Forgotten Saints

In 1894 a Muslim mystic named Muḥammad al-Kattānī abandoned his life of asceticism to preach Islamic revival and jihad against the French. Ten years later, he mobilized a Moroccan resistance against French colonization. This book narrates the story of al-Kattānī and his virtual disappearance from accounts of modern Moroccan history.

The colonial encounter between France and Morocco took place not only in the political realm but also in the realm of medicine. Because the body politic and the physical body are intimately linked, French efforts to colonize Morocco took place in and through the body. Starting from this original premise, Medicine and the Saints traces a history of colonial embodiment in Morocco through a series of medical encounters between the Islamic sultanate of Morocco and the Republic of France from 1877 to 1956. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources in both French and Arabic, Ellen Amster investigates the positivist ambitions of French colonial doctors, sociologists, philologists, and historians; the social history of the encounters and transformations occasioned by French medical interventions; and the ways in which Moroccan nationalists ultimately appropriated a French model of modernity to invent the independent nation-state. Each chapter of the book addresses a different problem in the history of medicine: international espionage and a doctor's murder; disease and revolt in Moroccan cities; a battle for authority between doctors and Muslim midwives; and the search for national identity in the welfare state. This research reveals how Moroccans ingested and digested French science and used it to create a nationalist movement and Islamist politics, and to understand disease and health. In the colonial encounter, the Muslim body became a seat of subjectivity, the place from which individuals contested and redefined the political.

Even a quick scan of today's headlines makes clear that the growth of fundamentalist versions of Islam is having a vast impact on our world. For Americans the rise of Christian fundamentalism, especially the Evangelical movement, is also socially and politically shaping the country, as debates about abortion, stem cell research and other important issues are often driven by fundamentalist notions. In profound ways, orthodox versions of Judaism have altered the fabric of Middle Eastern politics through the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially regarding settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, making peace there all the more difficult, and further destabilizing an already unstable region. The rise of fundamentalism in the three monotheistic faiths is fully examined in this textbook. It is not about fundamentalism however, it is about its opposite trend: religious syncretism. Syncretism describes the phenomenon of one religion borrowing elements from another, and it is part of religion that fundamentalists will seldom acknowledge. This textbook explores Judaism, Christianity and Islam, using compelling examples of how syncretism works and looks, to show how these three religions have adopted customs and conceptions of other religions, most often acquiring practices from pagan predecessors and neighbours. The book shows how these three faiths - despite how modern media would have us believe - have been willing, at various times and places, to borrow.

A common objective of saint veneration in all three Abrahamic religions is the recovery and perpetuation of the collective memory of the saint. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all yield intriguing similarities and differences in their respective conceptions of sanctity. This edited collection explores the various literary and cultural productions associated with the cult of saints and pious figures, as well as the socio-historical contexts in which sainthood operates, in order to better understand the role of saints in monotheistic religions. Using comparative religious and anthropological approaches, an international panel of contributors guides the reader through three main concerns. They describe and illuminate the ways in which sanctity is often configured. In addition, the diverse cultural manifestations of the cult of the saints are examined and analysed. Finally, the various religious, social, and political functions that saints came to play in numerous societies are compared and contrasted. This ambitious study covers sanctity from the Middle Ages until the contemporary period, and has a geographical scope that includes Europe, Central Asia, North Africa, the Americas, and the Asian Pacific. As such, it will be of use to scholars of the history of religions, religious pluralism, and interreligious dialogue, as well as students of sainthood and hagiography.

Thinkers in medieval France constantly reconceptualized what had come before, interpreting past events to give validity to the present and help control the future. The long-dead saints who presided over churches and the ancestors of established dynasties were an especially crucial part of creative memory, Constance Brittain Bouchard contends. In Rewriting Saints and Ancestors she examines how such ex post facto accounts are less an impediment to the writing of accurate history than a crucial tool for understanding the Middle Ages. Working backward through time, Bouchard discusses twelfth-century scribes contemplating the ninth-century documents they copied into cartularies or reworked into narratives of disaster and triumph, ninth-century churchmen deliberately forging supposedly late antique documents as weapons against both kings and other churchmen, and sixth- and seventh-century Gallic writers coming to terms with an early Christianity that had neither the saints nor the monasteries that would become fundamental to religious practice. As they met with political change and social upheaval, each generation decided which events of the past were worth remembering and which were to be reinterpreted or quietly forgotten. By considering memory as an analytic tool, Bouchard not only reveals the ways early medieval writers constructed a useful past but also provides new insights into the nature of record keeping, the changing ways dynasties were conceptualized, the relationships of the Merovingian and Carolingian kings to the church, and the discovery (or invention) of Gaul's earliest martyrs.

