Sufi City: Urban Design and Archetypes in Touba is a geographical study of the modern Muslim holy city of Touba in Senegal, capital of the Mouride Sufi order. Touba was founded in 1887 by a Sufi shaykh in a moment of mystic illumination. Since the death of the founder in 1927, the Mouride order has designed and built the entire city. Touba is named for Tuba, the "Tree of Paradise" of Islamic tradition.
Empire of the Islamic World (Great Empires of the Past)
While Europe was in the Dark Ages, classical learning from ancient Greece, Rome, and Persia was being preserved and advanced in Islamic libraries and universities. From 632 to 1258, the Islamic Empire was the most powerful and cultured domain in the world. Less than a century after its founding, the empire had grown from a loose confederation of desert tribes into the largest empire in the history of the world, larger than the mighty Roman Empire at its peak.
A one-stop source for essential information on the history, geography, politics, religion, economy, and culture of the fourth most populous country in the world. It's the "little giant" of Southeast Asia, with beautiful temples, breathtaking scenery, and a rich culture. But it's also a widely dispersed island-nation with grinding poverty, endemic corruption, bloody secessionist movements, and growing Islamic militancy. Indonesia examines pre-colonial periods of the country's development, as well as its independence movement.
Jihad, ranging in concept from personal inner struggle to outright holy war, dates to the earliest manifestations of Islam. This book locates the origin of jihad, traces its evolution as an idea, and provides an intellectual history of the concept of jihad in Islam as well as how it has been misapplied by modern Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers. The book provides unique and balanced coverage of the historical evolution of the concept of jihad, and mainstream moderate Islamic views of the concept from the Qu'ran to the twenty-first century.
This two-volume edition of The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia is a comprehensively detailed compilation providing students with authoritative and up-to-date research on the diverse stories historically comprising the Islamic classic collection of myth, legend, and folklore known to western readers as "The Arabian Nights". The characters, themes, most influential translations, textual history, adaptations, and literary context for each individual story is proffered in a thoroughly accessible and "user friendly" arrangement.
Featuring more than 800 sperate entries organized in an A-Z format, The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia is a seminal, core, essential, informed and informative contribution to personal, professional, academic, and community library Literary Studies, Folklore Studies, and Islamic Cultural Studies reference collections and resource holdings.
