"Al-Ghazali on Conduct in Travel" is a translation of the seventeenth book of the "Revival of the Religious Sciences" (Ihya Ulum al-Din), which is widely regarded as the greatest work of Muslim spirituality. In "Al-Ghazali on Conduct in Travel", Abu Hamid al-Ghazali uncovers, as elsewhere in the "Revival", the mystical and religious dimension of one of humanity's most basic needs: in this instance, travel.---In Chapter One, Ghazali begins by providing the reader with the four reasons for travel, which include for the quest for knowledge and to flee from harm and danger. The advantages gained from travelling are also described by Ghazali-for example, the disciplining of the soul through exposure to the harsh conditions of travel as well as the acquisition of virtue and self-knowledge. Ghazali then explains what the seven proper conducts of travels-both outward conduct and inward conduct-consist of. In Chapter Two, Ghazali provides a practical chapter on the use of religious concessions while travelling, and concludes with a final chapter on how the traveller is to establish the proper direction and times for prayer. "Al-Ghazali on Conduct in Travel" will be of interest to all those wishing to explore the disciplining qualities of everyday activities applied here to the spiritual dimension of travelling.---In this new edition, the Islamic Texts Society has included the translation of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's own Introduction to the "Revival of the Religious Sciences" which gives the reasons that caused him to write the work, the structure of the whole of the Revival and places each of the chapters in the context of the others.

Recent years have seen an increased interest in Jewish life, its culture, and its celebrations. There are many new students of Judaism, often potential converts or members of interfaith families who are seeking to learn more about the religion and its rituals. Unfortunately, many of the existing texts that examine the Jewish holidays are written in a dry, unexciting way, making it difficult for the reader to retain much information. For those seeking to learn more about Jewish celebrations, Cantor Matt Axelrod has written Your Guide to the Jewish Holidays: From Shofar to Seder. Intended for the reader who has no prior knowledge about the Jewish holidays as well as the reader who knows the basics about the holidays but wants to understand the holidays on a deeper level, Axelrod's book takes a humorous, light-hearted look at the 11 most important Jewish holidays. Instead of simply explaining that Jews are obligated to observe in a certain way because of a biblical text, Axelrod shows where each holiday, along with its rituals, came from in a historical context. He provides a humorous retelling of the biblical passages relating to the holiday, explorations of rituals associated with each holiday, and descriptions of traditional foods. Your Guide to the Jewish Holidays also features special sections labeled "In Depth" or "Perfect for Families" that expand upon elements of each holiday in ways that provide greater understanding of traditions or that invite the reader to get the rest of the family involved.

Nomads on Pilgrimage: Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800-1940 is a social history of the Mongols' pilgrimages to Wutaishan in late imperial and Republican times. In this period of economic crisis and rise of nationalism and anticlericalism in Mongolia and China, this great Buddhist mountain of China became a unique place of intercultural exchanges, mutual borrowings, and competition between different ethnic groups. Based on a variety of written and visual sources, including a rich corpus of more than 340 Mongolian stone inscriptions, it documents why and how Wutaishan became one of the holiest sites for Mongols, who eventually reshaped its physical and spiritual landscape by their rites and strategies of appropriation.

Are you looking for ways to engage in Prayer and fasting more effectively? In this guide, Dr. Pauline Walley-Daniels reveals how Esther led people in an effective prayer fast that changed their circumstances for life. She explains how to fast and provides important prayer points that are applicable to any situation. Every year, Walley-Daniels's home church and its affiliates set themselves apart to perform a progressive prayer fast based on Esther's encounter.

Queen Esther declared the fast when she discovered that Haman, the enemy of the Jews, was plotting to destroy her people. It was a time when all came before God, fasting and crying to Him for family members and for breakthrough and deliverance from any Hamanic decrees enacted against them and their lives.

Building on that model, this guide is a song of inspiration, an encouragement through each season of the fast. The insights and practical guidelines it offers enable each of us to break through the challenges and difficulties that confront our environment and our spiritual lives.

"Dr. Pauline Walley-Daniels fights a good fight of spiritual warfare. ... She presents powerful, effective prayers that are specific to the challenges individuals may face in fulfilling their destiny."

-Susan Slusher, Dean, Christian International Equipping Network

The author discusses how religious groups, especially Jews, Mormons and Jesuits, were labeled as foreign and constructed as political, moral and national threats in Scandinavia in different periods between c. 1790 and 1960. Key questions are who articulated such opinions, how was the threat depicted, and to what extent did it influence state policies towards these groups. A special focus is given to Norway, because the Constitution of 1814 included a ban against Jews (repelled in 1851) and Jesuits (repelled in 1956), and because Mormons were denied the status of a legal religion until freedom of religion was codified in the Constitution in 1964. The author emphasizes how the construction of religious minorities as perils of society influenced the definition of national identities in all Scandinavia, from the late 18th Century until well after WWII. The argument is that Jews, Mormons and Jesuits all were constructed as "anti-citizens", as opposites of what it meant to be "good" citizens of the nation. The discourse that framed the need for national protection against foreign religious groups was transboundary. Consequently, transnational stereotypes contributed significantly in defining national identities.

