'Striking.' ELLE France 'Brave.' iNews 'Powerful.' TLS 'Urgent.' Evening Standard 'Original.' Cosmopolitan In these essays, Leila Slimani gives voice to young Moroccan women who are grappling with a conservative Arab culture that at once condemns and commodifies sex. In a country where the law punishes and outlaws all forms of sex outside marriage, as well as homosexuality and prostitution, women have only two options for their sexual identities: virgin or wife. Sex and Lies is an essential confrontation with Morocco's intimate demons and a vibrant appeal for the universal freedom to be, to love and to desire. 'Leila Slimani has a knack for breaking taboos. . . Sex and Lies is well executed: the novelist paints vivid portraits of her interviewees.' The Times 'Slimani trusts in her outrage, in the force of her own voice, and the voices of the women she listens to.' Guardian

This unique textbook enables social work practitioners to gain a deeper understanding of how Islamic principles inform and influence the lives of Muslim populations. Designed to support work with families and faith communities, this completely revised and updated edition examines religious precepts, cosmologies, philosophies and daily practices, while acknowledging cultural variants and population heterogeneity. It includes a comprehensive update of the research literature, international case studies, and new sections on religious extremism and ageing and end-of-life. This is the only book specifically on social work with Muslim communities and provides an essential toolkit for culturally sensitive social work practice.

This is not an ordinary book by any standard, and simply going through its table of contents will tell you why. The author takes you on a journey to the 6th Century A.D. where events and incidents of this book started, meticulously detailing life in the Arabian Peninsula during the period of time that preceded the birth of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammed. Then he details the struggle of the Prophet and his followers to survive in the most hostile environment and among the most ruthless people. After that, he gives you an idea about unfortunate events that followed Muhammed's demise and how those who were the closest people to him during his lifetime betrayed him and his message thereafter, confiscating the estate of his only daughter, Fatima. A chapter about his wives is included as well in addition to one about the Holy Qur'an and why it is called a miracle. Many sayings of the Prophet of Islam on various subject-matters have been included, too, giving you an idea about how Muhammed thought and what he preached. A Glossary is finally added for the benefit of those who study or teach the Islamic faith either academically or out of curiosity. Perhaps the most interesting contents of this book are two very important pacts which Muhammed signed, one with the Jews of Medina, and another with the Christians of Najran, Yemen. These pacts shed light on the Prophet's tolerance and genuine desire for a peaceful coexistence between the Muslims on the one hand and followers of the Jewish and Christian faiths on the other.

"Harmonizing Similarities" is a study of the legal distinctions (al-furuq al-fiqhiyya) literature and its role in the development of the Islamic legal heritage. This book reconsiders how the public performance of Islamic law helped shape legal literature. It identifies the origins of this tradition in contemporaneous lexicographic and medical literature, both of which demonstrated the productive potential of drawing distinctions. Elias G. Saba demonstrates the implications of the legal furuq and how changes to this genre reflect shifts in the social consumption of Islamic legal knowledge. The interest in legal distinctions grew out of the performance of knowledge in formalized legal disputations. From here, legal distinctions incorporated elements of play through its interactions with the genre of legal riddles. As play, books of legal distinctions were supplements to performance in literary salons, study circles, and court performances; these books also served as mimetic objects, allowing the reader to participate in a session virtually. Saba underscores how social and intellectual practices helped shape the literary development of Islamic law and that literary elaboration became a main driver of dynamism in Islamic law. This monograph has been awarded the annual BRAIS - De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World.

The Influence of Islamic Values on Management Practice is a cultural study examining how Islamic values influence management practice. Using Morocco as a case study, and with academic research and actual business managers working in this context, the book explores and explains how national characteristics, including Islam, shape management practice

The Qur'an is the living source of all Islamic teaching, and is of singular importance to those interested in Islam and the study of religions. Despite this, there exists a long-felt lack of research tools for English first-language speakers who wish to access the Qur'an in the original Arabic. The Dictionary of Qur'anic Usage is the first comprehensive, fully-researched and contextualised Arabic-English dictionary of Qur'anic usage, compiled in accordance with modern lexicographical methods by scholars who have a lifelong immersion in Qur'anic Studies. Based on Classical Arabic dictionaries and Qur'an commentaries, this work also emphasises the role of context in determining the meaning-scatter of each vocabulary item. Illustrative examples from Qur'anic verses are provided in support of the definitions given for each context in which a particular word occurs, with cross-references to other usages. Frequently occurring grammatical particles are likewise thoroughly explained, insofar as they are used in conveying various nuances of meaning in the text.

