But she saw things and traveled to places rarely viewed by any outsider, let alone a Western woman, and she succeeded in smuggling out a series of crucial articles on Saudi culture and politics. The Saudis offers a fascinating portrait of Saudi life, chronicling Mackey's extraordinary travels and experiences and depicting Saudi Arabia's strange metamorphosis from backward desert kingdom to world power. Mackey reveals the chaos of a country in transformation: grappling with modernity, coming to terms with its own wealth, and battling to maintain an influential stance in an altogether new world. This updated edition provides the essential background to the new Saudi crisis as the mother state of international terrorism.

    Is Islam a religion of peace or war? Is it amenable to reform? Why do so many Muslims seem to be drawn to extremism? And what do words like jihadism and fundamentalism really mean? In a world riven by misunderstanding and violence, Sam Harris--a famous atheist--and Maajid Nawaz--a former radical--demonstrate how two people with very different religious views can find common ground and invite you to join in an urgently needed conversation.

    Even as “shari‘a” became a loaded word and an all-encompassing explanation, most of us remained ignorant of its true meaning. And we were doing this at our peril. In Heaven on Earth, Kadri brings lucid wit and analytical skill to the thrilling and turbulent story of Islam’s foundation and expansion. He shows how legal ideas gradually evolved out of thousands of reports about the Prophet Mohammad, most of which were not even written down until two centuries after his death. And he explains how, just in the last forty years, the shari‘a has been appropriated and transformed by hardliners desperate to impose their oppressive vision. In the second half of the book, Kadri takes us on an extraordinary journey through more than half a dozen countries in the Islamic world, where he explores, in striking detail, how the shari‘a is taught, read, reinterpreted, reverenced, and challenged—beginning at the eight-hundred-year old Indian grave of his Sufi mystic ancestor, and ending in Cairo’s City of the Dead, where one of Islam’s greatest legal scholars still gets daily requests for legal miracles twelve centuries after his death. Heaven on Earth is a brilliantly iconoclastic tour through one of history’s great collective intellectual achievements, as complex as the religion that brought it to life. The shari‘a continues to shape both explosive political circumstances and the daily life of more than a billion Muslims, and Sadakat Kadri has given us a compelling and clarifying portrait of a changeable world of faith, reason, and justice.

    The Quran is composed of verses (Ayat) that make up 114 chapters (suras) of unequal length which are classified either as Meccan (المكية) or Medinan (المدنية) depending upon the place and time of their claimed revelation. Muslims believe the Quran to be verbally revealed through the angel Jibrīl (Gabriel) from God to Muhammad gradually over a period of approximately 23 years beginning on 22 December 609 CE, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632 CE, the year of his death.Muslims regard the Quran as the main miracle of Muhammad, the proof of his prophethood and the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with the messages revealed to Adam, regarded in Islam as the first prophet, and continued with Suhuf Ibrahim (Scrolls of Abraham), the Tawrat (Torah or Pentateuch) of Moses, the Zabur (Tehillim or Book of Psalms) of David, and the Injil (Gospel) of Jesus. The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in Jewish and Christian scriptures, summarizing some, dwelling at length on others and in some cases presenting alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance, sometimes offering detailed accounts of specific historical events, and often emphasizing the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence.

    And, although Americans hear about Islam on a daily basis, there remains no clear explanation of Islam or its people. The Muslim Next Door offers easy-to-understand yet academically sound answers to these questions while also dispelling commonly held misconceptions. Written from the point of view of an American Muslim, the book addresses what readers in the Western world are most curious about, beginning with the basics of Islam and how Muslims practice their religion before easing into more complicated issues like jihad, Islamic fundamentalism, and the status of women in Islam. Author Sumbul Ali-Karamali’s vivid anecdotes about growing up Muslim and female in the West, along with her sensitive, scholarly overview of Islam, combine for a uniquely insightful look at the world’s fastest growing religion.

    ترجم الكتاب إلى العديد من اللغات العالمية.واسم الكتاب كاملاً طوق الحمامة في الألفة والأُلاف. ويحتوي الكتاب على مجموعة من أخبار وأشعار وقصص المحبين، ويتناول الكتاب بالبحث والدَّرس عاطفة الحب الإنسانية على قاعدة تعتمد على شيء من التحليل النفسي من خلال الملاحظة والتجربة. فيعالج ابن حزم في أسلوب قصصي هذه العاطفة من منظور إنساني تحليلي. والكتاب يُعد عملاً فريدًا في بابه.Ibn Hazm's Tawq al-Hamama ('The Ring of the Dove')The famous Arabic book on love and lovers, Tawq al-hamâma ('the Ring of the Dove'), is a splendid witness to the high age of Islamic culture in Spain. The book was written in or around 1022 CE in Játiva, south of Valencia, by Abu Muhammad `Ali Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi (Córdoba, 994-1064 CE). It is a youth work by this famous Andalusian poet, philosopher, jurist and scholar of comparative religion.In thirty chapters Ibn Hazm treats thirty moments or personages that are of relevance to love relationships, such as the signs of love, love at first sight, amorous allusions, correpondence between lovers, the messenger between the lovers, being together, fidelity and unfidelity, separation, death. Ibn Hazm alternates from theoritical observations to anecdotes of daily life and he ornates his essays with an abundance of appropriate poetry. The anecdotes are often very peronal and they give the reader a enthralling view on life and love in Islamic Córdoba. All poetry in the Ring of the Dove is Ibn Hazm's own.The Ring of the Dove has been preserved in only one manuscript, which is, since 1665, part of the Oriental collections of Leiden University Library (where it is registered as Or. 927). It was copied in 1338 CE, most probably in Egypt or Syria, from an original that is now lost. The manuscript was first acquired in Istanbul in the middle of the 17th century by the learned and bibliophile Dutch ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Levinus Warner (1619-1665). After his death his entire collection of books and manuscripts came to Leiden.The first edition of the Arabic text was made by the Russian D.K. Pétrof and was published in Leiden in 1914. Before that R.P.A. Dozy (1820-1883) had already published several fragments. All later editions and the numerous translations of the book are directly, or, mostly, indirectly based on the Leiden manuscript. Together they are proof to the fact that Ibn Hazm in his book on love and lovers treats themes that are for all humans in all times.

