Religion, Christian & Spirituality Books
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No God but God
Aslan, Reza
(Softcover)
List Price: $22.99 Sale: $8.95
In No god but God, internationally acclaimed scholar Reza Aslan explains Islam - the origins and evolution of the faith - in all its beauty and complexity. This updated edition addresses the events of the past decade, analyzing how they have influenced Islam's position in modern culture. Aslan explores what the popular demonstrations pushing for democracy in the Middle East mean for the future of Islam in the region, how the Internet and social media have affected Islam's evolution, and how the war on terror has altered the geopolitical balance of power in the Middle East. He also provides an update on the contemporary Muslim women's movement, a discussion of the controversy over veiling in Europe, an in-depth history of Jihadism, and a look at how Muslims living in North America and Europe are changing the face of Islam. Timely and persuasive, No god but God is an elegantly written account that explains this magnificent yet misunderstood faith.
Letters to a Young Muslim
Ghobash, Omar Saif
(Paperback)
List Price: $21.99 Sale: $4.79
From the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to France comes Letters to a Young Muslim, a bold and intimate exploration of what it means to be a Muslim in the twenty-first century.
The Koran Interpreted
Arberry, A. J.
(Paperback)
List Price: $27.99 Sale: $10.79
No other book ever written, with the possible exception of the Bible, has so dramatically influenced the course of civilization as the Koran. Yet this text remains little understood in the West. Since its first publication in 1955, professor A. J. Arberry's translation has been the finest one available, its magnificently written verse making the Koran accessible to a Western audience. Professor Arberry has rendered the Koran into clear and lyrical English while carefully preserving the incomparable artistry of the Arabic original.
Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America
Patel, Eboo
(Paperback)
List Price: $21.99 Sale: $8.36
There is no better time to stand up for your values than when they are under attack.In the decade following the attacks of 9/11, suspicion and animosity toward American Muslims has increased rather than subsided. Alarmist, hateful rhetoric once relegated to the fringes of political discourse has now become frighteningly mainstream, with pundits and politicians routinely invoking the specter of Islam as a menacing, deeply anti-American force.In Sacred Ground, author and renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel says this prejudice is not just a problem for Muslims but a challenge to the very idea of America. Patel shows us that Americans from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr. have been “interfaith leaders,” illustrating how the forces of pluralism in America have time and again defeated the forces of prejudice. And now a new generation needs to rise up and confront the anti-Muslim prejudice of our era. To this end, Patel offers a primer in the art and science of interfaith work, bringing to life the growing body of research on how faith can be a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division and sharing stories from the frontlines of interfaith activism.Patel asks us to share in his vision of a better America—a robustly pluralistic country in which our commonalities are more important than our differences, and in which difference enriches, rather than threatens, our religious traditions. Pluralism, Patel boldly argues, is at the heart of the American project, and this visionary book will inspire Americans of all faiths to make this country a place where diverse traditions can thrive side by side.
The Great Theft
Khaled M. Abou El Fadl
(Softcover)
List Price: $20.99 Sale: $7.51
In The Great Theft, Khaled Abou El Fadl, one of the world's preeminent Islamic scholars argues that Islam is currently passing through a transformative moment no less dramatic than the movements that swept through Europe during the Reformation. At this critical juncture there are two completely opposed worldviews within Islam competing to define this great world religion. The stakes have never been higher, and the future of the Muslim world hangs in the balance. Drawing on the rich tradition of Islamic history and law, The Great Theft is an impassioned defense of Islam against the encroaching power of the extremists. As an accomplished Islamic jurist, Abou El Fadl roots his arguments in long-standing historical legal debates and delineates point by point the beliefs and practices of moderate Muslims, distinguishing these texts from the corrupting influences of the extremists. From the role of women in Islam to the nature of jihad, from democracy and human rights to terrorism and warfare, Abou El Fadl builds a vital vision for a moderate Islam. At long last, the great majority of Muslims who oppose extremism have a desperately needed voice to help reclaim Islam's great moral tradition.
God in the Qur'an (God in Three Classic Scriptures)
Miles, Jack
(Hardcover)
List Price: $36.99 Sale: $14.31
Who is Allah? What makes Him unique? And what does He ask of those who submit to His teachings? In the spirit of his Pulitzer Prize-winning God, a trailblazing "biography" of the protagonist of the Old Testament, and Christ, his brilliant portrait of biblical Jesus, acclaimed religious scholar Jack Miles undertakes to answer these questions with his characteristic perspicacity, intelligence, and command of the subject. Miles depicts a "character" less mercurial than Yahweh, less ready to forgive than Christ, and yet emphatically part of their traditions. The God of the Qur'an revises and perfects: His purpose is to make whole what had been corrupted or lost from the practices and scriptures of the earlier Abrahamic religions. Setting passages from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur'an side by side, Miles illuminates what is unique about Allah, His teachings and His temperament, and in doing so revises that which is false, distorted, or simply absent from our conception of the heart of Islam.
Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation
Patel, Eboo
(Paperback)
List Price: $21.99 Sale: $8.36
First published in 2007, the now classic Acts of Faith is a remarkable account of growing up Muslim in America and coming to passionately support religious pluralism. Eboo Patel has become one of the most prominent interfaith leaders in the United States, and his story is a hopeful and moving testament to the power and passion of young people - and of the world-changing potential of an interfaith youth movement.
How to Be a Muslim: An American Story
Moghul, Haroon
(Paperback)
List Price: $22.99 Sale: $6.07
A young Muslim leader’s memoir of his struggles to forge an American Muslim identity.Haroon Moghul was thrust into the spotlight after 9/11, becoming an undergraduate leader at New York University’s Islamic Center forced into appearances everywhere: on TV, before interfaith audiences, in print. Moghul was becoming a prominent voice for American Muslims even as he struggled with his relationship to Islam. In high school he was barely a believer and entirely convinced he was going to hell. He sometimes drank. He didn’t pray regularly. All he wanted was a girlfriend.But as he discovered, it wasn’t so easy to leave religion behind. To be true to himself, he needed to forge a unique American Muslim identity that reflected his beliefs and personality. How to Be a Muslim reveals a young man coping with the crushing pressure of a world that fears Muslims, struggling with his faith and searching for intellectual forebears, and suffering the onset of bipolar disorder. This is the story of the second-generation immigrant, of what it’s like to lose yourself between cultures and how to pick up the pieces.
The Crisis of Islam
Lewis, Bernard
(Paperback)
List Price: $17.99 Sale: $5.83
In his first book since "What Went Wrong?" Bernard Lewis examines the historical roots of the resentments that dominate the Islamic world today and that are increasingly being expressed in acts of terrorism.
I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad
Mekhennet, Souad
(Paperback)
List Price: $24.99 Sale: $5.40
“I was told to come alone. I was not to carry any identification, and would have to leave my cell phone, audio recorder, watch, and purse at my hotel. . . .”For her whole life, Souad Mekhennet, a reporter for The Washington Post who was born and educated in Germany, has had to balance the two sides of her upbringing – Muslim and Western. She has also sought to provide a mediating voice between these cultures, which too often misunderstand each other.In this compelling and evocative memoir, we accompany Mekhennet as she journeys behind the lines of jihad, starting in the German neighborhoods where the 9/11 plotters were radicalized and the Iraqi neighborhoods where Sunnis and Shia turned against one another, and culminating on the Turkish/Syrian border region where ISIS is a daily presence. In her travels across the Middle East and North Africa, she documents her chilling run-ins with various intelligence services and shows why the Arab Spring never lived up to its promise. She then returns to Europe, first in London, where she uncovers the identity of the notorious ISIS executioner “Jihadi John,” and then in France, Belgium, and her native Germany, where terror has come to the heart of Western civilization.Mekhennet’s background has given her unique access to some of the world’s most wanted men, who generally refuse to speak to Western journalists. She is not afraid to face personal danger to reach out to individuals in the inner circles of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, and their affiliates; when she is told to come alone to an interview, she never knows what awaits at her destination.Souad Mekhennet is an ideal guide to introduce us to the human beings behind the ominous headlines, as she shares her transformative journey with us. Hers is a story you will not soon forget.
The Heart of Islam
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein
(Softcover)
List Price: $18.99 Sale: $7.19
The world's leading Islamicist and foremost Muslim expert on the West offers a timely expression of the core spiritual and social values of Islam, showing their complementarity to Jewish and Christian values as well as their positive contribution to a peaceful and humane global future.
