The book also includes: - Selected hadith utterances: the Prophet's counsel as traditionally related by Islamic peoples.- Quatrains by Omar Khayyam and Abul Alaa Al-Ma'arri, free-thinking poets of the 11th C.- Couplets by the erudite Sheikh Sadi of Shiraz, a famous Sufi poet of the 13th C.- Stories of Bahlool, a figure from folklore, and his amusing encounters in ancient Baghdad.
A myth-shattering view of the Islamic world's myriad scientific innovations and the role they played in sparking the European Renaissance. Many of the innovations that we think of as hallmarks of Western science had their roots in the Arab world of the middle ages, a period when much of Western Christendom lay in intellectual darkness. Jim al- Khalili, a leading British-Iraqi physicist, resurrects this lost chapter of history, and given current East-West tensions, his book could not be timelier. With transporting detail, al-Khalili places readers in the hothouses of the Arabic Enlightenment, shows how they led to Europe's cultural awakening, and poses the question: Why did the Islamic world enter its own dark age after such a dazzling flowering?
For centuries following the fall of Rome, western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse of the scientific advances coming from Baghdad, Antioch, or the cities of Persia, Central Asia, and Muslim Spain. T here, philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of knowledge and revitalizing the works of Plato and Aristotle. I n the royal library of Baghdad, known as the House of Wisdom, an army of scholars worked at the behest of the Abbasid caliphs. At a time when the best book collections in Europe held several dozen volumes, the House of Wisdom boasted as many as four hundred thousand. Even while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims, a handful of intrepid Christian scholars, thirsty for knowledge, traveled to Arab lands and returned with priceless jewels of science, medicine, and philosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance. I n this brilliant, evocative book, Lyons shows just how much "Western" culture owes to the glories of medieval Arab civilization, and reveals the untold story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning.
The great 13th century Muslim philosopher explores the mysteries of divine love and wisdom, using the symbolic examples of Biblical figures, prophets and holy men, from Adam to Muhammad.
This volume introduces ʿAlī b. ʿUbayda al-Rayḥānī (d. 219/834), one of the central figures in the transmission of classical Greek and Persian wisdom into Arabic. It offers an edition, translation, and evaluation of his book Jawāhir al-kilam , one of the oldest collections of proverbial wisdom and moralia in Arabic, as well as other remaining pieces of his works. The first part of the book surveys the content of his more than sixty books and suggests that among his translations from Middle Persian into Arabic were the Sindbād-nāma and Bilawhar wa-Budhāsf. Moreover, he emerges as the author of the famous al-Adab al-ṣaghīr heretofore wrongly attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffa‘. The second part contains the Arabic texts and translations as well as a rich documentation of their sources and their further transmission.
"This is a collection of inspirational wisdom for living a meaningful and productive life. This selection of quotations has been chosen to reflect Rumi's inspiring and uplifting approach to life and the inevitable issues that we encounter during our lifetimes. The wisdom includes no-nonsense statements, observations, and facts-ranging from matters of the heart, to understanding human nature, to embracing the nature of the divine. The result is an extended meditation on how to live one's life with meaning, productivity, and kindness"--
One of the most popular and profound inspirational writers of all time explores the mysteries of life, sharing bite-sized wisdom for daily living. This book is a collection of Gibran’s words on life’s big questions and the mysteries of the spiritual path. It is an exploration of the riddles and conundrums that are part of the fabric of existence, and it is an attempt to penetrate and explain the mysteries of life. Gibran was fascinated by life’s puzzles and riddles—those questions that cause us to stop what we are doing and ask, “Why?” Here are his musings about the seemingly unanswerable questions and his exploration of good and evil, love and hate, and the difference between appearances and reality. Kahlil Gibran’s Little Book of Secrets is organized into five sections that elucidate the key issues and questions that each of us face: Entering the Labyrinth of Life Secrets of Life and Death Life’s Ups and Downs Secrets of Good and Evil Traveling the Inner Path This inspirational volume gently guides readers through life’s big issues: meaning and mortality, good and evil, and discovering an authentic spiritual path. Suitable for all gift-giving occasions, it is a book that delights, informs, and inspires.
