- Arguing the Just War in Islam
- John Kelsay
- Jihad, with its many terrifying associations, is a term widely used today, though its meaning is poorly grasped. Kelsay's timely and important work focuses on jihad of the sword in Islamic thought, history, and culture. Making use of original sources, Kelsay delves into the tradition of shari'a--Islamic jurisprudence and reasoning--and shows how it defines jihad as the Islamic analogue of the Western "just" war.
- Hardcover 2007
- The Dao of Muhammad
- Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
- This book documents an Islamic-Confucian school of scholarship that flourished, mostly in the Yangzi Delta, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Drawing on previously unstudied materials, it reconstructs the network of Muslim scholars responsible for the creation and circulation of a large corpus of Chinese Islamic written material--the so-called Han Kitab. Overturning the idea that participation in Confucian culture necessitated the obliteration of all other identities, this book offers insight into the world of a group of scholars who felt that their study of the Islamic classics constituted a rightful "school" within the Confucian intellectual landscape.
- Hardcover 2005
- The Failure of Political Islam
- Olivier Roy
- Carol Volk, Translator
- Olivier Roy demonstrates that the Islamic Fundamentalism of today is still the Third Worldism of the 1960s: populist politics and mixed economies of laissez-faire for the rich and subsidies for the poor. In Roy's striking formulation, those marching today beneath Islam's green banners are the same as the "reds" of yesterday, with similarly dim prospects of success. Richly informed, powerfully argued, and clearly written, this is a book that no one trying to understand Islam can afford to overlook.
- Hardcover 1996 / Paperback 1998
- The Flowering of Muslim Theology
- Josef van Ess
- Translated by Jane Marie Todd
- The Flowering of Muslim Theology discusses the emergence of theology in the classical period and offers acute and illuminating comparisons with the Christian (and Jewish) traditions. In this lucid and authoritative introduction to classical Islam, Josef van Ess opens a window on the intellectual world that gave rise to Muslim theology. This work gives a wider audience rare insight into Islam's past.
- Hardcover 2006
- For Prophet and Tsar
- Robert D. Crews
- In stark contrast to the popular "clash of civilizations" theory that sees Islam inevitably in conflict with the West, Robert D. Crews reveals the remarkable ways in which Russia constructed an empire with broad Muslim support. For Prophet and Tsar unearths the fascinating relationship between an empire and its subjects. As America and Western Europe debate how best to secure the allegiances of their Muslim populations, Crews offers a unique and critical historical vantage point.
- Hardcover 2006
- Historical Atlas of Islam
- Malise Ruthven
- Azim Nanji, With
- From the birth of the prophet Muhammed to the independence of post-Soviet Muslim states in Central Asia, this accessible and informative atlas explains the historical evolution of Islamic societies. Rich in narrative and visual detail that illuminates the story of Islamic civilization, this is an indispensable resource to anyone interested in world history and religion.
- Hardcover 2004
- The History of an Islamic School of Law
- Nurit Tsafrir
- The Hanafi school of law is one of the oldest legal schools of Islam, coming into existence in the eighth century in Iraq, and surviving up to the present. So closely is the early development of the Hanafi school interwoven with non-legal spheres, such as the political, social, and theological, that the study of it is essential to a proper understanding of medieval Islamic history. Tsafrir offers a thorough examination of the first century and a half of the school's existence, the period during which it took shape.
- Hardcover 2004
- Islam and Ecology
- Edited by Richard C. Foltz
- Edited by Frederick M. Denny
- Edited by Azizan Baharuddin
- The articulation of an Islamic environmental ethic in contemporary terms is all the more urgent because Western-style conservation efforts do not fit all cultural and philosophical traditions. This volume outlines the Islamic view of the cosmic order and reviews the ways an Islamic world view can be interpreted, reassessed, and applied to such environmental problems as pollution and water scarcity.
- Paperback 2003 / Hardcover 2003
- Islam and the Secular State
- Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im
- What should be the place of Shari‘a—Islamic religious law—in predominantly Muslim societies of the world? In this book, a Muslim scholar and human rights activist envisions a positive and sustainable role for Shari‘a, based on a profound rethinking of the relationship between religion and the secular state in all societies.
