Largely replying to questions put by Bediuzzaman's students, these Letters cover a wide range of subjects: they provide illuminating answers to many questions of belief and Islam; they contain brilliant and unique explanations of the truths of belief and mysteries of the Qur'an, which also illustrate the Qur'anic way of Knowledge of God opened up by the Risale-i Nur; they offer important guidance to contemporary Muslims concerning many questions ranging from nationalism to Sufism; they also throw light on Bediuzzaman's own life in those years of exile and the conditions during the early years of the Turkish Republic; in addition they include the celebrated Nineteenth Letter, which describes more than three hundred of the Miracles of Muhammad (PBUH); the Twentieth Letter, which together with being an important lesson in "reading the Book of the Universe," provides extremely powerful proofs of Divine Unity; and the Twenty-Fourth Letter, which solves convincingly the mystery of the constant activity in the universe, and the change and renewal of beings.

    Topics discussed include: sincerity, the nature of intention, types of heart, the four poisons of the heart, seeking Allah's forgiveness, supplication, praying at night, love of Allah, hope in Allah, fear of Allah and many others.

    It is often invokved to explain and justify the liberal politics and world view of modernity. And it leads to the view that "politicized religions" threaten both reason and liberty. Asad's essays explore and question all these assumptions. He argues that "religion" is a construction of European modernity, a construction that authorizes—for Westerners and non-Westerners alike—particular forms of "history making."

    Its method is two-fold. First it presents five important lectures on Persian poetry given by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, who brought Sufis to the West. Then it offers fresh translations by the poet Coleman Barks of some of the poetry Inayat Khan discusses, designed to provide readers with ready access to at least a sample of this wondrous literature, still not easy to find in English. Thus the book presents a brief, but reasonably comprehensive, introduction to one of the great literatures of the world, until recently ignored in the West.

    The scholars of Muslims, Christians, Arya Samaj and other religions were invited to represent their religions at the conference of Great Religion. They were required to write on the following five topics on the basis of their Holy Books.1. The physical, moral and spiritual states of man2. What is the state of man after death?3. The object of man's life and the means of its attainment,4. The operation of the practical ordinances of the Law in this life and the next 5. Sources of Divine knowledge.Allah revealed to the Promised Messiah(as) that his essay will be declared supreme over all other essays. And so it was. For instance the Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, wrote that Hadrat Ahmad's essay was the only one worth mentioning and the only one paper which was commended highly. The essay has been published in several languages in different countries.It is the best and most comprehensive introduction to Islam within the scope of the above five questions. The book was translated into English by Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan Sahib.

    He also outlines the Western religious and intellectual tradition. The work goes on to challenge the youth of other religious traditions to become responsible and committed by recognizing the importance of their cultural identity.The author's publications include "Ideals and Realities of Islam", "Science and Civilisation in Islam", "Muhammad - Man of Allah" and "Traditional Islam in the Modern World".

    This area today is home to the world's second-largest Muslim ethnic population. How and why did such a large Muslim population emerge there? And how does such a religious conversion take place? Richard Eaton uses archaeological evidence, monuments, narrative histories, poetry, and Mughal administrative documents to trace the long historical encounter between Islamic and Indic civilizations.Moving from the year 1204, when Persianized Turks from North India annexed the former Hindu states of the lower Ganges delta, to 1760, when the British East India Company rose to political dominance there, Eaton explores these moving frontiers, focusing especially on agrarian growth and religious change.

    Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): ". And whosoever does not repent, then such are indeed zaalimoon (wrong-doers, etc.)." [al-Hujuraat 49:11]. We are living in a time when many people have strayed far from the religion of Allah, and sin and immorality have become so widespread that there is no one who remains free from the taint of evil except for the one who is protected by Allaah. Some people face many obstacles which they think stand between them and repentance, some of which exist within their own selves, and others in the world around them. For this reason I have written this brief work, hoping to clear up this confusion, dispel doubts, explain wisdom and drive away the Shaytaan. Following an introduction which discusses the dangers of taking sin lightly, I then explain the conditions of repentance, psychological cures, and fataawa (rulings) based on evidence from the Qur'aan and Sunnah which are addressed to those who repent. This is followed by quotations from some of the scholars' comments, and my own concluding remarks.

