A study of the life and background of 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, putative founder of the Qadiriyya order, investigating the sources for his life and attributed works. The book seeks to elucidate the ideas of al-Jilani, and to formulate a picture of the most prominent trends of pious and mystical thought in Baghdad during the twelfth century, providing a cultural and geographical angle to the study of Islamic mysticism and piety.

This clearly-structured, classroom-tested textbook/reference presents a methodical introduction to the field of CI. Providing an authoritative insight into all that is necessary for the successful application of CI methods, the book describes fundamental concepts and their practical implementations, and explains the theoretical background underpinning proposed solutions to common problems. Only a basic knowledge of mathematics is required. Features: provides electronic supplementary material at an associated website, including module descriptions, lecture slides, exercises with solutions, and software tools; contains numerous examples and definitions throughout the text; presents self-contained discussions on artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, fuzzy systems and Bayesian networks; covers the latest approaches, including ant colony optimization and probabilistic graphical models; written by a team of highly-regarded experts in CI, with extensive experience in both academia and industry.