Download or read book Islam in Retrospect written by Maher S. Mahmassani and published by Interlink Publishing. This book was released on 2014-07-27 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RENEWING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM IN TODAY’S WORLD Islam, in many of its current guises, no longer resembles its original Message. In a world of intractable conflicts plagued by political Islam and Islamophobia—and where other forms of fundamentalism within the major religious creeds are on the rise, as well—this book serves as a reminder. It aims to recover and reaffirm Islam’s underlying and guiding principles. Setting out to distinguish the divine from the human in order to elucidate the pristine nature of the divine Message, Mahmassani reasserts Islam’s universal, secular, and progressive character. In Part One of this comprehensive and meticulously researched volume, the author places the Message of Islam within its historic, geographic, and cultural contexts. Focusing on the primacy of the Holy Qur'an among the sources of Islam, he examines the controversies which have surrounded the Prophetic Tradition—Sunna and Hadith—as a source of Islam, demonstrating the full scope of Islam’s universality. In Part Two he goes on to clarify Islam’s secular nature by reconsidering inherited beliefs about the relationship between Islam and the state, and Islam and Sharia’a law, revealing Islam’s inherent humanism. This leads, in Part Three, to reflections on the progressive nature of Islam, and on the importance of the role of the mind in understanding and taking full benefit of religion as an engine of progress. In particular, the author focuses on human rights, including issues of human dignity, freedom of faith, and gender equality. Islam in Retrospect: Recovering the Message is a rich contribution to continuing efforts to reform perceptions of Islam. Scholars and students in the fields of Islamic studies, religion, and the humanities, teachers, policy makers, and general readers will find this carefully constructed sourcebook invaluable for its fresh outlook and approach to understanding Islam and Muslim Scriptures in the light of today’s world. As Mahmassani affirms, “Islam, as a divine message, has been—and continuously remains—perfect.”
Download or read book In the Path of God written by Daniel Pipes and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans' awareness of Islam and Muslims rose to seemingly unprecedented heights in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, but this is not the first time they have dominated American public life. Once before, during the period of the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981, Americans found themselves targeted as a consequence of a militant interpretation of Islam. Daniel Pipes wrote In the Path of God in response to those events, and the heightened interest in Islam they generated. His objective was to present an overview of the connection between in Islam and political power through history in a way that would explain the origins of hostility to Americans and the West. Its relevance to our understanding of contemporary events is self evident. Muslim antagonism toward the West is deeply rooted in historical experience. In premodern times, the Islamic world enjoyed great success, being on the whole more powerful and wealthier than their neighbors. About two hundred years ago, a crisis developed, as Muslims became aware of the West's overwhelming force and economic might. While they might have found these elements attractive, Muslims found European culture largely alien and distasteful. The resulting resistance to Westernization by Muslims has deep roots, has been more persistent than that of other peoples, and goes far to explain the deep Muslim reluctance to accept modern ways. In short, Muslims saw what the West had and wanted it too, but they rejected the methods necessary to achieve this. This, the Muslim trauma, has only worsened over the years. "Scholarly, far-ranging, and thoughtful... the debate is interesting, and Pipes has made a stimulating contribution to it."-The New Republic "Brilliant, authoritative... demonstrates encyclopedic knowledge of Muslim intellectual history... Few other writers have explained so lucidly such complex developments in Muslim history."-The Washington Post "He has resisted a widespread tendency to translate Muslim self-expression into social science jargon as unintelligible as any mosque harangue. His unadorned interpretation strikes a judicious balance between faithfulness to sources and clarity of presentation."-The American Spectator Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and a columnist for the New York Post and the Jerusalem Post. Among his books are The Long Shadow: Culture and Politics in the Middle East (published by Transaction), Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition, Friendly Tyrants: An American Dilemma, and The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Aftermath and the West.
Download or read book Islam and Christianity written by John Renard and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 684 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In light of the widespread public perception of incompatibility between Islam and Christianity, this book provides a much-needed straightforward comparison of these two great faith traditions from a broad theological perspective. Award-winning scholar John Renard illuminates the similarities as well as the differences between Islam and Christianity through a clear exploration of four major dimensions—historical, creedal, institutional, and ethical and spiritual. Throughout, the book features comparisons between concrete elements such as creedal statements, prayer texts, and writings from major theologians and mystics. It also includes a glossary of technical theological terms. For western readers in particular, this balanced, authoritative work overturns some common stereotypes about Islam, especially those that have emerged in the decade since September 11, 2001.