- Hardcover 2008
- Islam without Fear
- Raymond William Baker
- For the last several decades an influential group of Egyptian scholars and public intellectuals has been having a profound effect in the Islamic world. Raymond Baker offers a compelling portrait of these New Islamists--Islamic scholars, lawyers, judges, and journalists who provide the moral and intellectual foundations for a more fully realized Islamic community, open to the world and with full rights of active citizenship for women and non-Muslims.
- Hardcover 2003 / Paperback 2006
- Islamic Legal Interpretation
- Muhammad Khalid Masud, Editor
- Brinkley Messick, Editor
- David Powers, Editor
- The world knows of Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa in the Salman Rushdie case, yet this key institution in Muslim society has not been the subject of a major examination until now. Islamic Legal Interpretationoffers a casebook of interdisciplinary analyses of fatwas over a wide range of times and places.
- Hardcover 1996
- The Islamic Marriage Contract
- Edited by Asifa Quraishi
- Edited by Frank E. Vogel
- It is often said that marriage in Islamic law is a civil contract, not a sacrament. This volume collects papers from many disciplines examining the Muslim marriage contract. Articles cover doctrines as to marriage contracts (e.g., may a wife stipulate monogamy?); historical instances; comparisons with Jewish and canon law; contemporary legal and social practice; and projects of activists for women worldwide.
- Hardcover 2008
- The Islamic School of Law
- Edited by Peri Bearman
- Edited by Rudolph Peters
- Edited by Frank E. Vogel
- The Islamic school of law, or madhhab, is a concept on which a substantial amount has been written but of which there is still little understanding, and even less consensus. This collection of selected papers from the III International Conference on Islamic Legal Studies, held in May 2000 at the Harvard Law School, offers building blocks toward the entire edifice of understanding the complex development of the madhhab, a development that even in the contemporary dissolution of madhhab lines and grouping continues to fascinate.
- Hardcover 2006
- Jewish and Islamic Law
- Gideon Libson
- Gideon Libson's highly original work on custom is the first attempt to present a comprehensive comparative study of Jewish-Islamic law on a particular topic during the early Middle Ages. His in-depth study of Islamic law--its sources, legal schools, and extensive legal literature--together with his expertise in the wide range of geonic and rabbinic literature enable him to determine the influence of Muslim practice on geonic custom.
- Hardcover 2003
- The Muslim Jesus
- Tarif Khalidi, Ed. and Trans.
- This work presents in English translation the largest collection ever assembled of the sayings and stories of Jesus in Arabic Islamic literature. The 300 sayings and stories, arranged in chronological order, show us how the image of this Jesus evolved throughout a millennium of Islamic history.
- Hardcover 2001 / Paperback 2003
- Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs
- Kathryn Babayan
- Focusing on idealists and visionaries who believed that Justice could reign in our world, this book explores the desire to experience utopia on earth. Reluctant to await another existence--another form, or eternal life following death and resurrection--individuals with ghuluww, or exaggeration, emerged at the advent of Islam, expecting to attain the apocalyptic horizon of Truth. In their minds, Muhammad's prophecy represented one such cosmic moment of transformation.
- Paperback 2003
- Partisans of Allah
- Ayesha Jalal
- Today, more than ever, jihad signifies the political opposition between Islam and the West. As the line drawn between Muslims and non-Muslims becomes more rigid, Jalal seeks to retrieve the ethical meanings of this core Islamic principle in South Asian history. Drawing on historical, legal, and literary sources, Jalal traces the intellectual itinerary of jihad through several centuries and across the territory connecting the Middle East with South Asia.
- Hardcover 2008
- Spiritual Wayfarers, Leaders in Piety
- Daphna Ephrat
- This book represents the first continuous history of Sufism in Palestine. Covering the period between the rise of Islam and the spread of Ottoman rule and drawing on vast biographical material and complementary evidence, the book describes the social trajectory that Sufism followed.
- Paperback 2008