A comprehensive assessment of the origins and staying power of Middle East autocracies, as well as a sober account of the struggles of state reformers and opposition forces to promote civil liberties, competitive elections and a pluralistic vision of Islam. Drawing on the insights of some 25 leading Western and Middle Eastern scholars, the book highlights the dualistic and often contradictory nature of political liberalization. Yemen suggest, political liberalization - as managed by the state - not only opens new spaces for debate and criticism, but is also used as a deliberate tactic to avoid genuine democratization. In several chapters on Iran, the authors analyze the benefits and costs of limited reform. There, the electoral successes of President Mohammad Khatami and his reformist allies inspired a new generation but have not as yet undermined the clerical establishment's power. By contrast, in Turkey a party with Islamist roots is moving a discredited system beyond decades of conflict and paralysis, following a stunning election victory in 2002. force for change. While acknowledging the enduring attraction of radical Islam throughout the Arab world, the concluding chapters carefully assess the recent efforts of Muslim civil society activists and intellectuals to promote a liberal Islamic alternative. Their struggles to affirm the compatibility of Islam and pluralistic democracy face daunting challenges, not least of which is the persistent efforts of many Arab rulers to limit the influence of all advocates of democracy, secular or religious.

In addition to the Koran, the oral traditions relating to the Prophet Muhammad are the basis for both the practice and understanding of Islam. The Koran is considered to be the direct word of God, while most of the oral traditions are not. However, some have a special status and are considered Divine utterances.In this volume are 101 of these transmissions, collected by the great Sufi mystic and metaphysician Ibn 'Arabi, who died in Damascus in 1240. Regarded by him as authentic revelations from God through His Prophet, the collection ranges from the secrets of prayer to the hypocrisy of supposed believers, from the mysteries of the last day to God's infinite compassion and forgiveness, and to the paramount topics of Divine Love and Divine Unity. For Ibn 'Arabi and Sufi mystics of the past 1,500 years, these words have been the key to the door of mystical realization.But this modern version of Ibn 'Arabi's collection of oral traditions is more than a scholarly translation. It is a contemplative expansion by two contemporary Sufi teachers, Lex Hixon (Nur al-Jerrahi) and his spiritual successor, Fariha al-Jerrahi. Ibn 'Arabi himself wrote, All that is left to us by tradition is words. It is up to us to find out what they mean. In fresh, poetic language, and with their own mystical passion, Hixon and al-Jerrahi bring these sacred diamonds of the Islamic tradition to the modern seeker on the spiritual path to enlightenment.

This book is a collection of essays written over several years. Professor Sulayman S. Nyang has collected them to share with the reading public his insights and research findings on the emerging Muslim community in the United States of America. Working on the assumption that American Muslims are still unknown to most Americans, the author addresses several issues which are relevant to the whole discussion of religious plurality and multiculturalism in American society. Its contents range from Islam and the American Dream to the birth and development of the Muslim press in the United States. -- Publisher description.

“A delightfully original take on…the prospects for liberal democracy in the broader Islamic Middle East.”—Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal As the Arab Spring threatens to give way to authoritarianism in Egypt and reports from Afghanistan detail widespread violence against U.S. troops and women, news from the Muslim world raises the question: Is Islam incompatible with freedom? In Islam without Extremes, Turkish columnist Mustafa Akyol answers this question by revealing the little-understood roots of political Islam, which originally included both rationalist, flexible strains and more dogmatic, rigid ones. Though the rigid traditionalists won out, Akyol points to a flourishing of liberalism in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire and the unique “Islamo-liberal synthesis” in present-day Turkey. As he powerfully asserts, only by accepting a secular state can Islamic societies thrive. Islam without Extremes offers a desperately needed intellectual basis for the reconcilability of Islam and liberty.

Short biographies of the most influential Muslims in history and today. A must-have book.