This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

An Inspiring Account of One Woman's Journey to Reclaim Her Spiritual and Cultural Identity For Asma Hasan, being a Muslim is not merely a matter of birth, but a matter of choice and faith. Hasan's personal relationship with her religion was, and continues to be, a defining element of her life, and through her writing she inspires a new understanding and appreciation of a frequently misunderstood tradition. This is her American story.

Beyond Belief is a book about one of the more important and unsettling issues of our time. But it is not a book of opinion. It is, in the Naipaul way, a very rich and human book, full of people and their stories: stories of family, both broken and whole; of religion and nation; and of the constant struggle to create a world of virtue and prosperity in equal measure. Islam is an Arab religion, and it makes imperial Arabizing demands on its converts. In this way it is more than a private faith; and it can become a neurosis. What has this Arab Islam done to the histories of the non-Arab Islamic states: Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia? How do the converted peoples view their past – and their future? In a follow-up to Among the Believers, his classic account of his travels through these countries, V. S. Naipaul returns, after a gap of seventeen years, to find out how and what the converted preach. ‘Peerless . . . the human encounters are described minutely, superbly, picking up inconsistencies in people’s tales, catching the uncertainties and the nuances . . . there is a candour to his writing, a constant precision at its heart’ – Sunday Times

An exploration of how Muslims in the United States have interpreted the Qur'an in ways that make it speak to their American realities In Speaking Qur'an: An American Scripture, Timur R. Yuskaev examines how Muslim Americans have been participating in their country's cultural, social, religious, and political life. Essential to this process, he shows, is how the Qur'an has become an evermore deeply American text that speaks to central issues in the lives of American Muslims through the spoken-word interpretations of Muslim preachers, scholars,and activists. Yuskaev illustrates this process with four major case studies that highlight dialogues between American Muslim public intellectuals and their audiences. First, through an examination of the work of Fazlur Rahman, he addresses the question of how the premodern Qur'an is translated across time into modern, American settings. Next the author contemplates the application of contemporary concepts of gender to renditions of the Qur'an alongside Amina Wadud's American Muslim discourses on justice.Then he demonstrates how the Qur'an becomes a text of redemption in W. D. Mohammed's oral interpretation of the Qur'an as speaking directly to the African American experience. Finally he shows how, before and after 9/11, Hamza Yusuf invoked the Qur'an as a guide to the political life of American Muslims. Set within the rapidly transforming contexts of the last half century, and central to the volume, are the issues of cultural translation and embodiment of sacred texts that Yuskaev explores by focusing on the Qur'an as a spoken scripture. The process of the Qur'an becoming an American sacred text, he argues, is ongoing. It comes to life when the Qur'an is spoken and embodied by its American faithful.

"Naẓar, literally 'vision', is a unique Arabic-Islamic term/concept that offers an analytical framework for exploring the ways in which Islamic visual culture and aesthetic sensibility have been shaped by common conceptual tools and moral parameters. It intertwines the act of 'seeing' with the act of 'reflecting', thereby bringing the visual and cognitive functions into a complex relationship. Within the folds of this multifaceted relationship lies an entangled web of religious ideas, moral values, aesthetic preferences, scientific precepts, and socio-cultural understandings that underlie the intricacy of one's personal belief. Peering through the lens of naẓar, the studies presented in this volume unravel aspects of these entanglements to provide new understandings of how vision, belief, and perception shape the rich Islamic visual culture. Contributors: Samer Akkach, James Bennett, Sushma Griffin, Stephen Hirtenstein, Virginia Hooker, Sakina Nomanbhoy, Shaha Parpia, Ellen Philpott-Teo, Wendy M.K. Shaw"--

America’s leading religious scholar and public intellectual introduces lay readers to the Qur’an with a measured, powerful reading of the ancient text Garry Wills has spent a lifetime thinking and writing about Christianity. In What the Qur’an Meant, Wills invites readers to join him as he embarks on a timely and necessary reconsideration of the Qur’an, leading us through perplexing passages with insight and erudition. What does the Qur’an actually say about veiling women? Does it justify religious war? There was a time when ordinary Americans did not have to know much about Islam. That is no longer the case. We blundered into the longest war in our history without knowing basic facts about the Islamic civilization with which we were dealing. We are constantly fed false information about Islam—claims that it is essentially a religion of violence, that its sacred book is a handbook for terrorists. There is no way to assess these claims unless we have at least some knowledge of the Qur’an. In this book Wills, as a non-Muslim with an open mind, reads the Qur’an with sympathy but with rigor, trying to discover why other non-Muslims—such as Pope Francis—find it an inspiring book, worthy to guide people down through the centuries. There are many traditions that add to and distort and blunt the actual words of the text. What Wills does resembles the work of art restorers who clean away accumulated layers of dust to find the original meaning. He compares the Qur’an with other sacred books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, to show many parallels between them. There are also parallel difficulties of interpretation, which call for patient exploration—and which offer some thrills of discovery. What the Qur’an Meant is the opening of a conversation on one of the world’s most practiced religions.

John L. Esposito is one of America's leading authorities on Islam. Now, in this brilliant portrait of Islam today--and tomorrow--he draws on a lifetime of thought and research to sweep away the negative stereotypes and provide an accurate, richly nuanced, and revelatory account of the fastest growing religion in the world. Here Esposito explores the major questions and issues that face Islam in the 21st century and that will deeply affect global politics. Are Islam and the West locked in a deadly clash of civilizations? Is Islam compatible with democracy and human rights? Will religious fundamentalism block the development of modern societies in the Islamic world? Will Islam overwhelm the Western societies in which so many Muslim immigrants now reside? Will Europe become Eurabia or will the Muslims assimilate? Which Muslim thinkers will be most influential in the years to come? To answer this last question he introduces the reader to a new generation of Muslim thinkers--Tariq Ramadan, Timothy Winter, Mustafa Ceric, Amina Wadud, and others--a diverse collection of Muslim men and women, both the "Martin Luthers" and the "Billy Grahams" of Islam. We meet religious leaders who condemn suicide bombing and who see the killing of unarmed men, women, and children as "worse than murder," who preach toleration and pluralism, who advocate for women's rights. The book often underscores the unexpected similarities between the Islamic world and the West and at times turns the mirror on the US, revealing how we appear to Muslims, all to highlight the crucial point that there is nothing exceptional about the Muslim faith. Recent decades have brought extraordinary changes in the Muslim world, and in addressing all of these issues, Esposito paints a complex picture of Islam in all its diversity--a picture of urgent importance as we face the challenges of the coming century.

In this book the author argues that the Falasifa, the Philosophers of the Islamic Golden Age, are usefully interpreted through the prism of the contemporary, western ethics of belief. He contends that their position amounts to what he calls ‘Moderate Evidentialism’ – that only for the epistemic elite what one ought to believe is determined by one’s evidence. The author makes the case that the Falasifa’s position is well argued, ingeniously circumvents issues in the epistemology of testimony, and is well worth taking seriously in the contemporary debate. He reasons that this is especially the case since the position has salutary consequences for how to respond to the sceptic, and for how we are to conceive of extremist belief.

"Basics of Islam for young Muslims"--Cover.

Under the direction of the scholar Dr. Muhammad Ali Shomali comes this informative outlining and guide to Islam and its teachings. Written in a textbook-like easy to read fashion, this book is perfectly suited to both the novice to Islam and those familiar with the religion.Best of all featuring illustrations and bursting with color, the text is ideal for children of all ages who want to learn about Islam. Case studies and exercises as well as a helpful glossary make this a first-choice Islamic textbook.