Early Islamic Qiblas

Early Islamic Qiblas
Author: Dan Gibson
Publisher: Independent Scholar's Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2017
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781927581223

For the first time in history Dan Gibson has undertaken a comprehensive survey of Islamic mosques from the first two centuries of Islam. Using this data, Gibson demonstrates that Muhammad and the first four caliphs never knew of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. This book shatters old perspective about Islamic history and is unlocking the truth about Islam.

Finding Mecca in America

Finding Mecca in America
Author: Mucahit Bilici
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2012-12-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226922871

The events of 9/11 had a profound impact on American society, but they had an even more lasting effect on Muslims living in the United States. Once practically invisible, they suddenly found themselves overexposed. By describing how Islam in America began as a strange cultural object and is gradually sinking into familiarity, Finding Mecca in America illuminates the growing relationship between Islam and American culture as Muslims find a homeland in America. Rich in ethnographic detail, the book is an up-close account of how Islam takes its American shape. In this book, Mucahit Bilici traces American Muslims’ progress from outsiders to natives and from immigrants to citizens. Drawing on the philosophies of Simmel and Heidegger, Bilici develops a novel sociological approach and offers insights into the civil rights activities of Muslim Americans, their increasing efforts at interfaith dialogue, and the recent phenomenon of Muslim ethnic comedy. Theoretically sophisticated, Finding Mecca in America is both a portrait of American Islam and a groundbreaking study of what it means to feel at home.

The Nabataeans

The Nabataeans
Author: Dan Gibson
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2004-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781413427356

Every year thousands of tourists visit the spectacular city of Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabataean Empire. Here massive monuments have been carved out of the ancient Jordanian mountains. Hundreds of magnificent tombs looked down on a city complete with colonnaded streets, coliseums, baths, temples, gardens and pools. Who were the people who carved this city into the red rose, sandstone mountains of Arabia? Why did they hide their city in a cleft in the rock? Why did they come here and why did they leave this spectacular site? Today archeologists and historians are piecing together the answers to these puzzling questions. And as the pieces slowly fall together, a picture is emerging of a fascinating people who traveled from China to Rome, building an empire of incredible wealth and opulence. Discover the fascinating story and mystery that surrounds this ancient people: The Nabataeans. To learn more, visit http: //nabataea.net

Bayt Al-Maqdis: Jerusalem and early Islam

Bayt Al-Maqdis: Jerusalem and early Islam
Author: Julian Raby
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 416
Release: 1999
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780197280188

At the end of the seventh century A.D., the Muslims rebuilt the former Temple Mount and created one of the most potent religious sites in the world. The articles in these volumes look at the different aspects of the architecture and the intentions of the builders in establishing this complex.

Doctrinal Instruction in Early Islam

Doctrinal Instruction in Early Islam
Author: Maher Jarrar
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2020-05-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004429050

Ghulām Khalīl’s (d. 275/888) creed is a statement of faith and a guide for determining belief and unbelief. It, moreover, aims to regulate social behaviour. The present study offers a fascinating examination of this important creed, along with a critical edition of the Arabic text and a new English translation.

Did Muhammad Exist?

Did Muhammad Exist?
Author: Robert Spencer
Publisher: Bombardier Books
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2021-07-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1642938548

Is there any sound historical evidence that the prophet of Islam actually existed, or is the entire story of Muhammad fable or fiction? It is a question that few have thought—or dared—to ask. Virtually everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, takes for granted that the prophet of Islam lived as a prophet, as well as a political and military leader, in seventh-century Arabia. But this widely accepted story begins to crumble on close examination. In his blockbuster New York Times bestseller The Truth about Muhammad, historian and Islam expert Robert Spencer revealed the often shocking contents of Islamic teachings about Muhammad. Now, in this newly revised and expanded version of Did Muhammad Exist?, he lays bare those teachings’ surprisingly shaky historical foundations. This updated and enlarged version of this acclaimed book examines even more striking and compelling evidence that the story of Muhammad, who for so long was assumed to have lived in the “full light of history,” could be more myth and legend than historical fact. Spencer meticulously examines historical records and archaeological findings, pioneering new scholarship to reconstruct what we can know about Muhammad, the Qur’an, and the early days of Islam. The evidence he presents challenges the most fundamental assumptions about Islam’s origins.

