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.

    Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States.The Looming Tower achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by telling the story through the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI's counterterrorism chief, John O'Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal.As these lives unfold, we see revealed: the crosscurrents of modern Islam that helped to radicalize Zawahiri and bin Laden . . . the birth of al-Qaeda and its unsteady development into an organization capable of the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the attack on the USS Cole . . . O'Neill's heroic efforts to track al-Qaeda before 9/11, and his tragic death in the World Trade towers . . . Prince Turki's transformation from bin Laden's ally to his enemy . . . the failures of the FBI, CIA, and NSA to share intelligence that might have prevented the 9/11 attacks.The Looming Tower broadens and deepens our knowledge of these signal events by taking us behind the scenes. Here is Sayyid Qutb, founder of the modern Islamist movement, lonely and despairing as he meets Western culture up close in 1940s America; the privileged childhoods of bin Laden and Zawahiri; family life in the al-Qaeda compounds of Sudan and Afghanistan; O'Neill's high-wire act in balancing his all-consuming career with his equally entangling personal life--he was living with three women, each of them unaware of the others' existence--and the nitty-gritty of turf battles among U.S. intelligence agencies.Brilliantly conceived and written, The Looming Tower draws all elements of the story into a galvanizing narrative that adds immeasurably to our understanding of how we arrived at September 11, 2001. The richness of its new information, and the depth of its perceptions, can help us deal more wisely and effectively with the continuing terrorist threat.

     John L. Esposito, Editor-in-Chief of the four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, has gathered together sixteen leading scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to examine the origins and historical development of Islam--its faith, community, institutions, sciences, and arts. Beginning in the pre-Islamic Arab world, the chapters range from the story of Muhammad and his Companions, to the development of Islamic religion and culture and the empires that grew from it, to the influence that Islam has on today's world. The book covers a wide array of subjects, casting light on topics such as the historical encounter of Islam and Christianity, the role of Islam in the Mughal and Ottoman empires, the growth of Islam in Southeast Asia, China, and Africa, the political, economic, and religious challenges of European imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Islamic communities in the modern Western world. In addition, the book offers excellent articles on Islamic religion, art and architecture, and sciences as well as bibliographies. Events in the contemporary world have led to an explosion of interest and scholarly work on Islam. Written for the general reader but also appealing to specialists, The Oxford History of Islam offers the best of that recent scholarship, presented in a readable style and complemented by a rich variety of illustrations.

    The result is an informative, insightful, and engaging account of a highly sensitive and still largely secret aspect of Arab society. Sex is entwined in religion, tradition, politics, economics, and culture, so it is the perfect lens through which to examine the complex social landscape of the Arab world. From pregnant virgins to desperate housewives, from fearless activists to religious firebrands, from sex work to same-sex relations, Sex and the Citadel takes a fresh look at the sexual history of the region and brings new voices to the debate over its future.  This is no peep show or academic treatise but a highly personal and often humorous account of one woman’s journey to better understand Arab society at its most intimate and, in the process, to better understand her own origins. Rich with five years of groundbreaking research, Sex and the Citadel gives us a unique and timely understanding of everyday lives in a part of the world that is changing before our eyes.

    John R. Bradley uniquely exposes the turmoil that is shaking the House of Saud to its foundations, including the problems within the new leadership. From the heart of the secretive Islamic kingdom's urban centers to its most remote mountainous terrain, he provides intimate details and reveals regional, religious, and tribal rivalries. Bradley highlights tensions generated by social change, the increasing restlessness of Saudi youth with limited cultural and political outlets, and the predicament of Saudi women seeking opportunities but facing constraints. What are the implications for the Sauds and the West? This book offers a startling look at the present predicament and a troubling view of the future.

    In just over 100 years following the death of Mohammed in 632, Arabs had subjugated a territory with an east-west expanse greater than the Roman Empire. They did it in about one-half the time. By the mid-8th century, Arab armies had conquered the 1000-year-old Persian Empire, reduced the Byzantine Empire to little more than a city-state based around Constantinople, and destroyed the Visigoth kingdom of Spain. The cultural and linguistic effects of this early Islamic expansion reverberate today. This is the first popular English-language account in many years of this astonishing remaking of the political and religious map of the world. Hugh Kennedy’s sweeping narrative reveals how the Arab armies conquered almost everything in their path, and brings to light the unique characteristics of Islamic rule. One of the few academic historians with a genuine talent for story telling, Kennedy offers a compelling mix of larger-than-life characters, fierce battles, and the great clash of civilizations and religions.

    Traveling to Baghdad and then to Mosul with the 1st Cavalry Division, McDonell offers an unforgettable look at the way things stand now—at the translators stranded in a country that doesn’t look kindly on their cooperation, at the infantrymen struggling to make something out of the soft counterinsurgency missions they call chai-ops, at the commanders inured to American journalists and Iraqi officials both—and what the so-called “end of major combat operations” means for where they’re going.

    The Jewish kingdom, composed of ethnic Arabs who had converted to Judaism more than a century before, had launched a bloody pogrom against Christians in the region. The ruler of Ethiopia, who claimed descent from the union of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and even was rumored to possess an object no less venerable than the Ark of the Covenant, aspired both to protect the persecuted Christians and to restore Ethiopian control in the Arabian Peninsula. Though little known today, this was an international war that involved both the Byzantine Empire, who had established Christian churches in Ethiopia beginning in the fourth century, and the Sasanian Empire in Persia, who supported the Jews in a proxy war with Byzantium. Our knowledge of these events derives mostly from an inscribed throne at the Ethiopian port of Adulis seen and meticulously described by a Christian merchant known as Cosmos in the sixth century. Trying to decipher and understand this monument takes us directly into religious conflicts that occupied the nations on both sides of the Red Sea in late antiquity. Using the writings of Cosmas and archaeological evidence from the period, historian G. W. Bowersock offers a narrative account of this fascinating but overlooked chapter in pre-Islamic Arabian history. The extraordinary story told in Throneof Adulis provides an important and much neglected background for the rise of Islam as well as the collapse of the Persian Empire before the Byzantines.

    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.

    Willow Wilson—already an accomplished writer on modern religion and the Middle East at just twenty-seven—leaves her atheist parents in Denver to study at Boston University, she enrolls in an Islamic Studies course that leads to her shocking conversion to Islam and sends her on a fated journey across continents and into an uncertain future.She settles in Cairo where she teaches English and submerges herself in a culture based on her adopted religion. And then she meets Omar, a passionate young man with a mild resentment of the Western influences in his homeland. They fall in love, entering into a daring relationship that calls into question the very nature of family, belief, and tradition. Torn between the secular West and Muslim East, Willow records her intensely personal struggle to forge a “third culture” that might accommodate her own values without compromising the friends and family on both sides of the divide.

    Their lives entwined since childhood, they grow ever closer as adults. Yet Serena's hand has been promised not to Mark, but to his brother, Greg. As World War II speeds closer to Cairo, a shocking accident gives these young lovers a second chance—but with this chance comes terrible danger. Egypt is threatened not only by the German army but by nationalist forces within Cairo determined to end the British occupation at any cost. The country torn apart, and enemies everywhere, Mark and Serena's love is tested to the limit.

    He examines Egypt’s central role in the development of the two crucial movements of the period, Arab nationalism and radical Islam; the increasingly contentious relationship between Muslims and Christians; and perhaps most important of all, the rift between the cosmopolitan elite and the mass of the undereducated and underemployed population, more than half of whom are aged under thirty. This is an essential guide to one of the Middle East’s most important but least understood states.

    Teeming with frank sexuality and heartfelt compassion, this book is an important window on to the experience of loss and love in the Arab world.

