The author, Dr. Nader Pourhassan, has researched the Koran and the Bible in depth for the last twenty years. God's Scripture is the result of his personal disillusionment with Islam as it is manifested in the modern world. The message of the Koran is resoundingly simple. We should believe in God, which would encourage us to love our neighbor. If we do, we will go to Heaven: "Those who do good to men or women and have faith (in God), we will give them life, a pure life, and their reward will be greater than their actions." This message, which is stated clearly over sixty times in the Koran, has been perverted by those who seek to promote themselves as spiritual leaders, with appalling results, most shockingly the attacks on America on September 11, 2001. His disillusionment grew as he learned about the disparity between the holy book and Islam as it is practiced today. Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need for Muslims and non Muslims alike to understand the truth about Islam, and to return to the original message of the Prophet Muhammad, and that of Jesus, that humankind should strive to be good, to love God and one another.

In this work translations of four texts are provided from Ghadamis and from Mali. The first is a biography of the Ghadamisi scholar 'Abdallah b. Abi Bakr al-Ghadamisi (1626-1719 AD), written by the eighteenth-century author Ibn Muhalhil al-Ghadamisi. A second text is "The History of al-Suq", concerning al-Suq, the historic town of Tadmakka and the original home of the Kel-Essouk Tuareg. The third text is "The Precious Jewel in the Saharan histories of the 'People of the Veil'" by Muhammad Tawjaw al-Suqi al-Thani, a contemporary Tuareg author. It pertains to the Kel-Essouk and their historical ties with the Maghreb and West Africa. The final text is a description of the Tuareg from the book "Ghadamis, its features, its images and its sights" by Bashir Qasim Yusha', published in Arabic in 2001 AD.

Launched in 1992, the Civil Society in the Middle East program has brought together dozens of leading scholars to analyze political life through an exploration of civil society within the states of the region. This is the first of two volumes to be published by E.J. Brill; it contains original studies of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Tunisia, the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the prospects for democratization in the Arab world, the consequences of economic liberalization and contemporary Islamic thought on civil society and democracy. This first volume offers a wealth of new material on unions, political parties and professional syndicates, and other components of civil society, as the authors weigh the prospects for political reform in the Middle East, and provide readable yet richly informed assessments of state-society relations.

In 1143 Robert of Ketton produced the first Latin translation of the Qur'an. This translation, extant in 24 manuscripts, was one of the main ways in which Latin European readers had access to the Muslim holy book. Yet it was not the only means of transmission of Quranic stories and concepts to the Latin world: there were other medieval translations into Latin of the Qur'an and of Christian polemical texts composed in Arabic which transmitted elements of the Qur'an (often in a polemical mode). The essays in this volume examine the range of medieval Latin transmission of the Qur'an and reaction to the Qur'an by concentrating on the manuscript traditions of medieval Qur'an translations and anti-Islamic polemics in Latin. We see how the Arabic text was transmitted and studied in Medieval Europe. We examine the strategies of translators who struggled to find a proper vocabulary and syntax to render Quranic terms into Latin, at times showing miscomprehensions of the text or willful distortions for polemical purposes. These translations and interpretations by Latin authors working primarily in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Spain were the main sources of information about Islam for European scholars until well into the sixteenth century, when they were printed, reused and commented. This volume presents a key assessment of a crucial chapter in European understandings of Islam.

Islam has been part of the increasingly complex American religious scene for well over a century, and was brought into more dramatic focus by the attacks of September 11, 2001. American Islam is practiced by a unique blend of immigrants and American-born Muslims. The immigrants have come from all corners of the world; they include rich and poor, well-educated and illiterate, those from upper and lower classes as well as economic and political refugees. The community's diversity has been enhanced by the conversion of African Americans, Latina/os, and others, making it the most heterogeneous Muslim community in the world.
With an up-to-the-minute analysis by thirty of the top scholars in the field, this handbook covers the growth of Islam in America from the earliest Muslims to set foot on American soil to the current wave of Islamophobia. Topics covered include the development of African American Islam; pre- and post-WWII immigrants; Sunni, Shi'ite, sectarian and Sufi movements in America; the role and status of women, marriage, and family; and the Americanization of Islamic culture.
Throughout these chapters the contributors explore the meaning of religious identity in the context of race, ethnicity, gender, and politics, both within the American Islamic community and in relation to international Islam.

In the 9th century, a secret sect of the Isma'ilis -- known in the Middle Ages under the name of Fatimids -- arose to play a prominent role in the history of the Near East. Their supreme head today is the Agha Khan. In this mesmerising book, Heinz Halm describes the early history of the Fatimids, from the founding and spread of the secret society to the rise of the caliphal dynasty to power in North Africa and the founding of Cairo, their capital.

