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.

Spend the Christmas season in a meaningful way through a totally new Advent devotional study. See God in a whole new way as you enjoy a day-by-day study in the book of Psalms, learning Hebrew phrases and historical highlights that explain the personal love God has for you. Here's a Christmas gift you'll always remember!

The discipline of religious studies has, historically, tended to focus on discrete ritual mistakes that occur in the context of individual performances outlined in ethnographic or sociological studies, and scholars have largely dismissed the fact that there are extensive discussions of ritual mistakes in many indigenous traditions' religious literature. And yet ritual mistakes (ranging from the simple to the complex) happen all the time, and they continue to carry ritual "weight," even when no one seriously doubts their impact on the efficacy of a ritual. In Ritual Gone Wrong, Kathryn McClymond approaches ritual mistakes as an integral part of ritual life and argues that religious traditions can accommodate mistakes and are often prepared for them. McClymond shows that many traditions even incorporate the regular occurrence of errors into their ritual systems, developing a substantial literature on how rituals can be disrupted, how these disruptions can be addressed, and when disruptions have gone too far. Using a series of case studies ranging from ancient India to modern day Iraq, and from medieval allegations of child sacrifice to contemporary Olympic ceremonies, McClymond explores the numerous ways in which ritual can go wrong, and demonstrates that the ritual is by nature fluid, supple, and dynamic-simultaneously adapting to socio-cultural conditions and, in some cases, shaping them.

"Biblical Principles of Prayer" challenges you to experience new levels of prayer that will affect every area of your life. Living a life conducive to receiving--means laying aside personal desires and egotistical values that are in direct contrast with His will. The church that prays--There are about 25,000 denominations--every one of them believing that they have the right answer and the most accurate hermeneutics. Prayer and the "Bible"--the pioneers of modern science--modern science is thousands of years behind when it comes to the issue of health. The issue of prayer in school--Christians are quick to jump on the "prayer in school" bandwagon, but do you really want it back as it was? "Biblical Principles of Prayer" will compel you to revisit the way you pray. It will show you how to have dunamis (dynamite) power in your prayers. Have you ever wanted to be a pray-er who really sees results? Dr. Church, who in 1998 was healed from a very rare type of cancer, understands what it means to appreciate authoritative prayer. Buzz words and powerless mechanical discourses are of little value when you are facing death.

Merton's biographer, George Woodcock, once wrote that "almost from the beginning of his monastic career, Thomas Merton tentatively began to discover the great Asian religions of Buddhism and Taoism." Merton, a longtime social justice advocate, first approached Eastern theology as an admirer of Gandhi's beliefs on non-violence. Through Gandhi, Merton came to know the great Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita and in time came to have dialogues with the Dalai Lama and Taoist leader D. T. Suzuki. Merton then became deeply interested in Chuang Tzu and Zen thought. On Eastern Meditation, edited by Bonnie Thurston (author of Merton and Buddhism), gathers the best of his Eastern theological writings into a gorgeously designed gift book edition.

The practice of making votive offerings into fire dates from the earliest periods of human history, and is found in many different religious cultures. Throughout the tantric world, this kind of ritual offering practice is known as the homa. With roots in Vedic and Zoroastrian rituals, the tantric homa developed in early medieval India. Since that time it has been transmitted to Central and East Asia by tantric Buddhist practitioners. Today, Hindu forms are also being practiced outside of India as well. Despite this historical and cultural range, the homa retains an identifiable unity of symbolism and ritual form. The essays collected in Homa Variations provide detailed studies of a variety of homa forms, providing an understanding of the history of the homa from its inception up to its use in the present. At the same time, the authors cover a wide range of religious cultures, from India and Nepal to Tibet, China, and Japan. The theoretical focus of the collection is the study of ritual change over long periods of time, and across the boundaries of religious cultures. The identifiable unity of the homa allows for an almost unique opportunity to examine ritual change from such a broad perspective.

The Vaikhanasas are mentioned in many Vedic texts, and they maintain a close affiliation with the Taittiriya school of the Krsna Yajur Veda. Yet they are Vaisnavas, monotheistic worshipers of Visnu. Generally, Vaisnavism is held to be a post-Vedic development. Thus, the Vaikhanasas bridge two key ages in the history of South Asian religion. This text contains many quotations from ancient Vedic literature, and probably some other older original material, as well as architectural and iconographical data of the later first millennium CE. The Vaikhanasas remain relevant today. They are the chief priests (arcakas) in more than half of the Visnu temples in the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka-including the renowned Hindu pilgrimage center Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.

