In a revisionist account of the history of Islamic political thought from the early to the late medieval period, this book focuses on the thought of Ibn Taymiyya, one of the most brilliant theologians of his day. The standard accounts of Sunni political history typically end with the classical period and thereby leave out Ibn Taymiyya's contribution. 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...

Winner of the 2021 Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (category: translation from Arabic into English) This is an unabridged, annotated, translation of the great Damascene savant and saint Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) Madārij al-Sālikīn. Conceived as a critical commentary on an earlier Sufi classic by the great Hanbalite scholar Abū Ismāʿīl of Herat, Madārij aims to rejuvenate Sufism’s Qurʾanic foundations. The original work was a key text for the Sufi initiates, composed in terse, rhyming prose as a master’s instruction to the...

Winner of the 2021 Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (category: translation from Arabic into English) This is an unabridged, annotated, translation of the great Damascene savant and saint Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) Madārij al-Sālikīn. Conceived as a critical commentary on an earlier Sufi classic by the great Hanbalite scholar Abū Ismāʿīl of Herat, Madārij aims to rejuvenate Sufism’s Qurʾanic foundations. The original work was a key text for the Sufi initiates, composed in terse, rhyming prose as a master’s instruction to the...