by Ignaz Goldziher (1981)
Translation of six lectures on the following aspects of Muslim religion and culture: Mohammed and the Qur'an; the holy law of Islam; the principles of Muslim theology; asceticism and Sufism; Islamic sects; and developments in modern times.
Joy Brighton
Islam is a religion, protected under the U.S. First Amendment. Sharia-ism is the political movement of Radical Islam and is not protected under the First Amendment. Sharia-ism is about control, not destruction. Sharia-ism seeks total control over women, religion, speech & politics. In fact, Sharia-ists are determined to control anyone who refuses to follow their rules.
Rudolf Pell Gaudio
A rich and engrossing account of 'sexual outlaws' in the Hausa-speaking region of northern Nigeria, where Islamic law requires strict separation of the sexes and different rules of behavior for women and men in virtually every facet of life. This is the first ethnographic study of sexual minorities in Africa, and one of very few works on sexual minorities in the Islamic world. It is engagingly written, combining innovative, ethnographic narrative with analyses of sociolinguistic transcripts, historical texts, and popular media, including video, film, newspapers, and song-poetry. This book analyzes the social experiences and expressive culture of ‘yan daudu (feminine men in Nigerian Hausaland) in relation to local, national, and global debates over gender and sexuality at the turn of the twenty-first century. Winner of the 2009 Ruth Benedict Prize in the category of "Outstanding Monograph".
Hussein Ali Agrama
What, exactly, is secularism? What has the West's long familiarity with it inevitably obscured? In this work, Hussein Ali Agrama tackles these questions. Focusing on the fatwa councils and family law courts of Egypt just prior to the revolution, he delves deeply into the meaning of secularism itself and the ambiguities that lie at its heart.
Don J. Wyatt
Few thinkers have stood as squarely at both the center and the periphery of an intellectual movement as has Shao Yung (1011-1077). Ethical model and eccentric, socialite and eremite, Shao Yung is perhaps not only the greatest enigma of early Neo-Confucianism, but also one of its undisputed giants. In this impressive life-and-thought study, Don J. Wyatt painstakingly sifts through all available evidence relating to Shao Yung and his scholarship to provide a portrait that fully exposes the moral center of the man and his work. Drawing on the abundant store of letters and accounts by Shao's contemporaries and his own much-neglected poetry, Wyatt has assembled a study that intimately relates Shao's life to his thought. He challenges the assumptions of previous Western scholarship by persuasively arguing against the acceptance of works traditionally ascribed to Shao - specifically, the Kuan-wu wai-p'ien (Outer Chapters on Observing Things), the Yu-ch'iao wen-ta (Fisherman and Woodcutter Dialogue), and the cryptic quasi-autobiographical essay Wu-ming kung chuan (Biography of the Nameless Lord). Shao is presented as an independent thinker whose philosophical lexicon functioned according to a profound interdependence that was unique among the systems of his peers. His metaphysical concepts, which appear impervious to and beyond the scope of human influence - namely, his ching-shih (world ordering), kuan-wu (observing things), and I-Ching - derived hsien-t'ien (before Heaven) methodologies - are essentially the products of a morally reflective life. Wyatt's discoveries, therefore, refute the common assertion of Shao Yung's moral indifference. Moreover, by meticulously integrating the progress of this Neo-Confucian's thought into the course of his life, the author has produced one of the most textured and accessible works on a philosopher of the Sung era.