What the Qur'an Meant and Why It Matters
Wills, Garry
(Paperback)
List Price: $23.99 Sale: $9.27
America’s leading religious scholar and public intellectual introduces lay readers to the Qur’an with a measured, powerful reading of the ancient textGarry Wills has spent a lifetime thinking and writing about Christianity. In What the Qur’an Meant, Wills invites readers to join him as he embarks on a timely and necessary reconsideration of the Qur’an, leading us through perplexing passages with insight and erudition. What does the Qur’an actually say about veiling women? Does it justify religious war?There was a time when ordinary Americans did not have to know much about Islam. That is no longer the case. We blundered into the longest war in our history without knowing basic facts about the Islamic civilization with which we were dealing. We are constantly fed false information about Islam - claims that it is essentially a religion of violence, that its sacred book is a handbook for terrorists. There is no way to assess these claims unless we have at least some knowledge of the Qur’an.In this book Wills, as a non-Muslim with an open mind, reads the Qur’an with sympathy but with rigor, trying to discover why other non-Muslims - such as Pope Francis - find it an inspiring book, worthy to guide people down through the centuries. There are many traditions that add to and distort and blunt the actual words of the text. What Wills does resembles the work of art restorers who clean away accumulated layers of dust to find the original meaning. He compares the Qur’an with other sacred books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, to show many parallels between them. There are also parallel difficulties of interpretation, which call for patient exploration - and which offer some thrills of discovery. What the Qur’an Meant is the opening of a conversation on one of the world’s most practiced religions.
If the Oceans Were Ink
Power, Carla
(Paperback)
List Price: $25.99 Sale: $8.15
If the Oceans Were Ink is Carla Power's eye-opening story of how she and her longtime friend Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi found a way to confront ugly stereotypes and persistent misperceptions that were cleaving their communities. Their friendship - between a secular American and a madrasa-trained sheikh - had always seemed unlikely, but now they were frustrated and bewildered by the battles being fought in their names. Both knew that a close look at the Quran would reveal a faith that preached peace and not mass murder; respect for women and not oppression. And so they embarked on a yearlong journey through the controversial text. A journalist who grew up in the Midwest and the Middle East, Power offers her unique vantage point on the Quran's most provocative verses as she debates with Akram at cafes, family gatherings, and packed lecture halls, conversations filled with both good humor and powerful insights. Their story takes them to madrasas in India and pilgrimage sites in Mecca, as they encounter politicians and jihadis, feminist activists and conservative scholars. Armed with a new understanding of each other's worldviews, Power and Akram offer eye-opening perspectives, destroy long-held myths, and reveal startling connections between worlds that have seemed hopelessly divided for far too long.
The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims
Akyol, Mustafa
(Paperback)
List Price: $24.99 Sale: $9.91
When Reza Aslan’s bestseller Zealot came out in 2013, there was criticism that he hadn’t addressed his Muslim faith while writing the origin story of Christianity. In fact, Ross Douthat of The New York Times wrote that “if Aslan had actually written in defense of the Islamic view of Jesus, that would have been something provocative and new.”Mustafa Akyol’s The Islamic Jesus is that book.The Islamic Jesus reveals startling new truths about Islam in the context of the first Muslims and the early origins of Christianity. Muslims and the first Christians - the Jewish followers of Jesus - saw Jesus as not divine but rather as a prophet and human Messiah and that salvation comes from faith and good works, not merely as faith, as Christians would later emphasize. What Akyol seeks to reveal are how these core beliefs of Jewish Christianity, which got lost in history as a heresy, emerged in a new religion born in 7th Arabia: Islam.Akyol exposes this extraordinary historical connection between Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Islam - a major mystery unexplored by academia. From Jesus’ Jewish followers to the Nazarenes and Ebionites to the Qu’ran’s stories of Mary and Jesus, The Islamic Jesus will reveal links between religions that seem so contrary today. It will also call on Muslims to discover their own Jesus, at a time when they are troubled by their own Pharisees and Zealots.
Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters
Safi, Omid
(Softcover)
List Price: $20.99 Sale: $8.15
Who was Muhammad? What do we know historically, and does that differ from how he is seen by his followers and venerated today? Memories of Muhammad presents Muhammad as a lens through which to view both the genesis of Islamic religion and the grand sweep of Islamic history - right up to the hot button issues of the day, such as the spread of Islam, holy wars, the status of women, the significance of Jerusalem, and current tensions with Jews, Hindus and Christians. It also provides a rare glimpse into how Muslims spiritually connect to God through their Prophet, in the mosque, in the home, and even in cyberspace. This definitive biography of the founder of Islam by a leading Muslim-American scholar, Omid Safi, will reveal invaluable new insights, finally providing a fully three-dimensional portrait of Muhammad and the one billion people who follow him today.
