A believer recognises and affirms Almighty God. In his view this world is an abode where the Name of the All-Merciful One is constantly recited, a place of instruction for man and the animals, and a field of examination for man and jinn. All animal and human deaths are demobilisation. Those who have completed their duties of life depart from this transient world for another, happy and trouble-free, world so that place may be made for new ones to come and work. Very many more subtle, exalted, pleasurable, and sweet truths like these become manifest and appear from belief. O Atilla Ergi is a freelance writer and translator living in Melbourne, Australia. The main themes of his writings and translations are faith, social problems, and education.

Winner of the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award (category: Arab Culture in Other Languages) Browse a preview of Arabic Oration: Art and Fuction. In Arabic Oration: Art and Function, a narrative richly infused with illustrative texts and original translations, Tahera Qutbuddin presents a comprehensive theory of this preeminent genre in its foundational oral period, 7th-8th centuries AD. With speeches and sermons attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, 'Ali, other political and military leaders, and a number of prominent women, she assesses types of orations and themes, preservation and provenance, structure and style, orator-audience authority dynamics, and, with the shift from an oral to a highly literate culture, oration's influence on the medieval chancery epistle. Probing the genre's echoes in the contemporary Muslim world, she offers sensitive tools with which to decode speeches by mosque-imams and political leaders today.