Download or read book The Story of Reason in Islam written by Sari Nusseibeh and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-09 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Story of Reason in Islam, leading public intellectual and political activist Sari Nusseibeh narrates a sweeping intellectual history—a quest for knowledge inspired by the Qu'ran and its language, a quest that employed Reason in the service of Faith. Eschewing the conventional separation of Faith and Reason, he takes a fresh look at why and how Islamic reasoning evolved over time. He surveys the different Islamic schools of thought and how they dealt with major philosophical issues, showing that Reason pervaded all disciplines, from philosophy and science to language, poetry, and law. Along the way, the best known Muslim philosophers are introduced in a new light. Countering received chronologies, in this story Reason reaches its zenith in the early seventeenth century; it then trails off, its demise as sudden as its appearance. Thereafter, Reason loses out to passive belief, lifeless logic, and a self-contained legalism—in other words, to a less flexible Islam. Nusseibeh's speculations as to why this occurred focus on the fortunes and misfortunes of classical Arabic in the Islamic world. Change, he suggests, may only come from the revivification of language itself.
Download or read book America Alone written by Mark Steyn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-04-07 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mark Steyn is a human sandblaster. This book provides a powerful, abrasive, high-velocity assault on encrusted layers of sugarcoating and whitewash over the threat of Islamic imperialism. Do we in the West have the will to prevail?" - MICHELLE MALKIN, New York Times bestselling author of Unhinged "Mark Steyn is the funniest writer now living. But don't be distracted by the brilliance of his jokes. They are the neon lights advertising a profound and sad insight: America is almost alone in resisting both the suicide of the West and the suicide bombing of radical Islamism." - JOHN O'SULLIVAN, editor at large, National Review IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT..... Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a muezzin. Europeans already are. And liberals will still tell you that "diversity is our strength"--while Talibanic enforcers cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops, the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn't violate the "separation of church and state," and the Hollywood Left decides to give up on gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy. If you think this can't happen, you haven't been paying attention, as the hilarious, provocative, and brilliant Mark Steyn--the most popular conservative columnist in the English-speaking world--shows to devastating effect. The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world's last best hope. Mark Steyn's America Alone is laugh-out-loud funny--but it will also change the way you look at the world.
Download or read book Islam and the Middle East written by Mona Abdul-Fadl and published by International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orientalism has traditionally dominated discourse on the Middle East and thus obscured the human realities of the region. This monograph addresses the inadequacy and validity of existing theoretical perspectives on the Middle East. The critique presented offers Islam as a unifying constant rather than a sporadic phenomenon correlated to the flux of social, political and economic conditions and argues that Islam should be conceptually incorporated into any analysis of the region. The book defines the essence of Islamic civilization and highlights aspects of the colonial encounter as a background for understanding contemporary dynamics. Against a subtle leitmotiv of contrasting imagery, it profiles the Islamic view of the state, the role of the faith as well as that of the community. Useful distinctions are made between the Islamic and Western approaches to the area which should prove illuminating to both the area specialist and the lay reader.
Download or read book Pilgrimage in Islam written by Sophia Rose Arjana and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-15 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is not only the holy cities of Mecca and Karbala to which Muslim pilgrims travel, but a wide variety of sacred sites around the world. Journeys are undertaken to visit graves of important historical and religious individuals, the tombs of saints, and natural sites such as mountaintops and springs. Exploring the richness and diversity of traditions practiced by the 1.5 billion Muslims across the world, Sophia Rose Arjana provides a rigorous theoretical discussion of pilgrimage, ritual practice and the nature of sacred space in Islam, both historically and in the present day. This all-encompassing survey covers issues such as time, space, tourism, virtual pilgrimages and the use of computers and smartphone apps. Lucidly written, informative and accessible, it is perfectly suited to students, scholars and the general reader seeking a comprehensive picture of the defining ritual of religious pilgrimage in Islam.
Download or read book Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought written by Michael Cook and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-25 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do we have a duty to stop others doing wrong? The question is intelligible in any civilisation, but only in the Islamic tradition is 'commanding right and forbidding wrong' a central moral tenet. Michael Cook's analysis is the first to chart the history of Islamic reflection on this obligation.
Download or read book Historical Dimensions of Islam written by James E. Lindsay and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Homosexuality in Islam written by Scott Siraj Al-Haqq Kugle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Homosexuality is anathema to Islam – or so the majority of both believers and non-believers suppose. Throughout the Muslim world, it is met with hostility, where state punishments range from hefty fines to the death penalty. Likewise, numerous scholars and commentators maintain that the Qur’an and Hadith rule unambiguously against same-sex relations. This pioneering study argues that there is far more nuance to the matter than most believe. In its narrative of Lot, the Qur’an could be interpreted as condemning lust rather homosexuality. While some Hadith are fiercely critical of homosexuality, some are far more equivocal. This is the first book length treatment to offer a detailed analysis of how Islamic scripture, jurisprudence, and Hadith, can not only accommodate a sexually sensitive Islam, but actively endorse it.
Download or read book Sociology of Shi ite Islam written by Saïd Amir Arjomand and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-07-18 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sociology of Shiʿite Islam is a comprehensive study of the development of Shiʿism from its sectarian formation in the eighth century through its establishment as Iran’s national religion in the sixteenth to the Islamic revolution Iran in the twentieth century.