Many people are confused by Prayer. Does prayer bring God to me? Is Prayer a means of grace? Is it a pipeline of communication between a believer and God? Is it better to pray more? Through the eyes of this pastoral scholar, readers discover that prayer is based not on what the believer does, but on God's mercy. In the mercy, prayer is designed to help Christians transcend problems and troubles by hearing God through His Word and Sacraments. Readers learn how prayers from the Bible teach the Christian about prayer's place in the daily piety of the believer.

One of the distinguished schools of Islamic spiritual discipline, the Naqshbandi Sufi Order has a long and illustrious history from the first days of Islam. Led by the shaykhs of the Golden Chain-inheritors of spiritual knowledge from Prophet Muhammad-the Naqshbandi Order has always played a central, pivotal role in the life of people in the Muslim world and survived the turmoil and tribulations of the past century to remain one of the few authentic mystical traditions maintaining a living link with its ancient past. The extraordinary vision of the Naqshbandi Saints was manifest in their establishment of fixed devotions and daily practices firmly rooted in the Qur'an and Sunnah of the Prophet. These practices have enabled devout seekers to awaken certainty of belief and to attain stations of nearness to the Divine Presence. The renewed prominence of this order at the turn of the 21st century, due to the indefatigable striving of Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani, signals an impending change to our society in which aspirants to Divine Service will be granted to transcend the bounds of the physical senses in order to fulfill the unexplored potential in each human heart. The Naqshbandi Devotions are a source of light and energy, an oasis in a worldly desert. Through the manifestations of Divine Blessings bestowed on the practitioners of these magnificent rites, they will be granted the power of magnanimous healing, by which they seek to cure the hearts of mankind darkened by the gloom of spiritual poverty and materialism. We pray that each person who picks up this book of devotions with sincere intention to observe any of its efficacious practices will receive a portion of the blessings and manifestations bestowed on the greatest saints of earlier times.

A new English translation of the most influential legal text in medieval India. A Treatise on Dharma, written in the fourth or fifth century, is the finest example of the genre of dharmasastra-texts on religious, civil, and criminal law and the duties of rulers-that informed Indian life for a thousand years. It illuminates major cultural innovations, such as the prominence of documents in commercial and legal proceedings, the use of ordeals in resolving disputes, and the growing importance of yoga in spiritual practices. Composed by an anonymous author during the reign of the imperial Guptas, the Treatise is ascribed to the Upanishadic philosopher Yajnavalkya, whose instruction of a group of sages serves as the frame narrative for the work. It became the most influential legal text in medieval India, and a twelfth-century interpretation came to be considered "the law of the land" under British rule. This translation of A Treatise on Dharma, based on a new critical edition and presented alongside the Sanskrit original in the Devanagari script, opens the classical age of ancient Indian law to modern readers.

Waqfs, or religious endowments, have long been at the very center of daily Islamic life, establishing religious, cultural, and welfare institutions and serving as a legal means to keep family property intact through several generations. In this book R. D. McChesney focuses on the major Muslim shrine at Balkh--once a flourishing city on an ancient trade route in what is now northern Afghanistan--and provides a detailed study of the political, economic, and social conditions that influenced, and were influenced by, the development of a single religious endowment. From its founding in 1480 until 1889, when the Afghan government took control of it, the waqf at Balkh was a formidable economic force in a financially dynamic region, particularly during those times when the endowment's sacred character and the tax privileges it acquired gave its managers considerable financial security. This study sheds new light on the legal institution of waqf within Muslim society and on how political conditions affected the development of socio-religious institutions throughout Central Asia over a period of four hundred years.

Originally published in 1991.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"Talking to the Dead" is an ethnography of seven Gullah/Geechee women from the South Carolina lowcountry. These women communicate with their ancestors through dreams, prayer, and visions and traditional crafts and customs, such as storytelling, basket making, and ecstatic singing in their churches. Like other Gullah/Geechee women of the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, these women, through their active communication with the deceased, make choices and receive guidance about how to live out their faith and engage with the living. LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant emphasizes that this communication affirms the women's spiritual faith--which seamlessly integrates Christian and folk traditions--and reinforces their position as powerful culture keepers within Gullah/Geechee society. By looking in depth at this long-standing spiritual practice, Manigault-Bryant highlights the subversive ingenuity that lowcountry inhabitants use to thrive spiritually and to maintain a sense of continuity with the past.

