Through the principles and practices of Islam, you will learn how to unlock your spiritual potential and unveil your divine purpose. Secrets of Divine Love uses a rational, yet heart-based approach towards the Qur'an that not only enlightens the mind, but inspires the soul towards deeper intimacy with God.

    Our broken souls feel we are undeserving of love and affection.“I wish to validate your feelings if no one has ever done it before. I know you exist. And your existence is important enough for me to speak to you directly : You exist, and you matter.”————In Mizi Wahid’s third book, he explores the concept of love and its impact on our lives. With his signature narration style of hope and compassion, ‘You Are Loved’ is not just emotionally inspiring but also spiritually empowering— it is the companion that we all need as we try to find our way back to the real meaning of love.

    Each one, when its meaning is unpacked and understood, offers wisdom and guidance. Surah Kahf, chapter 18 from the Qur’an, is particularly thought provoking, and Muslims are advised to read it at least once a week.But why? And what can we gain from it?In this book Yasir Qadhi leads us through Surah Kahf, unfolding the lines, stories and symbols that have inspired people for over a thousand years: the people of the cave, Prophet Musa’s momentous encounter with Khidr, the two men and their gardens, and Gog and Magog.And surely We have explained matters in people in the Qur’an in diverse ways, using all manners of parables. (Qur’an 18:54)Through Yasir Qadhi’s unmistakeable voice, modern Muslims may glimpse some of the Qur’an’s profound meaning.Say: “If the sea were to become ink to record the Words of my Lord, indeed the sea would all be used up before the Words of my Lord are exhausted…” (Qur’an 18:109)

    Even then, it comes with a set of restrictive rules that puts a ‘barrier’ between Allah and us. The things we recite are verses that we were told to memorise, but rarely do we truly talk to Allah about the troubles that are weighing down our hearts.Because it feels awkward. Thus when we are down and sad, we seek other means for comforting ourselves, but often they offer only temporary respite. We forget that true comfort lies only with Allah. ****In this book, author Ayesha Syahira takes you on a journey of spiritual discovery; of reconnecting with Allah wholeheartedly. The author focuses on nurturing the lifestyle of talking to Allah; of finding comfort by making du’a to Him at any time of the day.

    We might have felt this type of love for certain people in our lives, and we should be grateful for this love. When it comes to Allah, we know that we should love Him. Muslims are taught this from a young age. God says in the Qur'an, 'those who believe are stronger in love for Allah' [2:165].While we often put those we love before what we ourselves want, we might not always choose God in this way. Part of the reason is that true love is based on how much we know someone, our relationship with that person, and his or her presence in, and impact on, our lives... Allah, who created us and knows us more intimately than any human being, knows this about us, and indeed created this tendency in us. Thus, one of the most beautiful aspects of the revelation of His names and attributes is that they form the basis of our relationship with Him...Indeed Allah's names tell us something about ourselves; when we know that He is the Giver of Peace, for example, it means that we will necessarily go though periods of anxiety, and the antidote is to go to Him for calm. Knowing that He is the Responder means that there is one who is asking; Him being the Forgiving means that we make mistakes...With these names, God wants us to know him.

    With moving pieces that address the realities of single parenthood, the challenges of maintaining a healthy private life while living in the public eye, and the effects of old traumas, Hussein makes insightful spiritual connections between her lived experiences and stories from the Quran and sunnah.

    The Prophet Noah would plead with his people, saying "I am delivering my Lord's messages to you" [Qur'an 7:62]. With the current paradoxical climate of increasing secularization and the rise of fundamentalism across the world, there is no better time to search for fresh insight and guidance from the Qur'an. The Heart of The Qur'an is a well-researched commentary on Surah Yasin. It is written in simple English and is complete with diagrams and illustrations to create an engaging read. The commentary is profound and inspiring, it masterfully highlights the nuances of the Qur'ān's language and repeatedly draws the reader's attention towards practical changes they can make in their lives.