Download or read book Islamic Exceptionalism written by Shadi Hamid and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Islamic Exceptionalism, Brookings Institution scholar and acclaimed author Shadi Hamid offers a novel and provocative argument on how Islam is, in fact, "exceptional" in how it relates to politics, with profound implications for how we understand the future of the Middle East. Divides among citizens aren't just about power but are products of fundamental disagreements over the very nature and purpose of the modern nation state—and the vexing problem of religion’s role in public life. Hamid argues for a new understanding of how Islam and Islamism shape politics by examining different models of reckoning with the problem of religion and state, including the terrifying—and alarmingly successful—example of ISIS. With unprecedented access to Islamist activists and leaders across the region, Hamid offers a panoramic and ambitious interpretation of the region's descent into violence. Islamic Exceptionalism is a vital contribution to our understanding of Islam's past and present, and its outsized role in modern politics. We don't have to like it, but we have to understand it—because Islam, as a religion and as an idea, will continue to be a force that shapes not just the region, but the West as well in the decades to come.
Download or read book Arabs and Others in Early Islam written by Sulaimān Bašīr and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work investigates available early Arabic ḥadīth and exegetical literature in order to determine the great complexity of how Arabs, Muslims and Arab-Muslims viewed themselves and members of other communities. In particular, it focuses on the relation between definitions of "Arabness" and "otherness" with Islamic ascriptions of believers and nonbelievers and endeavors to trace the changing of these views over time. Moreover, this is an in-depth analysis of a series of ḥadīths and isnāds that discusses when, where, why, and by whom traditions were circulated during the 8th and 9th centuries. I. Bedouins and Non-Arabs II. The Impact of the Arab Polity in Retrospect III. The Great Fusion IV. Ambivalent Attitudes V. Apocalyptic Insecurities VI. Summary Discussion and Concluding Notes
Download or read book The Unforgettable Queens of Islam written by Shahla Haeri and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cross-cultural and ethno-historical perspective exploring the lives and legacies of several Muslim women rulers from medieval to modern times.
Download or read book Arabism and Islam written by Christine M. Helms and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1991 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1980s, Islamic activists in the Arab Middle East have challenged the definition of "legitimate authority" and provided the means and rationale for revolutionary change, hoping to pressure established governments to alter domestic and foreign policies. No nation-state has been immune. Fearful Arab nationalist leaders, unwilling or unable to abandon decades of ideological baggage, have begun a gradual, if erratic, process of melding the spirit and letter of Islamic precepts into existing national laws and political rhetoric. Whether it is adequate to the challenge, the state nevertheless bears the onus of accommodation, because Islam and Arabism will not soon disappear. They will assume new form and substance in the changing realities of the region. Dilemmas inherent to this century and the gauntlet delivered to hitherto unquestioned political caveats will continue to exacerbate the competition between Islam and Arabism, their quest for political platforms and supporters, and the credibility of all other claimants, including the state. Visions of the future, especially when they are sacred and apocalyptic, can never be entirely freed of historical, emotive baggage. Even if Islamic political activism and pan-Arabism diminish in their intensity, they will endure as subtle, formative forces in all aspects of life. Indigenous inhabitants are fully aware that these influences have profound resonance in their lives. At the same time, these forces act like invisible sentinels in the mind, standing ready to cast a long shadow as unconscious motivators of political behavior. Sections are as follows: Declaration of Crisis; Pluralism: Minorities in the Arab World; Stateless Nations and Nationless States: Twentieth Century Disunity; Search for Unity: An Arab Sunni Core; Arabs and Non-Arabs: The Myth of Equality; Fatal Wounds: Universal Islam Takes the Offensive; and The State: Visionary Futures.
Download or read book Islam and Democracy written by Asef Bayat and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can islam and democracy exist side by side? Is Islam compatible with democracy? The text examines one of the most frequently-asked and yet misguided questions. Democratic ethos should not and cannot be deduced from some essence of religions supposedly inscribed in the scriptures. Rather, they are the outcome of political struggles that push Islam toward democratic or authoritarian directions. Asef Bayat offers a new approach to examine Islam and democracy arguing how the social struggles of diverse Muslim populations, those with different interests and orientation, render Islam to embrace democratic ideas or authoritarian disposition. "Islamism" and "post-Islamism" are discussed as representing two contrasting movements which have taken Islam into different, authoritarian and inclusive, political directions.
Download or read book A Common Word written by Miroslav Volf and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A letter printed in the pages of The New York times in 2007 acknowledged differences between Christianity and Islam but contended that "righteousness and good works" should be the only areas in which the two compete. That letter and a collaborative Christian response appear in this volume, which includes subsequent dialogue between Muslim and Christian scholars.
