Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
A bold, urgent appeal from the acclaimed columnist and political commentator, addressing one of the most important issues of our time In Peter Beinart's view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history, and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew? Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations' efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life. Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative argument that will expand and inform one of the defining conversations of our time. It is a book that only Peter Beinart could write: a passionate yet measured work that brings together his personal experience, his commanding grasp of history, his keen understanding of political and moral dilemmas, and a clear vision for the future.
The Holy Quran - Clear Version Quran for beginners, Easy to Read, English Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali
The Religion Is Easy
Islam continues to be a source of curiosity in a world where many other faith traditions are losing followers. Intended as inspiration for minds curious about Islam, The Religion Is Easy offers a rich content addressing many core issues, like the pillars of Islamic practice and scientific discoveries that relate to the Quran. Other intriguing concepts discussed in the book include "authorship" of the Scripture, why people convert, etc. Aiming to emphasize the fact that Islam is not a difficult, exotic, austere religion, but one that is easy to understand and easy to follow, The Religion Is Easy provides a modern angle that will appeal to non-Muslims with data on tangible features that argues that the world is created, not random. While combatting the misunderstanding and mistranslation of Islamic concepts such as jihad and fatwa often found in western media, the book also describes some heroes of Islam, from the Prophet's time (e.g. Bilal) to the present day (e.g. Sadio Man矇).
Mothers of Invention
"On November 16, 2023, the sixteen-year class-action lawsuit against Grenville Christian College finally came to a close. As a former student, I could hardly believe it." Though the school closed in 2007, it was only in 2019 that the lawsuit of roughly 1,350 students finally went to trial. On February 23, 2020, Justice Janet Leiper issued her decision concluding that "the evidence of maltreatment and the varieties of abuse perpetrated on students' bodies and minds in the name of the COJ [Community of Jesus] values of submission and obedience was class-wide and decades-wide." In these meticulously documented, yet personal essays Ewan Whyte examines the extraordinary history of Grenville and the Community of Jesus, the charismatic Massachusetts-based "church" with close financial and spiritual ties to Grenville, and his own experiences within the school. Drawing on extensive research, he details the experiences of members including Rockefeller heiress Isabel Lincoln Elmer, Christian nationalist authors David Manuel and Peter Marshall Jr. and American serviceman Aaron Bushnell. In Mothers of Invention, Whyte has composed a shocking work that seeks to honour the suffering of the children.
Muslim Friends
Muslim Friends provides an introduction to Islam to help Christians better understand the Muslims' faith and practice. This volume enables non-Muslims to understand Islam and to help foster friendly relations between non-Muslims and Muslims.
Frontiers, Territories and the Making of Hittite Political Landscapes
This monograph aims to explore the production of political landscapes in Anatolia under the Hittite rule (1650-1200 BCE). The focus of the research is the geopolitical role played within the Hittite domain by three interconnected regions, located in South-Central Anatolia: Tarhuntassa, the Lower Land, and the port city of Ura. Tarhuntassa, briefly the capital of the Hittite Empire under Muwatalli II, later became the center of an influential appanage kingdom after the restoration of the capital back at Hattusa. Geographically, the kingdom of Tarhuntassa overlapped with the 'Lower Land, ' a buffer territory vital for Hittite military engagements in Western Anatolia. Ura served as a crucial Hittite-controlled port on the southern Anatolian coast, that facilitated trade with the Eastern Mediterranean, especially Ugarit. The research combines material data from archaeological excavations and surveys with textual sources, offering a holistic diachronic perspective on the impact of Hittite power networks in the target region. It also explores pre-Hittite and prehistorical interactions in South-Central Anatolia to provide a broader view of long-term structures and their impact on Hittite imperial dynamics.
Rethinking the Qur'ān in Late Antiquity
How the Qur'ān reflects on and responds to the regional cultural, religious and political currents swirling in Western Arabia and neighboring areas during the great war, 603-630, between the Roman and Sasanian empires? The book approaches the Qur'ān through six case studies. The first two consider the era 200-800 CE, which classicist Peter Brown dubbed late antiquity. The second two contextualize quranic stories and tropes in the era of Herakleios and Khosrow II. The final pair consider issues in how the Qur'ān was constituted, both physically and stylistically, and also sets these processes in their late antique context. The book treats the constitution of the quranic text, first physically and then rhetorically. The use in the Qur'ān of the technique of narrative apostrophe is for the first time subjected to a concerted analysis. These themes are all united by a concern to understand better issues in why the Qur'ān makes certain narrative choices, how the narrative changes over time, and how it articulates with other texts and perspectives.