    مترجم اثر آقاي هاشم ايزد پناه هستند. در سايت آمازون درباره ي اين کتاب اين توضيحات درج شده است.The years 260-329/874-941, known among the Shî‘ites as the period of Minor Occultation, comprised undoubtedly the most difficult and critical period in the history of Imâmite Shî'ism. The death of the eleventh Imam, with no apparent successor, resulted in internal conflicts, many desertions and conversions, and the emergence of numerous splinter groups and subsects within the Imâmite community. Contemporary Imâmite theologians had the difficult task of defending the doctrine against attack while trying to offer new interpretations of fundamental principles to accommodate contemporary developments. Abu Jafar b. Qiba al-Razi, one of the most prominent and active Imâmite theologians, had a major role in all of these reconstructions and developments. The present work attempts to shed light on some aspects of the Imâmite doctrine during the Minor Occultation and on the contributions of Abu Jafar b. Qiba to the formation of the developed Imâmite doctrine. The second part of this volume contains the texts of three short works of this scholar, together with their English translation.

    Here is the story of the African-American noble Drew Ali, the founder of “Black Islam” in this country, and of the violent end of his struggle for “love, truth, peace, freedom, and justice.” Another essay deals with Satan and “Satanism” in Esoteric Islam; and another offers a scathing critique of “Authority” and sexual misery in modern Puritanist Islam. “The Anti-caliph” evokes a hot mix of Ibn Arabi’s tantric mysticism and the revolutionary teachings of the “Assassins.” The title essay, “Sacred Drift,” roves through the history and poetics of Sufi travel, from Ibn Khaldun to Rimbaud in Abyssinia to the Situationists. A “Romantic” view of Islam is taken to radical extremes; the exotic may not be “True,” but it’s certainly a relief from academic propaganda and the obscene banality of simulation."This is my brand of Islam: insurrectionary, elegant, dangerous, suffused with light – a search for poetic facts, a donation from and to the tradition of spiritual anarchy." —Hakim Bey"Peter Lamborn Wilson, in his book Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam, offers an interesting window into the early evolution of Islamic ideas among African Americans." —Abbas Milani, New RepublicPeter Lamborn Wilson lives in New York and works for Semiotext(e) magazine, Pacifica Radio, and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. A long decade in the Orient (1968-1981) inspires his writing, including The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry and Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy. He also investigates Celtic psychoactive plants in his book Ploughing the Clouds which is also published by City Lights Publishers.

    The work of The Golden Sufi Center is to make available the teachings of the Sufi path."This beautifully written handbook for seekers" (Light of Consciousness Journal) draws on sources both Sufi and Christian as it explores the eternal love affair between the human seeker and the Divine Beloved.

    This man and his teachings have been responsible for transforming the lives of millions of black men and women, many of whom this society has rejected as incorrigible, irredeemable, irreformable, irretrievable, hopeless and lost. Yet, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, with the Word of Allah (God), has been able to initiate the process of our salvation, redemption and resurrection, which continues to this day.... This book is humbly submitted as a torchlight for guiding the country out from its present condition toward a more peaceful and productive society in which mutual respect governs the relations between the diverse members of America. --- excerpts from book's Preface

    Philosophical discourse became a constant element in even traditionalist Islamic sciences. However, Aristotelian metaphysics gave rise to doctrines about God and the universe that were found highly objectionable by a number of Muslim theologians, among whom the fourteenth-century scholar Ibn Taymiyya stood foremost.Ibn Taymiyya, one of the greatest and most prolific thinkers of medieval Islam, held Greek logic responsible for the "heretical" metaphysical conclusions reached by Islamic philosophers, theologians, mystics, and others. Unlike Ghazali, who rejected philosophical metaphysics but embraced logic, Ibn Taymiyya considered the two inextricably connected. He therefore set out to refute philosophical logic, a task which culminated in one of the most devastating attacks ever levelled against the logical system upheld by the early Greeks, the later commentators, and their Muslim followers. His argument is grounded in an empirical approach that in many respects prefigures the philosophies of the British empiricists.Professor Hallaq's translation, with a substantial introduction and extensive notes, makes available to a wider audience for the first time an important work that will be of interest to specialists in ancient and medieval philosophy and to historians of logic and empiricist philosophy, as well as to scholars of Islam and Middle Eastern thought.

