ARAB 4403: Islam & Arab Culture in Golden Age

World Eras is patterned after the award-winning American Decades series. Covering areas often overlooked by other publications, World Eras provides a multicultural approach that directly reflects changing curriculum standards, with a cross-disciplinary overview of world history and a strong emphasis of daily life and social history. Each volume in this set contains in-depth coverage of one era and is organized into ten chapters: World events -- A Chronology Geography The Arts -- Sculpture, Architecture, Painting and Music Communications, Transportation and Exploration Social class Systems and the Economy -- focusing on social-economic hierarchy Politics, Law and the Military Leisure, Recreation and Daily life -- housing, clothing, food, education, etc. Family and Social Trends -- customs, beliefs, roles and responsibilities Religion and Philosophy Science, Technology and Health Each volume includes an introductory essay that provides context and overview of the era written by a scholar in the field and will contain 150 photographs, line drawings, diagrams, illustrations and sidebars. Each chapter within a volume includes an introductory essay, a timeline, entries on specific topics, events or movements, biographies of prominent individuals, and important publications of the era. A glossary of subject-specific terms appears at the end

Originally published in 1964, this volume gathers together extracts from many of Arberry's best-known works and supplements them with a selection of previously unpublished translations. The material therefore presents a vivid picture of the richness and variety of Islamic civilization from its origins to the late twentieth century.

As in many areas of pre-modern history, the study of medieval Islamic history has been critically hindered by the lack of available evidence. Unlike many parallel fields, however, the shortage of contemporary documentary evidence for medieval Islam has less to do with the survival of documents and archives as with their accessibility. A rich documentary legacy survives, but because of its inaccessibility and unfamiliarity to all but the most specialised scholars in the field, it has remained sadly underutilised. This volume contributes to the redressing of that problem. It collects papers given at the conference "Documents and the History of the Early Islamic Mediterranean World," including editions of unpublished documents and historical studies, which make use of documentary evidence from al-Andalus, Sicily, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Khurasan. For more titles about Papyrology, please click here.

Merryl Wyn Davies is appalled by the sectarian divisions in Muslim societies; Yasmin Saikia is angry at the Sectarian violence unleashed in the name of Islam; Ebrahim Moosa suggest the Sunnis, the majority Muslim sect, need a little self-reflection; Faisal Daviji explores the historic contribution and present predicaments of the Ismailis; Imranali Panjwani explains what it means to be a Shia; Zacharias Pieri joins the evangelical Tablighi Jamaat on a religious retreat; Robin Yassin-Kassab traces the origins of the Alawis of Syria; Hassan Mohamedallie has a conversation with Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the Caliph and spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community; Francesco Cavatorta thinks the Salafis represent the greatest danger to Islam; Jamie Gilham asks why converts tend to be over-zealous; and Faizur Rahman spends some quality time with the puritan Deobandis of India.

Noted Indian writer and polymath Ram Swarup explores the meaning of Islam through the words of the Sahih Muslim, considered by Muslims to be one of the most authoritative of the collections of "traditions" (Arabic Hadith) about the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Like the Koran, these traditions are believed to be divinely revealed by Allah and they complement the verses of the Koran, in many cases expanding upon them and explaining the context of their revelation. As Swarup notes in his introduction, to Muslims the Hadith literature represents the Koran in action, stories of "revelation made concrete in the life of the Prophet." Among the orthodox they are considered as sacred as the Koran itself. Swarup is plainly skeptical of the claim that the Hadith literature is divinely inspired. In the introduction he says, "The Prophet is caught as it were in the ordinary acts of his life - sleeping, eating, mating, praying, hating, dispensing justice, planning expeditions and revenge against his enemies. The picture that emerges is hardly flattering. . . . One is . . . left to wonder how the believers, generation after generation, could have found this story so inspiring. The answer is that the believers are conditioned to look at the whole thing through the eyes of faith. To them morality derives from the Prophet's actions. . . .his actions determine and define morality." The Sahih Muslim, a massive work consisting of 7,190 traditions divided into 1,243 chapters, is hardly accessible to the average reader; so Swarup quotes representative selections that touch upon the main tenets of Islam: faith, purification, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, marriage and divorce, crime and punishment, religious wars (jihad), paradise, hell, repentance, and many other features of the religion. To non-Muslims this work provides many insights into the mindset of the average Muslim who is raised on these traditions about Muhammad. It also underscores the gulf that exists between the sanctum of orthodox Islam and an increasingly secularized Westernized world.

During the Golden Age of Islam (seventh through seventeenth centuries A.D.), Muslim philosophers and poets, artists and scientists, princes and laborers created a unique culture that has influenced societies on every continent. This book offers a fully illustrated, highly accessible introduction to an important aspect of that culture--the scientific achievements of medieval Islam. Howard Turner opens with a historical overview of the spread of Islamic civilization from the Arabian peninsula eastward to India and westward across northern Africa into Spain. He describes how a passion for knowledge led the Muslims during their centuries of empire-building to assimilate and expand the scientific knowledge of older cultures, including those of Greece, India, and China. He explores medieval Islamic accomplishments in cosmology, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, geography, medicine, natural sciences, alchemy, and optics. He also indicates the ways in which Muslim scientific achievement influenced the advance of science in the Western world from the Renaissance to the modern era. This survey of historic Muslim scientific achievements offers students and general readers a window into one of the world's great cultures, one which is experiencing a remarkable resurgence as a religious, political, and social force in our own time.

The Arabic contribution is fundamental to the history of science, mathematics and technology, but until now no single publication has offered an up-to-date synthesis of knowledge in this area. In three fully-illustrated volumes the Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science documents the history and philosophy of Arabic science from the earliest times to the present day. The set as a whole covers seven centuries. Thirty chapters, written by an international team of specialists from Europe, America, the Middle East and Russia cover such areas as astronomy, mathematics, music, engineering, nautical science and scientific institutions.