Sayyid Qutb is widely considered the guiding intellectual of radical Islam, with a direct line connecting him to Osama bin Laden. But Qutb has too often been treated maliciously or reductively-"the Philosopher of Islamic Terror," as Paul Berman famously put it in the New York Times Magazine. James Toth offers an even-handed account of Sayyid Qutb and shows him to be a much more complex figure than the many one-dimensional portraits would have us believe. Qutb first gained notice a...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2017'An eye-opening, well-written and very timely book' Yuval Noah Harari**'The best sort of book for our disordered days: timely, urgent and illuminating' Pankaj Mishra'It strikes a blow…for common humanity' Sunday Times**The Muslim world has often been accused of a failure to modernise and adapt. Yet in this sweeping narrative and provocative retelling of modern history, C...

Khaled Abou El Fadl is a classically-trained Islamic jurist, an American lawyer and law professor, and one of the most important Islamic thinkers today. In this updated and expanded edition of The Search for Beauty in Islam, Abou El Fadl offers eye-opening and enlightening insights into the contemporary realities of the current state of Islam and the West. Through a 'conference of the books,' an imagined conference of Muslim intellects from centuries past, Abou El Fadl examines the uglines...

Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a "Christian-Muslim divide"--and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities--a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world's Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule. Just who were the Christians in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Mohammed and the Qur'an?The Church in the Shadow of ...

Why Islam is more political and fundamentalist than other religionsWhy does Islam play a larger role in contemporary politics than other religions? Is there something about the Islamic heritage that makes Muslims more likely than adherents of other faiths to invoke it in their political life? If so, what is it? Ancient Religions, Modern Politics seeks to answer these questions by examining the roles of Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity in modern political ...

I decided to write this book – much to the affable chagrin of some friends and colleagues who wondered why I would tackle a topic so complex – because the story of ISIS continues as one of the more important narratives now occupying our thoughts and our media. I wanted to go deeper than the restrictions of tonight’s newscasts would allow. As a career journalist and broadcaster, I have nothing but the greatest respect for the professionals who report in these newscasts on the ISIS insurgenc...

The Apostates is the first major study of apostasy from Islam in the western secular context. Drawing on life-history interviews with ex-Muslims from the UK and Canada, Simon Cottee explores how and with what consequences Muslims leave Islam and become irreligious. Apostasy in Islam is a deeply controversial issue and features prominently in current debates over the expansion of Islam in the West and what this means. Yet it remains poorly understood, in large part because it has become so ...

With the current economic crisis and the general rigors of life, we all face struggles. Regardless of race, gender, income, or age, we face challenges daily. Even countries face struggles—the main one being the inability to pay their mounting debts. In his book How to Cope with Life’s Struggles: Practical Advice for Victorious Christian Living, author Sherman Stevens describes some of the struggles we face and how the Lord has provided for us to successfully make it through. Among the stru...

Wahhabism has been generating controversy since it first emerged in Arabia in the 18th century. In the wake of September 11th instant theories have emerged that try to root Osama Bin Laden's attacks on Wahhabism. Muslim critics have dismissed this conservative interpretation of Islam that is the official creed of Saudi Arabia as an unorthodox innovation that manipulated a suggestible people to gain political influence. David Commins' book questions this assumption. He examines the debate o...

The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations invites readers to deepen their understanding of the historical, social, cultural, and political themes that impact modern-day perceptions of interfaith dialogue. The volume is designed to illuminate positive encounters between Muslims and Jews, as well as points of conflict, within a historical framework. Among other goals, the volume seeks to correct common misperceptions about the history of Muslim-Jewish relations by complicati...

International Best Seller"I agree with Naskar that the path of tolerance is the only way." - Daniel C. DennettTwo Hundred Thousand years ago, we the sapiens were just a newly evolved species in a corner of Africa. Eventually we transformed ourselves into the master of the entire planet. We tamed our surroundings, increased food production, built civilizations and established empires.Unfortunately, despite a...

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 reopened what many people in America had long assumed was a settled ethical question: Is torture ever morally permissible? Within days, some began to suggest that, in these new circumstances, the new answer was "yes." Rebecca Gordon argues that September 11 did not, as some have said, "change everything," and that institutionalized state torture remains as wrong today as it was on the day before those terrible attacks. Furthermore, U.S. practices...