The saints were the original social justice advocates. This stunning collection of contemporary portraits celebrates their diversity and spiritual depth as never before, accompanied by thoughtful reflections from bestselling and influential writers. “This book is profound, insightful, and beautifully disruptive.”—Sarah Bessey, author of the New York Times bestsellers A Rhythm of Prayer and Jesus Feminist Over the centuries, the rich diversity and relevance of the saints has been whitewashed, their images portrayed as expressionless, and the lessons of their lives watered down. But artist, writer, and modern iconographer Gracie Morbitzer is painting the truth. The Modern Saints is a celebration of the divergence of ethnicities, ages, abilities, and practices of spiritual pilgrims who transformed the world, and an invitation to connect with historical icons whose lives have astonishing and inspiring relevance for our present-day. Each entry of this striking collection features a contemporary image of the saint, a re-imagining of the space they might hold in society today, and an inspiring prayer to honor each figure. Readers will appreciate each contribution from our current generation's spiritual thought leaders that illuminate the impact and wisdom each historical saint offers us today. Among forty-eight additional spiritual reflections and original paintings, The Modern Saints presents: • Fr. James Martin’s reflections on the flexibility of St. Ignatius of Loyola to encounter God in everyday life • Tsh Oxenreider's unique appreciation for the endurance of St. Monica with her strong-willed children • Dr. Christena Cleveland's praise for St. Catherine of Alexandria’s fight for intersectional justice • Kirby Hoberg’s inspiration from the resilience of St. Kateri—the first indigenous American to be canonized—who overcame personal humiliation to cultivate love in her community With its unique portraits and compelling narrative, this 52-week collection is perfect for devotional reading, as it will move, encourage, and strengthen each reader as they find solidarity and profound belonging within the host of saints.

Undocumented Saints follows the migration of popular saints from Mexico into the US and the evolution of their meaning. The book explores how Latinx battles for survival are performed in the worlds of faith, religiosity, and the imaginary, and how the socio-political realities of exploitation and racial segregation frame their popular religious expressions. It also tracks the emergence of inter-religious states, transnational ethnic and cultural enclaves unified by faith. The book looks at five vernacular saints that have emerged in Mexico and whose devotions have migrated into the US in the last one hundred years: Jesús Malverde, a popular bandido turned saint caudillo; Santa Olguita, an emerging feminist saint linked to border women's experiences of sexual violence; Juan Soldado, a murder-rapist soldier who is now a patron for undocumented immigrants and the main suspect in the death of an eight-year-old victim known now as Santa Olguita; Toribio Romo, a Catholic priest whose ghost/spirit has been helping people cross the border into the US since the 1990s; and La Santa Muerte, a controversial personification of death who is particularly popular among LGBTQ migrants. Each chapter contextualizes a particular popular saint within broader discourses about the construction of masculinity and the state, the long history of violence against Latina and migrant women, female erasure from history, discrimination against non-normative sexualities, and as US and Mexican investment in the control of religiosity within the discourses of immigration.

Alex Rider is now an IMDb TV/Amazon Original Series! Alex Rider is an orphan turned teen superspy who's saving the world one mission at a time—from #1 New York Times bestselling author! Alex Rider, teen spy, has always been told he is the spitting image of the father he never knew. But when Alex learns that his father may have been an assassin for the most lethal and powerful terrorist organization in the world, Scorpia, his world shatters. Now Scorpia wants Alex on their side, and Alex no longer has the strength to fight them. That is, until he learns of Scorpia’s latest plot: an operation known only as “Invisible Sword” that will result in the death of thousands of people. Can Alex prevent the slaughter, or will Scorpia prove once and for all that the terror will not be stopped? From the author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty.