The Azhar Sheikhs

Lose yourself in three sexy sheikh romances. Book One: The Sheikh's Fake Fiancée After losing her parents, American artist Elena set out on a trip around the world. Now, in the sultry heat of the Middle East, she’s having a hard time imagining returning to real life back home. But with half of her vacation still ahead of her, she and her friend are packed and ready to move onto their next destination... when a chance encounter changes everything. A dark, handsome stranger with a devilish grin catches Elena’s eye, but how could she know that an innocent favor is about to change her life forever? Sheikh Asim always relies on his intuition...with business and with women. Along with his brothers, he works hard to keep their company profitable, but he prefers to live in the moment. With pressure mounting from his mother to settle down and marry a family friend, Asim needs an escape. He’s enchanted by the beguiling American beauty he sees at the café, and she couldn’t have come along at a better time. But when he asks her to be his fake fiancée, he never could have known she would change his life forever. The two waste no time coming together, but when the spontaneity wears off and Elena learns of an unexpected complication, will Asim be ready to face the future? Book Two: The Sheikh's Pregnant Fling Matchmaker Cassandra is a pro at finding her clients that perfect person—but unfortunately her talent doesn’t extend to her own love life. She's too busy for romance, and she’s guarded her heart ever since her parents’ nasty divorce. So a man like Nasir seems the perfect choice for a casual fling—handsome, successful, and not interested in a relationship. But things get complicated quickly when Cassandra realizes not only that Nasir is her new client…but that she’s pregnant with his child. Nasir has always been a dutiful son. Like his brothers, he gives his all to the family business, which leaves little time for love. His mother, though, is eager for her sons to settle down. When she drags him to a matchmaker, Nasir can hardly believe that Cassandra is the woman hired to find him a wife. After the unforgettable night of passion they shared, Nasir isn’t sure how to react. But Cassandra seems determined to keep things professional, and before Nasir knows it, she’s arranged his first date. Nasir is soon caught up in business and blind dates, and yet he can’t get Cassandra off his mind. Although Cassandra is convinced she’s not the woman he wants, Nasir has other ideas. But with a baby on the way and pressure mounting from Nasir’s mother, will her fear of repeating the past stand in the way of a perfect future? Book Three: The Sheikh's Surprise Triplets Juliette’s life is work—she’s ruthless, determined, and has built a reputation for helping difficult CEOs achieve their maximum potential. When she’s scouted by the royal Azhar family to assist the head of their tech division, Sheikh Basri Azhar, she’s eager for the challenge. The company is at a critical juncture, and it will be up to Juliette to keep the brash, young CEO on track. Shouldn’t be a problem—until Juliette meets Basri. He’s handsome, charismatic, and much harder to manage than she could have imagined. But Juliette won’t back down. She’s never met a boss she couldn’t tame. Basri’s new assistant is like a force of nature. She’s beautiful, intelligent, and disciplined…and Basri has to constantly remind himself to keep it professional. But after weeks of Juliette trying to bend him to her will, Basri decides he has other plans…

Shrouded in mystery, the Islamic presence in the Middle East evokes longstanding Western fears of terrorism and holy war. Our media have consistently focused on these extremes of Islam, overlooking a quiet yet pervasive religious movement that is now transforming the nation of Egypt. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, No God But God opens up previously inaccessible segments of Egyptian society--from the universities and professional sectors to the streets--to illustrate the deep penetration of "Popular Islamic" influence. Abdo provides a firsthand account of this peaceful movement, allowing its moderate leaders, street preachers, scholars, doctors, lawyers, men and women of all social classes to speak for themselves. Challenging Western stereotypes, she finds that this growing number of Islamists do not seek the violent overthrow of the government or a return to a medieval age. Instead, they believe their religious values are compatible with the demands of the modern world. They are working within and beyond the secular framework of the nation to gradually create a new society based on Islamic principles. Abdo narrates fascinating accounts of their methods and successes. Today, for example, university students meet in underground unions, despite a state ban. In addition, sheikhs have recently used their new legislative power to censor books and movies deemed to violate religious values. Both fascinating and unsettling, Abdo's findings identify a grassroots model for transforming a secular nation-state to an Islamic social order that will likely inspire other Muslim nations. This model cannot be ignored, for it will soon help organized Islamists to undermine secular control of Egypt and potentially jeopardize Western interests in the Arab world.

Jim MacNeill was the principal author of Our Common Future, hailed as 'the most important document of the decade on the future of the world'. Beyond Interdependence builds on that report to demonstrate the relationship between the global environment, the world's economy, and the international order. Predicting that environmental and resource depletion will become the primary source of human and interstate conflict in the near future, the authors propose a range of new national security strategies that will lift the 'ecological shadow' and alleviate world poverty.

The famed reform debates at al-Azhar Madrasa in nineteenth-century Cairo, one of the most influential centres of religious study in Sunni Islam, were enormously influential for twentieth-century Islamic thought. Here Indira Gesink offers a revisionist history of these debates over curricular and administrative reforms, and challenges our understanding of the struggle between Islamic reform and conservatism. It has been assumed that famous Islamic modernists such as Muhammad 'Abduh instigated the reform movement and the ideas of modern religious life that emanated from al-Azhar and permeated Islamic society, a development that religious conservatives opposed. Gesink draws on obscure, but important, archival sources, legal manuals and ephemeral journals to tell the other side of the story, and to illustrate the important contributions of conservative scholars to the evolution of twentieth-century Sunni Islam. Conservative 'opponents of reform' engaged many of the same issues as reformers and actively pursued alternative visions of reform. In fact, texts of enacted reforms show greater attention to concerns of conservatives than to the original programmes of Muhammad 'Abduh, and conservatives led 'ulama committees that generated and implemented reforms. Had religious conservatives not contributed to the reforms of the early twentieth century, these reforms would have lacked the crucial cultural assonance that permitted them to become rooted in public life, in an environment of rising nationalist anti-British sentiment which saw 'Abduh as a willing agent of colonialists. The debates ultimately catalyzed public acceptance of secularism, Islamic modernism and radical Islamism. They also led to the practice of lay legal interpretation, the proliferation of competing interpretations within Sunni Islam and the rise of militant sects. By drawing on obscure archival sources and restoring conservative voices to the debate, 'Islamic Reform and Conservatism' presents a more nuanced picture of the al-Azhar debates and the forces that shaped Islamic religious life in the twentieth century than has become the norm. Its original scholarship and fresh analysis make this book indispensable for all those interested in the modern Middle East, religious history, Islamic studies, radical Islam and militancy, secularism, modernism and religious reform.

This book contains selected papers delivered during the 22nd Congress of L'Union Europenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, held in Poland, from 29th September to 4th October 2004. The proceedings have been arranged into four thematic sections: (1) Theology and Philosophy, (2) Literature, (3) History of State and Society, and (4) Philology and Linguistics, though quite a number of the papers were of an interdisciplinary character. The authors of the 37 publications presented in this volume represent the international academic community and present in their articles the results of the latest research and studies into the areas touching on history, culture, literature, religion and art to mention a few. They constitute various attempts to answer the following questions: What is the meaning of Authority? and What is the place of the individual in Society? The book is essential source reading for specialists and students. This book is also recommended to all those who wish to become better acquainted with the problems and issues of the Arab-Muslim world.

Gilles Kepel takes us into the world of the students, professionals, workers, and unemployed who are caught up in the Islamic movements of our day. Events that have riveted world attention--the World Trade Center bombing, assassinations in Beirut, the attempt on the life of the Pope, the assassination of Sadat--are illuminated by this penetrating study which surveys the background of the Islamist movement beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.