    

    However, as is perhaps not very politically correct to point out, Islam as a religion calls Muslims to be a part of Ummah, which is to say, that all Muslims belong to the same theological ‘country’ regardless of political borders.That coupled with the intrinsic need of the Left to forever consider the Muslims as the victims, even under imaginary circumstances led to massive riots and violence in India. The perceived wrong here was that CAA left Muslims out, however, the truth was the CAA had nothing to do with Indians at all, let alone Indian Muslims.Another excuse for the rampant violence was that the proposed NRC would snatch away the citizenship of Muslims. That too, was a shameless canard. The NRC, when implemented and drafted, would be aimed to identify and deport Illegal Immigrants, and not Indian Citizens. No country in the world wantonly accepts indiscriminate influx of illegals, but the Left and Islamist nexus burnt the country because that is exactly what it expected of India.While many people wish to look at the Delhi Riots 2020 in isolation, the events that started right from the 1st December 2019 proves otherwise. It proves that the violence was a concerted effort to push Anarchy and Chaos in India. It proves that the Delhi Riots was no anti-Muslim pogrom, it was indeed, a well-oiled plan to tame ‘kafirs’.

    But when they raise questions about the government, military and police policy, they are routinely shut down as terrorist sympathisers or apologists for gang culture. In such environments, there is immense pressure to condemn what society at large fears. This collection explains how the expectation to condemn has emerged, tracking it against the normalisation of racism, and explores how writers manage to subvert expectations as part of their commitment to anti-racism.

    

    Journalist Krithika Varagur, a longtime chronicler of religion and politics, tells the story of Saudi influence as it has never been told before, in a book reported across the breadth of the Muslim world, from Nigeria to Indonesia to Kosovo.The Call connects the dots on Saudi Arabia's campaign to propagate its brand of ultraconservative Islam worldwide after it became oil-rich in the 20th century. Varagur visits diverse outposts of its influence, from a Saudi university in Jakarta to a beleaguered Shi'a movement in Nigeria. She finds that the campaign has had remarkably broad and sometimes uniform effects, from the intolerance of religious minorities to the rise of powerful Saudi-educated clerics. The kingdom has spent billions of dollars on its da'wa, or call to Islam, at many points with the direct support of the United States. But what have been the lasting effects of Saudi influence today? And what really happened to their campaign in the 21st century, after oil revenues slumped and after their activities became increasingly subject to international scrutiny? Drawing upon dozens of interviews, government records, and historical research, The Call lays out what we really talk about when we talk about Saudi money.

    Joktan from his birthplace in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to his current location in the United States. Dr. Joktan was raised in a staunchly religious Muslim home whose father was, and is, a widely known and respected teacher of Sunni Islam. In trying to please his father, he memorized the entire Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, by the time he was thirteen. Dr. Joktan relates how Christ appeared to him in a dream at night. This culminated in his surrendering his life to Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the world. I followed him through his rocky progression through medical school and how his father and family rejected him because of his newfound faith in Christ. It was gut-wrenching when his own father held a gun to his head demanding he renounce Christ and burn the New Testament. I followed him through a number of assassination attempts, instigated by his family and government – the price of daring to leave Islam. He was imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and shot at with bullets. When I first met him a little more than a year ago, his face still bore the scars of previous persecution. His face likely always will. Through it all, his faith in Christ remained unshaken. From start to finish his story is permeated with grace, love, joy, and the presence of God. - Dr. Ed Hoskins

    

    Are we considered strong if we do not fall when life pushes us to the ground? Do our faith and belief tell us that we cannot let our misery affect us because as the saying goes, “we must bear patience”?In this book, author Liyana Musfirah takes readers on a reflective journey of discovering the strength that emerges from each of our painful and scarring episodes. This is the book that celebrates what God has given women — the resilience to withstand emotional, spiritual, or even physical hardships.

    Hijab and minaret bans, mosque shootings, hostility to migrants and increasingly scornful media stereotypes seem to endanger the prospects for friendly coexistence and the calm uplifting of Muslim populations.In this series of essays Abdal Hakim Murad dissects the rise of Islamophobia on the basis of Muslim theological tradition. Although the proper response to the current impasse is clearly indicated in Qur’an and Hadith, some have lost the principle of trust in divine wisdom and are responding with hatred, fearfulness or despair. Murad shows that a compassion-based approach, rooted in an authentic theology of divine power, could transform the current quagmire into a bright landscape of great promise for Muslims and their neighbours.

    Movable type was adopted in the Middle East only in the early nineteenth century, and it wasn't until the second half of the century that the first works of classical Islamic religious scholarship were printed there. But from that moment on, Ahmed El Shamsy reveals, the technology of print transformed Islamic scholarship and Arabic literature.In the first wide-ranging account of the effects of print and the publishing industry on Islamic scholarship, El Shamsy tells the fascinating story of how a small group of editors and intellectuals brought forgotten works of Islamic literature into print and defined what became the classical canon of Islamic thought. Through the lens of the literary culture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Arab cities--especially Cairo, a hot spot of the nascent publishing business--he explores the contributions of these individuals, who included some of the most important thinkers of the time. Through their efforts to find and publish classical literature, El Shamsy shows, many nearly lost works were recovered, disseminated, and harnessed for agendas of linguistic, ethical, and religious reform.Bringing to light the agents and events of the Islamic print revolution, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics is an absorbing examination of the central role printing and its advocates played in the intellectual history of the modern Arab world.

    Not only does it illustrate the maladies of the human spiritual condition, it recognises the struggles and insecurities we all succumb to from time to time, and offers up the remedies too.

    Salat, or salah, means prayer in Arabic. In SALAT, the structure of prayer is transformed into poetic form free from the narrow strictures of Muslim and non-Muslim minds. At the most basic level, these poems interrogate coming of age as a Muslim immigrant boy in post-9/11 America. These poems take us from classrooms to hotel pools, corner stores to airports, playgrounds to dream states in order to pose questions and reassemble memories about place, belonging, alienation. This collection is less a statement on parenthood, state violence, racism, and disenfranchisement so much as a prayer hovering over it all, hoping against hope that the incantation might be enough to sustain us.

    

    It engages the reader in a moment of reflection on the Islamic view of womanhood: her existence as a creation of Allah, her role as a positive stakeholder in building a God-conscious society and her capacity for attaining proximity with Allah.

    This book comes at a time when the debate on CAA rages in the country with those opposing the Amendments to the Citizenship Act have chosen to neglect the sufferings of the persecuted minorities in the three neighboring Islamic countries. This timely work narrates untold stories of persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.The authors have met these refugees who are living in Karnataka in person and accounted their stories of persecution, misery and sorrow. Each chapter narrates a gut wrenching story of Hindus who suffered at the hands of Jihadis there. Some of those who tormented them and targeted them were their neighbors, acquaintances for many years and residents of the same locality or village.Each story narrated by the victim shows the kind of torment they had to endure at the hands of the Jihadis, the loss of lives and property and the conditions under which they had to take a decision to leave their motherland and find refuge in India. The way they suffered through their journey from their hometowns to a refugee camp in India, the issues they faced here and way they rebuilt their lives has been poignantly explained.

    This is not God according to the Prophets. However, the depiction of God in the theistic traditions has been always charged with anthropomorphism. In this book, I attempt to respond to this charge and explain what Athari (scripturalist) Muslim theologians believe about the Divine attributes and why. Where Do We Get Our Belief From? Our Epistemological PositionThe Role of Truthful ReportsThe Role of ReasonThe Place of Kaâm: Reason as a Tool of Understanding and Armor for DefenseA Typology of Islamic Positions on the Attributes of God26What Do We Believe In?Why Do We Believe in Amodal Affirmation and Why Do We Believe It Is Important?What Are the Counter Arguments?Reports from the SalafConflict with ReasonThe Perfect Does Not ChangeThe Composite god and DivisibilityAnthropomorphism and AssimilationConclusion:Ontologically, no extant being lacks quiddity and attributes. Noumenally, the apophatic god is nonexistent, and phenomenally, it cannot be felt or related to, let alone loved and worshipped. In conclusion of this work, here are my recommendations: •To be deserving of Divine guidance, we need to purify our intentions by true devotion to Allah. We also need to constantly rehabilitate our fiṭrah and heal it from the ills of bias (hawa), ulterior motives (aghrâḍ), blind imitation (taqleed), habit (‘âdah), and conjecture (gharṣ). This can only be done through spiritual labor and immersion in the Revelation as understood and practiced by the first community. •We must not subject the Divine instruction to prevalent intellectual or social conventions or transplant xenografts and foreign discourses into our hermeneutical system. We must affirm our belief in the epistemic superiority and self-sufficiency of the Revelation as the ultimate source of truth about the unseen. This will never require us to impugn the office of reason or undercut its value in understanding the Revelation and defending its doctrines. •Our belief in Allah must be rooted in His exoneration from all deficiencies and His absolute incomparability (tanzeeh), and the amodal affirmation (ithbât) of His attributes by which He has described Himself and His Messenger described Him. In our affirmation of the Divine attributes, we should never accept the so-called “necessary concomitants.” Inferring from the world of shahâdah (seen) about the world of ghayb (unseen) is both irrational and perilous.•We must be respectful of the imams of this deen, regardless of our agreement or disagreement with them. When we have to disagree, we must continue to love those who spent their lives serving Allah and His cause, and show them the requisite respect. •The public should be spared the confusion of intra-Islamic polemics on creed and taught the basics of ‘aqeedah that will provide them with enough guardrails. People should then be uplifted spiritually to want to seek Allah and earn His pleasure. When it comes to the Divine attributes, teachers must prime their understanding with tanzeeh and let the rhetorical strength and richness of the Revelation flow to their hearts, unimpeded by intellectual objections.