This scholarly work focuses on the establishment in 1809 of the celebrated Sokoto caliphate in what is now Nigeria. The Sokoto caliphate may well have been the last complete re-establishment of Islam in its entirety, comprising all of its many and varied dimensions.

Islamic Psychology or ilm an-nafs (science of the soul) is an important introductory textbook drawing on the latest evidence in the sub-disciplines of psychology to provide a balanced and comprehensive view of human nature, behaviour and experience. Its foundation to develop theories about human nature is based upon the writings of the Qur'an, Sunna, Muslim scholars and contemporary research findings. Synthesising contemporary empirical psychology and Islamic psychology, this book is holistic in both nature and process and includes the physical, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions of human behaviour and experience. Through a broad and comprehensive scope, the book addresses three main areas: Context, perspectives and the clinical applications of applied psychology from an Islamic approach. This book is a core text on Islamic psychology for undergraduate and postgraduate students and those undertaking continuing professional development in Islamic psychology, psychotherapy and counselling. Beyond this, it is also a good supporting resource for teachers and lecturers in this field.

This book analyzes non-democratic legitimacy during the Arab Spring. During this historic event, monarchs and presidents were forced to defend their rule, whether through Islam, the cultural image of paternalism or the cash flow of welfare. Can Arab leaders still justify apolitical reigns? Are monarchies more respected than republicans or are they too under threat? The author traces the history of apolitical rule in the Arab world, from Islamic roots to the role of Arab leaders in merging religion with socio-economic benefits and cosmetic liberalization. Finally, analysis of speeches given by leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain in response to the Arab Spring are considered. When protesters took to the streets with their slogans, the regimes talked back. This work discusses the weight of their words and why some leaders survived unrest while others were overthrown.

Islam and violence appear to dominate global politics in the twenty-first century. This book examines dimensions of Islam and violence as part of wider debates about politics, history, faith, power, rebellion and struggle both within Muslims' realms and outside it. The author accounts for definitions of violence and terrorism with both historical and contemporary dimension. The book explores the motif of violence in its myriad aspects including debates about sacrifice, private and public violence, responses and reactions, as well as suicide and martyrdom.

The present volume - grown out of an international symposium at the Free University, Berlin in 2002 - is concerned with religious authorities, men and women claiming, projecting and exerting religious authority within a given context. The volume focuses on Middle Eastern Muslim majority societies in the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, and the papers collected therein highlight the scope and variety of religious authorities in present and past Muslim societies.

"Will be welcomed by all interested in African history and anthropology. A valuable contribution and a rich mine of material."
"--Journal of African History"

In many parts of the African Muslim world, slavery still blights the landscape. What are the origins of this terrible institution? Why is it still practiced? How widespread is it and how does it differ from Western chattel slavery?

This book tells the story of how the enslavement of Africans by Berbers, Arabs, and other Africans became institutionalized and legitimized throughout Muslim Africa. A classic, pioneering study, first published in 1971 and extensively updated in this revised edition, Slavery in the History of Black Muslim Africa provides an expansive portrait of domestic slavery from the tenth to the nineteenth century in the context of the religious, social, and economic conditions of the African Islamic world.

Drawing on a host of accounts from contemporary observers such as Leo Africanus and Ibn Battuta, Fisher and Fisher describe the status and rights of slaves in Africa, and their various roles as currency, goods, eunuchs, soldiers, and statesmen, as well as the jarring historical interruption brought on by slave raiders and traders in West and North Africa.

"Al-Ghazali on Invocations and Supplications" is a translation of the ninth chapter of the "Revival of the Religious Sciences" (Ihya Ulum al-Din), which is widely regarded as the greatest work of Muslim spirituality. "Al-Ghazali on Invocations and Supplications" is probably the most commonly read compendium of personal prayers in the Muslim world, especially those concerning the remembrance of God (dhikr). "Al-Ghazali on Invocations and Supplications" is popular not only for its comprehensiveness and beauty, but also for Ghazali's analytical approach, which explores the psychological and spiritual effects of prayer and the celebration of God's Name. This work is essential reading for those who seek a spiritual life and who desire to walk the meditative and reflective path of "dhikr" prayer.---This new fourth edition of "Al-Ghazali on Invocations and Supplications" includes the invocations and supplications in Arabic for those readers who would like to use them in their prayers and a translation of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's own Introduction to the "Revival of the Religious Sciences", which gives the reasons that caused him to write the work, the structure of the whole of the "Revival", and places each of the chapters in the context of the others.