    Book by Hixon, Lex

    Throughout his life, Malcolm X underwent many transformations: from junior high school class president to jazz-club shoeshine boy to railway worker to drug dealer. The photographs are from many of the great photographers of the time, including Gordan Parks, Eve Arnold and Henri Cartier-Bresson and document Malcolm X's work as a teacher, militant, orator and family man. The accompanying quotes are from writers, activists and ordinary people attesting to his impact in the 1960s.

    But after some experiences they were surprised when even intellectuals who had Western academic training remained deeply attached to Islam. In this book, Davutoglu develops a comparative analysis between Western and Islamic political theories and images. His argument contends that the conflicts and contrasts between Islamic and Western political thought originate from their philosophical, methodological, and theoretical background rather than mere institutional and historical differences. The questions of how and through which processes these alternative conceptions of the world affect political ideas via a set of axiological presuppositions are the crux of the book. Contents: Transliteration; Introduction; I. Theoretical Inquiries. Western Paradigm: Ontological Proximity; Islamic Paradigm: Tawhid and Ontological Differentiation; II. Political Consequences. Justification of the Socio-Political System: Cosmologico-Ontological Foundations; Legitimation of Political Authority: Epistemologico-Axiological Foundations; Power Theories and Pluralism; The Political Unit and the Universal Political System; Concluding Comparative Remarks.

    Their letter to him is as follows: "What is the true sense of the religion of Islam? What does madhhab mean? Does everyone who is honoured with the religion of Islam have to join one of the four madhhabs? That is to be a Maalikee, Hanafee, Shaafi'ee or Hambalee, or other than that, or is that not binding? There have been great differences and much argumentation here. When a number of enlightened thinkers of Japan wished to enter into Islam and to be honoured with eemaan and so that was put to a Muslim organisation in Tokyo. A group of people from India said that they would have to choose the madhhab of Imaam Abu Haneefah, since he was "the Lamp of the Ummah" whilst a group of Indonesians from Java said that they must become Shaafi'ees! When the Japanese heard this, they were very surprised and thought again. The question of madhhabs became an obstacle in their way of becoming Muslims! So, our teacher, we should like to hear from your knowledge, that which will be a cure for this illness and poison, if Allaah wills. We hope that you can explain the true state of affairs so that our hearts may become calm and our chests open to the cure for ignorance, for which you will receive reward from Allaah, the Most High and thanks from us, the muhaajireen from Russia. May Allaah send peace upon you and upon all those who follow the guidance. Muhammad 'Abdul-Hayy Qoor Baali'ee, and Muhsin Jaabaak Aughlee Muharram 1357 A.H., Tokyo, Japan."

