The Patriarch and the Caliph presents the famous "dialogue without resolution" between the third Abbasid Caliph, al-Mahdi, and the first Nestorian Patriarch, Timothy I, in Baghdad in 781 CE. The abundance of versions of this intellectually rich debate between adherents of Islam and of Christianity is a testimony to its historic importance. Of particular note is the mutual respect shown between the interlocutors in a period when Islam was the dominant political and intellectual influence in the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean worlds. This volume collates an abridged sixteenth-century Arabic v... View More...
One of the most influential books in the history of literature, recognized as the greatest literary masterpiece in Arabic, the Qur'an is the supreme authority and living source of all Islamic teaching, the sacred text that sets out the creed, rituals, ethics, and laws of Islam. First published in 2004, M. A. S. Abdel Haleem's superb English translation has been acclaimed for both its faithfulness to the original and its supreme clarity. Now Haleem's translation is published side-by-side with the original Arabic text, to give readers a greater appreciation and understanding of the holy book. Re... View More...
Beginning with Muhammad and his historical and cultural context, this book recounts the tale of the thirteen-century-long encounter of Western and Islamic civilizations. Armour uses the best of contemporary research to show how events such as the Crusades and the Reconquista of Spain have indelibly shaped the mindset of the West toward Islam and vice versa. He reveals how the modern Western political and economic system -- marked by the globalization of capitalism, technology, and science -- has been perceived by the Islamic world as a Godless secular assault on all that is holy. He ends with ... View More...
No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular Western imagination as an extreme faith that promotes authoritarian government, female oppression, civil war, and terrorism. Karen Armstrong's short history offers a vital corrective to this narrow view. The distillation of years of thinking and writing about Islam, it demonstrates that the world's fastest-growing faith is a much richer and more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest. "Islam: A Short History" begins with the flight of Muhammad and his family from Medin... View More...
The author asserts in this text that Islamic fundamentalism is a reactive challenge to modern civilizations and political structures, which has arisen in defence to encroachments of both, Western capitalism and the various manifestations of communism. In this revised edition of the work a definition of Islamic fundamentalism is given that links its connotations to the historical background of Muslim traditions. An expanded chapter dealing with contemporary Islamist movements such as Hamas, the Algerian Islamist Salvation Front (FIS), the Egyptian Islamist Associations and Hizbullah in Lebanon,... View More...
Islam is a hidden ingredient in the melting pot of America. Though there are between 2 and 8 million Muslims in the USA, Islam has traditionally had little political clout compared to other minority faiths. Nonetheless it is believed to be the country's fastest-growing religion, with a vibrant culture of theological debate, particularly regarding the role of women preachers. In Islam in America, Jonathan Curiel traces the story of America's Muslims from the seventeenth-century slave trade to the eighteenth-century immigration wave to the Nation of Islam. Drawing on interviews in communities fr... View More...
N. J. Dawood's masterful translation of The Koran in a fully revised edition The Koran is universally accepted by Muslims to be the infallible word of God as first revealed to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel nearly fourteen hundred years ago. Its 114 chapters recount the narratives and rules of conduct central to Islamic belief, and together they form one of the world's most influential prophetic works and a literary masterpiece in its own right. This newly revised edition of N. J. Dawood's classic translation is also available in a larger edition with the original Arabic in paralle... View More...
N. J. Dawood's masterful translation of The Koran in a fully revised edition The Koran is universally accepted by Muslims to be the infallible word of God as first revealed to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel nearly fourteen hundred years ago. Its 114 chapters recount the narratives and rules of conduct central to Islamic belief, and together they form one of the world's most influential prophetic works and a literary masterpiece in its own right. This newly revised edition of N. J. Dawood's classic translation is also available in a larger edition with the original Arabic in paralle... View More...
Lost in the Sacred poses questions about the Muslim world that no other book by a Western writer has dared to ask. Focusing on the Arab Middle East, Dan Diner asks what caused the Muslim world to lag behind so dramatically. Is Western dominance to blame? Or is the problem even with Islam itself? These questions, however unsettling, need to be asked--and they are being posed all across the Muslim world today. This book provides cautious answers that are no less disturbing than the questions. Diner argues that Islam's cultural stasis is not due to the Muslim faith itself, but to the nature of t... View More...