    Every one of us is gifted a set amount of time on this earth, and we all must make the best of it before that time is up. While none of us knows exactly how long we have, what is amazing is that per unit time, we all get the same amount every unit. We all get different total amounts, but no one's hour is discernably different from another person's hour. Yet, that is the only similarity, as some people simply waste entire decades away, while others perform deeds in a few hours or even minutes that last for all eternity! This book is meant to inspire us all on this journey of life so that we make the best use of our time. Each topic is chosen to be a quick, easy read with a message that is useful to people at any stage of this journey. These topics were all chosen and selected from khutbahs and talks that I've given over the last almost three decades of public speaking, with extensive editing for content, along with the necessary stylistic editing and footnotes that a written work deserves.- Shaykh Dr Yasir Qadhi (USA)

    As the speaker maps her romances onto legends, directing their characters perform her own tragedy, their fantastical metaphors easily lend themselves to her fluctuating mental state. Cycling between delirious grandeur and wretched despair, she is torn between two selves— the pitiable lover continually rejected, and the cruel, unattainable beloved comparable in her exaltation to a god.

    Each counsel concerns actions Allah and His Messenger (may Allah bless him and give him peace) have commanded us to perform or avoid. Each of the actions in the counsels impacts one's physical, moral, and spiritual well-being and development. The book is a lighter, kinder, and gentler companion to his Infamies of the Soul and Their Treatments. Read together, these two provide a practical toolkit and plan for self-care and development.

    Many wonder about the apparent similarities and obvious differences between Christianity and Islam, and want to reach out to Muslim friends or neighbors with the gospel but don't know where to begin. Having spent several years living in North Africa and the Middle East, missions professor Matthew Bennett guides readers through Islam's key tenants and provides answers to critical questions, such as:Who was Muhammad and what was his message? Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? What are the differences between the Qur'an and the Bible? What is shariah law? What is the Islamic view of salvation? What happens in the mosque? Is Islam inherently misogynistic? How should a Christian share the gospel with Muslims?Helpful summaries at the end of each chapter encapsulate important information, followed by discussion questions useful for personal or small-group study. Whether you want to understand Islam better or reach Muslims for Christ, 40 Questions on Islam is an indispensable primer and reference book.

    An Anglo-American born to Sufi converts, she feels perennially out of place-not fully at home in Western or Muslim cultures.In this searingly honest memoir, Whiteman contemplates what it means to be an invisible Muslim, examining the pernicious effects of white Muslim privilege and exploring what Muslim identity can mean the world over-in lands of religious diversity and cultural insularity, from Andalusia, Bosnia and Turkey to Zanzibar, India and Iran.Through her travels, she unearths experiences familiar to both Western Muslims and anyone of mixed heritage: a life-long search for belonging and the joys and crises of inhabiting more than one identity.