Muslims of the World: Portraits and Stories of Hope, Survival, Loss, and Love
Mahoui, Iman
(Softcover)
List Price: $26.99 Sale: $4.23
We are living in a time of unrest for many members of the Islamic faith around the globe. Enter Muslims of the World, a book based on the popular Instagram account @MuslimsoftheWorld1. Like the account, the book’s mission is to tell the diverse stories of Muslims living in the US and around the world. Illustrated throughout with moving photographs, each chapter will focus on different aspects of the Islamic faith and the many varying cultures it encompasses, offering tales of love, family, and faith while empowering Muslim women, refugees, and people of color. Whether it is telling a story about a young Syrian refugee who dreams of being a pilot or about a young girl’s decision to not remove her hijab, which in turn saved her family’s life, Muslims of the World aims to unite people of all cultures and faiths by sharing the hopes, trials, and tribulations of Muslims from every walk of life.
The Muslims Are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror
Kundnani, Arun
(Paperback)
List Price: $22.99 Sale: $7.19
Powerful critique of UK and US surveillance and repression of Muslims and prosecution of homegrown terrorismThe new front in the War on Terror is the “homegrown enemy,” domestic terrorists who have become the focus of sprawling counterterrorism structures of policing and surveillance in the United States and across Europe. Domestic surveillance has mushroomed—at least 100,000 Muslims in America have been secretly under scrutiny. British police compiled a secret suspect list of more than 8,000 al-Qaeda “sympathizers,” and in another operation included almost 300 children fifteen and under among the potential extremists investigated. MI5 doubled in size in just five years.Based on several years of research and reportage, in locations as disperate as Texas, New York and Yorkshire, and written in engrossing, precise prose, this is the first comprehensive critique of counterradicalization strategies. The new policy and policing campaigns have been backed by an industry of freshly minted experts and liberal commentators. The Muslims Are Coming! looks at the way these debates have been transformed by the embrace of a narrowly configured and ill-conceived anti-extremism.
Islam
Smith, Huston
(Softcover)
List Price: $13.99 Sale: $5.19
Drawn from his masterful presentation of Islam in the bestselling book The World's Religions, Huston Smith offers a revealing look into the heart of a tradition with more than one billion adherents worldwide. Dispelling narrow and distorted notions about the nature of Islam and featuring a new introduction by the author, this book compellingly conveys the profound appeal of Islam, while addressing such timely issues as the true meaning of jihad, the role of women in Islamic societies, and the remarkable growth of Islam in America.
Understanding Islam
Lippman, Thomas W.
(Paperback)
List Price: $20.99 Sale: $6.55
Lippman's study of the Muslim world--from its earliest roots to today's global power politics--includes crucial new material on the Islamic community today. There are also updated descriptions of internal politics in Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and other Islamic nations. Essential reading for both students and all who seek greater understanding of the world in which we live.
Why I Am a Five Percenter
Knight, Michael Muhammad
(Paperback)
List Price: $21.99 Sale: $8.15
A thoughtful, insider view of The Five Percenters - a deeply complex and misunderstood community whose ideas and symbols influenced the rise of hip-hop. Misrepresented in the media as a black parallel to the Hell's Angels, portrayed as everything from a vicious street gang to quasi-Islamic revolutionaries, The Five Percenters are a movement that began as a breakaway sect from the Nation of Islam (NOI) in 1960s Harlem and went on to impact the formation of hip-hop. References to Five Percent language and ideas are found in the lyrics of wide-ranging artists, such as Nas, Rakim, the Wu-Tang Clan, and even Jay-Z. The Five Percenters are denounced by white America as racists, and orthodox Islam as heretics, for teaching that the black man is Allah. Michael Muhammad Knight has engaged this culture as both white and Muslim; and over the course of his relationship with The Five Percenters, his personal position changed from that of an outsider to an accepted participant with his own initiatory name (Azreal Wisdom). This has given him an intimate perch from which to understand and examine the controversial doctrines of this influential movement. In Why I Am a Five Percenter, Knight strips away years of sensationalism to offer a serious encounter with Five Percenter thought. Encoded within Five Percent culture is a profound critique of organized religion, from which the movement derives its name: Only Five Percent can act as "poor righteous teachers" against the evil Ten Percent, the power structure which uses religion to deceive the Eighty- Five Percent, the "deaf, dumb, and blind" masses. Questioning his own relationship to the Five Percent, Knight directly confronts the community's most difficult teachings. In Why I Am a Five Percenter, Knight not only illuminates a thought system that must appear bizarre to outsiders, but he also brilliantly dissects the very issues of "insiders" and "outsiders," territory and ownership, as they relate to religion and privilege, and to our conditioned ideas about race.