    Just as warfare has obligations, so too do commodity trading, coinage, marriage, sexual mores, and the maintenance of the public good. Thus, all ijtihad and all analogical extension of these basic elements must derive from the basic Islamic model of Madinah, during its phase when it functioned as the primary model for the future of mankind. The Madinah of the Salafi community was neither a primitive nor a formative society but a complete and blueprint pattern for Islamic societies from then on.It is clear that in Madinah at the time of the Salafi communities man was at his greatest and the social contract at its healthiest and most balanced. The myth of development and progress, an unscientific extension of Victorian biological speculation into the realm of sociology, is not tenable. All the evidence points to social devolution, diminishment of freedom, the increasing inhibition of personal life and travel, invasion of privacy, moral degeneration, sexual deviation, the end of the marriage contract, and so on and so on.Today we find that the Muslims have been polarized into two camps, in a dialectic that backs the establishment of anti-Islamic regimes on the one hand and forces men into antithetical opposition and subversive resistance on the other. It is our contention that the Sirat al-Mustaqim, is between these two alternatives a middle-way, an interface and a sunna.Further we would propose that much of the confusion among the false ‘ulama has been their misreading of the nature of modern ‘technique’ of technological process, due to their having been indoctrinated by the outmoded ‘modernism’ of men who had themselves been seconded to kafir ideas and organizations in Egypt and the Middle East. To place the demands of a machine culture over the survival of man, and to prefer systems control over human transactions is against the Kitab wa Sunna in a clear and demonstrable way. The Messenger of Allah, blessings of Allah and peace be on him, did not create machines, but rather he left behind men who were, in their time and ever since have been, lights to inspire, and demand following, by men of heart and intellect. We would indicate, therefore, that the cause itself of this false dialectic above, is the false dialectic which sets the rules of ‘system technique’ over and against ‘basic technique’ or primitive technology, while aligning Salafi Islam with that world of primitive or basic technique. It has been this trick which embarrassed and deceived educated – in this technical sense – Muslims to ‘buy’ the modernist dismantling of Islamic governance. Transposing, in the process, the true pattern of Islamic society, amirate ruling the people and fuqaha ruling the ‘amir (by defining shari’a limits, not by cult of personality), with the myth of an Islamic ‘state’, which is a systems concept deriving from recent and jewish subversion of existing western modes that preceded the industrial revolution. For the industrial revolution was a Christian achievement (of dubious worth) but its political ideology and its monetary system have both been Jewish, while the nuclear and computer revolution has been almost entirely theirs.It is our conviction that the key to an authentic Islam, salafi wa’l madani, lies in a powerful, uncompromising ‘aqida, an activated fiqh (knowledge of sources, judgement, execution of sentence), and an arabic tongue. Equally, we see that the survival from destructive Jewish control-systems and technique-enslaving politics lies simply with the rejection of the credit system on which present monetary theory works, the refusal of promissory notes (paper money), and the end to the banking system completely. It may well collapse before we ourselves destroy it, which would expose certainly, the myth of ‘Islamic’ banking. A return to a bi-metal and commodity exchange economy is probably on its way, and only the greedy and the short-sighted fail to see that, in any event, such was the system in use in Salafi Madinah.Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-SufiShaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi entered Islam with the Imam of the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fez, Morocco, and studied under Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib of Meknes and Shaykh Muhammad al-Fayturi of Beghazi.

    A retelling of the Sufi parable, "The Conference of the Birds", a poem written in the thirteenth century, in which the birds of the Earth face seven invisible monsters in order to save the world.

    Throughout the rich fifteen-hundred-year history of classical Arabic literature, the qasidah served as profane anti-text to the sacred text of the Qur'an. While recognizing the esteem in which Arabs have traditionally held this poetry of the pagan past, modern critics in both East and West have yet to formulate a poetics that would provide the means to analyze and evaluate the qasidah. Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych here offers the first aesthetics appropriate for this orally composed Arabic verse, an aesthetics that is built on--and tested on--close readings of a number of the poems. Drawing on the insights of contemporary literary theory, anthropology, and the history of religions, Stetkevych maintains that the poetry of the qasidah is ritualized in both form and function. She brings to bear an extensive body of lore, legend, and myth as she interprets individual themes and images with references to rites of passage and rituals of sacrifice. Her English translations of the poems under discussion convey the power and beauty of the originals, as well as a sense of their complex intertextuality and distinctive lexicon. The Mute Immortals Speak will be important for students and scholars in the fields of Middle Eastern literatures, Islamic studies, folklore, oral literature, and literary theory, and by anthropologists, comparatists, historians of religion, and medievalists.

    Within this context, the symbolic dream world is discussed in some detail, and how it applies to everyday life, the book also discusses the realms of the Heart, the Spirit, the Inner Consciousness and the Innermost Consciousness.

