Aamer Hussein takes love to its logical conclusion, Robert Irwin traces the origins of the ghazal (love lyric), Christopher Shackle recites epic Panjabi poems of sacred love and lyrical death, Imranali Panjwani mourns the massacre of Karbala, Martin Rose istaken hostage by Saddam Hussein, Jalees Rahman reflects on Nazi doctors who took delight in deathly experiments, Ramin Jahanbegloo is incarcerated in the notorious Evin prison, Hamza Elahi visits England's Muslim graveyards, Shanon Shah receives valuable guidance on love and sex from the "Obedient Wives Club", Samia Rahman sets out in search of love, Khola Hasan has mixed feelings about her hijab, Sabita Manian promotes love between India and Pakistan, Boyd Tonkin discovers that dead outrank the living in Jerusalem , Alev Adil takes "a night journey through a veiled self" and Irna Qureshi's mother finally makes a decision on her final resting place. Also in this issue: Parvez Manzoor throws scorn on a nihilistic, revisionist history of Islam, Naomi Foyle reads the first novel of a British Palestinian, Ahmad Khan explores the colonial history of The Aborigines' Protection Society, a short story by the famous Fahmida Riaz, Syrian scenarios by Manhal al-Sarraj, poems by Sabrina Mahfouz and Michael Wolf, Rachel Dwyer's list of Top Ten Muslim Characters in Bollywood and Merryl Wyn Davies's "last word" on love and death at the movies.

Iberia is a special place of colliding myths over its Islamic past and the Christian reconquista, the Inquisition and massive expulsion of Muslims and Jews some five centuries ago. Long a land of emigrants and explorers, it has now become home to Europe's latest, rapidly growing Muslim communities. Al Andalus Rediscovered focuses on Iberia's new Muslims, including boatpeople, students, women and clerics, and how they are faring in a largely Roman Catholic region. Also featured are the Spanish and Portuguese officials, academics, NGOs and ordinary citizens who are trying to find better ways to integrate Muslims and other immigrants, despite domestic and European pressures for tougher counter-measures. Nor does Howe neglect the events of March 11, 2004, when Madrid was the site of the most devastating terrorist attack by Muslim extremists in Europe, or the stated ambition of Al Qaeda to recover Al Andalus for Islam. Her book seeks to answer the basic questions: whether an Iberian model of a humane immigration policy is possible in 'fortress' Europe and whether the partisans of the Andalusian spirit of tolerance and diversity can prevail at this time of economic hardship and heightened radicalism in both the Islamic World and the West.

Around the globe, concerns about interfaith relations have led to efforts to find earlier models in Muslim Iberia (al-Andalus). This book examines how Muslim Iberia operates as an icon or symbol of identity in twentieth and twenty-first century narrative, drama, television, and film from the Arab world, Spain, and Argentina. Christina Civantos demonstrates how cultural agents in the present ascribe importance to the past and how dominant accounts of this importance are contested. Civantos's analysis reveals that, alongside established narratives that use al-Andalus to create exclusionary, imperial identities, there are alternate discourses about the legacy of al-Andalus that rewrite the traditional narratives. In the process, these discourses critique their imperial and gendered dimensions and pursue intercultural translation.

This work details relations between Jews and Visigoths, polemic and persecution, and between Jews and Muslims, cooperation and conflict, in medieval Spain, including later Christian Spain. New sources and new insights challenge conventional interpretations.

This classic bestseller — the inspiration for the PBS series — is an "illuminating and even inspiring" portrait of medieval Spain that explores the golden age when Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance (Los Angeles Times). This enthralling history, widely hailed as a revelation of a "lost" golden age, brings to vivid life the rich and thriving culture of medieval Spain, where for more than seven centuries Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance, and where literature, science, and the arts flourished. "It is no exaggeration to say that what we presumptuously call 'Western' culture is owed in large measure to the Andalusian enlightenment...This book partly restores a world we have lost." —Christopher Hitchens, The Nation

In Morocco, Marvine Howe, a former correspondent for The New York Times, presents an incisive and comprehensive review of the Moroccan kingdom and its people, past and present. She provides a vivid and frank portrait of late King Hassan, whom she knew personally and credits with laying the foundations of a modern, pro-Western state and analyzes the pressures his successor, King Mohammed VI has come under to transform the autocratic monarchy into a full-fledged democracy. Howe addresses emerging issues and problems--equal rights for women, elimination of corruption and correction of glaring economic and social disparities--and asks the fundamental question: can this ancient Muslim kingdom embrace western democracy in an era of deepening divisions between the Islamic world and the West?