The Path To Paradise

Imam Tirmidhi narrates that the Prophet ﷺ ordered people to 'Be modest before Allah, as is His due.' The Prophet ﷺ then explained that 'Modesty before Allah means protecting the head and all that is in it; and protecting the stomach and all that is inside it. Furthermore, you should remember death and decay, for one whose eyes are set on the Hereafter keeps away from worldliness. One who accomplishes all of this is one who is modest before Allah, as is His due.' This work is an elaborate commentary on the aforementioned hadith. It covers Divine and Prophetic injunctions, as well as scholarly discussions relating to a variety of subjects, such as having pure belief in Allah; the various facets of spiritual purification; how to use the bodily parts in a lawful manner; maintaining honest financial transactions; the rules of good social conduct; and the remembrance of death and rulings connected to it. The treatise ends with a detailed outline of the substantial events heralding the End of Time and the events of the life after death; in the grave and on the Day of Judgement, and a description of the final abodes of Heaven and Hell.

The first monograph on the work of a groundbreaking artist in stained glass.

Suicide bombers are often compared to smart bombs. From the point of view of their dispatchers, they are highly effective, inexpensive forms of weaponry, and there is no need to invest in their technological development. Suicide bombers are in fact smarter than smart bombs because they can choose their own target—and they can react to circumstances on the ground, changing their target, or their timing, in an instant, to ensure the maximum damage, destruction, and death. Of course, unlike smart bombs, suicide bombers think and feel, they have histories, stories, beliefs, desires—in short, they have an inner world. Exploring the inner world of suicide bombers has been the focus of Anat Berko's research for years. She has worked to understand the thought processes of a people who can choose to place explosives on their bodies and kill themselves, taking as many other people with them as they can. Do male bombers really believe that death will transport them to a paradise where they will be greeted by virgins? Are they victims of unbearable pressure to commit this act of terror? What are female bombers promised in the hereafter? Is there something that links all suicide bombers? Berko also explores the world of those who drop the smart bomb—the dispatchers: who are these people who persuade others to go calmly to their horrific deaths?

Islam is a religion of justice, peace, mercy and forgiveness. Muslims believe in the ONE TRUE GOD (ALLAH) and follow the SUNNAH (teachings) of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the QURAN (the last holy book) which was sent down to the Prophet Muhammad (who was unlettered) from ALLAH through the Archangel Gabriel. It was recorded and memorized by many at that time and is still memorized by thousands of Muslims all over the world today. The Holy Quran has remained unchanged, even to a dot, over the past fourteen hundred years. One of the hallmarks of Islam is its complete harmony with science. There has never been a scientific fact or a valid scientific theory that contradicted the teachings of Islam. It deals with every subject morality, knowledge, science, law, systems of social justice, politics, economics and directions for every sphere of life. It is a book of wisdom and guidance through which Allah, (Most Gracious and Most High) speaks to humanity. The Quran was completed during the life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) yet contains profound knowledge of science and medicine that was centuries ahead of its time.

The Path to Paradise is an inspirational story about love and friendship. It is a heartwarming, passionate story that follows the life of Julie Collins, a lonely woman who is surprisingly resuscitated following a tragic near-death experience. Upon reviving, she undergoes a dramatic, life-changing transformation that profoundly affects her future and enriches the lives of the people closest to her and proves it is never too late to find love.

From the author of the classic A LITTLE LIFE, a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia. In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him—and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances. These three sections are joined in an enthralling and ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can’t exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness. TO PARADISE is a fin de siecle novel of marvelous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara’s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love—partners, lovers, children, friends, family and even our fellow citizens—and the pain that ensues when we cannot.

“Sam Wasson’s supremely entertaining book tracks the ups and downs, ins and outs, of a remarkable career. . . . A marvel of unshowy reportage.”—New York Times The New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. and The Big Goodbye returns with the definitive account of Academy Award–winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-long dream to reinvent American filmmaking, if not the entire world, through his production company, American Zoetrope. Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dream is American Zoetrope, the production company he founded in San Francisco years before his gargantuan success, when he was only thirty. Through Zoetrope’s experimental, communal utopia, Coppola attempted to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking. Now, more than fifty years later, despite myriad setbacks, the visionary filmmaker’s dream persists, most notably in the production of his decades-in-the-making film and the culmination of his utopian ideals, Megalopolis. As Wasson makes clear, the story of Zoetrope is also the story of Coppola’s wife, Eleanor Coppola, and their children, and of personal lives inseparable from artistic passion. It is a story that charts the divergent paths of Coppola and his cofounder and onetime apprentice, George Lucas, and of their very different visions of art and commerce. And it is a story inextricably bound up in the making of one of the greatest quixotic masterpieces ever attempted, Apocalypse Now, and in what Coppola found in the jungles of the Philippines when he walked the razor’s edge. That story, already the stuff of legend, has never fully been told, until this extraordinary book.

We are moving into a world where a power elite allocates jobs: where commodities buy consumers: where socialist as well as capitalist dogma is an obstacle to comprehension.In this book, Andre Gorz returns to Marx's Grundrisse and the prophecy of early nineteenth century socialists and rediscovers a vision of post-capitalist society founded on the automation of work and the transcending of the exchange economy. He argues that we have reached the precise stage where these utopian insights become a reality. If the socialist movement is to have something to say to a generation whose identity is no longer shaped at work, it must grasp these insights.