The Life of Mohammed: The Sira


Bill Warner - 2010
    He was an orphan who rose from poverty to become the first ruler of all of Arabia. He created a new religion, new methods of war and a new political system including a legal code, the Sharia. Mohammed was the world's greatest warrior. Today no one wages war in the name of Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon or any other military leader. However, every year many people die because of Mohammed. After 1400 years, Islam is more powerful than it has ever been. Mohammed said that one day all of the world would live under his rule of law.To understand Islam, you must know the life of Mohammed. Every Muslim's desire is to live a life identical to his. His every word and deed are the perfect model for being a Muslim. Every Muslim is a Mohammedan. The religion of Islam is not about worshiping Allah; it about worshiping Allah exactly as Mohammed did. This book is unique. It is concise, but it is completely authoritative. The reference system allows you to verify all information.

The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt


Kara Cooney - 2014
    Hatshepsut, the daughter of a general who took Egypt's throne without status as a king’s son and a mother with ties to the previous dynasty, was born into a privileged position of the royal household. Married to her brother, she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her inconceivable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just twenty, Hatshepsut ascended to the rank of king in an elaborate coronation ceremony that set the tone for her spectacular twenty-two year reign as co-regent with Thutmose III, the infant king whose mother Hatshepsut out-maneuvered for a seat on the throne. Hatshepsut was a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays with the veil of piety and sexual expression. Just as women today face obstacles from a society that equates authority with masculinity, Hatshepsut had to shrewdly operate the levers of a patriarchal system to emerge as Egypt's second female pharaoh.Hatshepsut had successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt’s most prolific building periods. Scholars have long speculated as to why her images were destroyed within a few decades of her death, all but erasing evidence of her rule. Constructing a rich narrative history using the artifacts that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power—and why she fell from public favor just as quickly. The Woman Who Would Be King traces the unconventional life of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power.

Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria


Lisa Wedeen - 1999
    In newspapers, on television, and during orchestrated spectacles Asad is praised as the "father," the "gallant knight," even the country's "premier pharmacist." Yet most Syrians, including those who create the official rhetoric, do not believe its claims. Why would a regime spend scarce resources on a cult whose content is patently spurious?Wedeen concludes that Asad's cult acts as a disciplinary device, generating a politics of public dissimulation in which citizens act as if they revered their leader. By inundating daily life with tired symbolism, the regime exercises a subtle, yet effective form of power. The cult works to enforce obedience, induce complicity, isolate Syrians from one another, and set guidelines for public speech and behavior. Wedeen's ethnographic research demonstrates how Syrians recognize the disciplinary aspects of the cult and seek to undermine them. Provocative and original, Ambiguities of Domination is a significant contribution to comparative politics, political theory, and cultural studies.

Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan


Sally Armstrong - 2002
    In Veiled Threat, Sally Armstrong introduces several of these women—including the deputy prime minister of Afghanistan, Dr. Sima Samar—who describe the living hell they experienced as well as the quiet rebellion—clandestine schools for girls and health clinics for women—that took place in an effort to subvert the Taliban's hateful edicts.One of the first Western journalists to visit Afghanistan, Armstrong gives us an insider's view of the deplorable situation. She also provides a broader perspective, leading us through the history of Afghanistan, including the ebb and flow of women's rights. She examines what the Koran actually says about women. She points a finger at the international community for accepting women's oppression in the name of culture, and she accuses the Taliban and other fundamentalist leaders of distorting Islam for political opportunism. While there have been other books about the women in Afghanistan, VEILED THREAT holds a unique position. There have been two autobiographies: ZOYA'S STORY and MY FORBIDDEN FACE; a photo book, UNVEILED; and a book about RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) called VEILED COURAGE. VEILD THREAT is much broader in its approach.

An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon


Lara Deeb - 2006
    This eloquent ethnographic portrayal of an Islamic community articulates how an alternative modernity, and specifically an enchanted modernity, may be constructed by Shi'I Muslims who consider themselves simultaneously deeply modern, cosmopolitan, and pious.In this depiction of a Shi'I Muslim community in Beirut, Deeb examines the ways that individual and collective expressions and understandings of piety have been debated, contested, and reformulated.Women take center stage in this process, a result of their visibility both within the community, and in relation to Western ideas that link the status of women to modernity. By emphasizing the ways notions of modernity and piety are lived, debated, and shaped by everyday Islamists, this book underscores the inseparability of piety and politics in the lives of pious Muslims.

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East


Michael B. Oren - 2001
    Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing intifada, is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Michael B. Oren’s magnificent Six Days of War, an internationally acclaimed bestseller, is the first comprehensive account of this epoch-making event. Writing with a novelist’s command of narrative and a historian’s grasp of fact and motive, Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. And the balance of power changed—in the Middle East and in the world. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, Six Days of War is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation.

Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story


Sebastian Rotella - 2011
    The trail of two key figures, an accused Pakistani mastermind and his American operative, traces the rise of a complex, international threat.

