A Reader On Classical Islam

To enable the reader to shape, or perhaps reshape, an understanding of the Islamic tradition, F. E. Peters skillfully combines extensive passages from Islamic texts with a fascinating commentary of his own. In so doing, he presents a substantial body of literary evidence that will enable the reader to grasp the bases of Muslim faith and, more, to get some sense of the breadth and depth of Islamic religious culture as a whole. The voices recorded here are those of Muslims engaged in discourse with their God and with each other--historians, lawyers, mystics, and theologians, from the earliest Companions of the Prophet Muhammad down to Ibn Rushd or "Averroes" (d. 1198), al-Nawawi (d. 1278), and Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406). These religious seekers lived in what has been called the "classical" period in the development of Islam, the era when the exemplary works of law and spirituality were written, texts of such universally acknowledged importance that subsequent generations of Muslims gratefully understood themselves as heirs to an enormously broad and rich legacy of meditation on God's Word. "Islam" is a word that seems simple to understand. It means "submission," and, more specifically in the context where it first and most familiarly appears, "submission to the will of God." That context is the Quran, the Sacred Book of the Muslims, from which flow the patterns of belief and practice that today claim the spiritual allegiance of hundreds of millions around the globe. By drawing on the works of the great masters--Islam in its own words--Peters enriches our understanding of the community of "those who have submitted" and their imposing religious and political culture, which is becoming ever more important to the West.

This sourcebook presents more than sixty new translations of key Islamic texts. Edited and translated by leading specialists it illustrates the growth of Islamic thought from its seventh-century origins to the end of the medieval period.

Classical Islam presents studies of the career of the Prophet Muhammad and the environment from which he sprang; the evolution of Islamic mysticism; political thought; and philosophical themes. It also includes investigations into the development of the late ?Abbasid caliphate; analyses of the Mirror for Princes literature; and studies of the minor dynasties of Iraq and Anatolia, and of the major cities in the region.0'Classical Islam' is publishing alongside two further volumes of Carole Hillenbrand's collected papers: 'Islam and the Crusades' (ISBN 9781474485906) and 'The Medieval Turks' (ISBN 9781474485944).

This editions includes a new chapter on the"Notion of Jihad at the Turn of the 21st Century, n upadated bibliography and a new introduction.Review of the 1996 Edition:" It helps us understand the wider social and moral senses of Jihad"-_Library JournalThis book demonstrates that the notion of jihad (?Holy War?) is very much alive in the Islamic world, and plays a prominent political role. Western observers usually associate jihad with fanaticism, while Islamists emphasize its mission as a crusade against drugs and other societal scourges. ?Six Islamic texts are presented which compiler Peters has translated. These texts include, first of all, a number of hadiths which present the ?raw material? for Islamic law. The texts that follow include portions from Malik?s Al-Muwatta, the chapter on Jihad from Averrroes? legal handbook al-Bidaya, teachings of Ibn Taymiyya on Jihad, the Ottoman Jihad Fatwa of 1914, and Mahmud Shaltut?s treatise Koran and Fighting (which is a modernist interpretation of jihad). These texts are followed by two well-written articles by Peters. This is a very valuable work for all who wish to understand the meaning, importance, and practice of Jihad for Muslims today as well as in the past. Highly recommended.? ?ChoiceRudolph F. Peters, University of Amsterdam and director of the Netherlands Institute in Cairo, is the author of Islam and Colonialism and numerous other books.

On the different meanings of Islamic jihad

A Reader of Classical Arabic Literature is one of a very small group of resources in English for the teaching of intermediate and advanced level classical Arabic. Based on his lecture notes, the late Seeger Bonebakker designed a superb teaching text, which he then asked his UCLA colleague, Michael Fishbein, to help him annotate and augment. The result is a truly valuable reader, one used widely in the United States and Europe, featuring judicious and instructive selections from such works as Ibn al-Qifti's Inbah al-ruwat, al-Tanukhi's al-Faraj ba'd al-shidda, and al-Dhahabi's Siyar a'lam al-nubala', among others.