Prayer In Islamic Thought And Practice

The five daily prayers (Salāt) that constitute the second pillar of Islam deeply pervade the everyday life of observant Muslims. Until now, however, no general study has analyzed the rules governing Salāt, the historical dimensions of its practice and the rich variety of ways that it has been interpreted within the Islamic tradition. Marion Holmes Katz's richly textured book offers a broad historical survey of the rules, values and interpretations relating to Salāt. This innovative study on the subject examines the different ways in which prayer has been understood in Islamic law, Sufi mysticism and Islamic philosophy. Katz's book also goes beyond the spiritual realm to analyze the political dimensions of prayer, including scholars' concerns about the righteousness and piety of rulers. The last chapter raises significant issues around gender roles, including the question of women's participating in and leading public worship. This book will resonate with students of Islamic history and comparative religion.

Offers a broad historical survey of the rules, values and interpretations relating to Sal t, the five daily prayers of Islam.

Offers a broad historical survey of the rules, values and interpretations relating to Salāt, the five daily prayers of Islam.

Offers a broad historical survey of the rules, values and interpretations relating to Salat, the five daily prayers of Islam.

This book, Practices: From Prayer to Pilgrimage, is a compilation of fundamental lessons on rituals and practices in Islam. The book is meant to explain the philosophy and etiquette behind Islam's most important rituals. Along with chapters on prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage, the book looks at a number of other key practices, such as supplication and modesty. Finally, the book concludes with a chapter on the commemoration of the tragedy of Imam Hussain (a) as a form of devotion and commitment to God and His message.

It is widely held today that classical Islamic law frees wives from any obligation to do housework. Wives’ purported exemption from domestic labor became a talking point among Muslims responding to Orientalist stereotypes of the “oppressed Muslim woman” by the late nineteenth century, and it has been a prominent motif in writings by Muslim feminists in the United States since the 1980s. In Wives and Work, Marion Holmes Katz offers a new account of debates on wives’ domestic labor that recasts the historical relationship between Islamic law and ethics. She reconstructs a complex discussion among Sunni legal scholars of the ninth to fourteenth centuries CE and examines its wide-ranging implications. As early as the ninth century, the prevalent doctrine that wives had no legal duty to do housework stood in conflict with what most scholars understood to be morally and religiously right. Scholars’ efforts to resolve this tension ranged widely, from drawing a clear distinction between legal claims and ethical ideals to seeking a synthesis of the two. Katz positions legal discussion within a larger landscape of Islamic normative discourse, emphasizing how legal models diverge from, but can sometimes be informed by, philosophical ethics. Through the lens of wives’ domestic labor, this book sheds new light on notions of family, labor, and gendered personhood as well as the interplay between legal and ethical doctrines in Islamic thought.

Islamic Thought is a fresh and contemporary introduction to the philosophies and doctrines of Islam. Abdullah Saeed, a distinguished Muslim scholar, traces the development of religious knowledge in Islam, from the pre-modern to the modern period. The book focuses on Muslim thought, as well as the development, production and transmission of religious knowledge, and the trends, schools and movements that have contributed to the production of this knowledge. Key topics in Islamic culture are explored, including the development of the Islamic intellectual tradition, the two foundation texts, the Qur’an and Hadith, legal thought, theological thought, mystical thought, Islamic Art, philosophical thought, political thought, and renewal, reform and rethinking today. Through this rich and varied discussion, Saeed presents a fascinating depiction of how Islam was lived in the past and how its adherents practise it in the present. Islamic Thought is essential reading for students beginning the study of Islam but will also interest anyone seeking to learn more about one of the world’s great religions.