Songs of Wisdom and Circles of Dance
Songs of Wisdom and Circles of Dance

Author: Tazim R. Kassam

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1995-08-17

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 1438408412

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Coursing though cultures and time, tuneful verse has given moving expression to the human longing for the divine. As poetry strung on sweet melodies, hymns bear testimony to the religious life of the devout, and to the inspiring teachings of minstrels and saints. Such is the ginan tradition of the Satpanth Isma'ilis, Indian successors of the Fatand Nizari Isma'ili sect of the Shi'ah Muslims. Traditionally recited during daily ritual prayers, ginans have been revered for generations among the Satpanth Isma'ilis as sacred compositions. This work offers for the first time an extensive translation of hymns attributed to the Isma'ili saint-composer, Pir Shams (ca. 13th century), who is at once one of the most pivotal and yet most enigmatic figures of this literary tradition. It also presents a cogent historical reconstruction of the beginnings of Satpanth Isma'ilism--a phase of Isma'ili history that has spanned over eight centuries.

A Scent of Sandalwood
A Scent of Sandalwood

Author: Aziz Esmail

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-03

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1136876464

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The Ginans are religious lyrics which have long been a central part of the religious life of the Indian Mizari Ismaili community (known as Khojas), and continue to form their living poetic tradition. Aziz Esmail's translation is suggestive of the depth of religious thought, feeling and imagination out of which this poetry was born, and the lyrical beauty of the form in which this experience found a voice. The poetry of the Ginans illustrates an historically and culturally specific conception of the world, and of the norms peculiar to that culture, as well as a religious perception that forms a significant part of the religious experience of mankind. This volume will appeal both to specialists and more general readers, including Indologists, scholars of Islam in the Subcontinent, students of Comparative Religion, Comparative Literature, and those with an interest in mystical or devotional poetry.

Political Messaging in Music and Entertainment Spaces across the Globe. Volume 2.
Political Messaging in Music and Entertainment Spaces across the Globe. Volume 2.

Author: Uche Onyebadi

Publisher: Vernon Press

Published: 2022-09-20

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1648895158

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'Political Messaging in Music and Entertainment Spaces across the Globe' uniquely expands the frontiers of political communication by simultaneously focusing on content (political messaging) and platform (music and entertainment). As a compendium of valuable research work, it provides rich insights into the construction of political messages and their dissemination outside of the traditional and mainstream structural, process and behavioral research focus in the discipline. Researchers, teachers, students and other interested parties in political communication, political science, journalism and mass communication, sociology, music, languages, linguistics and the performing arts, communication studies, law and history, will find this book refreshingly handy in their inquiry. Furthermore, this book was conceptualized from a globalist purview and offers readers practical insights into how political messaging through music and entertainment spaces actually work across nation-states, regions and continents. Its authenticity is also further enhanced by the fact that most chapter contributors are scholars who are natives of their areas of study, and who painstakingly situate their work in appropriate historical contexts.

Miracles
Miracles

Author: David L Weddle

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2010-07-09

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0814794831

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Despite the dominance of scientific explanation in the modern world, at the beginning of the twenty-first century faith in miracles remains strong, particularly in resurgent forms of traditional religion. In Miracles, David L. Weddle examines how five religious traditions—Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam—understand miracles, considering how they express popular enthusiasm for wondrous tales, how they provoke official regulation because of their potential to disrupt authority, and how they are denied by critics within each tradition who regard belief in miracles as an illusory distraction from moral responsibility. In dynamic and accessible prose, Weddle shows us what miracles are, what they mean, and why, despite overwhelming scientific evidence, they are still significant today: belief in miracles sustains the hope that, if there is a reality that surpasses our ordinary lives, it is capable of exercising—from time to time—creative, liberating, enlightening, and healing power in our world.

The Ismailis in the Middle Ages
The Ismailis in the Middle Ages

Author: Shafique N. Virani

Publisher: OUP USA

Published: 2007-04-19

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0195311736

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"None of that people should be spared, not even the babe in its cradle." With these chilling words, the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan declared his intention to destroy the Ismailis, one of the most intellectually and politically significant Muslim communities of medieval Islamdom. The massacres that followed convinced observers that this powerful voice of Shi'i Islam had been forever silenced. Little was heard of these people for centuries, until their recent and dramatic emergence from obscurity. Today they exist as a dynamic and thriving community established in over twenty-five countries. Yet the interval between what appeared to have been their total annihilation, and their modern, seemingly phoenix-like renaissance, has remained shrouded in mystery. Drawing on an astonishing array of sources gathered from many countries around the globe, The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation is a richly nuanced and compelling study of the murkiest portion of this era. In probing the period from the dark days when the Ismaili fortresses in Iran fell before the marauding Mongol hordes, to the emergence at Anjudan of the Ismaili Imams who provided a spiritual centre to a scattered community, this work explores the motivations, passions and presumptions of historical actors. With penetrating insight, Shafique N. Virani examines the rich esoteric thought that animated the Ismailis and enabled them to persevere. A work of remarkable erudition, this landmark book is essential reading for scholars of Islamic history and spirituality, Shi'ism and Iran. Both specialists and informed lay readers will take pleasure not only in its scholarly perception, but in its lively anecdotes, quotations of delightful poetry, and gripping narrative style. This is an extraordinary book of historical beauty and spiritual vision.

Who Owns Religion?
Who Owns Religion?

