Scalia offers a powerful critique of the gods +- we worship today, reminding readers that life AZs deepest desires can only be satisfied in Christ.

    This outrageous and inventive short story is not just focused solely on crap itself, but the spirituality of crap. This parody of the Tao Te Ching begs the question: Is everything crap? McFergus translates Li Chang's master work from an ancient roll of toilet paper, a minor Chinese national treasure purchased on eBay, to uncover the lost legend of Li Chang.DISCLAIMER: There is no Winnie the Pooh bear in this story. There is no piglet. The only honey pot in this story has crap in it. THIS IS NOT THE TAO OF POOH.

    This book provides a new understanding of a man who played a significant part in the Iranian revolution and an analysis of a current of political Islam that has influenced movements throughout the Middle East.This full-length political biography looks at Ali Shari`ati's life and thought in the context of the complex and contradictory cultural, social, and political conditions of the Iranian society that shaped him.

    Organized under monthly themes, these prayers, sermons, meditations, letters, and notes offer readers a new glimpse at how Bonhoeffer understood the meaning of faith and discipleship. Featuring selections from classic works such as The Cost of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison, this set of writings follows the church year, making it ideal for year-long devotional use by readers seeking to be challenged and enlightened by Bonhoeffer's call to find God at the center of their lives.

    Now both books are available in this value-priced omnibus edition.In "The Final Quest" Rick Joyner writes about visions and prophetic experiences that unfold the last battle between light and darkness. This book is a call for all Christians to take a stand for truth and righteousness in these troubled times."The Call" continues the message, offering a picture of the dawning of the day of the Lord and urging Christians to seize the opportunity to witness for Christ in the last days.This two-in-one book is an exhortation for Christians to live in a manner worthy of the call of God and an inspiring vision of the wonderful plans God has in store for His people.

    After losing his job, being divorced and being kicked out of his church, it seemed like his entire world was going up in flames. Then one night in a dream, God asked him to pray for his patients. When he awoke in the morning he knew nothing would ever be the same. Come along on these intriguing adventures as an ordinary paramedic confronts his own skepticism and fear and learns how to hear the voice of God. Get to know Praying Medic, the author, right from the stories in his personal spiritual diary. Watch as he learns how to pray for his patients and for strangers in the marketplace. You may find yourself laughing one minute and crying the next as God’s goodness and sense of humor are revealed in these true stories. And you’ll witness the transformational power of God as it changes a hardened skeptic into a man of real faith. These true stories won’t just encourage you—they’ll act as a guidebook on how to live daily in the fullness of God’s kingdom.

    The Book of Dharma charts Simon Haas’s journey to India and his “excavation” of the Dharma Code, a powerful system for making enlightened choices and manifesting our highest potential. Haas apprenticed with an elderly master practitioner in the Bhakti tradition for sixteen years and learned from him the system formerly used by kings and queens to effect personal transformation in their life and rule wisely.Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince were written specifically for rulers. While these works have become renowned, the teachings for kings and queens from India remain to this day largely undiscovered. In this ground-breaking book, Haas discloses these teachings for contemporary Western readers, for the first time openly revealing a knowledge that has been passed down in secrecy in a sacred tradition for millennia.

    These poetic meditations on the most profound of human relationships are like crystals: they sparkle with the many hues of the rainbow and contain worlds within, capturing us with their mystery.Here are poems that cause us to reflect on our own relationships, to experience again the intensity of friendship, the ache of loss, and the profundity of immersion.This is a book for poetry lovers, Rumi fans, and all gift-giving occasions; a book to treasure and to share.Previously published in hardcover as Whispers of the Beloved.Imitating others,I failed to find myselfI looked inside and discoveredI only knew my name.When I stepped outsideI found my real Self.Replaces ISBN 9781571746825.

    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.

    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.

    His original and suggestive approach opens new doors in the study of comparative philosophy and mysticism.Izutsu begins with Ibn 'Arabi, analyzing and isolating the major ontological concepts of this most challenging of Islamic thinkers. Then, in the second part of the book, Izutsu turns his attention to an analysis of parallel concepts of two great Taoist thinkers, Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. Only after laying bare the fundamental structure of each world view does Izutsu embark, in the final section of the book, upon a comparative analysis. Only thus, he argues, can he be sure to avoid easy and superficial comparisons. Izutsu maintains that both the Sufi and Taoist world views are based on two pivots—the Absolute Man and the Perfect Man—with a whole system of oncological thought being developed between these two pivots. Izutsu discusses similarities in these ontological systems and advances the hypothesis that certain patterns of mystical and metaphysical thought may be shared even by systems with no apparent historical connection. This second edition of Sufism and Taoism is the first published in the United States. The original edition, published in English and in Japan, was prized by the few English-speaking scholars who knew of it as a model in the field of comparative philosophy. Making available in English much new material on both sides of its comparison, Sufism and Taoism richly fulfills Izutsu's motivating desire "to open a new vista in the domain of comparative philosophy."

    Scattered Pictures is an anthology of essays, which discuss difficult and oftentimes controversial topics. In these turbulent times, these are issues that if left un-addressed, could continue to spiral downwards into serious political, social and religious discord. This shining book will appeal to all readers interested in critical solutions for a harmonious understanding across divides in humanity and is an innovative guide for students at both the high school and college levels. One of the most respected and influential Muslim scholars in the West, Imam Shakir is also a former member of the US Air Force and a Political Science professor. With long-standing dedication to the human community, Imam Shakir has helped to shape a better understanding of the conflicts we face. He has forged campaigns for human rights and social justice, and his devotion stands in helping to build and reinforce intellectual and spiritual roots, so that we as a global community may begin to adopt solution-oriented strategies.

    It is the birthplace of Muhammad, the direction to which Muslims turn when they pray, and the site of pilgrimage that annually draws some three million Muslims from all corners of the world. Yet the significance of Mecca is more than purely religious. What happens in Mecca and how Muslims think about the political and cultural history of Mecca has had and continues to have a profound influence on world events to this day.In this insighful book, Ziauddin Sardar unravels the meaning and significance of Mecca. Tracing its history, from its origins as a “barren valley” in the desert to its evolution as a trading town and sudden emergence as the religious center of a world empire, Sardar examines the religious struggles and rebellions in Mecca that have significantly shaped Muslim culture. An illuminative, lyrical, and witty blend of history, reportage, and memoir, Mecca reflects all that is profound and enlightening, curious and amusing about Mecca and takes us behind the closed doors to one of the most important places in the world today.

    While exploring the spiritual and psychological processes of transformation, this book offers practical guidelines to help the seeker. Sufism, the Transformation of the Heart is a valuable introduction to a dynamic spiritual path that is attracting growing interest in the West.

      No less significant than the collapse of the Roman Republic or the Persian invasion of Greece, the evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement.  Just like the Romans, the Arabs came from nowhere to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion—except that they achieved their conquests not over the course of centuries as the Romans did but in a matter of decades. Just like the Greeks during the Persian wars, they overcame seemingly insuperable odds to emerge triumphant against the greatest empire of the day—not by standing on the defensive, however, but by hurling themselves against all who lay in their path.