    Using a question-and-answer format, Ibrahim covers critical questions about the most sacred book for Muslims. He examines Muslim and non-Muslim views concerning the Quran, shows how the Quran is used in contemporary expressions of Islam, answers many of the key questions non-Muslims have about the Quran and Islam, and reveals the importance of understanding the Quran for Christian-Muslim and Jewish-Muslim interfaith relations.This introductory guide is written for anyone with little to no knowledge of Islam who wants to learn about Muslims, their beliefs, and their scripture.

    

    

    This essential guide to Islam covers every aspect of the Muslim faith and its history - from the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the teachings of the Koran to Islam in the 21st century. Celebrating the scientific, literary, and artistic achievements of the Islamic Golden Age and the ideas of philosophers and theologians across the centuries, it opens a window on the Islamic world.Clear factual writing offers insight into terms like Sharia law, the Caliphate, and jihad; Sunni and Shia divisions; and Sufi poetry and music. Images of Islamic art, architecture, calligraphy, and historical artefacts illustrate the articles while the Big Ideas' trademark infographics and flowcharts explore and explain the central tenets of Islam, such as prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage.Modern issues such as fundamentalism are discussed in context alongside the work of peaceful traditionalists, modernizers, and women's rights campaigners, among others. Packed with inspiring quotations and bold illustrations, The Islam Book is an invaluable source of information both for members of one of the world's major religions and readers looking for a clear unbiased guide to the meaning of this faith.

    ” (At-Tirmidhee and Ibn Maajah)Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taimiyyah رحمه الله mentioned the virtues of returning forbearance and kindness when envy and hurt were directed toward us. He summarized 20 formulas that will help us how to exercise patience in this invaluable book.

    Anthony demonstrates how critical readings of non-Muslim and Muslim sources in tandem can breathe new life into the historical study of Muhammad and how his message transformed the world. By placing these sources within the intellectual and cultural world of Late Antiquity, Anthony offers a fresh assessment of the earliest sources for Muhammad’s life, taking readers on a grand tour of the available evidence, and suggests what new insights stand to be gained from the techniques and methods pioneered by countless scholars over the decades in a variety of fields. Muhammad and the Empires of Faith offers both an authoritative introduction to the multilayered traditions surrounding the life of Muhammad and a compelling exploration of how these traditions interacted with the broader landscape of Late Antiquity.

    

    These classes are broadcast live for free. Then, high quality edited MP3 recordings replace the live versions, and you can download and listen at your convenience, in shaa' Allah, from this link: https://www.spreaker.com/show/waasiti...This workbook includes the fully-voweled Arabic text of Waasitiyyah and its English translation by Moosaa Richardson, split up over 100 lessons, a complete Arabic manuscript of the text, an isnaad (chain of transmission) back to Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah, as well as the complete uninterrupted text of Waasitiyyah, the Arabic original, as wall as the English translation. Here are some of the topics: [3] THE CREED OF THE SAVED SECT: AHLUS-SUNNAH WAL-JAMAA'AH [4] AFFIRMING DIVINE ATTRIBUTES WHILE AVOIDING FOUR ERRORS [7] ALLAH'S NAMES AND ATTRIBUTES IN SOORAH AL-IKHLAAS [8] ALLAH'S NAMES AND ATTRIBUTES IN AAYAT AL-KURSEE [9] THE FIRST, THE LAST, THE EVER-LIVING [10] THE KNOWLEDGE OF ALLAH: ABSOLUTE & COMPREHENSIVE [12] AFFIRMING HEARING & SEEING AS ATTRIBUTES OF ALLAH [13] ALLAH'S DIVINE WILL: MASHEE'AH AND IRAADAH [14] AFFIRMING ALLAH'S LOVE AS A DIVINE ATTRIBUTE [16] AFFIRMING ALLAH'S MERCY AS A DIVINE ATTRIBUTE [17] THE PLEASURE OF ALLAH AND HIS ANGER [18] ALLAH'S MAJESTIC ARRIVAL ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT [19] ALLAH'S MAJESTIC FACE AND HANDS [20] ALLAH'S EYES [24] PARDONING AND FORGIVING [25] ALLAH'S MAJESTIC HONOR [26] THE BLESSED NAME OF ALLAH AND HIS DIVINE UNIQUENESS [27] ALLAH'S UNSHARED SOVEREIGNTY [30] THE PROHIBITION OF SPEAKING ABOUT ALLAH WITH SIMILITUDES [31] THE ASCENSION ABOVE THE THRONE IN SEVEN CLEAR QURANIC PASSAGES [33] ALLAH'S DIVINE LOFTINESS: MORE QURANIC PROOFS [34] THE "MA'IYYAH" OF ALLAH: HE IS WITH HIS CREATION [36] ALLAH SPEAKS WITH REAL SPEECH [39] ALLAH HAS SENT THE QURAN DOWN FROM ABOVE THE CREATION [40] BELIEVERS WILL SEE ALLAH IN THE HEREAFTER [41] ALLAH'S DIVINE ATTRIBUTES AS FOUND IN THE SUNNAH [42] ALLAH DESCENDS EVERY NIGHT IN A MANNER THAT BEFITS HIS MAJESTY [43] ALLAH'S HAPPINESS AND LAUGHTER AS ESTABLISHED IN THE SUNNAH [44] THE FOOT OF ALLAH AS ESTABLISHED IN THE SUNNAH [45] ALLAH SPEAKS TO HIS CREATION AS ESTABLISHED IN THE SUNNAH [46] ALLAH'S LOFTINESS AS ESTABLISHED IN THE SUNNAH [48] ALLAH IS WITH HIS CREATION AS ESTABLISHED IN THE SUNNAH [49] ALLAH'S NEARNESS AS ESTABLISHED IN THE SUNNAH [51] SEEING ALLAH ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT [52] AHLUS-SUNNAH WAL-JAMAA'AH AFFIRM ALL THESE ATTRIBUTES [53] AHLUS-SUNNAH WAL-JAMAA'AH: THE MIDDLE COURSE OF BALANCE [54] PROOF OF ALLAH'S LOFTINESS AND "MA'IYYAH" COMBINED [55] ALLAH'S "MA'IYYAH" DOES NOT MEAN HE IS WITHIN THE CREATED REALM [56] SHUNNING FALSE NOTIONS ABOUT ALLAH'S "MA'IYYAH" [57] ALLAH IS THE EVER-NEAR, THE EVER RESPONDING [58] THE QURAN IS THE SPEECH OF ALLAH, NOT CREATED [59] REJECTING FALSE NOTIONS ABOUT THE SPEECH OF ALLAH [60] ALLAH WILL REALLY BE SEEN IN THE HEREAFTER [61] THE REALM OF THE GRAVE AFTER A PERSON DIES [62] THE SCALES OF JUSTICE ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT [63] THE RECORD BOOKS DISTRIBUTED [64] PEOPLE FACE THEIR RECKONING ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT [65] THE PROPHET'S DRINKING POOL ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT [66] THE BRIDGE OVER THE HELLFIRE ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT [67] ALL DISPUTES ARE SETTLED BEFORE ENTERING PARADISE [68] THE

    

    The summer 2020 issue of Mizna is guest edited by Zeyn Joukhadar and speaks to bodily autonomy, embodiment, and self-determination within a queer, transgender, SWANA, and Muslim lens.

