The two Muslim poets featured in Scott Kugle's comparative study lived separate lives during the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries in the Deccan region of southern India. Here, they meet in the realm of literary imagination, illuminating the complexity of gender, sexuality, and religious practice in South Asian Islamic culture. Shah Siraj Awrangabadi (1715-1763), known as "Sun," was a Sunni who, after a youthful homosexual love affair, gave up sexual relationships to follow a path of personal holiness. Mah Laqa Bai Chanda (1768-1820), known as "Moon," was a Shi'i and courtesan dancer who transferred her seduction of men to the pursuit of mystical love. Both were poets in the Urdu language of the ghazal, or love lyric, often fusing a spiritual quest with erotic imagery. Kugle argues that Sun and Moon expressed through their poetry exceptions to the general rules of heteronormativity and gender inequality common in their patriarchal societies. Their art provides a lens for a more subtle understanding of both the reach and the limitations of gender roles in Islamic and South Asian culture and underscores how the arts of poetry, music, and dance are integral to Islamic religious life. Integrated throughout are Kugle's translations of Urdu and Persian poetry previously unavailable in English.

A Time Magazine 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time selection!​ A Reader’s Digest Best Children’s Book of All Time​! This stunning fantasy inspired by Chinese folklore is a companion novel to Starry River of the Sky and the New York Times bestselling and National Book Award finalist When the Sea Turned to Silver In the valley of Fruitless mountain, a young girl named Minli lives in a ramshackle hut with her parents. In the evenings, her father regales her with old folktales of the Jade Dragon and the Old Man on the Moon, who knows the answers to all of life's questions. Inspired by these stories, Minli sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man on the Moon to ask him how she can change her family's fortune. She encounters an assorted cast of characters and magical creatures along the way, including a dragon who accompanies her on her quest for the ultimate answer. Grace Lin, author of the beloved Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat returns with a wondrous story of adventure, faith, and friendship. A fantasy crossed with Chinese folklore, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a timeless story reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz and Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Her beautiful illustrations, printed in full-color, accompany the text throughout. Once again, she has created a charming, engaging book for young readers.

Tammy Lynn Robinson, the daughter of the late Kattie Mae Lewis and Jessie Ealy. She is the wife of Pastor John Robinson, III and the proud mother of two amazing children John IV and Tamara Lynn. She is the God Mother of six precious children: Chad, Gabriel, Jabari, Kaia, Naija, and Omichelle, and the favorite auntie of many nieces and nephews. Tammy enjoys working with children, teaching them to make good choices, helping them develop their educational skills, and offering them a second chance. She has been employed with the Saint Lucie County School District since 1993 working with Pre-K to 8th grade students. ~ Her encouragement to children is: Obey your parents, study hard, never give up, and believe that all things are possible! Finally, children become citizens in our society who are worth talking about! This book is for children, but I hope that adults will enjoy reading it as well! It emphasizes caring, sharing, friendship, and being thankful for one another. The intent is for children to have an exciting reading experience and that they will want to read this book over and over again! This is a great Circle Time story, Bed Time story, or Any Time story that is appropriate and fun!

In this enchanting tale of the origins of the Sun and the Moon, the Sun flies across the universe on an adventure to look for someone whose light matches his own. When the Sun Met the Moon is a story filled with so much love, excitement, and equality that you won't want to put down, and can be told for years to come.After centuries of brightening up the sky by himself, the poor Sun is exhausted, lonely, and in need of some help. So, he decides to search the galaxies for someone whose light is as strong and powerful as his to help him shine down on the people of Earth. When the Sun decides to take a holiday to go on this adventure, Earth is left with its first-ever nighttime where the sky goes dark and cold, leaving people afraid to come out of their homes. Will the Sun be able to find somebody whose light is equal to his? Find out in this gorgeous love story how the Sun met his perfect Moon.

The Moon, Father Forest, Great Fish of the Sea, and North Wind help a maiden rescue her true love from a troll princess in a faraway kingdom.

Day after day, the Sun and the Moon follow their lonely, separate paths across the sky. How they wish they could meet and become friends. One sunny day, their paths finally cross--with dramatic results! Pfister illustrates this fanciful explanation of eclipses in vivid colors, finding bold shapes and patterns in the earth and sky, in stormy and sunny weather.

When the daytime and nighttime animals on Earth get tired of Sun and Moon's constant bickering over who should rule the world, they hold competitions--a cookout and a race--to determine the winner once and for all. But when neither the "night" team nor the "day" team wins in a fair way, how will they fix their problem? This beautifully illustrated story teaches kids respect for nature's rhythms and each other. It includes a guide that helps parents and teachers explain the science of Earth's day-and-night cycles in simple language.

This is the first history of Indian music and musicians during the transition from Mughal to British rule, c.1748-1858.

Leisure is a corollary to pleasure. Essays in this historical exploration trace how leisure and recreation were often imagined and celebrated during premodern times, from the ancient to the precolonial period. This book takes into account the differential access to leisure and pleasure based on class and gender where masculinity is projected through manly sports and femininity though beauty and indulgence in the projection of recreation, entertainment and luxury. The counter-discourse representing labour for those who cater for this leisure is invisibilized as is their transactional nature. The volume dwells on the attitudes, prescribed and proscribed, and brings to the fore the differences across religious ideologies such as Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jaina and Muslim in various periods. Further it looks at leisure in the various classes and cultural spaces such as the elite, women, the king in the bed chamber, the court with dancing girls, public areas such as orchards and gardens and performance spaces.

Jamal Malik provides new insights into the social and intellectual history of the complex forms of cultural articulation among Muslims in South Asia from the seventh to twenty-first century, elaborating on various trends and tendencies in a highly plural setting.