricism of one of Persian literature’s most celebrated masterpieces. Considered by Rumi…
to be “the master” of Sufi mystic poetry, Attar is best known for his epic poem The Conference of the Birds, a magnificent allegorical tale about the soul’s search for meaning. The poem recounts the perilous journey of the world’s birds to the faraway peaks of Mount Qaf—a mythical mountain that wraps around the earth—in search of their king, the mysterious Simorgh. Attar’s beguiling anecdotes and humor intermingle the sublime with the mundane, the spiritual with the worldly, and the religious with the metaphysical. Reflecting the entire evolution of Sufi mystic tradition, The Conference of the Birds models the soul’s escape from the mind’s rational embrace. Wolpé re-creates the intense beauty of the original Persian in contemporary English verse and poetic prose, capturing for the first time the grace and timeless wisdom of Attar’s complete masterwork for modern readers.Children of Dust
By Ali Eteraz. 2009
Ali Eteraz's Children of Dust is a spellbinding portrayal of a life that few Americans can imagine. From his schooling…
in a madrassa in Pakistan to his teenage years as a Muslim American in the Bible Belt, and back to Pakistan to find a pious Muslim wife, this lyrical, penetrating saga from a brilliant new literary voice captures the heart of our universal quest for identity. Children of Dust begins in rural Islam at the lowest levels of Pakistani society in the turbulent eighties. This intimate portrayal of rustic village life is revealed through a young boy's eyes as he discovers magic, women, and friendship. After immigrating with his family to the United States, Eteraz struggles to be a normal American teenager under the rules of a strict Muslim household. In 1999, he returns to Pakistan to find the villages of his youth dominated by the ideology of the Taliban, filled with young men spouting militant rhetoric, and his extended family under threat. Eteraz becomes the target of a mysterious abduction plot when he is purported to be a CIA agent, and eventually has to escape under military escort. Back in the United States, with his fundamentalist illusions now shattered, Eteraz tries to find a middle way within American Islam. At each stage of Eteraz's life, he takes on a different identity to signal his evolution. From being pledged to Islam in Mecca as an infant, through Salafi fundamentalism, to liberal reformer, Eteraz desperately struggles to come to terms with being a Pakistani and a Muslim. Astonishingly honest, darkly comic, and beautifully told, Children of Dust is an extraordinary adventure that reveals the diversity of Islamic beliefs, the vastness of the Pakistani diaspora, and the very human search for home.Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco
By Jessica M Marglin. 2016
A previously untold story of Jewish-Muslim relations in modern Morocco, showing how law facilitated Jews' integration into the broader Moroccan…
society in which they lived Morocco went through immense upheaval in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through the experiences of a single Jewish family, Jessica Marglin charts how the law helped Jews to integrate into Muslim society--until colonial reforms abruptly curtailed their legal mobility. Drawing on a broad range of archival documents, Marglin expands our understanding of contemporary relations between Jews and Muslims and changes the way we think about Jewish history, the Middle East, and the nature of legal pluralism.The Heart of Sufism
By H. J. Witteveen. 1999
The Indian Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927) was the very first teacher to bring Sufism to the Western world.…
This is the first representative collection of the master's teachings - making it the perfect book for anyone who has been intrigued by his writings but unsure about where to start in his sixteen-volume collected works. Newcomers will be inspired by just how delightful and useful Inayat Khan's teachings are for everyone, regardless of religious background. Long-time students will find the book a valuable reference to the essence of his teachings on a variety of subjects. Each chapter includes a wealth of material taken from Inayat Khan's work on a particular subject, such as Mysticism, Discipleship, Music, Children, or Divine Intimacy, followed by a selection of his short sayings and aphorisms on the same topic.Warriors of Love: Rumi's Odes to Shams of Tabriz
By James Cowan, Mevlana Rumi. 2017
In 1244 a man wrapped in a coarse black coat entered Konya and so into the life of Islam’s most…
celebrated poet and mystic: Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. A wanderer and spiritual vagabond, Shams of Tabriz proceeded to wrestle with Rumi’s soul. What he wanted from his protégé was for him to embody a wilder, more robust spirituality that would enable him to embrace life’s rawness more completely than any saint had done in the past.Warriors of Love is a fresh interpretation of a selection of 49 poems which were written by Rumi as metaphors for his love for God as well as for his friend Shams, the Wild One. In a long introduction on the life and times of Rumi and his friendship with Shams James Cowan also explores the historical facts of their encounter, Sufism, the Mevlevi Order of Dervishes, the new dimension that Shams brought to Islamic spirituality and the importance of friendship as a true path to God.The Wisdom of the Prophet: The Sayings of Muhammad
By Thomas Cleary. 2001
The Wisdom of the Prophet contains a rich selection of hadith, or traditional teaching stories based on the words and…
deeds of Muhammad, that have brought inspiration and guidance to spiritual seekers for centuries. The passages in this collection, chosen for their universal appeal, reveal both Muhammad's profound worldly wisdom and his lofty spiritual vision. The Wisdom of the Prophet contains more than two hundred authentic stories and sayings of Muhammad translated by Thomas Cleary, the translator of The Essential Koran.Women of Sufism: A Hidden Treasure
By Camille Adams Helminski. 2003
The luminous presence of women who follow the Sufi Way--the mystical path of Islam--is brought to life here through their…
