Piety and Politics: Islamism in Contemporary Malaysia (Religion and Global Politics)

By Joseph Chinyong Liow
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Pages: 288, Date: 2009-04-07
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0195377087

Description:
Malaysia, home to some twenty million Muslims, is often held up as a model of a pro-Western Islamic nation. The government of Malaysia, in search of Western investment, does its best to perpetuate this view. But this isn't the whole story. Over the last several decades, Joseph Liow shows, Malaysian politics has taken a strong turn toward Islamism.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the growing role of Islam in the last quarter century of Malaysian politics. Conventional wisdom suggest that the ruling UMNO party has moved toward Islamism to fend off challenges from the more heavily Islamist opposition party, PAS. Liow argues, however, that UMNO has often taken the lead in moving toward Islamism, and that in fact PAS has often been forced to react.

The result, Liow argues, is a game of "piety-trumping" that will be very difficult to reverse, and that has dire consequences not only for the ethnic and religious minorities of Malaysia, but for their democratic system as a whole.

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The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan

By Robert D. Crews, Amin Tarzi
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Pages: 448, Date: 2008-02-28
ISBN-10 : 067402690X

Description:
The Taliban remain one of the most elusive forces in modern history. A ragtag collection of clerics and madrasa students, this obscure movement emerged out of the rubble of the Cold War to shock the world with their draconian Islamic order. The Taliban refused to surrender their vision even when confronted by the United States after September 11, 2001.

Reinventing themselves as part of a broad insurgency that destabilized Afghanistan, they pledged to drive out the Americans, NATO, and their allies and restore their "Islamic Emirate."

The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan explores the paradox at the center of this challenging phenomenon: how has a seemingly anachronistic band of religious zealots managed to retain a tenacious foothold in the struggle for Afghanistan's future? Grounding their analysis in a deep understanding of the country's past, leading scholars of Afghan history, politics, society, and culture show how the Taliban was less an attempt to revive a medieval theocracy than a dynamic, complex, and adaptive force rooted in the history of Afghanistan and shaped by modern international politics. Shunning journalistic accounts of its conspiratorial origins, the essays investigate broader questions relating to the character of the Taliban, its evolution over time, and its capacity to affect the future of the region.

Offering an invaluable guide to "what went wrong" with the American reconstruction project in Afghanistan, this book accounts for the persistence of a powerful and enigmatic movement while simultaneously mapping Afghanistan's enduring political crisis.

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Doctrines of Shi`i Islam: A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices

By Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani
Publisher: I. B. Tauris
Number Of Pages: 264
Publication Date: 2001-12-07
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 1860647804

Description:
This wide-ranging, comprehensive overview of the main theological and jurisprudential tenets of Shi'i Islam deals with such issues as the nature of being and the problem of evil. The range of themes covered, its precise style, and the means by which traditional Shi'i beliefs and practices are substantiated render this book both informative and original.

It offers a valuable insight into mainstream ideological thinking within the official religious establishment in Iran today.

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The Next Front: Southeast Asia and the Road to Global Peace with Islam

By Christopher S. Bond, Lewis M. Simons
Publisher: Wiley
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2009-09-15
ISBN-10 : 0470503904

Description:
A U.S. senator and Pulitzer Prizewinner, both experts on Southeast Asia, offer a bold new approach to address radical Islam and fight global terror

The next front in the war on terror is in Southeast Asia, warn Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO) and Lewis Simons, both leading experts on the region.

The U.S. has bankrupted its policies in dealing with the Islamic world. As Fundamentalist Islam gains traction in Southeast Asia, backed by Saudi money, the U.S. must act swiftly to re-establish its credibility there and help defuse global terrorism.

Bond and Simons present a bold plan to accomplish this key goal by substituting smart power (civilians in sneakers and sandals) for force (soldiers in combat boots) in Indonesia and the other nations of Southeast Asia, home to the world's greatest concentration of Muslims.

Introduces a critical new "smart power" approach to combat global terror
Written by two experts on Southeast Asia with extensive contacts in Washington and overseas
Tackles a crucial challenge to U.S. foreign policy and President Obama's administration
Examines a wide range of views and people, from Osama bin Laden-trained armed terrorists to radical clerics to western-trained officials who plead for Americans to come to their countries to teach, start small businesses, and improve health care
The Next Front offers exactly the kind of fresh, out-of-the-box thinking the United States needs to rebuild its credibility and transcend its foreign policy failures.

