Dalya Cohen-Mor examines the evolution of the concept of fate in the Arab world through readings of religious texts, poetry, fiction, and folklore. She contends that belief in fate has retained its vitality and continues to play a pivotal role in the Arabs' outlook on life and their social psychology. Interwoven with the chapters are 16 modern short stories that further illuminate this fascinating topic.

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.

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.

For centuries Christians and Muslims have engaged with each other in manifold ways, peaceful and otherwise, be it in scholarly study, or in war and colonization. Today, Christians represent an influential body of opinion that largely perceives Islam, post 9/11, as a threat. Yet Muslims represent approximately one third of the world's population. Improved understanding between Christians and Muslims is therefore crucial and a prerequisite for universal peace and justice. This book aims to investigate Islam's place in the world, Muslim aspirations vis-a-vis non-Muslims and the realities of how Muslims are perceived and how they perceive others. Each chapter analyses accessible texts from central thinkers and commentators, broadly split into two camps: confrontational or conciliatory. Christian-Muslim relations are set in the wider context of civilizational, geo-political and economic interaction between the Muslim world and the historically Christian West.

Space and Conversion in Global Perspective examines experiences of conversion as they intersect with physical location, mobility, and interiority. The volume's innovative approach is global and encompasses multiple religious traditions. Conversion emerges as a powerful force in early modern globalization. In thirteen essays, the book ranges from the urban settings of Granada and Cuzco to mission stations in Latin America and South India; from villages in Ottoman Palestine and Middle-Volga Russia to Italian hospitals and city squares; and from Atlantic slave ships to the inner life of a Muslim turned Jesuit. Drawing on extensive archival and iconographic materials, this collection invites scholars to rethink conversion in light of the spatial turn. Contributors are: Paolo Aranha, Emanuele Colombo, Irene Fosi, Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, Agnieszka Jagodzinska, Aliocha Maldavsky, Giuseppe Marcocci, Susana Bastos Mateus, Adriano Prosperi, Gabriela Ramos, Rocco Sacconaghi, Felicita Tramontana, Guillermo Wilde, and Oxana Zemtsova.

For the first time, the dramatic changes the Qur'anic code underwent during the Umayyad period (660-750 C.E.) are analysed and presented on the basis of a selection of material in good part unpublished. In Qur'ans of the Umayyads, Francois Deroche offers a chronology of the various developments which marked the period, in an approach combining philology, art history, codicology and palaeography. The conclusions he reaches challenge the traditional account about the writing down of the Qur'an and throw a new light on the role of the Umayyads in its handwritten diffusion. Winner of 23rd I.R. Iran World Award for the Book of the Year 2016!

The present work provides a new edition and substantial German commentary of the important theological Arabic work Al-Tamhid fi bayan al-tauhid ("Introduction to the explanation of monotheism") by the 5th/11th century scholar Abu Shakur al-Salimi. The work and its author belong to the theological school that succeeded Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (died 333/944) and still serve as important markers of Sunni theology into the nineteenth century.

Muslim philosophical activities on the cusp of the Safavid era (i.e., late 9th/15th and early 10th/16th centuries) have so far escaped the attention of modern scholars. In Iran, the city of Shiraz was the principal center of philosophy at this time, and it was here that Najm al-Din Mahmud al-Nayrizi (d. after 933/1526), whose life and works are the subject of this book, spent his formative years. An accomplished Shi'i scholars, Nayrizi engaged with Avicennan as well as Suhrawardian philosophy in his works. Beside Nayrizi, the present study introduces his contemporaries among the philosophers of Shiraz and provides an outline of the main challenges of their thought, particularly of the two leading figures, Jalal al-Din al-Dawani (d. 908/1502) and Sadr al-Din al-Dashtaki.

From false idols and graven images to the tombs of kings and the shrines of capitalism, the targeted destruction of cities, sacred sites and artifacts for religious, political or nationalistic reasons is central to our cultural legacy. This book examines the different traditions of image-breaking in Christianity and Islam as well as their development into nominally secular movements and paints a vivid, scholarly picture of a culture of destruction encompassing Protestantism, Wahhabism, and Nationalism. Beginning with a comparative account of Calvinist Geneva and Wahhabi Mecca, The Politics of Iconoclasm explores the religious and political agendas behind acts of image-breaking and their relation to nationhood and state-building. From sixteenth-century Geneva to urban developments in Mecca today, The Politics of Iconoclasm explores the history of image-breaking, the culture of violence and its paradoxical roots in the desire for renewal. Examining these dynamics of nationhood, technology, destruction and memory, a historical journey is described in which the temple is razed and replaced by the machine.

