And God Knows The Soldiers

This is a substantially expanded edition of the author's seminal work The Authoritative and Authoritarian in Islamic Discourses: A Contemporary Case Study. Beginning with the case study of a Muslim basketball player who refused to stand up while the American national anthem was playing, the author documents the disintegration of the Islamic juristic tradition, and the prevalence of authoritarianism in contemporary Muslim discourses. The author analyzes the rise of what he describes as puritan and despotic trends in modern Islam, and asserts that such trends nullify the richness and diversity of the Islamic tradition. By declaring themselves the true soldiers of God and the defenders of religion, Muslim puritan movements are able to degrade women, eradicate critical thinking, and empty Islam of its moral content. In effect, the author argues, the self-declared protectors of Islam become its despots and oppressors who suppress the dynamism and vigor of the Islamic message. Anchoring himself in the rich Islamic jurisprudential tradition, the author argues for upholding the authoritativeness of the religious text without succumbing to authoritarian methodologies of interpretation. Ultimately, the author asserts that in order to respect the integrity of the Divine laws it is necessary to adopt rigorous analytical methodologies of interpretation, and to re-investigate the place of morality in modern Islam.

The refusal of a Muslim basketball player to stand for the US national anthem in 1996, and the ensuing Islamophobic outcry, sparked Abou El Fadl (law, U. of California-Los Angeles) to write his historical and philosophical treatise, published in 1997 and subsequently in both English and Arabic. It has generated little attention but much controversy, especially among Muslims. It is enlarged here. c. Book News Inc.

People with only a slight interest in history will enjoy these fascinating, short and easy to understand stories. Serious history buffs will like these lesser-known episodes, not the stories we've heard a million times. For example: try to find anyone who knows about the attempted slave insurrection in Fairfax County, Virginia. With Mary Lincoln's spending habits, who knew that Abraham Lincoln actually saved an enormous percentage of his presidential salary? A slave honored in Virginia with a monument; the history of Lee Highway which 'opened' with great fanfare in 1923 as a 3,000 mile road from Washington, DC to San Diego; a story about the Little River Turnpike, the second oldest turnpike in America, built partly by slaves and captured Hessian soldiers. You'll read about two Civil War ships that collided in the Potomac River. Victims included wounded soldiers' wives and one soldier's six-year-old son. You'll read a great account of the massive Civil War corruption. You'll learn about the disastrous condition of the treasury (sound familiar?) during the Revolutionary War. The government tried everything, including a lottery to get the country afloat in a sea of red ink. But the most fascinating story may be about the Revolutionary War soldier who faked his own desertion to defect to the enemy with the highly secretive mission of going behind enemy lines to capture and return for trial the worst traitor in American history: Benedict Arnold. Bet you never heard of this story. There are many other stories in this eclectic, heavily-researched manuscript. There's a story about the Christmas Truce in World War One, about long-forgotten holidays in Virginia, about the retrocession which sent an area of Washington back to Virginia in 1846, and about the impeachment of a Supreme Court justice (it happened only once). And more!

Drawing on both religious and secular sources, this challenging book argues that divinely ordained law is frequently misinterpreted by Muslim authorities at the expense of certain groups, including women. Khaled Abou El Fadl cites a series of injustices in Islamic society and ultimately proposes a return to the original ethics at the heart of the Muslim legal system.

Abou El Fadl (Islamic law, UCLA School of Law) wrote the 62 brief essays here over the course of five years. Through a combination of musings and critical reflections on classical Muslim authors, he both traces Muslim intellectual history and also confronts questions of ethics, faith, law, politics, culture, and modern identity. He ranges over many facets of Islam in the contemporary world, exploring censorship, political oppression, terrorism, the veil and the treatment of women, marriage, parental rights, the dynamics between law and morality, the character of the prophet Muhammad, and other topics. About half the essays first appeared in The minaret magazine. c. Book News Inc.

First time in paperback, with a new Introduction and final chapter World affairs expert and intrepid travel journalist Robert D. Kaplan braved the dangers of war-ravaged Afghanistan in the 1980s, living among the mujahidin—the “soldiers of god”—whose unwavering devotion to Islam fueled their mission to oust the formidable Soviet invaders. In Soldiers of God we follow Kaplan’s extraordinary journey and learn how the thwarted Soviet invasion gave rise to the ruthless Taliban and the defining international conflagration of the twenty-first century. Kaplan returns a decade later and brings to life a lawless frontier. What he reveals is astonishing: teeming refugee camps on the deeply contentious Pakistan-Afghanistan border; a war front that combines primitive fighters with the most technologically advanced weapons known to man; rigorous Islamic indoctrination academies; a land of minefields plagued by drought, fierce tribalism, insurmountable ethnic and religious divisions, an abysmal literacy rate, and legions of war orphans who seek stability in military brotherhood. Traveling alongside Islamic guerrilla fighters, sharing their food, observing their piety in the face of deprivation, and witnessing their determination, Kaplan offers a unique opportunity to increase our understanding of a people and a country that are at the center of world events.

The True Story of an Uncharted Journey Through the Afterlife As a world war raged around him, a young soldier named George Ritchie barely comprehended his own death as he left the physical world--only to return minutes later. Yet in the space between death and coming back to life, he experienced eternity. In this riveting true story, Dr. George Ritchie shares some of the most stunning and detailed descriptions of life after death. You'll encounter other non-physical beings, travel through different dimensions of time and space, and discover a series of worlds--some hellish in their separation from life, some glorious in their heavenly brilliance. But most amazingly, you'll witness his transformational meeting with the Light of the world, the Son of God. Hailed as one of the most amazing visions of the afterlife ever recorded, Ritchie's experience forever changed the course of his life and his understanding of the realm beyond our own--and it can do the same for you.