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Islamic History (The Islamic World)

By Laura S. Etheredge
Publisher: Rosen Education Service
Number Of Pages: 176
Publication Date: 2009-12-20
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 161530021X, PDF 5 Mb

What are the percepts of Shari'ah law? What role did Genghis Khan play in Islamic history? How do the teachings of the Qur'an mesh with those of other religious texts? Islamic History is part of a 3 book series. In this powerful, probing, and thought-provoking series, the world of Islam is explored and explained. With coverage from around the world and across the centuries, each book provides a thorough look into the religion with nearly two billion adherents worldwide.

Readers will develop a comprehensive understanding of this incredibly rich faith and its contributions to world culture and history. They will gain access to authentic ideas and concepts, which unfortunately have been somewhat distorted by recent events that were carried out in the name of Islam.

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Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century (Themes in Islamic Law)

By Rudolph Peters
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Pages: 232, Date: 2006-03-27
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0521796709

Description:
In recent years some of the more fundamentalist regimes in the developing world (such as those of Iran, Pakistan, Sudan and the northern states of Nigeria) have reintroduced Islamic law in place of western criminal codes. Rudolph Peters presents a detailed account of the classical doctrine and traces the enforcement of criminal law from the Ottoman period to the present day.

Accounts of actual cases, ranging from theft and banditry to murder, fornication and apostasy, shed light on the complexities of the law, and the sensitivity and intelligence of the qadis who implemented it.

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Islamic Society in Practice

By Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Pages: 191, Date: 1994-10
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0813013054

Description:
Written in the wake of the Gulf War, this book introduces the West to everyday Arab-Islamic culture and society, humanizing the region and its people. It ventures behind the headlines to offer a positive, constructive view of Islam and Muslims, showing how Islam is lived and practiced in daily life in the Sudan, Egypt, and Tunisia.

Islamic Society in Practice is both scholarly and personal, intended for classroom use and for a general audience. It examines Islamic society on a grassroots level, using the basic anthropological method of participant observation. It treats the major dimensions of Islamic society from the core elements of the religion (including the religious-social values it promotes) to the type of society it engenders, the laws that institutionalize social practice, and the contemporary movements for reform or restoration of Islamic precepts in individual nations.

Writing from the perspective of a sympathetic American woman, Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban discusses in depth the social dynamics of gender transformation and Islam, examining the complex issue as one more dilemma confronting societies that are struggling to cope with Western ways of thinking.

Fluehr-Lobban’s formal research and informal observations span the years 1970 to 1990, a time of dynamic change for the Arab and Muslim worlds. These decades took her from the life of a graduate student to that of a professor. With her husband and two daughters, she lived and conducted field research, traveling extensively in Africa and the Middle East. She conveys here the richness of her family experiences in their adopted communities, their deepening understanding of both Western and Islamic culture, and their growing appreciation for the Muslim "other" as a fellow human being.

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Islam in China

By Mi Shoujiang, You JiaPublisher: Chinese Intercontinental Press
Pages: 205, Date: 2004-01
ISBN-10 :  7508505336

Description:
Islam in China, in five chapters, depicts the introduction and influence of Islam in China, including the development and flourish of the Islamic mosques, the nationalization of Islam in the country, the combination of Islam with traditional Chinese cultures, the discrimination the Muslims had to face, and the Chinese Muslims¡¯ participation in the war of resistance against Japan. With green-tinted photos and illustrations.

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Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society, 2nd Edition

By Akbar S. Ahmed
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 2002-02-01, ISBN-10 : 0203406303
PDF File-Size: 1.49 MB

Now reissued with a new introduction, Discovering Islam is a classic account of how the history of Islam and its relations with the west have shaped Islamic society today. Islam is often caricatured as aggressive and fanatic. Written in the tradition of Ibn Khaldun, this readable and wide ranging book balances that image, uncovers the roots of Islamic discontent and celebrates the sources of its strength.

From the four "ideal Caliphs" who succeeded the Prophet to the refugee camps of Peshawar, an objective picture emerges of the main features of Muslim history and the compulsions of Muslim society.