When the Umayyads, the first Islamic dynasty, rose to power shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632), the polity of which they assumed control had only recently expanded out of Arabia into the Roman eastern Mediterranean, Iraq and Iran. A century later, by the time of their downfall in 750, the last Umayyad caliphs governed the largest empire that the world had seen, stretching from Spain in the West to the Indus valley and Central Asia in the East. By then, their dynasty and the ruling circles around it had articulated with increasing clarity the public face of the new monotheistic religion of Islam, created major masterpieces of world art and architecture, some of which still stand today, and built a state apparatus that was crucial to ensuring the continuity of the Islamic polity. Within the vast lands under their control, the Umayyads and their allies ruled over a mosaic of peoples, languages and faiths, first among them Christianity, Judaism and the Ancient religion of Iran, Zoroastrianism. The Umayyad period is profoundly different from ours, yet it also resonates with modern concerns, from the origins of Islam to dynamics of cultural exchange. Editors Alain George and Andrew Marsham bring together a collection of essays that shed new light on this crucial period. Power, Patronage, and Memory in Early Islam elucidates the ways in which Umayyad elites fashioned and projected their self-image, and how these articulations, in turn, mirrored their own times. The authors, combining perspectives from different disciplines, present new material evidence, introduce fresh perspectives about key themes and monuments, and revisit the nature of the historical writing that shaped our knowledge of this period.

In recent years, the debate over science, reason, and religion has reached a peak (or a high plateau, depending on your perception of time scales) of intensity, breadth, and confrontational vigor. Hundreds of Web sites, blogs, and forums have sprung up, enabling the debate to rage day-to-day. But people will always want points of view to be encapsulated in portable form: books.

Faith in the Unseen is a contribution to the debate. Its author, Dr. Rashid Seyal, who is a consultant cardiologist with numerous books on cardiology and religion under his belt, approaches the debate on the "faith" side as a religious man (he is a Muslim) with a strong background in science. The title of his book places the emphasis on the key issue that stands between the scientific atheist side and the faith side: evidence, and the absence thereof. For fundamentalist believers, evidence (other than what is written in holy books) is simply not an issue. However, for the rational religious believer, it is a pivotal point and must be rationalized.

It is divided into substantial chapters, each dealing with a major subject of faith and/or reason, and each chapter is subdivided into sections, which discuss various detailed aspects or examples, including death, the afterlife, and the philosophy of life.

This English translation of Al-Warraqa's tenth-century cookbook offers a unique glimpse into the culinary culture of medieval Islam.

Hundreds of recipes, anecdotes, and poems, with an extensive Introduction, a Glossary, an Appendix, and color illustration.

Informative and entertaining to scholars and general readers.

Christian-Muslim dialogue grows increasingly important, but little is known about individual Muslim dialogical thinkers. Born in Palestine in 1921, Ismail al-Faruqi was a leading figure in the development of conversation and debate across faiths in North America in the second half of the twentieth century, and was actively engaged in inter-faith study and dialogue. Al-Faruqi founded the Islamic Studies programme at Temple University, Pennsylvania where several distinguished Muslim intellectuals have taught, such as Seyyid Hossein Nasr, Mahmoud Ayoub and Hasan Hanafi. Along with Kenneth Cragg and Wilfred Cantwell Smith, al-Faruqi was an active participant in Muslim-Christian dialogues in the 1970s and the 1980s. Charles Fletcher here presents the first study dedicated to Ismail al-Faruqi's theory and practice of interfaith dialogue. Analysing al-Faruqi's sometimes provocative ideas on the comparative study of religion, dialogue and practical engagement, the author provides an illuminating study of the life and thought of this important scholar. Tracing the development of al-Faruqi's ideas and practice of inter-faith dialogue, Fletcher shows how Muslim intellectuals engaged in such attempts viewed their role as representatives of the worldwide Muslim community. With perceptive insights into the history of contemporary Muslim-Christian dialogue, this book will be invaluable for all those interested in inter-faith relations, comparative religious studies, North American Muslims and Islamic studies.

This is an updated and expanded 2015 edition of a classic text on Muslim thinking about war and peace. The new edition includes a new introduction and translations of selected revelatory excerpts from ISIS texts about the treatment of POWs, guidelines on the "management of barbarity," fatwas in opposition to ISIS, and other key topics.