Taliban Escape!: One Woman Journey Out of Hell


Aabra - 2012
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The Believer: How an Introvert with a Passion for Religion and Soccer Became Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Leader of the Islamic State (The Brookings Essay)


William McCants - 2015
    ISIS), a group so brutal and hardline that even al-Qaida deemed them too extreme. Baghdadi, an introverted religious scholar, with a passion for soccer, now controls large swaths of land in Iraq and Syria. McCants shows how Baghdadi became radicalized in the Saddam Hussein era and found his path to power after connecting with other radicals in an American prison during the Iraq War, culminating in his declaration of a reborn Islamic empire bent on world conquest.

The History of the Sunni and Shia Split: Understanding the Divisions within Islam


Jesse Harasta - 2014
    The schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches influenced relationships between nations across Europe, and religious intolerance based on different Christian faiths led to persecution and outright violence across the continent for centuries. The Protestant Reformation split Christianity further, and the results culminated in the incredibly destructive Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century. Today, the most important religious split is between the Sunnis and the Shias (Shiites) within Islam. Unlike divisions in other faiths - between Conservative and Orthodox Jews or Catholic and Protestant Christians - the split between the Sunnis and Shia has existed almost as long as the faith itself, and it quickly emerged out of tensions created by the political crisis after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. In a sense, what are now two different forms of Islam essentially started as political factions within the unified body of Muslim believers. Over the past few centuries, Christians have mostly been able to live alongside their co-religionists, but the split between the Sunnis and Shias is still so pronounced that many adherents of each branch view each other with disdain if not as outright apostates or non-believers. The religious divide is perhaps the most important fault line in the turbulent Middle East today, with Sunni nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia at odds with Shiite nations like Iran. At lower levels, non-state groups like the Islamic State and Hezbollah are fighting each other in ways that cross state lines in places like Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. Although it is technically a split in religion, the divide has had substantial global ramifications for decades, and there seems to be no end in sight. The History of the Sunni and Shia Split traces the origins of the split and the historic effects of the main divide within Islam. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the history of the Sunnis and Shias like never before, in no time at all.

Delhi Anti-Hindu Riots 2020, The Macabre Dance of Violence Since December 2019: An OpIndia Report


Nupur J. Sharma - 2020
    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’.

Do Muslim Women Need Saving?


Lila Abu-Lughod - 2013
    Lila Abu-Lughod boldly challenges this conclusion. An anthropologist who has been writing about Arab women for thirty years, she delves into the predicaments of Muslim women today, questioning whether generalizations about Islamic culture can explain the hardships these women face and asking what motivates particular individuals and institutions to promote their rights.In recent years Abu-Lughod has struggled to reconcile the popular image of women victimized by Islam with the complex women she has known through her research in various communities in the Muslim world. Here, she renders that divide vivid by presenting detailed vignettes of the lives of ordinary Muslim women, and showing that the problem of gender inequality cannot be laid at the feet of religion alone. Poverty and authoritarianism--conditions not unique to the Islamic world, and produced out of global interconnections that implicate the West--are often more decisive. The standard Western vocabulary of oppression, choice, and freedom is too blunt to describe these women's lives.Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam--as well as a moving portrait of women's actual experiences, and of the contingencies with which they live.

Welcome to Islam: A Step-by-Step Guide for New Muslims


Mustafa Umar - 2012
    'Welcome to Islam' is a step-by-step guide to help people who have just accepted Islam. It teaches them the absolute basics of Islam that they should learn within their first month of being a Muslim. This work is not another introductory book on Islam but rather a step-by-step instruction manual that allows you to start practicing what you learn immediately. It also contains valuable advice on some common challenges that new Muslims often face.

Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization


Akbar Ahmed - 2007
    Yet internationally renowned Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed believes that through dialogue and understanding, these cultures can coexist peacefully and respectfully. That hope and belief result in an extraordinary journey. To learn what Muslims think and how they really view America, Ahmed traveled to the three major regions of the Muslim world the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization is the riveting story of his search for common ground. His absorbing narrative and personal photos bring the reader on a tour of Islam and its peoples. Ahmed sought to understand the experiences and perceptions of ordinary Muslims. Visiting mosques, madrassahs, and universities, he met with people ranging from Pakastan President Pervez Musharraf to prime ministers, princes, sheikhs, professors, and students. He observed, listened, and asked them questions. For example, who inspires them? What are they reading? How do the Internet and international media impact their lives? How do they view America, the West, and changes in society? Ahmed's anthropological expedition enjoyed extensive access to women and youths, revealing unique information on large yet often misunderstood populations. Lamentably, he found high levels of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism and a widespread perception that Islam is under attack from the West. But he also brought back reason for hope. He returned from his groundbreaking travels both impressed with the concerned, kind nature of the individuals he encountered and invigorated with the vitality and passion they displayed. Journey into Islam makes a powerful plea for forming friendships across religion, race, and tradition to create lasting peace between Islam and the West.

TEMPLE: Amazing New Discoveries That Change Everything About the Location of Solomon's Temple


Robert Cornuke - 2014
    Along the way we will walk unknown passageways, known only to the prophets of old, as we search for the true location of the lost temples of Solomon and Herod. We will also lift a candle into the dim recesses of history and uncover secrets about the Ark of the Covenant and the gold Mercy Seat's prophetic obligation as it relates to the future Millennial temple."