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Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World

By Francis Robinson, Ira M. Lapidus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Pages: 352, Date: 1996-06-13, ISBN-10 : 0521435102
scanned pdf. in two parts. part one 89 mb. part two 119 mb. 

Description:
Islamic peoples account for one fifth of the world's population and yet there is widespread misunderstanding in the West of what Islam really is. Francis Robinson and his team set out to address this, revealing the complex and sometimes contrary nature of Muslim culture.

As well as taking on the issues uppermost in everyone's minds, such as the role of religious and political fundamentalism, they demonstrate the importance of commerce; literacy and learning; Islamic art; the effects of immigration, exodus, and conquest; and the roots of current crises in the Middle East, Bosnia, and the Gulf. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the interaction between Islam and the West, from the first Latin translations of the Quran to the fatwa on Salman Rushdie.

This elegant book deliberately sets out to dismantle the Western impression of Islam as a monolithic world and replace it with a balanced view, from current issues of fundamentalism to its dynamic culture and art. Francis Robinson is the editor of two outstanding reference works: Atlas of the Islamic World Since 1500 (Cambridge, 1982) and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of India (1989).

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Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization

By Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Reknown Iranian scholar)
Publisher: HarperOne
Pages: 224, Date: 2003-01-01
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0060507144
English | PDF  (Size: 1.37MB)

Description:
The world's leading Islamicist offers a concise introduction to this rich and diverse tradition of 1.2 billion adherents.
In this informative and clear introduction to the world of Islam, Seyyed Hossein Nasr explores the following topics in depth:

•What Is Islam?
•The Doctrines and Beliefs of Islam
•Islamic Practices and Institutions
•The History of Islam
•Schools of Islamic Thought
•Islam in the Contemporary World
•Islam and Other Religions
•The Spiritual and Religious Significance of Islam

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Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic world

By Jonathan Bloom
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages: 320, Date: 2001-11-01
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0300089554
PDF, scanned, no OCR, no bookmarks, 9325 KB. 

Description:
Like the printing press, typewriter, and computer, paper has been a crucial agent for the dissemination of information. This engaging book presents an important new chapter in paper's history: how its use in Islamic lands during the Middle Ages influenced almost every aspect of medieval life. Focusing on the spread of paper from the early eighth century, when Muslims in West Asia acquired Chinese knowledge of paper and papermaking, to five centuries later, when they transmitted this knowledge to Christians in Spain and Sicily, the book reveals how paper utterly transformed the passing of knowledge and served as a bridge between cultures.

Jonathan Bloom traces the earliest history of paper - how it was invented in China over 2,000 years ago, how it entered the Islamic lands of West Asia and North Africa, and how it spread to northern Europe. He explores the impact of paper on the development of writing, books, mathematics, music, art, architecture, and even cooking.

And he discusses why Europe was so quick to adopt paper from the Islamic lands and why the Islamic lands were so slow to accept printing in return. Together the beautifully written text and delightful illustrations of papermaking techniques and the many uses to which paper was put give new lustre and importance to a now-humble material.

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Portraits from the life of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

By Ibn Kathi'r 1st Edition 2001
Number of Pages 121
pdf ,not ocred 600DPI cover not included 10MB 

Muhammad (SAW) brought to posterity, a religion of pure monotheism; he created a well-disciplined State out of the existent chaos and gave peace in place of the war of everybody against everybody else; he established a harmonious equilibrium between the spiritual and the Secular, between the mosque and the citadel; he left a new system of law, which dispensed impartial justice, in which even the head of the State was as much a subject to it as any commoner, and in which religious tolerance was so great that non-Muslim inhabitants of the Muslim state equally enjoyed complete juridical, judicial and cultural autonomy.

The Prophet Muhammad set a noble example and fully practiced all that he taught to others.
This Small Book brings to the Pages Portraits from the Life of Muhammad (May Peace and Blessings be upon Him).