The Qarmatians, from Concept to State

The Qarmatians, from Concept to State
Author: Mai Mohammed Al Khalifa
Publisher: Bookbaby
Total Pages: 574
Release: 2019-12-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9781543981179

In The Qarmatians From Concept to State, author Mai Mohammed Al Khalifa provides a fascinating reinvestigation of 7th-10th century Islamic and Middle East history in Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. Up until recent times, Bahrainis referred to their madhab (religious school) and self-identified as 'Abu Sa'idis' in reference to Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi (d. 913 CE), founder of the independent Qarmatian state in Bahrain. Based on the principle of al-ulfahâ'brotherly love' and camaraderie, that polity, which persisted for a century-and-a-half (ca., 899-1078 CE), provided the world with a unique political and socio-economic model of Islam. Most frequently remembered for their bands of fast-roving horsemen committed to a Spartan, desert code and Abu Tahir al-Jannabi's (d. 944 CE) infamous seizure of the hajar al-aswad ('black stone') from the ka'bah in Mecca, the Qarmatians merit serious academic consideration for the fact that the viable states and forms of equitable human society evolved under Hamdan Qarmat in al-Kufah and Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi in Bahrain remain unique in the annals of history. Their mode of living presaged vital concerns of our era including: socialization of wealth and means of production; gender-equality; group-/ collective decision making (under the Islamic democratic principle of shura); and abolition of private property, in a system of social status and merit according to ethical conduct and service to community. Meticulously detailed research and a vivid history covering the rise of forms of state in Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain lay open to question common assumptions about 'Islam' and Islamic historiography. A uniquely Ba?raini perspective raises provocative possibilities that the political and socio-economic model of the Qarmatians might have been closer than anything under the Umayyads or 'Abbasids to the original Islam and initial dar al-hijrah ('house of emigration') of the first Muslim community established by the Prophet Muhammad in Medina (Yathrib), ca. 622-632 CE. At conceptual and philosophical levels, early Isma?ili-Qarma?ian doctrine and derivative projects of state are, arguably, the best expressions 'on the ground' of the principles of the Risa?il of the Ikhwan al-Safa' (The Treatises of the 'Brethren of Purity'), which summarized the known scientific, mathematical, philosophical and religious knowledge of the ancient world as collected, emended and translated under the Bayt al-Hikmah ('House of Wisdom'). At the level of credo, the Qarmatians may have drawn inspiration from the greatest Sufi of all time, al-Husayn bin Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 922 CE). In the integration of science, philosophy and religion with parameters for equitable and egalitarian human coexistence the Qarmatians merit renewed attention as the society they evolved may have indeed reflected the legal intents (maqasid al-shari'ah) of Islamic law in a highly progressive form, unprecedented up until today. This book makes meaningful contribution to the field in its depth of analysis and reliance on previously overlooked Bahraini sources. The author's dispassionate and unbiased approach cracks the façade of dubious historiographical suppositions and accretions and sheds new light in a highly politicized domain where politics and dynastic intrigue have frequently been confounded with Islam. Readers are poised to revisit, witness and ponder a new reading of the history of the Qarmatians and the formative period of Islam itself with an open mind.Author Mai Mohammed Al Khalifa, historian and founder of the Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa Center for Culture and Research, is the Chairperson of the Board of the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage and the Minister of Culture of Bahrain.Translated by Abdullah Richard Lux, professor of Arabic, former Director of Translation at the Centre for Arab Unity Studies (CAUS) in Beirut and previous Executive Editor of Contemporary Arab Affairs (Routledge, UK).

The Hidden Origins of Islam

The Hidden Origins of Islam
Author: Karl-Heinz Ohlig
Publisher:
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2010
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Based on the premise that reliable history can only be written on the basis of sources that are contemporary with the events described, the contributors to this in-depth investigation present research that reveals the obscure origins of Islam in a completely new light.

The Medieval Islamic Hospital

The Medieval Islamic Hospital
Author: Ahmed Ragab
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2015-10-14
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1107109604

The first monograph on Islamic hospitals, this volume examines their origins, development, architecture, social roles, and connections to non-Islamic institutions.