Recommendations based on "Formation of the Modern State The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Second Edition"

The Man Who Inspired the World's Fastest-Growing ReligionMuhammad presents a fascinating portrait of the founder of a religion that continues to change the course of world history. Muhammad's story is more relevant than ever because it offers crucial insight into the true origins of an increasingly radicalized Islam. Countering those who dismiss Islam as fanatical and violent, Armstrong offers a clear, accessible, and balanced portrait of the central figure of one of the world's great religions.

Fourteen Centuries Of Islamic Thought Have Produced A Legacy Of Interpretive Readings Of The Qu'ran Written Almost Entirely By Men. Now, With Qu'ran And Woman, Amina Wadud Provides A First Interpretive Reading By A Woman, A Reading Which Validates The Female Voice In The Qu'ran And Brings It Out Of The Shadows. Muslim Progressives Have Long Argued That It Is Not The Religion But Patriarchal Interpretation And Implementation Of The Qu'ran That Have Kept Women Oppressed. For Many, The Way To Reform Is The Reexamination And Reinterpretation Of Religious Texts. Qu'ran And Woman Contributes A Gender Inclusive Reading To One Of The Most Fundamental Disciplines In Islamic Thought, Qu'ranic Exegesis. Wadud Breaks Down Specific Texts And Key Words Which Have Been Used To Limit Women's Public And Private Role, Even To Justify Violence Toward Muslim Women, Revealing That Their Original Meaning And Context Defy Such Interpretations. What Her Analysis Clarifies Is The Lack Of Gender Bias, Precedence, Or Prejudice In The Essential Language Of The Qur'an. Despite Much Qu'ranic Evidence About The Significance Of Women, Gender Reform In Muslim Society Has Been Stubbornly Resisted. Wadud's Reading Of The Qu'ran Confirms Women's Equality And Constitutes Legitimate Grounds For Contesting The Unequal Treatment That Women Have Experienced Historically And Continue To Experience Legally In Muslim Communities. The Qu'ran Does Not Prescribe One Timeless And Unchanging Social Structure For Men And Women, Wadud Argues Lucidly, Affirming That The Qu'ran Holds Greater Possibilities For Guiding Human Society To A More Fulfilling And Productive Mutual Collaboration Between Men And Women Than As Yet Attained By Muslims Or Non-muslims.

In this short book, Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz invite you to join an urgently needed conversation: Is Islam a religion of peace or war? Is it amenable to reform? Why do so many Muslims seem drawn to extremism? What do words like Islamism, jihadism, and fundamentalism mean in today’s world?Remarkable for the breadth and depth of its analysis, this dialogue between a famous atheist and a former radical is all the more startling for its decorum. Harris and Nawaz have produced something genuinely new: they engage one of the most polarizing issues of our time―fearlessly and fully―and actually make progress.Islam and the Future of Tolerance has been published with the explicit goal of inspiring a wider public discussion by way of example. In a world riven by misunderstanding and violence, Harris and Nawaz demonstrate how two people with very different views can find common ground.

François Déroche, Translated From French By Malcom Debevoise. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Electronic Reproduction. New York Available Via World Wide Web.

A hugely influential philosophical work of prose poetry, Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet is an inspirational, allegorical guide to living, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Robin Waterfield. First published in the 1920's, The Prophet is perhaps the most famous work of religious fiction of the twentieth century, and has sold millions of copies in more than twenty languages. Gibran's Prophet speaks of many things central to daily life: love, marriage, death, beauty, passion, eating, work and play. The spiritual message he imparts, of finding divinity through love, blends eastern mysticism, religious faith and philosophy with simple advice. The Prophet became the bible of 1960s culture and was credited with founding the New Age movement, yet it still continues to inspire people around the world today. This edition is illustrated with Gibran's famous visionary paintings. Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) was a poet, philosopher and artist, who stands among the most important Arabic language authors of the early twentieth century. Born in Lebanon, he spent the last twenty years of his life in the United States, where for many years he was the leader of a Lebansese writing circle in New York. He is the author of numerous volumes, including The Garden of the Prophet, The Storm, The Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart, The Vision, Reflections on the Way of the Soul, and Spirit Brides. If you enjoyed The Prophet, you might like Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'His work goes on from generation to generation' Daily Mail 'To read it was to transcend ordinary levels of perception, to become aware ... of a more intense level of being' Independent

