The four kingdoms motif enabled writers of various cultures, times, and places, to periodize history as the staged succession of empires barrelling towards an utopian age. The motif provided order to lived experiences under empire (the present), in view of ancestral traditions and cultural heritage (the past), and inspired outlooks assuring hope, deliverance, and restoration (the future). Four Kingdom Motifs before and beyond the Book of Daniel includes thirteen essays that explore the reach and redeployment of the motif in classical and ancient Near Eastern writings, Jewish and Christian scriptures, texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, depictions in European architecture and cartography, as well as patristic, rabbinic, Islamic, and African writings from antiquity through the Mediaeval eras.

The world is facing a great dilemma due to despicable, inhumane and barbaric acts of terrorism, indiscriminate killings, warfare, anarchy, disorder and suicide bombings over the past two decades. It is not only destroying the peace of any specific region, group or country but has become a major threat to world peace. Young People and Students living in various western countries who do not have conceptual clarity regarding Islam are wrongly considering terrorism and indiscriminate killing to be Jihad and are being drawn towards it.A further disturbing issue with regards to this is that the terrorists declare their evil goals to be part of the Islamic concept of Jihad. Furthermore they speak of enforcing the Islamic Shariah according to their extremist and terrorist ideology. They call for the re-establishment of the Caliphate as part of their ideology; and they use the Islamic terminologies and concepts of Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) to legally justify their claims. By quoting the Qur'an, hadith and texts from the books of Islamic Law out of context, they influence common Muslims who are not acquainted with the true teachings of Islam, especially youngsters.There is a need to provide authentic, comprehensive material against extremism to all people, from every walk of life, according to their needs, so that the conceptual and ideological confusions which may lead to terrorism can be eliminated. The Islamic Curriculum on Peace and Counter-Terrorism was prepared for this purpose. This curriculum has 3 books and is part of the Peace Education Programme. It aims to provide resources from the Holy Qur'an, Hadith and authoritative books to provide a comprehensive ideological and theological background to all the key areas that are utilised to brainwash youngsters.The Islamic Curriculum on Peace and Counter-Terrorism has been compiled under the supervision and guidance of Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri - who is the author of the Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings.