Nasir Khusraw, the Ruby of Badakhshan
Nasir Khusraw, the Ruby of Badakhshan

Author: Alice C. Hunsberger

Publisher: I.B. Tauris

Published: 2000-10-27

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9781850439196

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A renowned poet, philosopher and traveller of the 11th century, Nasir-i Khusraw was also a major Ismaili thinker and author of the Iranian lands. His Ismaili writings, exclusively in Persian, have been preserved through the centuries by the Ismaili communities of the upper Oxus and Badakhshan, now situated in Tajikistan and Afghanistan. This is a study of Nasir-i Khusraw's life and aspects of his theological and philosophical thought in the context of his times. The author has devoted more than ten years of study to this subject, and includes in the book a detailed classification of Nasir's different genres of writings, and a summary of medieval as well as modern biographical studies.

Nasir Khusraw, the Ruby of Badakhshan
Nasir Khusraw, the Ruby of Badakhshan

Author: Alice C. Hunsberger

Publisher: I.B. Tauris

Published: 2002-04-26

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9781850439264

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This is a comprehensive study of the life of Nasir-Khusraw, one of the foremost poets of the Persian language and a major Ismaili thinker and writer. Celebrated for a poetry that combines art with philosophy, trusted for the details of his travels throughout the Middle East, revered and criticized for his theological texts, he remains one of the most fascinating figures in Islamic history and literature. This volume also includes sections of his work.

Pearls of Persia
Pearls of Persia

Author: Alice C. Hunsberger

Publisher: I.B. Tauris

Published: 2013-01-22

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781780761305

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I.B.Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies Nasir-i Khusraw is a major literary figure in medieval Persian culture. He was a Muslim philosopher, poet, travel writer, and Ismaili da'i who lived a thousand years ago in the lands known today as Afghanistan, Iran, and Tajikistan. Although known in the West mainly for his Safarnama, or travelogue, which describes his seven-year journey from Khurasan, in the eastern Islamic lands, to Cairo, the city of the Fatimid imam-caliphs, his poetry and ideas are less familiar. Yet, over the centuries, Persian-speaking lands have consistently ranked him as one of the finest poets of all time. But today, even among those who know Nasir-i Khusraw's poetry, few understand the philosophical and Ismaili concepts the poet expounds. And while mystical and epic genres of Persian poetry are memorized and studied, the genre of philosophical poetry in Persian remains basically unexplored. This collection of studies seeks to redress the balance. Originally presented at a conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London in 2005 to commemorate the millenary of Nasir-i Khusraw's birth, the papers published here examine his poetry both for philosophical meaning and poetic method. They address a variety of topics, ranging from metaphysics, cosmology, and ontology to prophecy, as well as rhythm and structure, and analysis of individual poems and authorship.

Intellectual Traditions in Islam
Intellectual Traditions in Islam

Author: Farhad Daftary

Publisher: I.B. Tauris

Published: 2001-07-27

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9781860647604

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This is a collection of papers by scholars on the role of the intellect in the legal, theological, philosophical and mystical traditions of Islam.

كشايش و رهايش
كشايش و رهايش

Author: Nasir-i Khusraw

Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Published: 1998-12-31

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13:

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Nasir-i Khusraw was a leading Ismaili poet and theologian-philosopher of the Fatimid period whose writings have had a major formative influence on the Ismaili communities of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. The bulk of his surviving work was produced in exile in a remote mountainous region of Badakhshan where he sought refuge from persecution in his native district of Balkh. This is the first of his doctrinal treatises to be translated into English. Consisting of a series of 30 questions and answers, it addresses some of the central theological and philosophical issues of his time from an Ismaili perspective, ranging from the creation of the world and the nature of the soul to the questions of human free will and accountability in the afterlife.

Muqarnas
Muqarnas

Author: Gülru Necipoğlu

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009-10-01

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 900417589X

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"Muqarnas" is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Muqarnas" 26 contains articles on a variety of topics that span and transcend the geographic and temporal boundaries that have traditionally defined the history of Islamic art and architecture. Contributors include Robert McChesney, Mattia Guidetti, Marcus Schadl, Christian Gruber, Katia Cytryn-Silverman, Doris Abouseif, Olga Bush, Emine Fetvaci, Moya Carey, Bernard O'Kane, Hadi Maktabi, Nadia Erzini and Stephen Vernoit.

Afghanistan's Islam
Afghanistan's Islam

Author: Nile Green

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0520294130

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"This book provides the first ever overview of the history and development of Islam in Afghanistan. It covers every era from the conversion of Afghanistan through the medieval and early modern periods to the present day. Based on primary sources in Arabic, Persian, Pashto, Urdu and Uzbek, its depth and scope of coverage is unrivalled by any existing publication on Afghanistan. As well as state-sponsored religion, the chapters cover such issues as the rise of Sufism, Sharia, women's religiosity, transnational Islamism and the Taliban. Islam has been one of the most influential social and political forces in Afghan history. Providing idioms and organizations for both anti-state and anti-foreign mobilization, Islam has proven to be a vital socio-political resource in modern Afghanistan. Even as it has been deployed as the national cement of a multi-ethnic 'Emirate' and then 'Islamic Republic,' Islam has been no less a destabilizing force in dividing Afghan society. Yet despite the universal scholarly recognition of the centrality of Islam to Afghan history, its developmental trajectories have received relatively little sustained attention outside monographs and essays devoted to particular moments or movements. To help develop a more comprehensive, comparative and developmental picture of Afghanistan's Islam from the eighth century to the present, this edited volume brings together specialists on different periods, regions and languages. Each chapter forms a case study 'snapshot' of the Islamic beliefs, practices, institutions and authorities of a particular time and place in Afghanistan"--Provided by publishe

Shi'ism
Shi'ism

Author: Hamid Dabashi

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-05-07

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0674064283

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For a Western world anxious to understand Islam and, in particular, ShiÕism, this book arrives with urgently needed information and critical analysis. Hamid Dabashi exposes the soul of ShiÕism as a religion of protestÑsuccessful only when in a warring position, and losing its legitimacy when in power. Dabashi makes his case through a detailed discussion of the ShiÕi doctrinal foundations, a panoramic view of its historical unfolding, a varied investigation into its visual and performing arts, and finally a focus on the three major sites of its contemporary contestations: Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. In these states, ShiÕism seems to have ceased to be a sect within the larger context of Islam and has instead emerged to claim global political attention. Here we see ShiÕism in its combative modeÑreminiscent of its traumatic birth in early Islamic history. Hezbollah in Lebanon claims ShiÕism, as do the militant insurgents in Iraq, the ruling Ayatollahs in Iran, and the masses of youthful demonstrators rebelling against their reign. All declare their active loyalties to a religion of protest that has defined them and their ancestry for almost fourteen hundred years. ShiÕsm: A Religion of Protest attends to the explosive conflicts in the Middle East with an abiding attention to historical facts, cultural forces, religious convictions, literary and artistic nuances, and metaphysical details. This timely book offers readers a bravely intelligent history of a world religion.

Historical Dictionary of the Ismailis
Historical Dictionary of the Ismailis

Author: Farhad Daftary

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2011-12-30

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0810879700

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The Ismaili Muslims, who belong to the Shia branch of Islam, live in over 25 different countries around the world, mainly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Their history has typically been linked to the history of the various countries in which they live, but the worldwide community is united under Prince Karim Aga Khan, the spiritual leader and 49th Imam of the Ismaili Muslims. Few fields of Islamic studies have witnessed as drastic a change as Ismaili studies, due in part to the recent discovery of numerous historical texts, and author Farhad Daftary makes extensive use of these new sources in the Historical Dictionary of the Ismailis. This comprehensive new reference work is the first of its kind on the Ismailis and presents a summary of the findings of modern scholarship on the Ismaili Shia Muslims and different facets of their heritage. The dictionary covers all phases of Ismaili history as well as the main doctrines of the community. It includes an introductory chapter, which provides a broad historical survey of the Ismailis, followed by alphabetical entries on all major aspects of the community, such as key figures, institutions, traditions, and doctrines. It also contains a chronology, genealogical tables, a glossary, and a substantial bibliography. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Ismailis.

Surviving the Mongols
Surviving the Mongols

Author: Nadia Eboo Jamal

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2002-07-26

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0857717189

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The Mongol invasion of Iran in the thirteenth century was a catastrophe for all its inhabitants. For the Persian Ismailis in particular, it put an end to their political aspirations and independent existence for many centuries. It has been held by many historians that subsequent to the fall of the central Ismaili fortress of Alamut to the Mongols, the community was virtually extirpated from the region and its institutional network dismantled until its revival in the sixteenth century under the Safavid dynasty. Such an expansive view of post-Alamut Ismailism is questioned by this study which examines the poetic writings of Nizari Quhistani, one of the few Ismaili authors who survived the Mongol invasion and whose works are accessible today. The evidence of Nizari's writings demonstrate that while the Ismaili community was seriously impaired, its organizational structure and internal coherence continued to operate in different forms through the Mongol period of Persian history.