Forbidding Wrong in Islam
Forbidding Wrong in Islam

Author: Michael Cook

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-06-16

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1139440888

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Michael Cook's magisterial study in Islamic ethics, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, was published to much acclaim in 2001. It was described by one reviewer as a masterpiece. In that book, the author reflected on the Islamic injunction, incumbent on every Muslim, to forbid wrongdoing. The present book is a short, accessible survey of the same material. Using anecdotes and stories from Islamic sources to illustrate the argument, Cook unravels the complexities of the subject. Moving backwards and forwards through time, he demonstrates how the past informs the present. By the end, the reader will be familiar with a colourful array of characters from Islamic history ranging from the celebrated thinker Ghazzali, to the caliph Harun al-Rashid, to the Ayatollah Khumayni. The book educates and entertains - at its heart, however, is an important message about the Islamic tradition, its values, and the relevance of those values today.

Understanding Maqasid al-Shari’ah
Understanding Maqasid al-Shari’ah

Author: Musfir bin Ali al-Qahtani

Publisher: International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

Published: 2015-01-01

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1565647947

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Dr. Musafir bin Ali al-Qahtani's work contributes to the ever growing body of scholarly literature in the field of maqasid al-Shari'ah (higher objectives of Islamic law). Understanding Maqasidal-Shari’ah calls for the development of a juridicial sense that is finely tuned to the higher objectives and purposes of Islamic rulings, the aims of which are the formulation of a new methodology in understanding the revealed texts and the reform of Muslim thought and its application. The author draws attention to the importance of understanding various levels of maqasid, including distinguishing between primary aims (al-maqasid al-asliyyah) and secondary aims (al-maqasid al-tabi'ah). Al-Qahtani asserts that a positive understanding of the objectives of the Shari'ah should produce affirming human and cultural developments in Muslim societies. The real strength of this work, however, is in the author's application of higher objectives and aims to different areas of jurisprudence, such as in deriving and issuing religious rulings (ifta'). and to important social issues and problems present in Muslim societies, such as extremism, jihad, commanding right and forbidding wrong, social change, crisis of Muslim thought, countering religious excessiveness, the need for recreation and leisure, citizenship and nation-belonging, spreading beauty and harmony in Islam, and the role of Muslim women in society.

Islamic Thought
Islamic Thought

Author: Abdullah Saeed

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-11-22

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1134225644

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Islamic Thought is a fresh and contemporary introduction to the philosophies and doctrines of Islam. Abdullah Saeed, a distinguished Muslim scholar, traces the development of religious knowledge in Islam, from the pre-modern to the modern period. The book focuses on Muslim thought, as well as the development, production and transmission of religious knowledge, and the trends, schools and movements that have contributed to the production of this knowledge. Key topics in Islamic culture are explored, including the development of the Islamic intellectual tradition, the two foundation texts, the Qur’an and Hadith, legal thought, theological thought, mystical thought, Islamic Art, philosophical thought, political thought, and renewal, reform and rethinking today. Through this rich and varied discussion, Saeed presents a fascinating depiction of how Islam was lived in the past and how its adherents practise it in the present. Islamic Thought is essential reading for students beginning the study of Islam but will also interest anyone seeking to learn more about one of the world’s great religions.

Philosophies of Music in Medieval Islam
Philosophies of Music in Medieval Islam

Author: Fadlou Shehadi

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 1995-09-01

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9004247211

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This surveys the philosophies of music of the most important thinkers in Islam between the 9th and the 15th centuries A.D. It covers topics ranging from the physics and aesthetics of sound, the nature of music, its place in the total scheme of things and in human life, the relation between music, astronomy, astrology and meteorology, the relation between music and human feelings character and behaviour, to the question of whether a good Muslim should be allowed to listen to music at all, and if so, to which type. The book traces the influence of Greek, in particular Pythagorean and Aristoxenian, thinking in Islam on this subject, and aims to provide a philosophically coherent statement of thinking of the Islamic writers concerned, a clarification of their central arguments, as well as a critical evaluation of their line of thought. The author introduces a wide range of material from manuscript sources, including much that has not been published before.

Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought
Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought

Author: Ovamir Anjum

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-03-19

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 1107378974

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This revisionist account of the history of Islamic political thought from the early to the late medieval period focuses on Ibn Taymiyya, one of the most brilliant theologians of his day. This original study demonstrates how his influence shed new light on the entire trajectory of Islamic political thought. Although he did not reject the Caliphate ideal, as is commonly believed, he nevertheless radically redefined it by turning it into a rational political institution intended to serve the community (umma). Through creative reinterpretation, he deployed the Qur'anic concept of fitra (divinely endowed human nature) to centre the community of believers and its common-sense reading of revelation as the highest epistemic authority. In this way, he subverted the elitism that had become ensconced in classical theological, legal and spiritual doctrines, and tried to revive the ethico-political, rather than strictly legal, dimension of Islam. In reassessing Ibn Taymiyya's work, this book marks a major departure from traditional interpretations of medieval Islamic thought.

Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan
Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan

Author: Olivier Roy

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780521397001

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This history of the Afghan resistance movement has been expanded and updated to mid 1989 to include its evolution over the last years of Soviet occupation as well as its relations with Islamic fundamentalist movements.

Revival and Reform in Islam
Revival and Reform in Islam

Author: Bernard Haykel

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-05-27

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 9780521528900

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Revival and Reform in Islam is at once an intellectual biography of Muhammad al-Shawkani, and a history of a transitional period in Yemeni history. This was a time when a society dominated by traditional Zaydi Shiism shifted to one characterised instead by Sunni reformism. The author traces the origins and outcomes of this transition, presenting the first systematic account of the ways in which the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reorientation of the Zaydi madhhab, and consequent 'sunnification' of Yemeni society, were intricately linked to tensions within the political realm. In advocating juridical systematization of religious belief and practice, Shawkani espoused a socio-religious order which in its dominant features echoed key aspects of Western modernity. Yet he did so in a context bereft of Western ideational influence. This study then presents a textured account of eighteenth-century Islamic reformist thought and challenges the meaning of modernity in an Islamic context.

Islamic Political Thought
Islamic Political Thought

Author: Gerhard Bowering

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-03-29

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0691164827

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A concise and authoritative introduction to Islamic political ideas In sixteen concise chapters on key topics, this book provides a rich, authoritative, and up-to-date introduction to Islamic political thought from the birth of Islam to today, presenting essential background and context for understanding contemporary politics in the Islamic world and beyond. Selected from the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, and focusing on the origins, development, and contemporary importance of Islamic political ideas and related subjects, each chapter offers a sophisticated yet accessible introduction to its topic. Written by leading specialists and incorporating the latest scholarship, the alphabetically arranged chapters cover the topics of authority, the caliphate, fundamentalism, government, jihad, knowledge, minorities, modernity, Muhammad, pluralism and tolerance, the Qur'an, revival and reform, shariʿa (sacred law), traditional political thought, ‘ulama' (religious scholars), and women. Read separately or together, these chapters provide an indispensable resource for students, journalists, policymakers, and anyone else seeking an informed perspective on the complex intersection of Islam and politics. The contributors are Gerhard Bowering, Ayesha S. Chaudhry, Patricia Crone, Roxanne Euben, Yohanan Friedmann, Paul L. Heck, Roy Jackson, Wadad Kadi, John Kelsay, Gudrun Krämer, Ebrahim Moosa, Armando Salvatore, Aram A. Shahin, Emad El-Din Shahin, Devin J. Stewart, SherAli Tareen, and Muhammad Qasim Zaman. A new afterword discusses the essays in relation to contemporary political developments.

Revealed Sciences
Revealed Sciences

Author: Justin K. Stearns

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-07-08

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1107065577

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Provides a detailed overview of the place of the natural sciences in the scholarly and educational landscape of Early Modern Morocco, this study challenges previous negative depictions of the natural sciences in the Muslim world to demonstrate the vibrancy of an Early Modern Muslim society in seventeenth-century Morocco.

Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World
Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

Author: Adam J. Silverstein

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-06-21

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1139464086

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Adam Silverstein's book offers a fascinating account of the official methods of communication employed in the Near East from pre-Islamic times through the Mamluk period. Postal systems were set up by rulers in order to maintain control over vast tracts of land. These systems, invented centuries before steam-engines or cars, enabled the swift circulation of different commodities - from letters, people and horses to exotic fruits and ice. As the correspondence transported often included confidential reports from a ruler's provinces, such postal systems doubled as espionage-networks through which news reached the central authorities quickly enough to allow a timely reaction to events. The book sheds light not only on the role of communications technology in Islamic history, but also on how nomadic culture contributed to empire-building in the Near East. This is a long-awaited contribution to the history of pre-modern communications systems in the Near Eastern world.