Jewish customs and traditions about death, burial and mourning are numerous, diverse and intriguing. They are considered by many to have a respectable pedigree that goes back to the earliest rabbinic period. In order to examine the accurate historical origins of many of them, an international conference was held at Tel Aviv University in 2010 and experts dealt with many aspects of the topic. This volume includes most of the papers given then, as well as a few added later. What emerges are a wealth of fresh material and perspectives, as well as the realization that the high Middle Ages saw a set of exceptional innovations, some of which later became central to traditional Judaism while others were gradually abandoned. Were these innovations influenced by Christian practice? Which prayers and poems reflect these innovations? What do the sources tell us about changing attitudes to death and life-after death? Are tombstones an important guide to historical developments? Answers to these questions are to be found in this unusual, illuminating and readable collection of essays that have been well documented, carefully edited and well indexed.

The Routledge Handbook of Religious and Spiritual Tourism provides a robust and comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the literature in this growing sub-field of tourism. This handbook is split into five distinct sections. The first section covers past and present debates regarding definitions, theories, and concepts related to religious and spiritual tourism. Subsequent sections focus on the supply and demand aspects of religious and spiritual tourism markets, and examine issues related to the management side of these markets around the world. Areas under examination include religious theme parks, the UNESCO branding of religious heritage, gender and performance, popular culture, pilgrimage, environmental impacts, and fear and terrorism, among many others. The final section explores emerging and future directions in religious and spiritual tourism, and proposes an agenda for further research. Interdisciplinary in coverage and international in scope through its authorship and content, this will be essential reading for all students, researchers, and academics interested in Tourism, Religion, Cultural Studies, and Heritage Studies.

This book examines the history of, and the contestations on, Islam and the nature of religious change in 20th century Pakistan, focusing in particular on movements of Islamic reform and revival. This book is the first to bring the different facets of Islam, particularly Islamic reformism and shrine-oriented traditions, together within the confines of a single study ranging from the colonial to post-colonial era. Using a rich corpus of Urdu and Arabic material including biographical accounts, Sufi discourses (malfuzat), letter collections, polemics and unexplored archival sources, the author investigates how Islamic reformism and shrine-oriented religiosity interacted with one another in the post-colonial state of Pakistan. Focusing on the district of Mianwali in Pakistani northwestern Punjab, the book demonstrates how reformist ideas could only effectively find space to permeate after accommodating Sufi thoughts and practices; the text-based religious identity coalesced with overlapped traditional religious rituals and practices. The book proceeds to show how reformist Islam became the principal determinant of Islamic identity in the post-colonial state of Pakistan and how one of its defining effects was the hardening of religious boundaries. Challenging the approach of viewing the contestation between reformist and shrine-oriented Islam through the lens of binaries modern/traditional and moderate/extremist, this book makes an important contribution to the field of South Asian religion and Islam in modern South Asia.

Drawing on insights from Indian intellectual tradition, this book examines the conception of dharma by Jaimini in his Mimamsasutras, assessing its contemporary relevance, particularly within ritual scholarship. Presenting a hermeneutical re-reading of the text, it investigates the theme of the relationship between subjectivity and tradition in the discussion of dharma, bringing it into conversation with contemporary discourses on ritual. The primary argument offered is that Jaimini's conception of dharma can be read as a philosophy of Vedic practice, centred on the enjoinment of the subject, whose stages of transformation possess the structure of a hermeneutic tradition. Offering both substantive and methodological insights into the contentions within the contemporary study of ritual, this book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Hindu studies, ritual studies, Asian religion, and South Asian studies.

This book will offer an account not so much of God's Providence an sich, but rather of divine providence as experienced by believers and unbelievers. It will not ask questions about whether and how God knows the future, or how suffering can be accounted for (as is the case in the treatments by William Lane Craig, Richard Swinburne, or J. Sanders), but will focus on prayer and decision-making as a faithful and/or desperate response to the perception of God as having some controlling influence. The following gives an idea of the ground to be covered: The patristic foundations of the Christian view of Providence; The medieval synthesis of 'objective' and 'subjective' views; Reformational and Early Modern: the shift towards piety; Modern Enlightenment: Providence and Ethics; Barth and the Sceptics; The sense of Providence in the Modern Novel and World.