sacred songs and poetry, their dreams and visions, and stories of their efforts as they witness the Truth in many realms. These writings reflect the honor and respect for the feminine in the Sufi worldview, and they are shared in the spirit of inspiration and hope for the flourishing contributions of women to the spiritual development of humanity. Spanning the centuries, from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to the present day, the selections are by or about an array of Sufi traditions in different parts of the world, from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to Europe and America--from beloved members of the Prophet's family to the mystic Rabi'a al-Adawiyya to the modern scholar Annemarie Schimmel. Biographical anecdotes and personal memoirs provide a glimpse into the experience of great saints and contemporary practitioners alike, while providing an introduction to the principles and practices of Sufism.Islamophobia in Britain
By Leonie B. Jackson. 2018
This book is concerned with the ideology of Islamophobia as a cultural racism, and argues that in order to understand…
its prevalence we must focus not only on what Islamophobia is, but also why diversely situated individuals and groups choose to employ its narratives and tropes. Since 2001, Muslims in Britain have been constructed as the nation's significant 'other' - an internal and external enemy that threatened both social cohesion and national security. Through a consideration of a number of pertinent contemporary issues, including no-mosque campaigns, the rise of anti-Islamist social movements and the problematisation of Muslim culture, this book offers a new understanding of Islamophobia as a form of Eurocentric spatial dominance, in which those identified as Western receive a better social, economic and political 'racial contract', and seek to defend these privileges against real and imagined Muslim demands.Conquest and Community: The Afterlife of Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan
By Shahid Amin. 2015
Few topics in South Asian history are as contentious as that of the Turkic conquest of the Indian subcontinent that…
began in the twelfth century and led to a long period of Muslim rule. How is a historian supposed to write honestly about the bloody history of the conquest without falling into communitarian traps? Conquest and Community is Shahid Amin's answer. Covering more than eight hundred years of history, the book centers on the enduringly popular saint Ghazi Miyan, a youthful soldier of Islam whose shrines are found all over India. Amin details the warrior saint's legendary exploits, then tracks the many ways he has been commemorated in the centuries since. The intriguing stories, ballads, and proverbs that grew up around Ghazi Miyan were, Amin shows, a way of domesticating the conquest--recognizing past conflicts and differences but nevertheless bringing diverse groups together into a community of devotees. What seems at first glance to be the story of one mythical figure becomes an allegory for the history of Hindu-Muslim relations over an astonishingly long period of time, and a timely contribution to current political and historical debates.The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims
By Mustafa Akyol. 2017
“A welcome expansion of the fragile territory known as common ground.” —The New York TimesWhen Reza Aslan’s bestseller Zealot came…
out in 2013, there was criticism that he hadn’t addressed his Muslim faith while writing the origin story of Christianity. In fact, Ross Douthat of The New York Times wrote that “if Aslan had actually written in defense of the Islamic view of Jesus, that would have been something provocative and new.” Mustafa Akyol’s The Islamic Jesus is that book.The Islamic Jesus reveals startling new truths about Islam in the context of the first Muslims and the early origins of Christianity. Muslims and the first Christians—the Jewish followers of Jesus—saw Jesus as not divine but rather as a prophet and human Messiah and that salvation comes from faith and good works, not merely as faith, as Christians would later emphasize. What Akyol seeks to reveal are how these core beliefs of Jewish Christianity, which got lost in history as a heresy, emerged in a new religion born in 7th Arabia: Islam.Akyol exposes this extraordinary historical connection between Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Islam—a major mystery unexplored by academia. From Jesus’ Jewish followers to the Nazarenes and Ebionites to the Qu’ran’s stories of Mary and Jesus, The Islamic Jesus will reveal links between religions that seem so contrary today. It will also call on Muslims to discover their own Jesus, at a time when they are troubled by their own Pharisees and Zealots.Keeping It Halal: The Everyday Lives of Muslim American Teenage Boys
By John O Brien. 2018
A compelling portrait of a group of boys as they navigate the complexities of being both American teenagers and good…
MuslimsThis book provides a uniquely personal look at the social worlds of a group of young male friends as they navigate the complexities of growing up Muslim in America. Drawing on three and a half years of intensive fieldwork in and around a large urban mosque, John O’Brien offers a compelling portrait of typical Muslim American teenage boys concerned with typical teenage issues—girlfriends, school, parents, being cool—yet who are also expected to be good, practicing Muslims who don’t date before marriage, who avoid vulgar popular culture, and who never miss their prayers.Many Americans unfamiliar with Islam or Muslims see young men like these as potential ISIS recruits. But neither militant Islamism nor Islamophobia is the main concern of these boys, who are focused instead on juggling the competing cultural demands that frame their everyday lives. O’Brien illuminates how they work together to manage their “culturally contested lives” through subtle and innovative strategies—such as listening to profane hip-hop music in acceptably “Islamic” ways, professing individualism to cast their participation in communal religious obligations as more acceptably American, dating young Muslim women in ambiguous ways that intentionally complicate adjudications of Islamic permissibility, and presenting a “low-key Islam” in public in order to project a Muslim identity without drawing unwanted attention.Closely following these boys as they move through their teen years together, Keeping It Halal sheds light on their strategic efforts to manage their day-to-day cultural dilemmas as they devise novel and dynamic modes of Muslim American identity in a new and changing America.