Author: Laurie L. Patton

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-11-27

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 022667598X

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Who Owns Religion? focuses on a period—the late 1980s through the 1990s—when scholars of religion were accused of scandalizing or denigrating the very communities they had imagined themselves honoring through their work. While controversies involving scholarly claims about religion are nothing new, this period saw an increase in vitriol that remains with us today. Authors of seemingly arcane studies on subjects like the origins of the idea of Mother Earth or the sexual dynamics of mysticism have been targets of hate mail and book-banning campaigns. As a result, scholars of religion have struggled to describe their own work to their various publics, and even to themselves. Taking the reader through several compelling case studies, Patton identifies two trends of the ’80s and ’90s that fueled that rise: the growth of multicultural identity politics, which enabled a form of volatile public debate she terms “eruptive public space,” and the advent of the internet, which offered new ways for religious groups to read scholarship and respond publicly. These controversies, she shows, were also fundamentally about something new: the very rights of secular, Western scholarship to interpret religions at all. Patton’s book holds out hope that scholars can find a space for their work between the university and the communities they study. Scholars of religion, she argues, have multiple masters and must move between them while writing histories and speaking about realities that not everyone may be interested in hearing.

Song of Songs (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms)
Song of Songs (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms)

Author: Richard S. Hess

Publisher: Baker Books

Published: 2005-04-01

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 1441205020

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Richard Hess has written an insightful commentary on one of the most intriguing books of the Bible, which celebrates God's gift of love. Following an introduction to the biblical book and a history of its interpretation, Hess divides his discussion into seven major sections. Each section begins with a fresh translation, followed by paragraph-by-paragraph commentary, and concluding with a summary of the passage's theological implications. Technical questions related to the Hebrew text or scholarly debate are addressed in the footnotes. Pastors and teachers will find here an accessible commentary that will serve as an excellent resource for their study. This is the first volume in the Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms series.

Creating Circles and Ceremonies
Creating Circles and Ceremonies

Author: Oberon Zell-Ravenheart

Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser

Published: 2006-07-07

Total Pages: 609

ISBN-13: 1601633971

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Creating Circles and Ceremonies is the accumulation of decades of circles, ceremonies, rituals, Mystery plays, initiations, rites of passage, and other magickal workings co-created by the Zell-Ravenhearts, today's foremost Wizard/Witch couple. For more than 30 years, Oberon and Morning Glory have traveled widely throughout the worldwide magickal community--participating in gatherings, conducting workshops, and creating rituals for groups large and small. They have met and made Magick with the leaders of many traditions: Celtic Shamanism, British Dianic, Italian Strega, Welsh Witchcraft, Faerie Trad, Ceremonial Magick, Ozark Druidry, the New Reformed Order of the Golden Dawn (NROOGD), Hinduism, Native American tribes, Greek and Egyptian mythology, and the futuristic Church of All Worlds. Here, in one easy-to-read volume, is their collection of chants, invocations, circle-castings, quarter-callings, spells, and ceremonies. It is also a "kit" to use to assemble your own rituals, for any season or reason: Book I presents a basic ritual outline. Each element is followed by numerous examples which may be "plugged in" to customize your own ceremony. Book II gives numerous examples of actual ceremonies: Esbats (full Moons) and special occasions; Rites of Passage; Mysteries and Initiations; spells and consecrations. These can be adapted and modified as needed for any size group--from small family gatherings in your living room, to huge outdoor celebrations involving thousands of people. Book III provides an assortment of full rituals and ritual elements for celebrations of the eight great seasonal festivals called the Wheel of the Year. Versions of these have been commemorated for millennia in most traditional cultures of the Northern Hemisphere; and today are universal throughout the worldwide Pagan community.

Everyday Shi'ism in South Asia
Everyday Shi'ism in South Asia

Author: Karen G. Ruffle

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-03-15

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 1119357144

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The first textbook to focus on the history of lived Shi'ism in South Asia Everyday Shi'ism in South Asia is an introduction to the everyday life and cultural memory of Shi’i women and men, focusing on the religious worlds of both individuals and communities at particular historical moments and places in the Indian subcontinent. Author Karen Ruffle draws upon an array primary sources, images, and ethnographic data to present topical case studies offering broad snapshots Shi'i life as well as microscopic analyses of ritual practices, material objects, architectural and artistic forms, and more. Focusing exclusively on South Asian Shi'ism, an area mostly ignored by contemporary scholars who focus on the Arab lands of Iran and Iraq, the author shifts readers' analytical focus from the center of Islam to its periphery. Ruffle provides new perspectives on the diverse ways that the Shi'a intersect with not only South Asian religious culture and history, but also the wider Islamic humanistic tradition. Written for an academic audience, yet accessible to general readers, this unique resource: Explores Shi’i religious practice and the relationship between religious normativity and everyday religious life and material culture Contextualizes Muharram rituals, public performances, festivals, vow-making, and material objects and practices of South Asian Shi'a Draws from author's studies and fieldwork throughout India and Pakistan, featuring numerous color photographs Places Shi'i religious symbols, cultural values, and social systems in historical context Includes an extended survey of scholarship on South Asian Shi’ism from the seventeenth century to the present Everyday Shi'ism in South Asia is an important resource for scholars and students in disciplines including Islamic studies, South Asian studies, religious studies, anthropology, art history, material culture studies, history, and gender studies, and for English-speaking members of South Asian Shi'i communities.