Among the considerable oeuvre of Muhammad al-Shahrastani (1086-1153), the prominent Persian theologian and heresiographer, the Majlis-i maktub ('The Transcribed Sermon') is his only known work in Persian. First delivered as a sermon in Khwarazm in Central Asia, this treatise invokes the theme of creation and command, providing an esoteric cosmological narrative where faith, revelation, prophecy and the spiritual authority of the Household of the Prophet are interwoven. The Majlis-i maktub further discusses themes such as the evolution of religious law (shari'at) and its culmination in the qiyamat (resurrection), the relation between free will and predestination, the interplay between the exoteric and esoteric aspects of faith, and the role and function of the Shi?i Imams in the cosmological narrative. This treatise is arguably the most dense expression of al-Shahrastani's thought, and it demonstrably indicates the Ismaili inclination of this Muslim scholar who has usually been regarded as a Shafi'i-Ash'ari. Daryoush Mohammad Poor's comparative study of this treatise and the corpus of Nizari Ismaili literature from the Alamut period (1090-1256) reveals the massive impact of al-Shahrastani's thought on every aspect of the doctrines of Nizari Ismailis.

Islam is the only biblical religion that still practices animal sacrifice. Indeed, every year more than a million animals are shipped to Mecca from all over the world to be slaughtered during the Muslim Hajj. This multi-disciplinary volume is the first to examine the physical foundations of this practice and the significance of the ritual. Brannon Wheeler uses both textual analysis and various types of material evidence to gain insight into the role of animal sacrifice in Islam. He provides a 'thick description' of the elaborate camel sacrifice performed by Muhammad, which serves as the model for future Hajj sacrifices. Wheeler integrates biblical and classical Arabic sources with evidence from zooarchaeology and the rock art of ancient Arabia to gain insight into an event that reportedly occurred 1400 years ago. His book encourages a more nuanced and expansive conception of "sacrifice" in the history of religion.

Sectarianism in Qumran: A Cross-Cultural Perspective explores the sectarian characteristics of the system of beliefs and laws of the two major Qumran sects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the yahad and the Damascus Covenant, using theories of sectarianism and related topics in sociology, anthropology and the study of religion. It discusses Qumranic moral and purity boundaries, cultic rituals, wealth, gender, atonement, revelation mysticism, structure and organization and compares them with those of seven sects of the same (introversionist) type: the early Anabaptists, Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish, Puritans, Quakers and Shakers. The sociological and historical relationship between the Qumran sects and the related movements of 1 Enoch, Jubilees and the Essenes are analyzed in detail, in order to understand the socio-religious background of sectarianism in Qumran and its subsequent variations. Throughout the chapters, differences between the yahad, the Damascus Covenant and the Essenes are observed in relation to social boundaries, social structure, gender relations, revelation and inclination towards mysticism. Points of resemblance and difference are traced between the Qumran sects and the early-modern Christian ones, and several different patterns of sectarian ideology and behaviour are noticed among all these sects.

The Tractate Ketubot ("marriage contracts") discusses inter alia the sum specified at the time of marriage to be paid in the event of divorce or the husband's death, together with the mutual obligations of man and wife, the wife's property, the law of inheritance in the female line and the widow's rights. The Tractate Nidda ("Female impurity") regulates conduct during menstruation (cf. Lev 15:19ff) and after birth (Lev 12); further topics are women's life stages, puberty and various medical questions.

Take Hold Of The Freedom That Is Yours In Christ! Do you want to become an even more fruitful disciple of Jesus? Are you tired of not fulfilling your full potential as a Christian? No matter how long or short a time you have been a Christian, or how far you are on the journey, you will find The Steps To Freedom In Christ a wonderfully refreshing spiritual check-up. It will help you clear away the spiritual cobwebs and connect with Jesus in a deeper way. Many use it on a regular basis to give God an opportunity to highlight attitudes and behaviors that need to change and to uncover areas where their faith is not as strong as they would like it to be. It's also extremely effective for those facing particular challenges such as: * condemning thoughts * patterns of wrong behavior * spiritual struggles * hopelessness You might also want to use The Steps To Freedom In Christ DVD, in which Neil Anderson and Steve Goss (international director of Freedom In Christ Ministries) take you through this book. Dr. Neil T. Anderson is the founder and president emeritus of Freedom In Christ Ministries, which has offices and representatives in 40 countries. He was formerly chairman of the Practical Theology Department at Talbot School of Theology and has five earned degrees, including two doctorates. Dr. Anderson and his wife live in Franklin, Tennessee. For more information see www.ficm.org or www.ficminternational.org.

