The stated goal of this book is to promote a public discussion of Islam as a religion, particularly its claim that every bit of the Quran and the Hadis has a divine source. This claim is used at present to prevent a close examination of what the book contains and what message Islam has for mankind at large. This is the Third Revised and Enlarged Edition.

    In fact, some eminent writers have called him "the greatest Sufi poet of the Punjab." His admirers have even compared his writings and philosophy to those of Rumi. At present he is held in equally great esteem in Northern India and Pakistan.Bulleh Shah's poems are suffused with love for God and his Master or "Murshid". The other dominant note in his poetry is on very strong denunciation of empty rituals and external observances of religion.He does not believe in saying something in roundabout ways. Whatever he has to convey, he says it by hitting the nail on the head. His poems are marked, not only by plain speaking, but also by bluntness. This produces a poignancy of feeling together with a depth of insight, which puts all artifice to shame. His poetry rises spontaneouly from the depths of his heart, even as a fountain spouts from the depths of the earth. It has a kind of abandon which produces an intoxicating effect on the reader. No wonder it had always been a favorite choice for the groups of singers called "qawwals".

    As in the Shia myth of the Hidden Imam, this modern-day Imam left his followers upholding his legacy and awaiting his return. Considered an outsider when he had arrived in Lebanon in 1959 from his native Iran, he gradually assumed the role of charismatic mullah, and was instrumental in transforming the Shia, a quiescent and downtrodden Islamic minority, into committed political activists.What sort of person was Musa al Sadr? What beliefs in the Shia doctrine did his life embody? Where did he fit into the tangle of Lebanon's warring factions? What was behind his disappearance? In this fascinating and compelling narrative, Fouad Ajami resurrects the Shia's neglected history, both distant and recent, and interweaves the life and work of Musa al Sadr with the larger strands of the Shia past.

    Over a period of eight centuries he has exerted a profound influence on Islamic mysticism. In recent years a number of important studies have helped acquaint the Western reader with Ibn Arabi's metaphysics and this process is now greatly enhanced by the present volume in which Michael Chodkiewicz explores for the first time, the Master's 'hagiology' or teaching on sainthood. Founded on a careful analysis of the relevant texts, Chodkiewicz's work examines this essential aspect of Ibn Arabi's doctrine of sainthood, defining the nature and function of sainthood, while also specifying the criteria for a typology of saints based on the notion of prophetic inheritance.

    Joao Jose Reis draws on hundreds of police and trial records in which Africans, despite obvious intimidation, spoke out about their cultural, social, economic, religious, and domestic lives in Salvador.

    Heard day and night, on the street, in taxis, in shops, in mosques, and in homes, the sound of recitation is far more than the pervasive background music of daily life in the Arab world. It is the core of religious devotion, the sanctioning spirit of much cultural and social life, and a valued art form in its own right. Participation in recitation, as reciter or listener, is itself an act of worship, for the sound is basic to a Muslim's sense of religion and invokes a set of meanings transcending the particular occasion. For the most part, Westerners have approached the Qur'an much as scriptural scholars have studied the Bible, as a collection of written texts. The Art of Reciting the Qur'an aims at redirecting that focus toward a deeper understanding of the Qur'an as a fundamentally oral phenomenon. Focusing on the Egyptian context, and examining Muslim attitudes toward the Qur'an, the institutions that regulate its recitation, and performer-audience expectations and interaction. Kristina Nelson, a trained Arabist and musicologist, casts new light on the significance of Qur'anic recitation within the world of Islam today. This new edition of a landmark study, with a new postscript, will be welcomed by all scholars and students of the modern Middle East, as well as by ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, linguists, folklorists, and religious scholars. ''This is an important book--a book of cultural translation in the best sense of the word: it translates meaning.'' --Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, Ethnomusicology ''Quite simply, the book changes the way one understands the Qur'an, and it changes the way one listens.'' --Philip D. Schuyler, MESA Bulletin

    The original Arabic text was composed around 1160 by the famous Andalusian philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd). The present translation has been prepared on the basis of a wide range of documents including, apart from the available Arabic editions, various medieval manuscripts as well as a Latin translation prepared in the Renaissance. It is accompanied by a commentary dealing with the major philosophical topics and philological problems of the text.

    

    The central theme of the book is the shaping and evolution of the identity of these people, focusing on the history of the first non-Christian and non-Slavic people incorporated into the Russian state.

    This book offers material for a comprehensive study of the Old and New Testaments and the Qur'an from the Baha'i viewpoint.