Too often we are tempted into thinking how wrong other people's religions and scriptures are, rather than focusing on what's right about our own.

We act like some of our politicians during election campaigns rather than following the teachings of our own holy books. Breaking the trend, author Dr. Ejaz Naqvi provides an objective, topic-by-topic review of the two most read books in the world-the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran.

"The Quran: With or Against the Bible? "addresses the key themes of the Quran and answers commonly asked questions in search of finding common ground: Who wrote the Quran?
Who is the "God" of the Quran?
What is the Quranic view of the prophets, especially Moses and Jesus?
What does the Quran teach about interfaith relations?
Does the Quran promote peace and harmony between Muslims and the People of the Book, or does it promote violence?
How does the Quran compare to the Bible on important themes like worshipping God, the prophets, human rights, moral values, and fighting for justice and human dignity?
Does the Quran render women as second-class citizens?

Dispelling major myths, "The Quran: With or Against the Bible?" systematically analyzes and compares the similarities in the paths of guidance the two scriptures have bestowed upon mankind.

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 from industrial Michigan to rural California, Curiel portrays the diversity of practices, cultures and observances that make up Muslim America. He profiles the leading personalities and institutions representing the community, and explores their relationship to the wider politics of America, particularly after 9/11. Islam in America offers an indispensable guide to the social life of modern Islam and the diversity of contemporary America.

Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri provides a lucid and inspiring account of life, death and the hereafter, according to an Islamic Sufi perspective. The book opens with a wide-ranging sweep of death and dying as viewed in other cultures and religions - from ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Zoroastrian sources through to Judaism and Christianity. Based on the Quran and the Prophetic message, this book offers a splendid collection of revelations and spiritual teachings that map a basic path towards a wholesome way of living without forgetting death. There is both physical and spiritual death, and death in both instances is seen as a natural bridge from the suffering and delusions of this life to a unifying and clear abode. As the reader is led from birth of the ephemeral self on earth through an unfolding progression towards higher consciousness and awakening to the eternal soul within, constant awareness of one's intimate dual nature takes away much of the fear of death and makes it seem like a familiar companion.

This book, which is written by a well known scholar, a graduate of the Sorbonne, who switched from one Muslim school of thought to another, attempts to prove that the Muslims who truly follow the authentic Sunnah of the Prophet of Islam are actually none other than those referred to as the Shias. It details how these Shias (or Shiites) learn this Sunnah from the closest people to the Prophet of Islam: his immediate family members. It traces the history of the Muslims of the first Islamic century and how they split into two camps, thus setting the foundations for both of these major sects. It also deals with the persecution to which the immediate family members of the Prophet of Islam were subjected and the politicians who played a major role in widening the gap between the followers of this sect and those of that. As for its style, the author restricts himself to quoting major authentic Sunni works to prove his point, relying on an in-depth study of the Islamic history in general and of that of the first century in particular. Many controversial themes are discussed in this book, including that of the infallibility of the Prophet of Islam and of the Twelve Imams who descended from Ali and Fatima, cousin and daughter of the Prophet respectively. Finally, the book concludes with an Appendix containing an Arabic poem in one thousand lines in praise of Commander of the Faithful Ali composed by an Iraqi poet for the Arabic speaking readers.

Within a century of the Arab Muslim conquest of vast territories in the Middle East and North Africa, Islam became the inheritor of the intellectual legacy of classical antiquity. In an epochal cultural transformation between the eighth and tenth centuries CE, most of what survived in classical Greek literature and thought was translated from Greek into Arabic. This translation movement, sponsored by the ruling Abbasid dynasty, swiftly blossomed into the creative expansion and reimagining of classical ideas that were now integral parts of the Islamic tradition. Romance and Reason, a lavishly illustrated catalogue accompanying the exhibition of the same name at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, explores the breadth and depth of Islamic engagement with ancient Greek thought. Drawing on manuscripts and artifacts from the collections of the National Library of Israel and prominent American institutions, the catalogue's essays focus on the portrayal of Alexander the Great as ideal ruler, mystic, lover, and philosopher in Persian poetry and art, and how Islamic medicine, philosophy, and science contended with and developed the classical tradition. Contributors include Roberta Casagrande-Kim, Leigh Chipman, Steven Harvey, Y. Tzvi Langermann, Rachel Milstein, Julia Rubanovich, Samuel Thrope, and Raquel Ukeles. Exhibition Dates: February 14-May 13, 2018

