Dear Beloved Son is an excellent compilation of extremely valuable pieces of advice based not only on theory but on the practical experience and insight of Imam al-Ghazali. Since he presented his disciple with these pieces of advice at a stage in life where he had studied and excelled in all major sciences of Islam, it holds extra significance. He covers topics such as sincerity, knowledge, action, death, da’wah, hypocrisy, time, dhikr and Shari’ah, with delicacy and coherency, so that one is able to grasp clearly the multidimensional facets of a comprehensive Islam.
“This gentle, gorgeously written book may be one of my favorites ever.” —Jenna Bush Hager (A Today show “Read with Jenna” Book Club Selection!) This “moving portrait of love and friendship set against a backdrop of social change” (The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice) traces two married couples whose lives become entangled when the husbands become copastors at a famed New York city congregation in the 1960s. Charles and Lily, James and Nan. They meet in Greenwich Village in 1963 when Charles and James are jointly hired to steward the historic Third Presbyterian Church through turbulent times. Their personal differences however, threaten to tear them apart. Charles is destined to succeed his father as an esteemed professor of history at Harvard, until an unorthodox lecture about faith leads him to ministry. How then, can he fall in love with Lily—fiercely intellectual, elegantly stern—after she tells him with certainty that she will never believe in God? And yet, how can he not? James, the youngest son in a hardscrabble Chicago family, spent much of his youth angry at his alcoholic father and avoiding his anxious mother. Nan grew up in Mississippi, the devout and beloved daughter of a minister and a debutante. James’s escape from his desperate circumstances leads him to Nan and, despite his skepticism of hope in all its forms, her gentle, constant faith changes the course of his life. In The Dearly Beloved, Cara wall reminds us of “the power of the novel in its simplest, richest form: bearing intimate witness to human beings grappling with their faith and falling in love,” (Entertainment Weekly, A-) as we follow these two couples through decades of love and friendship, jealousy and understanding, forgiveness and commitment. Against the backdrop of turbulent changes facing the city and the church’s congregation, Wall offers a poignant meditation on faith and reason, marriage and children, and the ways we find meaning in our lives. The Dearly Beloved is a gorgeous, wise, and provocative novel that is destined to become a classic.
"Dear David: Dealing with My Son's Addiction one letter at a time is an extraordinarily poignant record of a tenacious mother's use of a blog to send a loving siren call to her son while he lived on the street, vulnerable and drug addicted. The book includes a brilliant forward by Daniel D. Mauer, author of "Sobriety: A Graphic Novel."
In this brief and winsome book, Michael Reeves presents an introduction to the Christian faith that is rooted in the triune God. He takes cues from preachers and teachers down through the ages, setting key doctrines of creation, the person and work of Christ, and life in the Spirit into a simple framework of the Christian life.
You're not what you do. You're not what you have. You are not what others say about you. You are God's beloved. Are you ever concerned that you don’t deserve to love and be loved because you are continually having to prove yourself? In You Are Beloved, Bobby Schuller shows you how to let go of these fears and put your trust in the One who sees you for who you really are. Here is an easy to follow, proven path to personal dignity for all those who think they are not good enough no matter how much they achieve. This path is illuminated by the truths that it is not about what you accomplish, but what has already been accomplished for you; not about what you have, but what has already been provided; and not about who others say you are, but who God says you are. Know that you are valued, cared for, and embraced. You Are Beloved will help you rebuild your life as a response to that assurance.
Dear Reader, I know exactly how you are feeling. People will tell you, to have sabr and trust in Allah's plan. People will expect you to behave in a certain way. I have written this child loss book for you and me. We are parents who have lost a piece of our heart. No one else can understand what we are going through. There are many self-help books for parents and child loss stories, however, very few are written from an Islamic perspective. I am here to tell you that there is hope, there is a way to find peace and solace, and that way is through the healing words of Allah and the comforting words of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (saw). Inshallah, both the Quran and Sunnah are a balm that will soothe your heart. Together they have helped me carry on when I thought my sorrow would consume me. Inshallah, my sincere dua is that this book provides you with comfort and the strength to carry on. Love and duas Farhat Amin Losing a baby or child, whether through miscarriage or illness, leaves so many parents lost in grief and full of unanswered questions. Farhat Amin personally experienced a miscarriage and faced the loss of her teenage son. She has written this self-help book, which thoughtfully describes her experiences and how she found a way to live and learn from her bereavement. Some of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to charity.
In The Mysteries of Purification (Kitab asrar al tahara), the third of the forty books of the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya' 'ulum al-din), Abu Hamid al-Ghazali explains the fundamentals of the purification that is necessary in order to perform the five daily prayers.
Displaying the same verve and wit as the Just So Stories, this charming collection brings together the series of letters Rudyard Kipling wrote to his children--his "dear people" as he called them--from 1906 to 1915. The correspondence with each child is eloquently presented--for Josephine, his daughter, who died at the age of six, the grief of whose loss almost stopped him from continuing with the stories; for his son John, who would become a young officer and be lost in the trenches of World War I, his father never forgiving himself afterwards for having pushed him into the service; and for his second daughter, Elsie, who would marry but had no children of her own. The letters are peppered with many impromptu pen and ink sketches, stories, and poems, as well as brilliantly graphic descriptions of travel in Europe, Egypt, and Canada.
