Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Islam - History

How did an obscure Islamic visionary found an empire? The Almohad Empire at its zenith in the 12th century was the major power in the Mediterranean and North Africa, ruling a huge region from the Atlas Mountains to Andalusia. Effective administration was backed by military force, and the empire was the seat of a 12th-century renaissance in the fortunes of Islamic power in North Africa and the western Muslim world. The effect on the culture of both the Middle East and Europe was to prove lasting.

Allen Fromherz, drawing on medieval Arabic and Berber sources, analyses the myth and...

Increasingly Islam struggles against negative stereotypes as a religion of intolerance, extremism and fear, which has failed to meet the challenges of modernity. Zidane Meriboute here proposes a fresh perspective on the crisis facing Muslims today. His novel and original approach looks to the Islamic Sufi tradition and the progressive liberal thought of the 12th century philosophers Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) as holding the key to a successful transition towards modernity. The humanity and questioning which both Sufism and this progressive thought engender can produce --...

Interest in Shi'i Islam is running at unprecedented levels. International tensions over Iran, where the largest number of Shi'i Muslims live, as well as the political resurgence of the Shi'i in Iraq and Lebanon, have created an urgent need to understand the background, beliefs and motivations of this dynamic vision of Islam. Abbas Amanat is one of the leading scholars of Shi'ism. And in this powerful book, a showcase for some of his most influential writing in the field, he addresses the colorful and diverse history of Shi' Islam in both premodern and contemporary times. Focusing...

Kemal Ataturk's Republic of Turkey was set up in 1923 as a secular state, sweeping political, social, cultural and religious reforms followed. Islam was no longer the official religion of the state, the Sultanate was abolished and all Turkish citizens were declared equal without reference to religion. But though, in Azak's phrase, ""secularism was the central tenet of Kemalism,"" fear of a resurgent, even fanatical, Islam, continued to haunt the state.

Azak's revisionist and original study sets out the struggle between religion and secularism but shows how Ataturk labored for an...

Why does Islam play a larger role in contemporary politics than other religions? Is there something about the Islamic heritage that makes Muslims more likely than adherents of other faiths to invoke it in their political life? If so, what is it? Ancient Religions, Modern Politics seeks to answer these questions by examining the roles of Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity in modern political life, placing special emphasis on the relevance--or irrelevance--of their heritages to today's social and political concerns.

Michael Cook takes an in-depth, comparative look at political...

Well known throughout the Islamic world as the foundational thinker for a significant portion of the contemporary Muslim intelligentsia, Sayyid Qutb (1906 1966) was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and was jailed by Gamal Abdul Nasser s government in 1954. He became one of the most uncompromising voices of the movement we now call Islamism and is perhaps best known for his book, Malam fi al-tariq.
A Child from the Village was written just prior to Qutb s conversion to the Islamist cause and reflects his concerns for social justice. Interst in Qutb s writing has...