Nearly four decades after a revolution, experiencing one of the longest wars in contemporary history, facing political and ideological threats by regional radicals such as ISIS and the Taliban, and having succeeded in negotiations with six world powers over her nuclear program, Iran appears as an experienced Muslim country seeking to build bridges with its Sunni neighbours as well as with the West. Ethics of War and Peace in Iran and Shi'i Islam explores the wide spectrum of theoretical approaches and practical attitudes concerning the justifications, causes and conduct of war in Iranian-Shi'i culture. By examining primary and secondary sources, and investigating longer lasting factors and questions over circumstantial ones, Mohammed Jafar Amir Mahallati seeks to understand modern Iranian responses to war and peace. His work is the first in its field to look into the ethics of war and peace in Iran and Shi'i Islam. It provides a prism through which the binary source of the Iranian national and religious identity informs Iranian response to modernity. By doing so, the author reveals that a syncretic and civilization-conscious soul in modern Iran is re-emerging.

"This is the most comprehensive account of the internal dynamics of the young intellectual generation of NU advocating for pluralism and democracy within Islam in Indonesia, during Gus Dur's leadership of PBNU. Because of the author's unique vantage point, her sometimes sharp criticism of this movement and its internal dynamics is extremely useful to those who continue to advocate for reform, within NU and in Indonesia generally." - Ahman Suaedy, Executive Director, Wahid Institute, Jakarta "Robin Bush provides an authoritative, insightful and engaging account of the political and intellectual world of Nahdlatul Ulama. She carefully analyses the tumultuous and often tangled dynamics within NU from the 1980s to the post-Soeharto period and unearths deeper historical and cultural resonances in explaining the organisation's outlook and actions. This is a valuable work for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Islamic politics in Indonesia." - Greg Fealy, Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Politics, Australian National University, Canberra

This is an era when the Islamic World is making a range of attempts to redefine itself and to grapple with the challenges of modernity. Many schools of thought have emerged which seek to position modern Islam within the context of a rapidly changing contemporary world. Exploring and defining the relationship between religion and knowledge, Ismail Rafi Al-Faruqi, a distinguished 20th century Arab-American scholar of Islam, formulated ideas which have made substantial contributions to the Islam-and-modernity discourse. His review of the interaction between Islam and knowledge examines the philosophy behind this relationship, and the ways in which Islam can relate to our understanding of science, the arts, architecture, technology and other knowledge-based fields of enquiry. This book includes contributions from Seyyed Hossein Nasr, John Esposito, Charles Fletcher and others, and will prove an essential reference point for scholars of Islam and students of philosophy and comparative religion.

Themistius' (4th century CE) paraphrase of Aristotle's Metaphysics 12 is the earliest surviving complete account of this seminal work. Despite leaving no identifiable mark in Late Antiquity, Themistius' paraphrase played a dramatic role in shaping the metaphysical landscape of Medieval Arabic and Hebrew philosophy and theology. Lost in Greek, and only partially surviving in Arabic, its earliest full version is in the form of a 13th century Hebrew translation. In this volume, Yoav Meyrav offers a new critical edition of the Hebrew translation and the Arabic fragments of Themistius' paraphrase, accompanied by detailed philological and philosophical analyses. In doing so, he provides a solid foundation for the study of one of the most important texts in the history of Aristotelian metaphysics.

This collection of essays on Islamic art and architecture in the nineteenth century covers a wide geographical area and draws together different regional elements. The essays devote much attention to social, political, economic and intellectual issues, including the role of tradition and responses to European aesthetics, among them the appropriation of orientalism and the rise of revivalist movements.

The First Islamic Reviver presents a new biography of al-Ghazali's final decade and a half, presenting him not as a reclusive spiritual seeker, but as an engaged Islamic revivalist seeking to reshape his religious tradition.