    Enslaved as an adolescent by a rival ethnic group, he was acquired by Brazilian slave traffickers and taken across the Atlantic. He spent eight years as a slave in the city of Salvador, in the northeast of Brazil, where he arrived in 1823. Rufino was later sold to the southernmost province of Rio Grande do Sul, where he became the slave of the local chief of police. Five years later, in 1835, he bought his freedom with money he saved as a hired-out slave in the streets of Salvador, in Bahia, and Porto Alegre, in Rio Grande do Sul.A few years later Rufino moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he embarked as a cook on a slave ship bound for Luanda. The trans-Atlantic slave trade had been abolished in Brazil since 1831, but it continued unabated due to official tolerance, but it came under fierce repression by British cruisers especially after 1839. Rufino made a few voyages between Luanda and the northeastern province of Pernambuco before his ship was captured by the British and taken to Sierra Leone in 1841. Here the ship would face trial by the Anglo-Brazilian Mixed Commission Against the Slave Trade. While waiting for the court's decision, Rufino lived among Yoruba Muslims, his people, and attended Quranic and Arabic classes in the outskirts of Freetown. In a rare outcome for cases such as this one, his ship was considered a "bad prize" and returned to Pernambuco with Rufino on board, again as a cook.After a few months in Recife, Pernambuco's capital, Rufino returned to Sierra Leone as a witness in a court case started by his employers against the English government. He attended classes with Muslim masters for close to two years. When he went back to Recife via Rio de Janeiro and Bahia in 1844, he established himself as a diviner-serving whites and blacks, free and slaves, Brazilians and Africans, Muslim and non-Muslims-as well as a spiritual leader, an Alufa, in the local Afro-Muslim community. In 1853 Rufino was arrested in Recife due to rumors of an imminent African slave revolt. The police used as evidence for his arrest the large number of manuscript books and other writings in his possession, all in Arabic, the same kind of material the Bahian police had found with Muslim rebels in Bahia thirty years earlier. During his interrogation, Rufino told his life story, which is used to reconstruct the world in which he lived under slavery in Brazil, on African shores, on board slave ships, and in Recife, where he settled.A truly Atlantic history dug out of the archives, Rufino's life is used to shed light on slavery and the slave trade, manumission, the complexities of slavery and freedom in Brazil, African freed persons, and the resilience of ethnic and religious identities. Methodologically, it combines social and cultural history with microhistory, with key academic themes of identity, creolization, African diaspora, and Atlantic history.

    Hammond places Sino-Muslims at the center of imperial Japan’s challenges to Chinese nation-building efforts. Revealing the little-known story of Japan’s interest in Islam during its occupation of North China, Hammond shows how imperial Japanese aimed to defeat the Chinese Nationalists in winning the hearts and minds of Sino-Muslims, a vital minority population. Offering programs that presented themselves as protectors of Islam, the Japanese aimed to provide Muslims with a viable alternative—and, at the same time, to create new Muslim consumer markets that would, the Japanese hoped, act to subvert the existing global capitalist world order and destabilize the Soviets.This history can be told only by reinstating agency to Muslims in China who became active participants in the brokering and political jockeying between the Chinese Nationalists and the Japanese Empire. Hammond argues that the competition for their loyalty was central to the creation of the ethnoreligious identity of Muslims living on the Chinese mainland. Their wartime experience ultimately helped shape the formation of Sino-Muslims’ religious identities within global Islamic networks, as well as their incorporation into the Chinese state, where the conditions of that incorporation remain unstable and contested to this day.

    The Barelvī and Deobandī groups are two normative orientations/reform movements with beginnings in colonial South Asia. Almost two hundred years separate the beginnings of this polemic from the present. Its specter, however, continues to haunt the religious sensibilities of postcolonial South Asian Muslims in profound ways, both in the region and in diaspora communities around the world.Defending Muḥammad in Modernity challenges the commonplace tendency to view such moments of intra-Muslim contest through the prism of problematic yet powerful liberal secular binaries like legal/mystical, moderate/extremist, and reformist/traditionalist. Tareen argues that the Barelvī-Deobandī polemic was instead animated by what he calls "competing political theologies" that articulated--during a moment in Indian Muslim history marked by the loss and crisis of political sovereignty--contrasting visions of the normative relationship between divine sovereignty, prophetic charisma, and the practice of everyday life. Based on the close reading of previously unexplored print and manuscript sources in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu spanning the late eighteenth and the entirety of the nineteenth century, this book intervenes in and integrates the often-disparate fields of religious studies, Islamic studies, South Asian studies, critical secularism studies, and political theology.

    

    

    They circulate horror stories, encouraging Americans to fear the "takeover of shariah" law in America and even mounting "anti-shariah protests" . . . . with zero evidence that shariah has taken over any part of our country. (That's because it hasn't.) It would be almost funny if it weren't so terrifyingly wrong--as puzzling as if Americans suddenly began protesting the Martian occupation of Earth.Demystifying Shariah explains that shariah is not one set of punitive rules or even law the way we think of law--rigid and enforceable--but religious rules and recommendations that provide Muslims with guidance in various aspects of life. Sumbul Ali-Karamali draws on scholarship and her degree in Islamic law to explain shariah in an accessible, engaging narrative style--its various meanings, how it developed, and how the shariah-based legal system operated for over a thousand years. She explains what shariah means not only in the abstract but in the daily lives of Muslims. She discusses modern calls for shariah, what they mean, and whether shariah is the law of the land anywhere in the world. She also describes the key lies and misunderstandings about shariah circulating in our public discourse, and why so many of them are nonsensical.This engaging guide is intended to introduce you to the basic principles, goals, and general development of shariah and to answer questions like: How do Muslims engage with shariah? What does shariah have to do with our Constitution? What does shariah have to do with the way the world looks like today? And why do we all--Muslims or not--need to care?