Mock Ritual in the Modern Era explores the complex interrelations between ritual and mockery, the latter of which is not infrequently the unofficial face of claims to rationality. McGinnis and Smyth consider how the mocking and parodying of ritual often associated with modern rationalism may itself become ritualized, and other ways in which supposedly sham ritual may survive its "outing." This volume traces the evolution of "mock ritual" in various forms throughout the modern era, as found in literary, historical, and anthropological texts as well as encyclopedias, newspapers, and films. Mock Ritual in the Modern Era places famous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors in dialogue with contemporary popular culture, from Diderot, Sterne, and Flaubert to the TV shows Survivor and Judge Judy, and from Voltaire to the Charlie Hebdo tragedy of 2015. Ritualistic and mock ritualistic aspects of comedy and ridicule are considered along with those, notably, of sexuality, medicine, art, education, and justice.

People say it's easy for members of a monastic order to have full spiritual life because their environment allows for peaceful meditation. But is the peace from contemplation beyond the reach of the person in the world struggling with noise of today's life? A new book of practical spirituality, A Place Apart shows how the peace and serenity of an abbey can be achieved despite the noise and busyness of today's world. A leading American spiritual writer and Trappist monk, Father Basil Pennington shows how, step by step, the spirituality of monasticism can be converted for use in daily life.

Ritual has emerged as a major focus of academic interest. As a concept, the idea of ritual integrates the study of behavior both within and beyond the domain of religion. Ritual can be both secular and religious in character. There is renewed interest in questions such as: Why do rituals exist at all? What has been, and continues to be, their place in society? How do they change over time? Such questions exist against a backdrop of assumptions about development, modernization, and disenchantment of the world.Written with the specific needs of students of religious studies in mind, "Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion" surveys the field of ritual studies, looking at it both historically within anthropology and in terms of its contemporary relevance to world events.

Over the centuries, Buddhist ideas have influenced medical thought and practice in complex and varied ways in diverse regions and cultures. A companion to Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources, this work presents a collection of modern and contemporary texts and conversations from across the Buddhist world dealing with the multifaceted relationship between Buddhism and medicine. Covering the early modern period to the present, this anthology focuses on the many ways Buddhism and medicine were shaped by the forces of colonialism, science, and globalization, as well as ruptures and reconciliations between tradition and modernity. Editor C. Pierce Salguero and an international collection of scholars highlight diversity and innovation in the encounters between Buddhist and medical thought. The chapters contain a wide range of sources presenting different perspectives rooted in distinct times and places, including translations of published and unpublished documents and transcripts of ethnographic interviews as well as accounts by missionaries and colonial authorities and materials from the contemporary United States and United Kingdom. Together, these varied sources illustrate the many intersections of Buddhism and medicine in the past and how this nexus continues to be crucial in today's global context.

The period leading up to and culminating in the High Holy Days is the most intensely spiritual time of the Jewish year. Designed for Jews of all backgrounds and at all levels of observance and knowledge, as well as those new to Judaism, this journal helps us experience the renewal of spirit to which we all aspire.

In his probing study of the role of death rites in the making of Islamic society, Leor Halevi imaginatively plays prescriptive texts against material culture and advances new ways of interpreting highly contested sources. His original research reveals that religious scholars of the early Islamic period produced codes of funerary law not only to define the handling of a Muslim corpse but also to transform everyday urban practices. Relying on oral traditions, these scholars established new social patterns in the cities of Arabia, Mesopotamia, and the eastern Mediterranean. They distinguished Islamic rites from Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian rites and changed the way men and women interacted publicly and privately.

In each chapter Halevi explores a different layer of human interaction, following the movement of the corpse from the deathbed to the grave. In the process he analyzes the real and imaginary relationships between husbands and wives, prayer leaders and mourners, and even dreamers and the dead. He describes how Muslims wailed for the deceased, prepared corpses for burial, marched in funerary processions, and prayed for the dead, highlighting the specific economic and political factors involved in these rituals as well as key religious and sexual divisions.

Offering a unique perspective on the making of Islamic social and religious ideals during this early period, Halevi forges a fascinating link between the development of funerary rites and the efforts of an emerging religion to carve out its own, distinct identity. "Muhammad's Grave" is a groundbreaking history of the rise of Islam and the roots of contemporary Muslim attitudes toward the body and society.