Many scholars, in the U.S. and elsewhere, have decried the racism and "Orientalism" that characterizes much Western writing on the Middle East. Such writings conflate different peoples and nations, and movements within such peoples and nations, into unitary and malevolent hordes, uncivilized reservoirs of danger, while ignoring or downplaying analogous tendencies towards conformity or barbarism in other regions, including the West. Assyrians in particular suffer from Old Testament and pop culture references to their barbarity and cruelty, which ignore or downplay massacres or torture by the Judeans, Greeks, and Romans who are celebrated by history as ancestors of the West. This work, through its rich depictions of tribal and religious diversity within Mesopotamia, may help serve as a corrective to this tendency of contemporary writing on the Middle East and the Assyrians in particular. Furthermore, Aboona's work also steps away from the age-old oversimplified rubric of an "Arab Muslim" Middle East, and into the cultural mosaic that is more representative of the region. In this book, author Hirmis Aboona presents compelling research from numerous primary sources in English, Arabic, and Syriac on the ancient origins, modern struggles, and distinctive culture of the Assyrian tribes living in northern Mesopotamia, from the plains of Nineveh north and east to southeastern Anatolia and the Lake Urmia region. Among other findings, this book debunks the tendency of modern scholars to question the continuity of the Assyrian identity to the modern day by confirming that the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia told some of the earliest English and American visitors to the region that they descended from the ancient Assyrians and that their churches and identity predated the Arab conquest. It details how the Assyrian tribes of the mountain dioceses of the "Nestorian" Church of the East maintained a surprising degree of independence until the Ottoman governor of Mosul authorized Kurdish militia to attack and subjugate or evict them. Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans is a work that will be of great interest and use to scholars of history, Middle Eastern studies, international relations, and anthropology.

Palaces like the Aljaferia and the Alhambra rank among the highest achievements of the Islamic world. In recent years archaeological work at Cordoba, Kairouan and many other sites has vastly increased our knowledge about the origin and development of Islamic palatial architecture, particularly in the Western Mediterranean region. This book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of Islamic palace architecture in Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and southern Italy. The author, who has himself conducted archaeological field work at several prominent sites, presents all Islamic palaces known in the region in ground plans, sections and individual descriptions. The book traces the evolution of Islamic palace architecture in the region from the 8th to the 19th century and places them within the context of the history of Islamic culture. Palace architecture is a unique source of cultural history, offering insights into the way space was conceived and the way rulers used architecture to legitimize their power. The book discusses such topics as the influence of the architecture of the Middle East on the Islamic palaces of the western Mediterranean region, the role of Greek logic and scientific progress on the design of palaces, the impact of Islamic palaces on Norman and Gothic architecture and the role of Sufism on the palatial architecture of the late medieval period.

The encounter between Muslim and Hindu remains one of the defining issues of South Asian society today. This encounter began as early as the 8th century, and the first Muslim kingdom in India would be established at the end of the 12th century. This powerful kingdom, the Sultanate of Delhi, eventually reduced to vassalage almost every independent kingdom on the subcontinent. In Love's Subtle Magic, a remarkable and deeply original book, Aditya Behl uses a little-understood genre of Sufi literature to paint an entirely new picture of the evolution of Indian culture during the earliest period of Muslim domination. These curious romantic tales transmit a deeply serious religious message through the medium of lighthearted stories of love. Although composed in the Muslim courts, they are written in a vernacular Indian language. Until now, they have defied analysis, and been mostly ignored by scholars east and west. Behl shows that the Sufi authors of these charming tales purposely sought to convey an Islamic vision via an Indian idiom. They thus constitute the earliest attempt at the indigenization of Islamic literature in an Indian setting. More important, however, Behl's analysis brilliantly illuminates the cosmopolitan and composite culture of the Sultanate India in which they were composed. This in turn compels us completely to rethink the standard of the opposition between Indian Hindu and foreign Muslim and recognize that the Indo-Islamic culture of this era was already significantly Indian in many important ways.

Setting a group of medieval carved ivory horns in the specific artistic and historical context in which they were manufactured, used and re-used, this book presentsa mine of information for the study of medieval history.
The first chapters explore such technical aspects as the cutting and carving of oliphants, and also the broader issues of the morphology of ivory and its availability in the Mediterranean basin in the Middle Ages. On the basis of specific carving methods and varying vocabulary of motifs, the oliphants are organized into groups and their probable sites of production are suggested.
The core of this volume, however, is the attempt to place them in their specific historical context. The purpose of their mass-production, namely their patronage and original function, is explored, but also their reception and new functions in the church treasuries of Latin Europe is broadly discussed.