Muslim: What You Need to Know About the World’s Fastest Growing Religion
Hanegraaff, Hank
(Hardcover)
List Price: $33.99 Sale: $7.19
Is Islam a peaceful and tolerant religion?For all the debate over Islam and its growing presence in the world, one thing is often overlooked: Islam is not a religion in the sanitized Western sense. It is, in contrast, an all-encompassing sociopolitical legal matrix that has bred a worldview antagonistic to anything but itself. While there may be millions of peaceful and tolerant Muslims, many of them our neighbors, Islam itself is hardly peaceful and tolerant.Islam is the only significant religious system in the history of the human race with a sociopolitical structure of laws that mandate violence against the infidel. The current narrative is that to tell the truth in this regard is tantamount to radicalizing Muslims and exacerbating hostilities that may otherwise lie dormant. A common refrain has reverberated throughout the West: "Islam is not our enemy." As well-intentioned as this mantra may be, it is a potentially dangerous stance once someone understands Islam in full. Despite its incoherence, Islam - one billion six hundred million strong and growing - is poised to fill the vacuum left by a Western culture slouching inexorably towards Gomorrah. Demographics alone are alarming. While polygamist Muslims boast a robust birth rate, native Westerners are moving rapidly toward self-extinction. Filling the void are multiplied millions of Muslims who have no intention of assimilating into Western culture.Equally grave is the specter of global Islamic jihadism now exacting mass genocide on Christians in the East and ever-multiplying terrorist attacks throughout the West. We are also witnessing the co-belligerency of fantastically wealthy Saudis spending multiplied billions of dollars exporting virulent Wahhabism to the West. Worse still, Western governments, academic institutions, and media outlets seem bent on exporting a false narrative respecting the religious animus animating global Islamic jihadism.In MUSLIM: What You Need to Know about the World’s Fastest Growing Religion, Hanegraaff not only outlines the problems in accessible and memorable fashion, but moves toward potential solutions in the clash of civilizations.
Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey into the Syrian Jihad
Seierstad, Asne
(Paperback)
List Price: $21.99 Sale: $4.79
The riveting true story of two sisters’ journey to the Islamic State and the father who tries to bring them homeTwo Sisters, by the international bestselling author Åsne Seierstad, tells the unforgettable story of a family divided by faith. Sadiq and Sara, Somali immigrants raising a family in Norway, one day discover that their teenage daughters, Leila and Ayan, have vanished - and are en route to Syria to aid the Islamic State. Seierstad’s riveting account traces the sisters’ journey from secular, social democratic Norway to the front lines of the war in Syria, and follows Sadiq’s harrowing attempt to find them.Employing the same mastery of narrative suspense she brought to The Bookseller of Kabul and One of Us, Seierstad puts the problem of radicalization into painfully human terms, using instant messages and other primary sources to reconstruct a family’s crisis from the inside. Eventually, she takes us into the hellscape of the Syrian civil war, as Sadiq risks his life in pursuit of his daughters, refusing to let them disappear into the maelstrom - even after they marry ISIS fighters. Two Sisters is a relentless thriller and a feat of reporting with profound lessons about belief, extremism, and the meaning of devotion.
Standing Alone
Nomani, Asra Q.
(Paperback)
List Price: $20.99 Sale: $7.19
"Standing Alone is the ideal introduction to contemporary Islam . . . a stirring account of her journey to Mecca on the Hajj, revealing for us what that ancient pilgrimage requires today. Her tale is made doubly illuminating by her courage in making the journey as a single mother alongside her infant son, and by the fact that in the course of her journey she rediscovers the formidable roots of Islamic feminism." - Chicago Sunday Tribune
The House of Islam: A Global History
Husain, Ed
(Hardcover)
List Price: $40.99 Sale: $8.95
Today, Islam is to many in the West an alien force, with Muslims held in suspicion. Failure to grasp the inner workings of religion and geopolitics has haunted American foreign policy for decades and has been decisive in the new administration's controversial orders. The intricacies and shadings must be understood by the West not only to build a stronger, more harmonious relationship between the two cultures, but also for greater accuracy in predictions as to how current crises, such as the growth of ISIS, will develop and from where the next might emerge.The House of Islam addresses key questions and points of disconnection. What are the roots of the conflict between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims that is engulfing Pakistan and the Middle East? Does the Koran encourage the killing of infidels? The book thoughtfully explores the events and issues that have come from and contributed to the broadening gulf between Islam and the West, from the United States' overthrow of Iran's first democratically elected leader to the emergence of ISIS, from the declaration of a fatwa on Salman Rushdie to the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo.Authoritative and engaging, Ed Husain leads us clearly and carefully through the nuances of Islam and its people, taking us back to basics to contend that the Muslim world need not be a stranger to the West, nor our enemy, but our peaceable allies.
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