The Court of the Caliphate of Al-Andalus
During the second half of the 10th/4th century, the Umayyad caliphate of al-Andalus became a powerful political formation in Western Europe. Described by the contemporary German nun Hrotsvitha as the 'ornament of the world', Cordoba was the destiny of embassies and traders coming from places as far away as Constantinople, the Ottoman empire and Italy. The zenith of this political supremacy coincided with the rule of al-Ḥakam II (961-976 CE), whose name is associated with the enlargement of the mosque of Cordoba, the magnificent palatine city of Madīnat al-Zahrāʼ and the rich caliphal library which housed Arab, Latin and Hebrew manuscripts. This book is based on an extraordinary source that had never been the subject of a comprehensive study: the annals written by an official and chronicler of the caliph's court, 'Īs? b. Aḥmad al-Rāzī, who carefully annotated the big and small events of the court. Used by Ibn Ḥayyān to compose one of the volumes of his celebrated Muqtabis, these 'annals' have come to us in a substantial fragment of more than 135 folia that cover the period from June 971 to July 975 CE. This source provides an eye-witness account of the caliphate, which describes with stunning detail all the events, characters, places and narratives of the Umayyad caliphate, and is a fundamental work in helping us to understand the configuration of the Mediterranean in the 10th century CE.
Islamic Studies in European Higher Education
Across Europe there are numerous examples of recent linkages between universities and Islamic seminaries. In Germany the federal 'top-down' experiment, now over ten years old, of establishing departments of Islamic theology in five universities has now recruited over 2000 students, many of whom will end up teaching confessional Islam RE in schools. In the UK, local partnerships have been developed at under- and postgraduate level between e.g. Warwick, Birmingham and Middlesex universities and Islamic seminaries representing a range of Islamic traditions. Similar experiences are being developed on a smaller scale in other countries. These developments, which have taken place against a backdrop of state pressure to 'integrate' Islam and address 'radicalisation', challenge university traditions of 'scientific' approaches to the study of Islam as well as the confessional expectations of faith-based Islamic theological training. By looking more closely at the developing experience in Germany and Britain and selected other countries this volume explores how the two approaches are finding ways of creative cooperation.
Bad Faith
What really gave rise to the Religious Right? There is a commonly accepted story about the rise of the Religious Right in the United States. It goes like this: with righteous fury, American evangelicals entered the political arena as a unified front to fight the legality of abortion after the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The problem is this story simply isn't true. Bad Faith recounts how it was in fact the elimination of tax-exempt status for racially discriminatory Christian institutions, like Bob Jones University, that galvanized evangelicalism into a political force. Only later, when something more palatable was needed to cover for what was becoming an increasingly unpopular position following the civil rights era, was the moral crusade against abortion made the leading issue. Through exhaustive research and trenchant historical analysis, Randall Balmer exposes the ingrained priorities of the Religious Right movement and uncovers the roots of coded evangelical watchwords like "religious freedom" and "family values"--helping to explain, in part, what this movement has become.
Going All The Way With Jesus!
In "Going All The Way With Jesus," you will be encouraged, strengthened and empowered to enable you to daily walk with Jesus without falling away, as the author gives you examples of those in the Bible who walked with the Lord with all their imperfections and never gave up upon God. For we are living in the last days and now more than ever need to remain strong spiritually to abide in the Lord and go all the way with Jesus! May our faith and love for the Lord Jesus Christ, always be strong!
Evangelical Idolatry
"I'm a pastor who is guilty of perpetuating the worship of idols." Like many people today, Jeff Mikels is concerned by the evangelical church's embrace of cultural and political idols. Unlike many people, however, Mikels is a former evangelical pastor who regrets his complicity in this trend. Evangelical Idolatry: How Pastors Like Me Have Failed the People of God is both a confession and a call to repentance. Reflecting on his twenty-year pastoral ministry with candor and humility, Mikels acknowledges the ways he enabled parishioners to develop destructive loyalties to cultural and political idols. As he works to reform his own worldview and embrace allegiance to Christ alone, he urges evangelical pastors and laypeople to join him in reforming their faith and living out the good news of the true gospel.
Essence of Insight
Sayed Shirazi is distinguished for his intellectualability and holistic vision. He has written variousspecialized studies that are considered to be among the most important references in the relevant fields. He has enriched the world with his staggering contribution of more than 1000 books, treatise and studies on various branches of learning. His works range from introductory works for the youth to literary and scientific masterpieces. Deeply rooted in the Holy Qur'an and the teachings of the Prophet of Islam, his vision and theories cover such areas as Legislation, Management, Environment, Sociology, Theology, Philosophy, History Human Rights, Law and Islamic beliefs or doctrine. His work on Islamic Jurisprudence (the al-Fiqh series) for example constitutes 150 volumes, which run into more than 70,000 pages. Through his original thoughts and ideas he has championed the causes of issues such as the family, human rights, freedom of expression, political pluralism, non-violence, and such like.
The Mission of God
Tackle Key Questions from the Past Two Decades in this Fully Updated EditionEngage with the latest scholarship on the biblical theology of mission and missional hermeneutics with Christopher J. H. Wright's classic text--now fully revised and updated!Most Christians would agree that the Bible provides a basis for mission. But Christopher Wright boldly maintains that there is a missional basis for the Bible itself. The entire Bible is generated by and is all about God's mission. In order to understand the Scriptures, we need a missional hermeneutic, an interpretive perspective in sync with the beating heart of its great mission.Wright gives us a new hermeneutical perspective on Scripture through an understanding of: Who God is What he has called his people to be and do How the nations fit into God's missionIn this revised edition of The Mission of God, Wright extends his classic discussion to consider the ways that the conversation on missional hermeneutics has developed since its original publication. With fully updated citations and additional chapters focused on gospel-centered holistic mission and on the issue of election and supersessionism, this new edition addresses the questions, criticisms, and insights that have emerged during the intervening two decades.God's mission is to reclaim the world, and God's people have a designated role to play. Whether you're a pastor, scholar, or student, The Mission of God will benefit your understanding of how the Bible shapes the story and purpose of God's people.
Jewish Law and Italian Local Laws
From Roman times (when Jews first formed communities in Italy) throughout the 19th century (when Jews became emancipated individually but were deprived - as a group - of all their ancient autonomies), Jews remained tied to their separate judicial institutions. Administratively, Jewish communities sought control over their internal affairs (worship, charity, social welfare, schools, education, and their own communal rules) (administrative autonomy). Judicially, they sought recognition of their internal laws as applicable to their civic relations (regulatory autonomy), constantly striving to obtain from the State the authority to bring their community members to trial in their courts of law (judiciary autonomy).
From the Heart
What does it mean to have a heart? How does it feel when a heart fails, and what does it take to recover? In a world beset by never-ending crises--personal and collective, local and global--is heartlessness the only option? From the Heart weaves together a personal narrative of a life-threatening ailment with considerations of philosophy, art, and science to contemplate ultimate questions: matters of life and death. Jeffrey L. Kosky recounts his brush with death--the surgical repair of a congenital defect in his aortic valve--his gradual recovery of everyday life, and his struggle to find the heart to go on throughout it all. To make sense of the experience, he immerses himself in humanistic inquiry and medical science--the histories of medicine, cardiac surgery, and knowledge of the human heart as well as the works of artists, writers, philosophers, and theologians. Writing about the experience of being human from the precarious position of his own woundedness, Kosky shares hard-earned perspectives on what matters most. Combining moving memoir, encounters with major authors and artists, and heartfelt reflections on the "big questions" of existence, this elegantly written book is at once erudite and powerful. It shows us why the heart--in physical, emotional, and metaphorical senses--helps us come to terms with sickness and health, dying and living.
From the Heart
What does it mean to have a heart? How does it feel when a heart fails, and what does it take to recover? In a world beset by never-ending crises--personal and collective, local and global--is heartlessness the only option? From the Heart weaves together a personal narrative of a life-threatening ailment with considerations of philosophy, art, and science to contemplate ultimate questions: matters of life and death. Jeffrey L. Kosky recounts his brush with death--the surgical repair of a congenital defect in his aortic valve--his gradual recovery of everyday life, and his struggle to find the heart to go on throughout it all. To make sense of the experience, he immerses himself in humanistic inquiry and medical science--the histories of medicine, cardiac surgery, and knowledge of the human heart as well as the works of artists, writers, philosophers, and theologians. Writing about the experience of being human from the precarious position of his own woundedness, Kosky shares hard-earned perspectives on what matters most. Combining moving memoir, encounters with major authors and artists, and heartfelt reflections on the "big questions" of existence, this elegantly written book is at once erudite and powerful. It shows us why the heart--in physical, emotional, and metaphorical senses--helps us come to terms with sickness and health, dying and living.