Within the field of Islamic Studies, scientific research of Muslim theology is a comparatively young discipline. Much progress has been achieved over the past decades with respect both to discoveries of new materials and to scholarly approaches to the field. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the current state of the field. It provides a variegated picture of the state of the art and at the same time suggests new directions for future research. Part One covers the various strands of Islamic theology during the formative and early middle periods, rational as well as scripturalist. To demonstrate the continuous interaction among the various theological strands and its repercussions (during the formative and early middle period and beyond), Part Two offers a number of case studies. These focus on specific theological issues that have developed through the dilemmatic and often polemical interactions between the different theological schools and thinkers. Part Three covers Islamic theology during the later middle and early modern periods. One of the characteristics of this period is the growing amalgamation of theology with philosophy (Peripatetic and Illuminationist) and mysticism. Part Four addresses the impact of political and social developments on theology through a number of case studies: the famous mihna instituted by al-Ma"mun (r. 189/813-218/833) as well as the mihna to which Ibn "Aqil (d. 769/1367) was subjected; the religious policy of the Almohads; as well as the shifting interpretations throughout history (particularly during Mamluk and Ottoman times) of the relation between Ash"arism and Maturidism that were often motivated by political motives. Part Five considers Islamic theological thought from the end of the early modern and during the modern period.

This book presents a systematic approach to the literary analysis of cultural practices. Based on a postcolonial framework of diaspora, the book utilizes literary theory to investigate cultural phenomena such as food preparation and song. Razia Parveen explores various diverse themes, including the female voice, genealogy, space, time, and diaspora, and applies them to the analysis of community identity. This volume also demonstrates how a literary analysis of oral texts helps to provide insight into women's lived narratives. For example, Parveen discusses how the notion of the 'third space' creates a distinctly feminine spatiality.

Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, wielding an authority second only to the Qur'an. The words of Muhammad (d. 11/632), God's messenger and prophet of Islam, have a special place in the hearts of his followers. Wielding an authority second only to the Qur'an, Muhammad's hadith are cited by scholars as testimonial texts in a vast array of disciplines-including law, theology, metaphysics, poetry, grammar, history, and medicine-and are quoted by Muslims to one another in their daily lives. Assembling Muhammad's words has been a major preoccupation for scholars throughout the fourteen centuries since his death, resulting in an abundance of compilations. Among the legally-grounded collections, which aimed to guide the community in its practice of religious law and ritual worship, one which stands out in particular is Light in the Heavens (Kitab al-Shihab) by al-Qadi al-Quda'i, a Shafi'i judge in the Fatimid court in Egypt. The collection's overall conceptualization is distinctively ethical and pragmatic, and offers humanitarian lessons and practical insights with universal appeal. From North Africa to India, generations have used Light in the Heavens as a teaching text for children as well as adults, and many of its 1200 sayings are familiar to individuals of diverse denominations and ethnicities. For Muslims-who consider Muhammad's teachings the fount of wisdom and the beacon of guidance in all things, mundane and sublime-these sayings provide a direct window into the inspired vision of one of the most influential humans to have walked the Earth. A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

In previous studies of South Asian Tantric ritual, scholars tend to focus on one region or context. For the first time, Tantra, Ritual Performance and Politics in Nepal and Kerala: Embodying the Goddess-clan offers a comparative approach to Tantric mediumship as observed in two locales: Navadurga rituals in Bhaktapur, Nepal, and Teyyattam in North Kerala. In this book, Matthew Martin advances a new theory of ritual, which spotlights the way dancer-mediums embody medieval goddess-clans and ancestor deities, through offerings of food and sacrifice, that synchronize their denizens with the land in spiralling web-like ritual networks. Uniquely interdisciplinary in style, this study synthesizes cultural history, ethnography, and theory to explore the continuities - historical, societal, and political - that characterize these ritual traditions across the subcontinent.

In these modern times, we are easily distracted by the cares of the world. We quickly forget those who have died, even those souls who were once so very dear to us in life. We even fail to be mindful of our own salvation and our entire purpose to love, serve, and know God through His Catholic Church. Draw Us after Thee was lovingly compiled in the hopes of helping us to remember these urgent realities. This collection organizes together many of the beautiful practices which Catholic could reap so many spiritual rewards from, whether for the merit of their own souls or for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, and in a way that is simple and manageable, even to those with very busy lives. It includes daily prayers and devotions that carry indulgences, taken word-for-word from The Raccolta, as well as a place to record personal traditions and important events, such as birthdays, anniversaries, and feast days of the family...

