This series of critical reflections on the evolution and major themes of pre-modern Muslim theology begins with the revelation of the Koran, and extends to the beginnings of modernity in the eighteenth century. The significance of Islamic theology reflects the immense importance of Islam in the history of monotheism, to which it has brought a unique approach and style, and a range of solutions which are of abiding interest. Devoting especial attention to questions of rationality, scriptura...

A dramatic exposition of the classical Muslim division of human life into five stages: before conception, life in the world, life in the grave, the resurrection, and heaven or hell. Extensive Qur'anic and Hadith references explain the condition of the soul at each stage.

Launched in 2013, China's Belt and Road Initiative is forging connections in infrastructure, trade, energy, finance, tourism, and culture across Eurasia and Africa. This extraordinarily ambitious strategy places China at the center of a geography of overland and maritime connectivity stretching across more than sixty countries and incorporating almost two-thirds of the world’s population. But what does it mean to revive the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century?Geocultural Po...

From the Great Game to the present, an international cultural and political biography of one of our most evocative, compelling, and poorly understood narratives of history. The Silk Road is rapidly becoming one of the key geocultural and geostrategic concepts of the twenty-first century. Yet, for much of the twentieth century the Silk Road received little attention, overshadowed by nationalism and its invented pasts, and a world dominated by conflict and Cold War standoffs...

Around Haslemere and Hindhead From Old Photographs offers a fascinating glimpse into life in the southA ]west corner of Surrey over the last hundred years or so. More than 230 images illustrate the changes that have overtaken the area in and around the old market town of Haslemere and Hindhead. This charming book introduces us to the famous people who made their home in the area, people such as Alfred Lord Tennyson who lived at Aldworth and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Bernard Shaw wh...

Angkor, Cambodia’s only World Heritage Site, is enduring one of the most crucial, turbulent periods in its twelve hundred year history. Given Cambodia’s need to restore its shattered social and physical infrastructures after decades of violent conflict, and with tourism to Angkor increasing by a staggering 10,000 per cent in just over a decade, the site has become an intense focal point of competing agendas. Angkor’s immense historical importance, along with its global prestige, has led to...

Taking a theoretical and multidisciplinary perspective, the essays in this collection provide compelling insight into contemporary Cambodian culture at home and abroad. The book represents the first sustained exploration of the relationship between cultural productions and practices, the changing urban landscape and the construction of identity and nation building twenty-five years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. As such, the team of international contributors address the politic...

This Handbook is the first major volume to examine the conservation of Asia’s culture and nature in relation to the wider social, political and economic forces shaping the region today.Throughout Asia rapid economic and social change means the region’s heritage is at once under threat and undergoing a revival as never before. As societies look forward, competing forces ensure they re-visit the past and the inherited, with the conservation of nature and culture now driven by the bro...

In 2010 Shanghai hosted the largest, most spectacular and most expensive expo ever. Attracting a staggering 73 million visitors, and costing around US$45 billion dollars, Shanghai Expo broke the records in the history of world's fairs and universal expositions. With more than half of the world’s population now living in cities, many of which face uncertain futures, this mega event confronted some of the key challenges facing humanity in the 21st Century, with its theme Better City, Bet...

An immense understanding of the Qur’an is offered here, a vast treasure of knowledge and deep insight and a valuable exposition of some social, political, economic and legal teachings of the Qur’an. But what makes this work unique is that it presents the Qur’an as a book to be lived by. With thousands of notes, an introduction and comprehensive index.

Vehicles, their infrastructures, and the environments they traverse are fundamental to the movement of migrants and states' attempts to govern them. This volume's contributors use the concept of viapolitics to name and foreground this contested entanglement and examine the politics of migration and bordering across a range of sites. They show how these elements constitute a key site of knowledge and struggle in migratory processes and offer a privileged vantage point from which to interrog...

The Qur'an, believed by Muslims to be the word of God, was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad 1400 years ago. It is the supreme authority in Islam and the living source of all Islamic teaching. Recognized as the greatest literary masterpiece in Arabic, it has nevertheless remained difficult to understand in its English translations. This new translation is written in a contemporary idiom that remains faithful to the original, making it easy to read while retaining its powers of eloquence. - ...