A Year with Hafiz: Daily Contemplations


Hafez - 2011
    With learned insight and a delicate hand, Daniel Ladinsky explores the many emotions addressed in these verses. His renderings, presented here in 365 poignant poems—including a section based on the translations of Hafiz by Ralph Waldo Emerson—capture the compelling wisdom of one of the most revered Sufi poets. Intimate and often spiritual, these poems are beautifully sensuous, playful, wacky, and profound, and provide guidance for everyday life, as well as deep wisdom to savor through a lifetime.

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes


Amin Maalouf - 1983
    He retells their story and offers insights into the historical forces that shape Arab and Islamic consciousness today.

John Milton's Paradise Lost In Plain English


Joseph Lanzara - 2012
    The PLAIN ENGLISH version you’ve been waiting for! Now a new, improved Kindle-friendly edition! Nothing else like it! Between-the-lines format! More choices! Easy navigation! Still hated by your teacher!

1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World


Salim T.S. Al-Hassani - 1900
    . . . I wish I had had this book fifty years ago."—Adam Hart-Davis, photographer, writer, and TV science presenter of the BBC series What the Ancients Did for UsWhat do coffee beans, torpedoes, surgical scalpels, arches, and observatories all have in common?Were Leonardo da Vinci’s flight ideas originals?Who devised the casing for pill capsules, and where did Fibonacci learn to flex his mathematical fingers?The answers to these questions and more can be found in this book.1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World presents an excellent overview of Muslim heritage written to appeal to the everyday reader and to amaze and redefine many people's current assumptions of medieval times and of their history and roots.This is an essential introduction to the great epoch of Muslim civilization. Readers now have access to one thousand years of missing history, covering medicine, technology, economics, civilization, the environment, and much more. From Spain to China, scholars of different genders, cultures, and various faiths worked together to build upon the knowledge of ancient civilization.Written by a team of internationally renowned experts, the contributions were selected to give the reader reassurance and confidence that the facts presented in the book are from the most reliable and unbiased academic sources.Salim T S Al-Hassani is professor emeritus of mechanical engineering and professorial fellow at the School of Languages, Linguistics, and Cultures at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.Sir Roland Jackson is the chief executive of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories


Peter HainingA.E. Coppard - 2000
    Over 40 tales of visitation by the undead--from vengeful and violent spirits, set on causing harm to innocent people tucked up in their homes, to rarer and more kindly ghosts, returning from the grave to reach out across the other side. Yet others entertain desires of a more sinister bent, including the erotic. This new edition includes a selection of favorite haunted house tales chosen by famous screen stars such as Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. In addition, a top ranking list of contributors includes Stephen King, Bram Stoker, Ruth Rendell, and James Herbert--all brought together by an anthologist who himself lives in a haunted house.Contents1 • The Haunted House • (2000) • short fiction by Elizabeth Albright and Ray Bradbury3 • Foreword: I Live In A Haunted House • (2000) • essay by Peter Haining9 • The Haunted and the Haunters • (1919) • novelette by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (variant of The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain 1859)39 • Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House • (2000) • short story by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (variant of An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House 1862)53 • A Case of Eavesdropping • [Jim Shorthouse] • (1900) • short story by Algernon Blackwood69 • A Haunted House • (1921) • short story by Virginia Woolf73 • Ghost Hunt • (1948) • short story by H. Russell Wakefield81 • Dark Winner • (1976) • short story by William F. Nolan89 • The Old House in Vauxhall Walk • (1882) • novelette by Mrs. J. H. Riddell [as by Charlotte Riddell]109 • No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince • (1895) • short story by Ralph Adams Cram125 • The Southwest Chamber • (1903) • novelette by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman [as by Mary Eleanor Freeman]145 • The Toll-House • (1907) • short story by W. W. Jacobs157 • Feet Foremost • (1932) • novelette by L. P. Hartley191 • Happy Hour • (1990) • novelette by Ian Watson217 • The Ankardyne Pew • (1979) • short story by William Fryer Harvey [as by W. F. Harvey]231 • The Real and the Counterfeit • (1988) • short story by Mrs. Alfred Baldwin [as by Louisa Baldwin]249 • A Night at a Cottage ... • (1926) • short story by Richard Hughes253 • The Considerate Hosts • (1939) • short story by Thorp McClusky265 • The Grey House • (1967) • short story by Basil Copper309 • Watching Me, Watching You • (1981) • short story by Fay Weldon329 • A Spirit Elopement • (1915) • short story by Richard Dehan339 • The House of Dust • (1920) • short story by Herbert de Hamel357 • The Kisstruck Bogie • (1946) • short story by A. E. Coppard367 • Mr Edward • (2000) • short story by Norah Lofts (variant of Mr. Edward 1947)385 • House of the Hatchet • (1941) • short story by Robert Bloch403 • Napier Court • (1971) • short story by Ramsey Campbell423 • Lost Hearts • (1895) • short story by M. R. James435 • The Shadowy Third • (1916) • novelette by Ellen Glasgow461 • A Little Ghost • (1922) • short story by Hugh Walpole477 • The Patter of Tiny Feet • (1950) • short story by Nigel Kneale489 • Uninvited Ghosts • (1981) • short story by Penelope Lively497 • Playing with Fire • (1900) • short story by Arthur Conan Doyle [as by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]513 • The Whistling Room • [Carnacki (Hodgson)] • (1910) • short story by William Hope Hodgson533 • Bagnell Terrace • (1925) • short story by E. F. Benson547 • The Companion • (1978) • short story by Joan Aiken557 • The Ghost Hunter • (2000) • short fiction by James Herbert563 • Computer Séance • (1997) • short story by Ruth Rendell573 • In Letters of Fire • [L'homme qui a vu le diable] • (1908) • novelette by Gaston Leroux (trans. of L'homme qui a vu le diable)593 • The Judge's House • (1891) • short story by Bram Stoker613 • The Storm • (1944) • short story by McKnight Malmar627 • The Waxwork • (1931) • short story by A. M. Burrage [as by Ex-Private X]641 • The Inexperienced Ghost • (1902) • short story by H. G. Wells655 • Sophy Mason Comes Back • (1930) • short story by E. M. Delafield669 • The Boogeyman • (1973) • short story by Stephen King683 • Appendix: Haunted House Novels: A Listing • (2000) • essay by Peter Haining