    Corrects misconceptions about his life; answers western criticism."(1) Muhammad The Prophet (2) The Early Caliphate, by Muhammad Ali, together constitute the most complete and satisfactory history of the early Muslims hitherto compiled in English" — Islamic Culture, Hyderabad, India" ... He has now produced a biography of the Prophet of Islam in English ... It is not only Muslims who should feel grateful to him for the publication. The book should, indeed, give greater gratification to the English-speaking non-Muslims, whom it gives an opportunity of knowing the truth about the life and personality of one who is admitted on all hands to be the greatest reformer in the history of the world." — The New Orient"...it is written in an authoritative and interesting fashion, and from a historical point of view will be well worth perusing by adherents of religions other than Islam." — The Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, Pakistan

    It provides a thoroughly annotated and sound translation of one of the oldest biographies of the well-known thirteenth-century Sufi master Abu'l-Hasan al-Shadhili. The annotation is exhaustive and extremely useful. In general the genre has not received much attention and it is good to see a major work to which one can refer as an example. It will be welcomed by everyone interested in the history and teachings of Sufism. Given al-Shadhili's fame, a work on him is long overdue. His order is more influential than any other today in the West." -- William Chittick, State University of New York at Stony Brook"This is a superb work of translation done with precision and care and according to traditional scholarly methods. There are many things I like about this book In the first place the translation is very good. The language is idiomatic, flows freely, and is easy to read. It retains the flavor of the original Arabic text without, however, reflecting any of its Arabic syntax and word order." -- Nicholas Heer, University of Washington"We do not have many biographies of great Sufis, much less their prayers, letters, and remarks. This collection allows us to penetrate into the thinking of the foremost Sufi of his day, and later. This is especially important for al-Shadhili wrote no books whatsoever." -- Victor Danner, Indiana University"This is a fascinating and extremely important book, from which one could easily teach an entire course on Islamic spirituality. It combines a number of central genres: hagiography, letters of spiritual direction, prayers and meditations, personal spiritual pedagogy (malfuzat), etc.--in an understandable, approachable, and humane context that clearly brings out the historical and religious setting of these typical spiritual teachings. I would love to have a copy for use in many of my undergraduate courses.The topics raised here, whether with regard to the social history of Islamic religion or the interrelations between popular spirituality and learned forms (and of both with political powers) are centrally important to any understanding of Islam and at the forefront of scholarly research in both Islamic history and Islamic religion and spirituality." -- James W. Morris, Oberlin College

    

    The general introduction enables a newcomer to the field to establish his bearings before tackling the texts.

    A collection of letters from the Moroccan Sufi mystic and teacher Ahmad Ibn Idris (1749-1837) to his students, family and others, presented in facing pages of edited Arabic and English text,

    In , he interpreted many essential concepts of Islamic theology in an original and strikingly personal way. His ideas are as fresh and relevant today as they were when he first set them down.

    Taking a comparatist approach, Jaroslav Stetkevych attempts in this book to integrate the classical Arabic lyric into an enlarged understanding of lyric poetry as a genre.Stetkevych concentrates on the "places of lost bliss" that furnish the dominant motif in the lyric-elegiac opening section (nasib) of the classic Arab code, or qusidah. In defining the Arabic lyrical genre, he shows how pre-Islamic lamentations over abandoned campsites evolved, in Arabo-Islamic mystical poetry, into expressions of spiritual nostalgia. Stetkevych also draws intriguing parallels between the highlands of Najd in Arabic poetry and Arcadia in the European tradition. He concludes by exploring the degree to which the pastoral-paradisiacal archetype of the nasib pervades Arabic literary perception, from the pre-Islamic ode through the Thousand and One Nights and later texts.Enhanced by Stetkevych's sensitive translations of all the Arabic texts discussed, The Zephyrs of Najd brings the classical Arabic ode fully into the purview of contemporary literary and critical discourse.

    Hodgson, a former professor of history at the University of Chicago, challenges adherents of both Eurocentrism and multiculturalism to rethink the place of Europe in world history. He argues that the line that connects Ancient Greeks to the Renaissance to modern times is an optical illusion, and that a global and Asia-centered history can better locate the European experience in the shared histories of humanity. In Part Two of the work Hodgson shifts the focus and in a parallel move seeks to locate the history of Islamic civilization in a world historical framework. Finally, in Part Three he argues that in the end there is but one history--global history--and that all partial or privileged accounts must necessarily be resituated in a world historical context. The book also includes an introduction by the editor, Edmund Burke III, contextualizing Hodgson's work in world history and Islamic history.