The Five Chapters are:
* The Early Days
* Muhammad Chosen Prophet
* The Prophet Establishes the Muslim State
* The Prophet on the Battlefield
* When it was Time to Leave

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The Miracles of the Prophet Muhammad

by: Ibn Kathi'r Translated By Dr Nancy Eweiss and Edited By Selma Cook
1st Edition 2002, Number of Pages 224
pdf 600DPI not ocred 6MB 

his Book is extracted from the Book of Ibn Kathir 'Al-Bidayah Wan-Nihayah' one of the most important texts written about the History of the World until the time of the author.
As with many Translation of Ibn Kathirs Works this is an Abridge version Leaving out the very Weak or Fabricated Narration.

A number of miracles were bestowed upon and performed by the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) to establish the proof of his prophethood.
The greatest miracle bestowed upon him was the revelation of the Qur'an, but there were also true Prophecies and Many Physical Miracles at the Hand of the Prophet of Islam.

A great Book for Students of Knowledge, Teachers, Parents and Scientists.

Ibn Kathir (701 -774 AH). was a Classical Scholar of Repute who learned from great scholars such as Ibn Asakir, Ishaq ibn Yahya al-Amudi and Ibn Taymiyyah who was extremely close to him. He also studied under various other sheikhs who gave him permission in fiqh and Hadith. He made many academic contributions to Islamic sciences and authored many books .

Brief About the Miracles of the Prophet (SAW)
The Qur'an is miraculous in a number of aspects: Its linguistic perfection and inimitability, its validation by recent historical, archaeological, and scientific discoveries, its prophecies and so on. Unlike the miracles of other prophets before him, the miracle of the Qur'an is eternal.

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) also provided us with a number of true prophecies as well as some other physical Miracles, these include:
Splitting of the Moon
Food Multiplication
Water Multiplication
Supplication for Rain
Lights to guide Companions
Crying of the stem of the Date-palm Tree
Glorification of Allah by the Prophet's meals
The expulsion of a Christian liar's corpse by the Earth
The Speech of the Wolf
The Prophet's Night Journey to Jerusalem and Ascent to the Heavens

And Many More Authenticated Miracles are included in this Concise Book.

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PDF for Science and Islam: A History

By Ehsan Masood
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
Pages: 256, Date: 2008-12-23, ISBN-10 : 1848310404
RARed vector PDF, cover, no bookmarks, paginated, 1,35 mb 

Description:
Between the 8th and 15th centuries, scholars and researchers working from Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan to Cordoba in Spain advanced our knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medicine and philosophy to new heights. It was Musa al-Khwarizmi, for instance, who developed algebra in 9th century Baghdad, drawing on work by mathematicians in India; al-Jazari, a Turkish engineer of the 13th century whose achievements include the crank, the camshaft, and the reciprocating piston; ibn Sina, whose textbook Canon of Medicine was a standard work in Europe's universities until the 1600s.

These scientists were part of a sophisticated culture and civilization that was based on belief in God - a picture which helps to scotch the myth of the 'Dark Ages' in which scientific advance faltered. Science writer Ehsan Masood weaves the story of these and other scientists into a compelling narrative, taking the reader on a journey through the Islamic empires of the middle ages, the cultural and religious circumstances that made this revolution possible, and its contribution to science in Western Europe.

He unpacks the debates between scientists, philosophers and theologians on the nature of physical reality and limits to human reason, and explores the many reasons for the eventual decline of advanced science and learning in the Arabic-speaking world. This eye-opening, enjoyable book, which complements and builds on the BBC television series, should be essential reading for anyone keen to explore science's hidden history and its contribution to the making of the modern world.

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The Oxford History of Islam

By John L. Esposito
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Pages: 768, Date: 2000-01-01
ISBN-10 : 0195107993, RAR-ed and splitted PDF 2 * 176 + 157 MB

Description:
Lavishly illustrated with over 300 pictures, including more than 200 in full color, The Oxford History of Islam offers the most wide-ranging and authoritative account available of the second largest--and fastest growing--religion in the world. John L. Esposito, Editor-in-Chief of the four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, has gathered together sixteen leading scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to examine the origins and historical development of Islam--its faith, community, institutions, sciences, and arts.

Beginning in the pre-Islamic Arab world, the chapters range from the story of Muhammad and his Companions, to the development of Islamic religion and culture and the empires that grew from it, to the influence that Islam has on today's world. The book covers a wide array of subjects, casting light on topics such as the historical encounter of Islam and Christianity, the role of Islam in the Mughal and Ottoman empires, the growth of Islam in Southeast Asia, China, and Africa, the political, economic, and religious challenges of European imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Islamic communities in the modern Western world. In addition, the book offers excellent articles on Islamic religion, art and architecture, and sciences as well as bibliographies.