Kalividambanam
Kalividambana is a kavya, or poem, that is said to be the first chapter of the Kamalalaya Mahatmya. This is a brilliant yet short work of 100 verses, all these are composed in the Anushtup metre. As the name suggests, it ridicules the many ills of kali yuga in a satirical way. Its uniqueness is best understood by comparing it with, say, the 'kalimahima' section of Subhashita-ratna-bhandagara, an anthology of subhashitas, or the 'kalidharma-vipaka' parts found in numerous puranas. Nilakantha Dikshita was a candid social commentator and Kalividambanam projects amazing insights about society, presented with lively humor. It ridicules traditional scholars, teachers, doctors, and astrologers - basically everyone with unacceptably corrupt conduct. Nilakantha Dikshita is one among the finest Sanskrit poets in whom we find a synchronization of both erudition and creativity. Idiomatic expressions were his strength. His erudition is extraordinary - his works on shastras bear testimony to this. All these abilities have turned Nilakantha Dikshita into a giant among Sanskrit poets. He lived in the first half of the 17th century C.E., in the Madurai province of Tamil Nadu. He was under the patronage of Tirumala Nayaka, the ruler of Madurai. It can be established that he was born in the year 1613. His parents were Narayana Dikshita and Bhumidevi. They were Shaiva Brahmanas. Nilakantha Dikshita was born into a family of scholars well-versed in grammar, epistemology and philosophy.
The Islamic Mary
Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been historically revered throughout the Islamic tradition. This began already in the Qur'an, where she is called by the name "Maryam." This book examines the varied appearances of Maryam in different Islamic cultural and theological contexts. The chapters in this history extend from Maryam's scriptural mentions in the Qur'an and the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, her appearances in medieval debates regarding prophecy, citations of her virtuous model in Sufi discussions of piety, presentations in art and film, through to her role in modern interfaith relations.
Bible Study Basics
BIBLE STUDY BASICSA Closer Look at God's Word Finding God's Word difficult to understand?Unlock its complicated messages withBible Study Basics. Written by an author with over 40 years Bible teaching experience, Bible Study Basics presents keys to help students, or would be students of the Word, to discover amazing truths from the Bible. With Bible Study Basics you will: Recognize the Bible's two major themes, and in doing so, Discover the Bible's clarity and simplicity.Uncover the bottom line to learning the Bible's precepts.Grasp simple study techniques and Bible study wisdom.Learn a powerful tool which brings the Bible's truths to the surface.Search for the Bible's deeper meaning without getting overwhelmed with BIBLE STUDY BASICSA Closer Look at God's Word Consider, also, the Workbook! ISBN # 978-1-998561-03-2
Unlearning Jewish Anxiety
Confronting the reality, habits, and healing of Jewish anxiety.Jewish anxiety is not all in our heads. Nor is feeling anxious simply a Jewish stereotype, even though many Jews tout anxiety as a stereotypical virtue and ascribe it as a motivator for success. Jewish anxiety is real. We inherit it from our ancestors. We learn it simply by living in an unsafe world as Jewish people. We learn it growing up in Jewish communities. We unconsciously transmit Jewish anxiety to our children through how we remember the past, retell our stories, and celebrate Jewish holidays. We experience Jewish anxiety in how we habitually react to stress, fear, and uncertainty, whether that stress has anything to do with being Jewish. We receive painful messages from the wider world that we internalize as repetitive stress habits of fear, unworthiness, and shame, and then turn these hateful messages on ourselves and each other through the voices of unrelenting internal critics.Jewish anxiety is real, but it is not inevitable. We don't have to suffer simply because of the challenging history or learned patterns we've inherited. We don't have to suffer simply because of who we are in the world, or how the world imagines, distorts, and treats Jews. I believe we have more choices about how to respond to life's challenges than we think. I believe we can unlearn these habits with awareness, curiosity, compassion, and courage. I believe Jewish spirituality offers deep wisdom and simple practices for how to release these patterns from our minds and our bodies for good. We can learn how to calm down, suffer less, and get free. I believe we can choose to live with more joy, despite the conspiracy theories and hatred.
Pursuing the Path of the Tijaniyya
Shaykh Muhammad al-Hafiz al-Masri's concise treatise, Pursuing the Path of the Tijaniyya (Qasd al-Sabeel fi al-Tareeqah al-Tijaniyyah), provides a comprehensive and succinct compilation of the essential conditions of the Tariqa Tijaniyya, as derived from the foundational works of the path. Born in Egypt in 1315 AH (1897), Shaykh Muhammad al-Hafiz, is recognized as one of the foremost hadith scholars of 20th-century Egypt. In the Tariqa Tijaniyya, Shaykh al-Hafiz obtained Ijazahs from an illustrious lineage of authorities, culminating in his most prominent authorization from Shaykh Ahmad Sukayrij. In this seminal work, Shaykh al-Hafiz categorizes twenty-nine conditions of the Tijaniyya into five key sections, covering the student-teacher relationship, personal conduct, the validity of dhikr, proper manners during dhikr, and the qualifications for teaching the Tijaniyya. An additional chapter provides practical guidance on implementing the awrad in various real-world scenarios. This treatise, though brief-spanning just 26 pages in Arabic-offers a profound roadmap for seekers, illuminating the path of spiritual refinement within the Tariqa Tijaniyya with clarity and depth.