Much of the Muslim faith remains largely unknown and misunderstood in the West. To many in the west, Islam means jihad, veiled women and suicide bombers. Yet these represent only fringe elements of the world's fastest growing religion. While there have been a number of successful books on the topic of Islamic history - from Karen Armstrong's Islam: A Brief History to Bernard Lewis's The Crises of Islam, there is surprisingly no book for a popular audience about Islam as a religion, let alone one by an author from an Islamic background. No God But God fills that gap, addressing issues of belief: the difference between the Quran and the Bible, the meaning of the Hajj, the Muslim relationship with Jesus, the Muslim attitude towards Jews, equality between the sexes and more.

Tunisia became one of the largest sources of foreign fighters for the Islamic State--even though the country stands out as a democratic bright spot of the Arab uprisings and despite the fact that it had very little history of terrorist violence within its borders prior to 2011. In Your Sons Are at Your Service, Aaron Y. Zelin uncovers the longer history of Tunisian involvement in the jihadi movement and offers an in-depth examination of the reasons why so many Tunisians became drawn to jihadism following the 2011 revolution. Zelin highlights the longer-term causes that affected jihadi recruitment in Tunisia, including the prior history of Tunisians joining jihadi organizations and playing key roles in far-flung parts of the world over the past four decades. He contends that the jihadi group Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia was able to take advantage of the universal prisoner amnesty, increased openness, and the lack of governmental policy toward it after the revolution. In turn, this provided space for greater recruitment and subsequent mobilization to fight abroad once the Tunisian government cracked down on the group in 2013. Zelin marshals cutting-edge empirical findings, extensive primary source research, and on-the-ground fieldwork, including a variety of documents in Arabic going as far back as the 1980s and interviews with Ansar al-Sharia members and Tunisian fighters returning from Syria. The first book on the history of the Tunisian jihadi movement, Your Sons Are at Your Service is a meticulously researched account that challenges simplified views of jihadism's appeal and success.

Distinguished political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani, father of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, offers an “exceptionally clear [and] especially shocking” (San Francisco Chronicle) examination of political Islam, the factors that led to 9/11, and the global repercussions on Muslims everywhere.“This provocative and thoughtful inquiry is a valuable contribution to the understanding of some of the most important developments in the contemporary era.”—Noam ChomskyIn Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, Mahmood Mamdani brings his expertise and insight toa question many Americans have been asking since 9/11: how did this happen?Mamdani dispels the idea of “good” (secular, westernized) and “bad” (premodern, fanatical) Muslims, pointing out that these judgments refer to political rather than cultural or religious identities. The presumption that there are “good” Muslims readily available to be split off from “bad” Muslims masks a failure to make a political analysis of our times. Political Islam, Mamdani argues, emerged as the result of a modern encounter with Western power, and that the terrorist movement at the center of Islamist politics is an even more recent phenomenon, one that followed America’s embrace of proxy war after its defeat in Vietnam. He writes with great insight about the Reagan years, showing America’s embrace of the highly ideological politics of “good” against “evil.” Identifying militant nationalist governments as Soviet proxies in countries such as Nicaragua and Afghanistan, the Reagan administration readily backed terrorist movements, hailing them as the “moral equivalents” of America’s Founding Fathers. The era of proxy wars came to an end with the invasion of Iraq, where, as in Vietnam, America was not fighting terrorism but nationalism, a battle that cannot be won by occupation.Good Muslim, Bad Muslim is a provocative and important book that will profoundly change our understanding both of Islamist politics and the way America is perceived in the world today.

The Koran, as N. J. Dawood states, is 'not only one of the most influential books of prophetic literature but also a literary masterpiece in its own right. Universally accepted by Muslims to be the infallible Word of God as revealed to Mohammed by the Angel Gabriel nearly fourteen hundred years ago, the Koran still provides the rules of conduct fundamental to the Arab way of life. N. J. Dawood's masterly translation, first published in the mid-1950s and now completely revised in the light of a life-long study of the language and style of the Koran, presents the English reader with a clear, fluent and authoritative rendering, while fully reflecting the characteristic flavour and rhythm of the original. The present edition follows the original sequence of the Koranic suras and is accompanied by a comprehensive index and a parallel Arabic text.

A successful work on the culture and politics of modern day Islam as told through the story of a young Iranian cleric.