This book highlights the history of Islamic popular devotional art and visual culture in 20th-century India, weaving the personal narrative of the author's journey through his understanding of the faith. It begins with an introductory exploration of how the basic and universal image of Mecca and Medina may have been imported into Indian popular print culture and what variants it resulted in here. Besides providing a historical context of the pre-print culture of popular Muslim visuality, the book also explores the impact the 1947 Partition of India may have made on the calendar art in South Asia. A significant portion of the book focuses on the contemporary prints of different localised images found in India and what role these play in the users' lives, especially in the augmentation of their popular faith and cultural practices. The volume also compares the images published in India with some of those available in Pakistan to reflect different socio-political trajectories. Finally, it discusses why such a vibrant visual culture continues to thrive among South Asian Muslims despite the questions raised by the orthodoxy on its legitimacy in Islam, and why images and popular visual cultures are inevitable for popular piety despite the orthodox Muslims' increasing dissociation from them. This work is one of the first books on Indian Muslim poster art, with rare images and simple narratives, anecdotes about rituals, ceremonies and cultural traditions running parallel to research findings. This second edition contains a new Afterword that discusses challenges to religious plurality arising on account of changing political landscapes, economic liberalisation, technology and new media, and socio-religious developments. It will appeal to the lay reader as well as the specialist and will be especially useful to researchers and scholars in popular culture, media and cultural studies, visual art and performance studies, and sociology and social anthropology.

The issue of divinizing in South Asian traditions has not been examined before as a process involving various methods to affect the socio-cultural cognition of the community. It is therefore essential to consider the context of "divinizing" and to analyse what groups, institutions or individuals define the discourse, what are the ideological positions that they represent, and who or what is being divinized. This book deals with the issue of divinizing in South Asian traditions. It aims at studying cultural questions related to the representations and the mythologizing of the divine. It also explores the human relations to the "divine other." It studies the interpretations of the divine in religious texts and the embodiment of the "divine other" in ritual practices. The focus is on studying the phenomenon of divinizing in its religious, cultural, and ideological implications. The book comprises eight chapters that explore the question of divinizing from the 2nd century CE up to present-day in North and South India. The chapters discuss the issue both from insider and outsider perspectives, within the framework of textual study as well as ideological and anthropological analysis. All articles explore various aspects of the cultural phenomenon of being in relation to the divine other, of the process of interpreting and embodying the divine, and of the representation of the divinizing process, as revealed in the literatures and cultures of South Asia. Applying theoretical models of religious and cultural studies to discuss texts written in South Asian languages and engage in critical dialogue with current scholarship, this book is an indispensable study of literary, religious and cultural production in South Asia. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of South Asian studies, Asian Studies, religious and cultural studies as well as comparative religion.

"Shared" sites, where members of distinct, or factionally opposed, religious communities interact-or fail to interact-is the focus of this volume. Chapters based on fieldwork from such diverse sites as India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, and Vietnam demonstrate how sharing and tolerance are both more complex and multifaceted than they are often recognized to be. By including both historical processes (the development of Chinese funerals in late imperial Beijing or the refashioning of memorial commemoration in the wake of the Vietnam war) and particular events (the visit of Pope John Paul II to shared shrines in Sri Lanka or the Al-Qaeda bombing of an ancient Jewish synagogue on the Island of Djerba in Tunisia), the volume demonstrates the importance of understanding the wider contexts within which social interactions take place and shows that tolerance and intercommunalism are simultaneously possible and perpetually under threat.

Every year before the holiday of Sukkot, Jews all around the world purchase an etrog-a lemon-like fruit-to participate in the holiday ritual. In this book, David Z. Moster tracks the etrog from its evolutionary home in Yunnan, China, to the lands of India, Iran, and finally Israel, where it became integral to the Jewish celebration of Sukkot during the Second Temple period. Moster explains what Sukkot was like before and after the arrival of the etrog, and why the etrog's identification as the "choice tree fruit" of Leviticus 23:40 was by no means predetermined. He also demonstrates that once the fruit became associated with the holiday of Sukkot, it began to appear everywhere in Jewish art during the Roman and Byzantine periods, and eventually became a symbol for all the fruits of the land, and perhaps even the Jewish people as a whole.

A collection of children's stories by international bestselling author Lorna Byrne. Lorna Byrne says we all see angels when we are young children, but are gradually conditioned to screen them out. Here, for the first time, she has written stories, inspired by real life, of seven children whose lives were transformed and made better by their interaction with their guardian angels. Among these, there is a story of a little girl called Suzy, paralysed from birth and unable to play with other children. Angels play with her and bring her great happiness. In another story a little girl called Emma is mean to her classmates and gets her little brothers into trouble at home. Her guardian angel gradually prompts her towards a more harmonious and happy life. Tommy feels he is an outsider because he is no good at football. Then with his guardian angel's loving help and attention, Tommy scores a brilliant goal! Lorna began telling stories to her daughter Aideen at an age when, like all children, she was beginning to focus far more on the material world and less on spiritual influences. These stories are written to show children the ways in which they can ask for help from their guardian angels and perhaps even to catch a glimpse of them.