B Lu Ibn Raj

This work comprises the historical chapters of the most important compilations of Traditions, Kitāb al-Jāmi‘ aṣ-Ṣaḥīḥ by Imām Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl al-Bukhārī and depicts the beginning of the Prophet’s revelation, the merits of the Prophet’s Companions and the early years of Islam up to and including the decisive turning point of Islamic history, the Battle of Badr. Although the author set out to translate the whole of the Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, he could not accomplish the task for much of his manuscripts were destroyed in the chaos and the inter-religious holocaust that followed upon the outbreak of the Second World War and the partition of the Indian subcontinent. However this led to his realisation, in his own words, “ten years spent on analysing, translating and clarifying the Ṣaḥīḥ were a God-willed preparation for a work which for a very long time had represented an enticing dream to me: a new rendering into English of the Message of the Qur’ān and Commentary based on the principle that the doors of ijtihād have never been and never could be closed to man’s searching intellect.” The result was the author’s Qur’ānic commentary under the title The Message of the Qur’ān, published in 1980. Any scholarly reader of that work will easily recognise how much of the spirit of ḥadīth-and, hence, of the immortal labour of Imām Bukhārī-has gone into his interpretation of the word of God.

The Works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (3 vols.) contains a translation of the writings of Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Yaʿqūbī, a Muslim polymath of the third/ninth century. The works include the History (Taʾrikh); the Geography (Kitab al-buldan); a new translation of his essay (Mushakalat al-nas) and a set of fragments.

Ahmad bin Yahuya al-Baladhuri's History of the Arab Invasions is perhaps the most important single source for the history of the great Arab conquests of the Middle East in the sixth and early seventh centuries. The author, who died in 892, was a historian working at court of the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad. He had access to a wide variety of earlier writings on the conquests and has preserved accounts that are not found anywhere else. But the book is much more than a series of accounts of battles. Baladhuri was very interested in the origins of the Islamic state and its institutions. His work contains a wealth of information about government, land-holding and economic developments. It is, in short, a key text for anyone interested in the formation of the Islamic world. In this new modern translation, fully annotated with a scholarly apparatus and commentary on the places, events and individuals mentioned, a key source on the Arab conquests is made available in English. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of Islamic Studies and Middle East history.

If the Qur'an is the first written formulation of Islam in general, Malik's Muwatta' is arguably the first written formulation of the Islam-in-practice that becomes Islamic law. This book considers the methods used by Malik in the Muwatta' to derive the judgements of the law from the Qur'an and is thus concerned on one level with the finer details of Qur'anic interpretation. However, since any discussion of the Qur'an in this context must also include considerations of the other main source of Islamic law, namely the sunna, or normative practice, of the Prophet, this latter concept, especially its relationship to the terms of hadith and amal (traditions and living tradition), also receives considerable attention, and in many respects, this book is more about the history and development of Islamic law than it is about the science of Qur'anic interpretation. This is the first book to question the hitherto accepted frameworks of both the classical Muslim view and the current revisionist western view on the development of Islamic law. It is also the first study in a European language to deal specifically with the early development of the Madinan, later Malik, school of jurisprudence, as it is also the first to demonstrate in detail the various methods used, both linguistic and otherwise, in interpreting the legal verses of the Qur'an. It will be of interest to all those interested in the underlying bases of Islamic law and culture, and of particular interest to those involved in studying and teaching Islamic studies, both at undergraduate and research level. It will also be of interest to those studying the relationship between orality and literacy in ancient societies and the writing down of ancient law.

Since the invention of pen and paper, four books have been studied and analyzed more than all others: the Torah, the Gospel, the Qur'an, and Sahih Al-Bukhari. While there have been numerous translations of the first three, there has never been a complete translation of Sahih Al-Bukhari—due to its immense size and utter complexity—until now. After more than ten years of continuous research and translation by multiple layers of linguists, the Arabic Virtual Translation Center is pleased to announce the publication of the first-ever complete English translation of Sahih Al-Bukhari with full sanad and commentary. This is a full and accurate translation of Sahih Al-Bukhari from cover to cover with the addition of explanatory notes, a glossary of every term, and biographies of all characters. Sahih Al-Bukhari is the biggest collection of authentic hadiths. It lays the foundation of Islam and encompasses all the sharia laws. It details the building blocks of the religion and those who constructed them from the Prophet to the Sahabah to the Tabi`un and everyone who influenced them. It is a well-organized labyrinth of Islamic history that describes every precept and explains it thoroughly. Virtually all books about Islam, from those taught in kindergarten to the ones lectured at Azhar University, are interpretations of Sahih Al-Bukhari. Now, with this encyclopedia in hand, we have the opportunity not to rely solely on the works of shady characters, revisionists, or those with ulterior motives. We can retrieve information from its original source in raw format, connect all the dots, and draw our own conclusions. The entire encyclopedia is in full color and is easy to read and understand. It is recommended that it be viewed on a color monitor to easily distinguish between the different features. It is highly advised to peruse the extensive introduction to hadith by the translators before studying Sahih Al-Bukhari. This digital version has links to every entry and similar hadiths to facilitate the comprehension of each story in full. The encyclopedia is under constant review and is continuously revised and updated. Each update is assigned a distinct version number. It is only once in a generation that a must-read encyclopedia of this magnitude comes to life, and all of us can benefit from it. Benefit from it in this life and the life to come.

The index to the 39-volume History of al-Tabari.

Objects of Translation offers a nuanced approach to the entanglements of medieval elites in the regions that today comprise Afghanistan, Pakistan, and north India. The book--which ranges in time from the early eighth to the early thirteenth centuries--challenges existing narratives that cast the period as one of enduring hostility between monolithic "Hindu" and "Muslim" cultures. These narratives of conflict have generally depended upon premodern texts for their understanding of the past. By contrast, this book considers the role of material culture and highlights how objects such as coins, dress, monuments, paintings, and sculptures mediated diverse modes of encounter during a critical but neglected period in South Asian history. The book explores modes of circulation--among them looting, gifting, and trade--through which artisans and artifacts traveled, remapping cultural boundaries usually imagined as stable and static. It analyzes the relationship between mobility and practices of cultural translation, and the role of both in the emergence of complex transcultural identities. Among the subjects discussed are the rendering of Arabic sacred texts in Sanskrit on Indian coins, the adoption of Turko-Persian dress by Buddhist rulers, the work of Indian stone masons in Afghanistan, and the incorporation of carvings from Hindu and Jain temples in early Indian mosques. Objects of Translation draws upon contemporary theories of cosmopolitanism and globalization to argue for radically new approaches to the cultural geography of premodern South Asia and the Islamic world.