Ten Things I Hate About Me


Randa Abdel-Fattah - 2006
    . . and learning to accept yourself and your culture.At school I'm Aussie-blonde Jamie -- one of the crowd. At home I'm Muslim Jamilah -- driven mad by my Stone Age dad. I should win an Oscar for my acting skills. But I can't keep it up for much longer...Jamie just wants to fit in. She doesn't want to be seen as a stereotypical Muslim girl, so she does everything possible to hide that part of herself. Even if it means pushing her friends away because she's afraid to let them know her dad forbids her from hanging out with boys or that she secretly loves to play the darabuka (Arabic drums).

The Upside-Down King: Unusual Tales about Rama and Krishna


Sudha Murty - 2018
    Countless stories about the two abound, yet most are simply disappearing from the hearts and minds of the present generation.Bestselling author Sudha Murty takes you on an arresting tour, all the while telling you of the days when demons and gods walked alongside humans, animals could talk and gods granted the most glorious boons to common people.

Vestments


John Reimringer - 2010
    Taught this prayer as a boy by his grandfather, James Dressler recites it each time he’s tempted by earthly desires. Originally drawn to the priesthood by the mystery, purity, and sensual fabric of the Church, as well as by its promise of a safe harbor from his tempestuous home, James finds himself — just a few years after his ordination — attracted again to his first love, Betty García. Torn between these opposing desires, and haunted by his familial heritage, James finds himself at a crossroads. Exploring age-old and yet urgently contemporary issues in the Catholic Church, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, this is an utterly honest and subtly lyrical novel.

Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilisation from the Past


Firas Alkhateeb - 2014
    Over the last 1400 years, from origins in Arabia, a succession of Muslim polities and later empires expanded to control territories and peoples that ultimately stretched from southern France to East Africa and South East Asia.Yet many of the contributions of Muslim thinkers, scientists and theologians, not to mention rulers, statesmen and soldiers, have been occluded. This book rescues from oblivion and neglect some of these personalities and institutions while offering the reader a new narrative of this lost Islamic history. The Umayyads, Abbasids, and Ottomans feature in the story, as do Muslim Spain, the savannah kingdoms of West Africa and the Mughal Empire, along with the later European colonization of Muslim lands and the development of modern nation-states in the Muslim world. Throughout, the impact of Islamic belief on scientific advancement, social structures, and cultural development is given due prominence, and the text is complemented by portraits of key personalities, inventions and little known historical nuggets. The history of Islam and of the world's Muslims brings together diverse peoples, geographies and states, all interwoven into one narrative that begins with Muhammad and continues to this day.

Science and Islam: A History


Ehsan Masood - 2006
    The author provides an enlightening and in-depth exploration into an empire's golden age, its downfall and the numerous debates that now surround it.