    The Russians, who had occupied the country throughout the 1980s, were long gone. The disparate ethnic and religious leaders who had united to eject the invaders - the famous mujaheddin - were at each others' throats. For the rural poor of Kandahar province, life was almost impossible.On 12 October 1994 a small group of religious students decided to take matters into their own hands. Led by an illiterate village mullah with one eye, some 200 of them surrounded and took Spin Boldak, a trucking stop on the border with Pakistan. From this short and unremarkable border skirmish, a legend was born. The students' numbers swelled as news of their triumph spread. The Taliban, as they now called themselves - taliban is the plural of talib, literally 'one who seeks knowledge' - had a simple mission statement: the disarmament of the population, and the establishment of a theocracy based on Sharia law. They fought with a religious zeal that the warring mujaheddin could not match.By February 1995, this people's revolt had become a national movement; 18 months later Kabul fell, and the country was effectively theirs. James Fergusson's fascinating account of this extraordinary story will be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the situation in Afghanistan, now and for the future...

    At a time, when there is tough competition among the nations of the world to excel one another, the Muslim, despite having the most glorious history, appear to be detached and careless as regards their history. This book presents the true Islamic events and their actual causes before the English readers because the other books in the English language found on the Islamic history have been written by such authors and compilers who did no justice in presenting the true picture of Islamic Era but their prejudice prevented them from doing so. Publishers Note We are presenting before you the third volume of the book History of Islam. This book was originally written in the Urdu language in 1922 (1343 AH) by Akbar Shah Khan Najeebabadi. This was the time about 25 years before the partition of Indian Subcontinent into Pakistan and India. For the purpose of brevity, the compiler has presented the authentic events in concise form from the famous histories of Islam written in the Arabic and Persian languages by the great Muslim historians like Tabari, Ibn Athir, Mas'udi, Abul-Fida', Ibn Khaldun and Suyuti, apart from getting benefited from the authentic books of Ahadith for the compilation of the part about the biography of the Prophet Muhammad . So, this compilation is actually the extract of the works of the famous Muslim historians. In the first volume, starting with the introduction of the history as a subject, the country, people and conditions of Arabia prior to the advent of Islam were discussed, and an account of the life of Prophet Muhammad was presented including the hardships and opposition he faced while propagating the message of Islam, and the details of migration and the period after it until his death. After that the description of Rightly Guided Caliphate was also discussed in its full perspective. In this second volume, starting with the Caliphate of Banu Umayyah, the martyrdom of Imam Husain (R) and the Caliphate of the Abbasids, all areas have been covered as far as the expansion of Islam was. This third volume begins with the description of the conditions of Spain before and after the rule of Muslims and the role played by Umayyad, Abbasid, Almoravid and Almohad Caliphs there and their encounters with the Christian Armies. Then some mention of the conquest of Morocco and North Africa has been given along with the details of Idrisia and Aghlabs rule there. After that detailed accounts of Ganghisid Mongols, Turks and Tartar Mangols have been produced. After that Islamic history of Persia is described giving the accounts of Saffariah, Samanid, Delmid, Gharnavid, Seljuk, Ghourid and Muluk Dynasties with the periods of Khwarizm Shah, Atabeks and Sistan Kings rule there. Then the Islamic history of Egypt and Syria is covered describing the Ubaidullah, Ayyubid and Mamluk Dynasties, and the rule of Atabek and Abbasid Caliphs. In the end, something about the Ottoman Dynasty and its Empire is discussed including the description of the conquest of Constantinople. We hope that the readers will find this volume also of great help in the study of Islamic history. The famous scholar Safi-ur-Rahman Mubarakpuri has revised the Urdu edition before its translation to check the authenticity aspect. The translation was done by the Translation Department of Darussalam, and every care has been taken to reproduce the events and the names of the persons and places as accurately as possible. We thank all the persons who have cooperated with us to complete this task and produce it before you into a presentable form. May Allah accept our humble efforts in this regard and send His peace and blessings on our Prophet Muhammad, his Companions and his followers.-Amin! Abdul Malik Mujahid General Manager, Darussalam