Events in the contemporary world have led to an explosion of interest and scholarly work on Islam. Written for the general reader but also appealing to specialists, The Oxford History of Islam offers the best of that recent scholarship, presented in a readable style and complemented by a rich variety of illustrations.

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Islamic Life and Thought

By Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr
Pages: 232, Date: 1981-10
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0873954912, RARed PDF 0.79 MB

Description:
This book includes essays dealing with many of the major facets of Islam and Islamic civilization including law and society, the cultural and intellectual life of Islam embracing both the sciences and philosophy, and Sufism. The author brings a lifetime of research and deliberation to bear on the subjects at hand which he treats in great depth, threby providing many windows into the vast mansion of Islamic life and thought.

In a postscript he also deals briefly with Islamic responses to some fo the burning issues facing Muslims today. Altogether the book is a profound study of the basic aspects of Islamic life and thought as seen from within the Islamic tradition.

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Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

by: M. Hakan Yavuz
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Pages: 342, Date: 2005-09-26
ISBN / ASIN: 0195188233, ZIP'd PDF, 1.24 mb

Description:
In November of 2002, the Justice and Development Party swept to victory in the Turkish parliamentary elections. Because of the party's Islamic roots, its electoral triumph has sparked a host of questions both in Turkey and in the West: Does the party harbor a secret Islamist agenda? Will the new government seek to overturn nearly a century of secularization stemming from Kemal Ataturk's early-twentieth-century reforms? Most fundamentally, is Islam compatible with democracy? In this penetrating work, M. Hakan Yavuz seeks to answer these questions, and to provide a comprehensive analysis of Islamic political identity in Turkey. He begins in the early twentieth century, when Kemal Ataturk led Turkey through a process of rapid secularization and crushed Islamic opposition to his authoritarian rule.

Yavuz argues that, since Ataturk's death in 1938, however, Turkey has been gradually moving away from his militant secularism and experiencing "a quiet Muslim reformation." Islamic political identity is not homogeneous, says Yavuz, but can be modern and progressive as well as conservative and potentially authoritarian. While the West has traditionally seen Kemalism as an engine for reform against "reactionary" political Islam, in fact the Kemalist establishment has traditionally used the "Islamic threat" as an excuse to avoid democratization and thus hold on to power.

Yavuz offers an account of the "soft coup" of 1997, in which the Kemalist military-bureaucratic establishment overthrew the democratically elected coalition government, which was led by the pro-Islamic Refah party. He argues that the soft coup plunged Turkey into a renewed legitimacy crisis which can only be resolved by the liberalization of the political system. The book ends with a discussion of the most recent election and its implications for Turkey and the Muslim world. Yavuz argues that Islamic social movements can be important agents for promoting a democratic and pluralistic society, and that the Turkish example holds long term promise for the rest of the Muslim world. Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, this work offers a sophisticated new understanding of the role of political Islam in one of the world's most strategically important countries.

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The Islamic Conquest of Syria

By Imam al-Waqidi; Mawlana Sulayman al-Kindi (translator)
Publisher: Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd
Pages: 600, Date: 2005
ISBN-10: 1842000675, PDF, cover, 33mb, zipped

Description:
This is the first complete English translation of Futuhusham, the ninth century Arabic classic detailing the Muslim advance into Syria This inspiring epic describes the events in detail and brings to life the great personalities of Islam in a unique way.

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Muslim Reformist Political Thought: Revivalists, Modernists and Free Will

By Sarfraz Khan
Publisher: Routledge, Date: 2010-08-26
ISBN-10 : 0415591392
PDF | single page scan, no OCR | 11.5 MB 

Description:
There are two main trends distinguishable amongst Muslim reformists - revivalists and modernists. This book charts and analyses the main trends of Muslim reformist political thought in Bukhara. It is the first to utilize original sources preserved in Soviet archives that were previously inaccessible to western scholars. The author has translated numerous original documents from Tajiki and Russian into English. This book thus serves as a useful resource for students of Islam, Central Asia, the former Soviet Union, and of law, politics and philosophy.

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