Islam: A Short History


Karen Armstrong - 2000
    It haunts the popular Western imagination as an extreme faith that promotes authoritarian government, female oppression, civil war, and terrorism. Karen Armstrong's short history offers a vital corrective to this narrow view. The distillation of years of thinking and writing about Islam, it demonstrates that the world's fastest-growing faith is a much richer and more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest.Islam: A Short History begins with the flight of Muhammad and his family from Medina in the seventh century and the subsequent founding of the first mosques. It recounts the origins of the split between Shii and Sunni Muslims, and the emergence of Sufi mysticism; the spread of Islam throughout North Africa, the Levant, and Asia; the shattering effect on the Muslim world of the Crusades; the flowering of imperial Islam in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries into the world's greatest and most sophisticated power; and the origins and impact of revolutionary Islam. It concludes with an assessment of Islam today and its challenges.With this brilliant book, Karen Armstrong issues a forceful challenge to those who hold the view that the West and Islam are civilizations set on a collision course. It is also a model of authority, elegance, and economy.

Great Women of Islam


Mahmood Ahmad Ghadanfar - 2001
    There are good examples in the lifestyle of the Mothers of The Believers and women Companions especially for the Muslim women. It is necessary for all of us to study the Seerah of these noble and fortunate women. Besides the Mothers of The Believers, the compiler of the book has included the description of those sixteen women who had been given the good News of the Paradise in this world by the Prophet Muhammad (salallahu alayhi wasallam). Although the original book is in the Urdu language, the efforts of the translator have made it more beneficial for the readers.

The Evidence Bible: Irrefutable evidence for the thinking mind


Anonymous - 2001
    Study how to share your faith with your family or at your workplace. Learn how to witness to an atheist. See from Scripture how to prove God's existence without the use of faith. Discover how to prove the authenticity of the Bible through prophecy. See how the Bible is full of eye-opening scientific and medical facts. Read fascinating quotes from Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Sir Issac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Stephen Hawking, and many other well-known scientists. Read the fearful last words of famous people who died without the Savior. Learn how to refute the "contradictions" in the Bible. Study how to speak with a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, a Buddhist, a Hindu and a Mosley. Find out why the Dead Sea Scrolls are relevant to the Bible. Read incredible quotes about the Bible from presidents and other famous people. Discover how to answer questions such as Where did Cain get his wife? Why is there suffering? Why did the dinosaur disappear?…and many more. The Way of the Master is a ministry of Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort, designed to teach Christians how to share their faith simply, effectively, biblically…the way Jesus did.

The Love Object: Selected Stories


Edna O'Brien - 1968
    As John Banville writes in his introduction to The Love Object, Edna O'Brien "is, simply, one of the finest writers of our time." The thirty-one stories collected in this volume provide, among other things, a cumulative portrait of Ireland, seen from within and without. Coming of age, the impact of class, and familial and romantic love are the prevalent motifs, along with the instinct toward escape and subsequent nostalgia for home. Some of the stories are linked and some carry O'Brien's distinct sense of the comical. In "A Rose in the Heart of New York," the single-mindedness of love dramatically derails the relationship between a girl and her mother, while in "Sister Imelda" and "The Creature" the strong ties between teacher and student and mother and son are ultimately broken. "The Love Object" recounts a passionate affair between the narrator and her older lover. The magnificent, mid-career title story from Lantern Slides portrays a Dublin dinner party that takes on the lives and loves of all the guests. More recent stories include "Shovel Kings" -- "a masterpiece of compression, distilling the pain of a lost, exiled generation" (Sunday Times) -- and "Old Wounds," which follows the revival and demise of the friendship between two elderly cousins. In 2011, Edna O'Brien's gifts were acknowledged with the most prestigious international award for the story, the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award. The Love Object illustrates a career's worth of shimmering, potent prose from a writer of great courage, vision, and heart. "The most striking aspect of Edna O'Brien's short stories, aside from the consistent mastery with which they are executed, is their diversity."-John Banville

The Conference of the Birds


Attar of Nishapur
    He recounts the perilous journey of the world’s birds to the faraway peaks of Mount Qaf in search of the mysterious Simorgh, their king. Attar’s beguiling anecdotes and humor intermingle the sublime with the mundane, the spiritual with the worldly, while his poem models the soul’s escape from the mind’s rational embrace.Sholeh Wolpé re-creates for modern readers the beauty and timeless wisdom of the original Persian, in contemporary English verse and poetic prose.