In recent bilateral ecumenical dialogue the aim of the dialogue has been to reach some form of doctrinal consensus. The three major chapters of the book discuss the variety of forms of doctrinal consensus found in ecumenical dialogues among Anglicans, Lutherans and Roman Catholics. In general, the dialogue documents argue for agreement/consensus based on commonality or compatibility. Each of the three dialogue processes has specific characteristics and formulates its argument in a unique way. The Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue has a particular interest in hermeneutical questions and proposes various forms of 'differentiated' or perspectival forms of consensus. The Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue emphasises the correctness of interpretations. The documents consciously look towards a 'common future', not the separated past. "Ecclesiological Investigations" brings together quality research and inspiring debates in ecclesiology worldwide from a network of international scholars, research centres and projects in the field.

Feuerbachs "Theogonie" ist die Frucht sechsjahriger Studien, die er im Anschluss an die 1848/49 in Heidelberg gehaltenen "Vorlesungen uber das Wesen der Religion" begonnen hatte. Die Schrift vollendet seine philosophisch-anthropologische Theorie vom Wesen der Religion. Seine Religionsanalyse gelangt hier, unter philologisch meisterhafter Benutzung literarischer Zeugnisse des Altertums, zur Theorie des "theogonischen Wunsches": Die Vorstellungswelt der Religion wird als phantastische gedankliche Schopfung blossen menschlichen Wunschdenkens verstanden, das aus schmerzlich empfundener menschlicher Ohnmacht und Bedurftigkeit im irdischen Dasein entspringt. Damit wird die Religion, gleich welcher Erscheinungsform, ihrem Ursprunge nach als allusionarer Akt der Wunscherfullung begriffen; ihr wird ein ausschliesslich subjektiv-menschlicher Ursprung zuerkannt."

This book reexamines the central themes of Reformation theology. Chung considers the energy of the Spirit as the "Spiritus Creator "within the natural world, the Spirit's place in the Trinity, the role of the Spirit in election, the controversial question of the third use of the law, and the effects of the Spirit for the life of the world. In addressing these and many other issues, this book clearly and carefully describes the fundamental shape of Reformation thinking and introduces the reader to what was and is at stake in the Reformation's insistence on the centrality of the Gospel.

Hyun Joo Kim claims that Bonhoeffer transforms and reconstructs the Augustinian doctrine of original sin by shifting the hamartiological premise from the doctrine of God to the doctrine of the church based on his Lutheran resources. In Bonhoeffer's view, Augustine's doctrine of original sin does not fully relate the doctrine of sin to the responsibility of the saints. In order to reform Augustinian hamartiology, Bonhoeffer appropriates Augustine's notion of the church as the whole Christ (totus Christus), which is located in Augustine's ecclesiology. Kim explicates how Augustine relates his epistemological premises in his Christianized Platonism to his formulation of the doctrine of original sin, and examines how Luther's Christocentric standpoint transforms Augustine's anthropology and ultimately leads Luther to his relational hamartiology. Kim contends that Bonhoeffer's later hamartiology and ethics contain the most distinctive characteristics of Bonhoeffer's doctrine of sin, in that he not only incorporates both the active and passive dimensions of sin, but also intensifies his continuing notion of "vicarious representative action" towards the church community.

In secular Europe the veracity of modern science is almost always taken for granted. Whether they think of the evolutionary proofs of Darwin or of spectacular investigation into the boundaries of physics conducted by CERN's Large Hadron Collider, most people assume that scientific enquiry goes to the heart of fundamental truths about the universe. Yet elsewhere, science is under siege. In the USA, Christian fundamentalists contest whether evolution should be taught in schools at all. And in Muslim countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan and Malaysia, a mere 15 per cent of those recently surveyed believed Darwin's theory to be 'true' or 'probably true'. This thoughtful and passionately argued book contends absolutely to the contrary: not only that evolutionary theory does not contradict core Muslim beliefs, but that many scholars, from Islam's golden age to the present, adopted a worldview that accepted evolution as a given. Guessoum suggests that the Islamic world, just like the Christian, needs to take scientific questions - 'quantum questions' - with the utmost seriousness if it is to recover its true heritage and integrity. In its application of a specifically Muslim perspective to important topics like cosmology, divine action and evolution, the book makes a vital contribution to debate in the disputed field of 'science and religion'.