    Award-winning religious affairs correspondent Peter Stanford begins with an examination of sacred texts, the divine principle and good and evil, before moving on to a discussion of the different traditions within Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the myriad traditions of the East.

    This Special Issue describes the events of the tenth canto which narrates the life of the most beloved god in Hindu mythology - Krishna. Beginning with the miraculous birth of Krishna, the story traces his childhood exploits, including the slaying of dangerous demons and the performing of miraculous acts. The comic also describes Krishna’s battle with Kamsa as he retrieves the kingdom of Mathura for his aging grandfather, Ugrasena. In the Bhagawat, Krishna is seen as a son, brother, husband, friend and warrior.

    The Book is, without a doubt, a revelation from the Lord of the Universe. The Final Testament comes with built-in physical evidence that it is God's message to you; it is mathematically composed beyond human capability. This proves that God is the Truth, and that He revives the dead, and that He is Omnipotent. Our Salvation in the hereafter lies on upholding The Quran. The Quran is God's Final Testament to the world. Unlike any other book, the Quran is taught by God (55:1-2); He teaches us what we need at the time we need it. This is why we read the Quran hundreds of times without getting bored. We can read a novel, for example, only once. But the Quran can be read an infinite number of times, and we derive new and valuable information from it every time. Since the Quran is God's message to all the people, regardless of their language, the Quran is accessible to the believers, regardless of their language (41:44). This explains a profound phenomenon: the believers who do not know Arabic know the Quran better than the Arabic speaking unbelievers. Because of the invisible forces serving the Quran, it is readily and enjoyably accessible to the sincere believers, and utterly inaccessible to the unbelievers (17:45, 18:57, 56:79).

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

    Adil Salahi's compelling biography traces the life of the Prophet Muhammad from his birth and childhood to the triumph of Islam and its hold on Arabia. The author sets this against a fascinating historical backdrop. His careful analysis of the Prophet's life is written with today's Muslim and non-Muslim readers in mind: Muslims will further their comprehension of their faith, and non-Muslims will come to understand the love Muslims have for their Prophet.

    “In this book, the author provides a definition of the word “Dream”, discusses the various types of dreams, mentions some dreams that were interpreted by the Prophet (Peace and blessings Be Upon Him), etiquette to be observed by the person who has a dream and the person who interprets it, and provides the interpretation of a large number of dreams, among some other issue related to subject. The author is the well-known erudite scholar sheikh Muhammad ibe Abd-Allah ibn Raashid Al-Bakri (d. 736 AH/1336CE). The English reader will definitely find this book highly interesting and thought-provoking.

    Their stories show just how varied the search for love can be—from singles' events and college flirtations to arranged marriages, all with a uniquely Muslim twist.These heartfelt tales are filled with passion and hope, loss and longing. One follows the quintessential single woman in the big city as she takes a chance on a Muslim speed-dating event. Another tells of a shy student from a liberal college town who falls in love online and must reveal her secret to her conservative family. A third recounts a Southern girl who surprises herself by agreeing to an arranged marriage, unexpectedly finding the love of her life.These compelling stories of love and romance create an irresistible balance of heart-warming and tantalizing, always revealing and deeply relatable.

    Rather than returning Soraya's dowry, as custom required before taking a second wife, he plotted with four friends and a counterfeit mullah to dispose of her. Together, they accused Soraya of adultery. Her only crime was cooking for a friend's widowed husband. Exhausted by a lifetime of abuse and hardship, Soraya said nothing, and the makeshift tribunal took her silence as a confession of guilt. They sentenced her to death by stoning: a punishment prohibited by Islam but widely practiced. Day by day sometimes minute by minute Sahebjam deftly recounts these horrendous events, tracing Soraya's life with searing immediacy, from her arranged marriage and the births of her nine children to her husband's increasing cruelty and her horrifying execution, where, by tradition, her father, husband, and sons hurled the first stones. This is one woman's story, but it stands for the stories of thousands of women who suffered and continue to suffer the same fate. It is a story that must be told.

    The popular tellings of the Mahabharata are about Duryodhana'sdeviousness, obstinacy and greed for power that would bring about thebattle of Kurukshetra between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, and hisown downfall. But was there more to him? Was he all black, or was it a matter ofshades of grey? What was he? True heir or pretender to the throne?Arch villain or brave prince defending his rajadharma?Ace strategist or wicked schemer? History, they say, is written by the victors. So we have never heard theside that Duryodhana presents. The epic's enigmatic villain finally hashis say -- on people, their motives and their machinations. For the firsttime we read a different meaning into episodes we may be familiar with --be it the attempted killing of Bhima, the burning of the wax house, thefamous game of dice or even Draupadi's vastraharan -- and get insightsinto the story we may not have come across before. Here is the crownprince of Hastinapura as we have never known him, adding yet anotherdimension to the labyrinth that is the Mahabharata.