    The Qur’an, Islam’s sacred scripture, is marked above all by its call to worship Allah, and Allah alone. Yet who is the God of the Qur’an? What distinguishes the qur’anic presentation of God from that of the Bible? In this illuminating study, Gabriel Said Reynolds depicts a god of both mercy and vengeance, one who transcends simple classification. He is personal and mysterious; no limits can be placed on his mercy. Remarkably, the Qur’an is open to God’s salvation of both sinners and unbelievers. At the same time, Allah can lead humans astray, so all are called to a disposition of piety and fear. Allah, in other words, is a dynamic and personal God. This eye-opening book provides a unique portrait of the God of the Qur’an.

    

    

    

    It is a concise yet thorough manual of key doctrinal issues that were historically debated in early Islamic history. The text explains the central tenets of the Islamic creed and refutes erroneous positions of alternative theologies. The discussions are uncomplicated and unencumbered by technical terminology, and the positions of orthodoxy are presented with rational and scriptural evidence.This text includes the original Arabic script, concise translation, and comprehensive notes by translator Faraz A. Khan, providing a rare rendering into the English language of the extraordinary richness and enduring relevance of the kalam commentary tradition. Finally, an insightful foreword by Dr. Hamza Yusuf and a valuable appendix on the kalam cosmological argument provide enhanced support of this remarkable text.

    It deserves to be widely read… this timely and excellent book will act as a wakeup call.... It reminds us that historically, the Copts have been Egypt’s beating heart and that Egypt’s future, without them, would be bleak indeed.Professor Lord Alton, Member of the British House of LordsA Sword Over the Nile is a most welcome book and contribution to the existing literature. Here in one volume, we have the largely unknown historical experiences of Egypt’s Coptic Christians under Islam—and from the most primary if previously inaccessible or untranslated sources. Not only is it a window to the past; it may be an ominous look to the future.Raymond Ibrahim, an expert on Islamic doctrineand history, is author of Sword and Scimitar:Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West

    It shows that such attitudes, fuelled by hate, impinge upon a conviviality, harmony of existence and mutual understanding between peoples – as reflected in the Qur’ānic paradigm. The book breaks down codified concepts in an accessible way to the uninitiated reader, marrying together sociological constructs with real and illuminating examples from the Qur'an and Prophetic tradition.Numerous, varied, historical and contemporary examples are used from many different fields to demonstrate key points throughout the book, giving the reader a glimpse into the depth and breadth of history, literature, spirituality, conflict studies and how these concepts have manifested themselves across all these fields in relation to discourses of othering, dehumanisation and empathy. This book calls on us to attempt to see one another without the stereotypes, the walls, the distance both physical and cultural, that mar our perceptions of each other. Inspired by the Prophetic empathy, the book provides guidelines on bridging between communities and suggests direct lessons for the reader to take.

    

    It's a story about conflict and hostility, about foreigners and strangers. At the heart of this story is a fundamental incompatibility between the two religions going all the way back to their original encounters. According to that story, the only valid Christian response to Islam is resistance.But it's time to tell a different--and truer--story. Christians and Muslims have not always fought or lived in fear of each other. Christian communities in majority-Muslim countries have coexisted with their Muslim neighbors for centuries. More importantly, Muslims have been part of the American story from its beginning. And like their Christian neighbors, Muslims want to make the community in which they live a better place for all citizens. In Neighbors, Deanna Ferree Womack lays the groundwork for members of the two religions to understand, converse, and cooperate with each another. With models for cultivating empathy and interfaith awareness, Christians can move from neighborly intention to real dialogue and common action with Muslims in the United States.