The book re-examines the religious thought and receptions of the Syrian poet Abu l-'Ala' al-Ma'arri (d.1057) and one of his best known works - Luzum ma la yalzam (The Self-Imposed Unnecessity), a collection of poems, which, although widely studied, needs a thorough re-evaluation regarding matters of (un)belief. Given the contradictory nature of al-Ma'arri's oeuvre and Luzum in particular, there have been two major trends in assessing al-Ma'arri's religious thought in modern scholarship. One presented al-Ma'arri as an unbeliever and a freethinker arguing that through contradictions, he practiced taqiya, i.e., dissimulation in order to avoid persecution. The other, often apologetically, presented al-Ma'arri as a sincere Muslim. This study proposes that the notion of ambivalence is a more appropriate analytical tool to apply to the reading of Luzum, specifically in matters of belief. This ambivalence is directly conditioned by the historical and intellectual circumstances al-Ma'arri lived in and he intentionally left it unsolved and intense as a robust stance against claims of certainty. Going beyond reductive interpretations, the notion of ambivalence allows for an integrative paradigm in dealing with contradictions and dissonance.

Seventh and eighth-century papyri, inscriptions, and coins constitute the main evidence for the rise of Arabic as a hegemonic language emerging from the complex fabric of Graeco-Roman-Iranian Late Antiquity. This volume examines these sources in order to gauge the social ecology of Arabic writing within the broader late antique continuum. Starting from the functional interplay of Arabic with other languages in multilingual archives as well as the mediality of practices of public Arabic writing, the study correlates the rise of Arabic as an imperial language to social interactions: the negotiation between the Arab-Muslim imperial elite and non-Arabicized regional elites of the early Islamic empire. Using layout, formulae and technical terminology to trace common patterns and disruptions across sources from the Atlantic to Central Asia, the volume illuminates the distinctive formal varieties of official Umayyad and early Abbasid imperial documents compared to informal Arabic writings as well as to neighboring scribal traditions in other languages. The volume connects documentary practices to broader imperial policies, opening an unprecedented window into the strategies of governance that lay at the core of the early Islamic empire.

This book explores the complexity of the Syrian question and its effects on the foreign policies of Russia, Iran, and Turkey. The Syrian crisis has had a major effect on the regional order in the Middle East. Syria has become a territory where the rivalry between Russia and Western powers is being played out, and with the West's gradual withdrawal, the conflict will without a doubt have lasting effects locally and on the international order. This collection focuses on the effects of the Syrian crisis on the new governance of the Middle East region by three political regimes: Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Many articles and a number of books have been written on this conflict, which has lasted over ten years, but no publication has examined simultaneously and comparatively how these three states are participating in the shared management of the Syrian conflict.

Due to the long presence of Muslims in Islamic territories (Al-Andalus and Granada) and of Muslims minorities in the Christians parts, the Iberian Peninsula provides a fertile soil for the study of the Qur'an and Qur'an translations made by both Muslims and Christians. From the mid-twelfth century to at least the end of the seventeenth, the efforts undertaken by Christian scholars and churchmen, by converts, by Muslims (both Mudejars and Moriscos) to transmit, interpret and translate the Holy Book are of the utmost importance for the understanding of Islam in Europe. This book reflects on a context where Arabic books and Arabic speakers who were familiar with the Qur'an and its exegesis coexisted with Christian scholars. The latter not only intended to convert Muslims, and polemize with them but also to adquire solid knowledge about them and about Islam. Qur'ans were seized during battle, bought, copied, translated, transmitted, recited, and studied. The different features and uses of the Qur'an on Iberian soil, its circulation as well as the lives and works of those who wrote about it and the responses of their audiences, are the object of this book.