Key Themes for the Study of Islam examines the central themes and concepts indispensable to an informed understanding of Islamic religion and society. This book will become the first choice for students and experts in religion from disparate fields who wish to know how Islam relates to vital concepts in religion and society today.

Key Themes for the Study of Islam examines the central themes and concepts indispensable to an informed understanding of Islamic religion and society. This book will become the first choice for students and experts in religion from disparate fields who wish to know how Islam relates to vital concepts in religion and society today.

Alef Is for Allah is the first groundbreaking study of the emotional space occupied by children in modern Islamic societies. Focusing primarily on visual representations of children from modern Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, the book examines these materials to investigate concepts such as innocence, cuteness, gender, virtue, and devotion, as well as community, nationhood, violence, and sacrifice. In addition to exploring a subject that has never been studied comparatively before, Alef Is for Allah extends the boundaries of scholarship on emotion, religion, and visual culture and provides unique insight into Islam as it is lived and experienced in the modern world.

This Is Islam presents a lively introduction to a religion that has a dramatic history and plays a crucial role in the world today. Designed for people unfamiliar with Islamic beliefs, rituals, and customs, it explains the history of Islam, the importance of Islamic law, and major sects including Sunnism, Shi'ism, and Sufism.

Alef Is for Allah is the first groundbreaking study of the emotional space occupied by children in modern Islamic societies. Focusing primarily on visual representations of children from modern Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, the book examines these materials to investigate concepts such as innocence, cuteness, gender, virtue, and devotion, as well as community, nationhood, violence, and sacrifice. In addition to exploring a subject that has never been studied comparatively before, Alef Is for Allah extends the boundaries of scholarship on emotion, religion, and visual culture and provides unique insight into Islam as it is lived and experienced in the modern world.

""The heart's desire is unfulfilled and distant. My Lover won't give it medicine, and it won't mend its ways. Hotter fires burn in love's battlefield And, Bahu, I'm in awe of those who charge in. With their earthy charm and engaging simplicity, these Punjabi verses convey the immediacy of the spiritual quest as expressed in the popular idiom and imagery of the countryside. A fine choice for courses in Islamic religious studies and spirituality."--John Renard, author of "Seven Doors to Islam

"The great Punjabi Sufi poet Sultan Bahu comes alive for English readers in this lucid and accessible translation. Transmitted orally by generations of singers, these powerful verses show how Sufism has actually been communicated."--Carl W. Ernst, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Media coverage of the Danish cartoon crisis and the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan left Westerners with a strong impression that Islam does not countenance depiction of religious imagery. Jamal J. Elias corrects this view by revealing the complexity of Islamic attitudes toward representational religious art. "Aisha s Cushion" emphasizes Islam s perceptual and intellectual modes and in so doing offers the reader both insight into Islamic visual culture and a unique way of seeing the world.

"Aisha s Cushion" evaluates the controversies surrounding blasphemy and iconoclasm by exploring Islamic societies at the time of Muhammad and the birth of Islam; during early contact between Arab Muslims and Byzantine Christians; in medieval Anatolia and India; and in modern times. Elias s inquiry then goes further, to situate Islamic religious art in a global context. His comparisons with Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu attitudes toward religious art show them to be as contradictory as those of Islam. Contemporary theories about art s place in society inform Elias s investigation of how religious objects have been understood across time and in different cultures.

Elias contends that Islamic perspectives on representation and perception should be sought not only in theological writings or aesthetic treatises but in a range of Islamic works in areas as diverse as optics, alchemy, dreaming, calligraphy, literature, vehicle and home decoration, and Sufi metaphysics. Unearthing shades of meaning in Islamic thought throughout history, Elias offers fresh insight into the relations among religion, art, and perception across a broad range of cultures."