Many intellectuals worldwide regard this book's eloquence, language and contents with very high regards, and you will find out why when you read it. It is the compilation of some sermons, letters and axioms of Ali ibn Abu Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet of Islam, who played a major role in shaping the society and politics not only of his time but of all time to come. There are other editions of this great book in many languages, and Yasin T. al-Jibouri has been editing one of them. Here are some of its translations: French: La voie de l'eloquence. Ed. Sayyid 'Attia Abul Naga. Trans. Samih 'Atef el-Zein et al. 2nd ed. Qum: Ansariyan, n.d. Romanian: Nahjul-Balagha / Calea vorbirii alese. Trans. Geroge Grigore. Cluj-Napoca: Kriterion, 2008. Russian: (Put' krasnorechiya). Trans. Abdulkarim Taras Cherniyenko. Moscow: (Vostochnaya literatura), 2008. Spanish: La cumbre de la elocuencia. Trans. Mohammed Ali Anzaldua-Morales. Elmhurst: Tahrike-Tarsile-Qur'an, Inc., 1988. There is also an Urdu translation of this great book.

For all Muslims the Qur'an is the word of God. In the first centuries of Islam, however, many individuals and groups, and some Shi'is, believed that the generally accepted text of the Qur'an is corrupt. The Shi'is asserted that redactors had altered or deleted among other things all passages that supported the rights of 'Ali and his successors or that condemned his enemies. One of the fullest lists of these alleged changes and of other variant readings is to be found in the work of al-Sayyari (3rd/9th century), which is indeed among the earliest Shi'i books to have survived. In many cases the alternative readings that al-Sayyari presents substantially contribute to our understanding of early Shi'i doctrine and of the early and numerous debates about the Qur'an in general.

The modern political idea of jihad-a violent struggle against corrupt or anti-Islamic regimes-is essentially the brainchild of one man who turned traditional Islamic precepts inside out and created the modern radical political Islamist movement. Using the evolution of Sayyid Qutb's life and writings, Musallam traces and analyzes Qutb's alienation and subsequent emergence as an independent Islamist within the context of his society and the problems that it faced. Radicalized following his stay in the United States in the late 1940s and during his imprisonment from 1954 to 1964, Qutb would pen controversial writings that would have a significant impact on young Islamists in Egypt for decades following his death and on global jihadist Islamists for the past quarter century. Since September 11, 2001, the West has dubbed Qutb the philosopher of Islamic terror and godfather ideologue of al-Qaeda. This is the first book to examine his life and thought in the wake of the events that ignited the War on Terrorism. A secular man of letters in the 1930s and 1940s, Qutb's outlook and focus on Quranic studies underwent drastic changes during World War II. The Quran became a refuge for his personal needs and for answers to the ills of his society. As a result, he forsook literature permanently for the Islamic cause and way of life. His stay in the United States from 1948 to 1950 reinforced his deeply held belief that Islam is man's only salvation from the abyss of Godless materialism he believed to be manifest in both capitalism and communism. Qutb's active opposition to the secular policies of Egyptian President Nasser led to his imprisonment from 1954 to 1964, during which his writings called for the overthrow of Jahili (pagan) governments and their replacement with a true and just Islamic society. A later arrest and trial resulted in his execution in August 1966.

This book charts the development of Islamic ships and boats in the Western Indian Ocean from the seventh to the early sixteenth century with reference to earlier periods. It utilizes mainly Classical and Medieval Arabic literary sources with iconographical evidence and archaeological finds. The interdependence of various trading activities in the region resulted in a cross fertilization, not only of goods but also of ideas and culture which gave an underlying cohesion to the Arabian, Persian and Indian maritime peoples. This study has led to a re-evaluation of that maritime culture, showing that it was predominantly Persian and Indian, with Chinese influence, throughout the Islamic period until the coming of the Portuguese, as reflected in nautical terminology and technology.

The Third Edition of Brill's Encyclopaedia of Islam is an entirely new work, with new articles reflecting the great diversity of current scholarship. It appears in four substantial segments each year, both online and in print. The new scope includes comprehensive coverage of Islam in the twentieth century and of Muslim minorities all over the world.

Al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111) is one of the most influential thinkers of Islam. There is hardly a genre of Islamic literature where he is not regarded as a major authority. Islamic Law, Sufism, ethics, philosophy, and theology are all deeply shaped by him. Yet in the past thirty years, the field of Ghazali-studies has been shaken by the realization that Avicenna (Ibn Sina, d. 428/1037) and other philosophers had a strong influence on him. Now, after the 900th anniversary at his death, the field emerges stronger than ever. This second volume of Islam and Rationality: The Impact of al-Ghazali brings together twelve leading experts on al-Ghazali who write about his thought and the impact it had on later Muslim thinkers. Contributors are: Anna Ayse Akasoy, Ahmed El Shamsy, Kenneth Garden, Frank Griffel, Jules Janssens, Damien Janos, Taneli Kukkonen, Stephen Ogden, M. Sait OEzervarli, Martin Riexinger, Ulrich Rudolph, and Ayman Shihadeh.