Praise for Bernard Lewis "For newcomers to the subject[el]Bernard Lewis is the man." TIME Magazine “The doyen of Middle Eastern studies." The New York Times “No one writes about Muslim history with greater authority, or intelligence, or literary charm.” British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper “Bernard Lewis has no living rival in his field.” Al Ahram, Cairo (the most influential Arab world newspaper) "When it comes to Islamic studies, Bernard Lewis is the father of us all. With brilliance, integrity, and extraordinary mastery of languages and sources, he has led the way for[el]investigators seeking to understand the Muslim world." National Review "Bernard Lewis combines profound depth of scholarship with encyclopedic knowledge of the Middle East and, above all, readability." Daily Telegraph (London) "Lewis speaks with authority in prose marked by lucidity, elegance, wit and force." Newsday (New York) "Lewis' style is lucid, his approach, objective." Philadelphia Inquirer "Lewis writes with unsurpassed erudition and grace." Washington Times An objective, easy-to-read introduction to Islam by Bernard Lewis, one of the West’s leading experts on Islam For many people, Islam remains a mystery. Here Bernard Lewis and Buntzie Ellis Churchill examine Islam: what its adherents believe and how their religion has shaped them, their rich and diverse cultures, and their politics over more than 14 centuries. Considered one of the West’s leading experts on Islam, Lewis, with Churchill, has written an illuminating introduction for those who want to understand the faith and the global challenges it confronts and presents. Whatever your political, personal, or religious views, this book will help you understand Islam’s reality. Lewis and Churchill answer questions such as... • How does Islam differ from Judaism and Christianity? • What are the pillars of the Islamic faith? • What does Islam really say about peace and jihad? • How does the faith regard non-Muslims? • What are the differences between Sunni and Shi’a? • What does Islam teach about the position of women in society? • What does Islam say about free enterprise and profit? • What caused the rise of radical Islam? • What are the problems facing Muslims in the U.S. and Europe and what are the challenges posed by those minorities?

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

This is the first English translations of one of the most popular manuals of Islam ever written. It is divided into seventy-seven chapters, each dealing with a major aspect of Islam, giving the relevant Quranic verses and authentic Hadiths for each. The book is an essential tool for all English-speaking Muslims.

An exploration of how Muslims in the United States have interpreted the Qur'an in ways that make it speak to their American realities In Speaking Qur'an: An American Scripture, Timur R. Yuskaev examines how Muslim Americans have been participating in their country's cultural, social, religious, and political life. Essential to this process, he shows, is how the Qur'an has become an evermore deeply American text that speaks to central issues in the lives of American Muslims through the spoken-word interpretations of Muslim preachers, scholars,and activists. Yuskaev illustrates this process with four major case studies that highlight dialogues between American Muslim public intellectuals and their audiences. First, through an examination of the work of Fazlur Rahman, he addresses the question of how the premodern Qur'an is translated across time into modern, American settings. Next the author contemplates the application of contemporary concepts of gender to renditions of the Qur'an alongside Amina Wadud's American Muslim discourses on justice.Then he demonstrates how the Qur'an becomes a text of redemption in W. D. Mohammed's oral interpretation of the Qur'an as speaking directly to the African American experience. Finally he shows how, before and after 9/11, Hamza Yusuf invoked the Qur'an as a guide to the political life of American Muslims. Set within the rapidly transforming contexts of the last half century, and central to the volume, are the issues of cultural translation and embodiment of sacred texts that Yuskaev explores by focusing on the Qur'an as a spoken scripture. The process of the Qur'an becoming an American sacred text, he argues, is ongoing. It comes to life when the Qur'an is spoken and embodied by its American faithful.

America’s leading religious scholar and public intellectual introduces lay readers to the Qur’an with a measured, powerful reading of the ancient text Garry Wills has spent a lifetime thinking and writing about Christianity. In What the Qur’an Meant, Wills invites readers to join him as he embarks on a timely and necessary reconsideration of the Qur’an, leading us through perplexing passages with insight and erudition. What does the Qur’an actually say about veiling women? Does it justify religious war? There was a time when ordinary Americans did not have to know much about Islam. That is no longer the case. We blundered into the longest war in our history without knowing basic facts about the Islamic civilization with which we were dealing. We are constantly fed false information about Islam—claims that it is essentially a religion of violence, that its sacred book is a handbook for terrorists. There is no way to assess these claims unless we have at least some knowledge of the Qur’an. In this book Wills, as a non-Muslim with an open mind, reads the Qur’an with sympathy but with rigor, trying to discover why other non-Muslims—such as Pope Francis—find it an inspiring book, worthy to guide people down through the centuries. There are many traditions that add to and distort and blunt the actual words of the text. What Wills does resembles the work of art restorers who clean away accumulated layers of dust to find the original meaning. He compares the Qur’an with other sacred books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, to show many parallels between them. There are also parallel difficulties of interpretation, which call for patient exploration—and which offer some thrills of discovery. What the Qur’an Meant is the opening of a conversation on one of the world’s most practiced religions.

American Muslim religious liberty lawyer Asma Uddin has long considered her work defending people of all faiths to be a calling more than a job. Yet even as she seeks equal protection for Evangelicals, Sikhs, Muslims, Native Americans, Jews, and Catholics alike, she has seen an ominous increase in attempts to criminalize Islam and exclude Muslim Americans from those protections.Somehow, the view that Muslims aren’t human enough for human rights or constitutional protections is moving from the fringe to the mainstream—along with the claim “Islam is not a religion.” This conceit is not just a threat to the First Amendment rights of American Muslims. It is a threat to the freedom of all Americans.Her new book reveals a significant but overlooked danger to our religious liberty. Woven throughout this national saga is Uddin’s own story and the stories of American Muslims and other people of faith who have faced tremendous indignities as they attempt to live and worship freely.Combining her experience of Islam as a religious truth and her legal and philosophical appreciation that all individuals have a right to religious liberty, Uddin examines the shifting tides of American culture and outlines a way forward for individuals and communities navigating today’s culture wars.

An introductory guide to the important elements of the world's largest religion, including the Quran, the Pillars of Faith, and the life of Muhammad, as well as Islamic history, customs and rituals, and contributions to world culture. Essential Islam: A Comprehensive Guide to Belief and Practice is the ideal beginner's resource on the core elements of a faith that, like Christianity and Judaism, offers a guide to holy living and a path to salvation—one that like other world faiths has inspired peace and war, tolerance and brutality, enlightenment and abysmal ignorance. Essential Islam offers an insightful, objective look at Islam from its inception to the present day, including a discussion of Islamic beliefs about God, history, warfare, marriage, the afterlife, and the relationship between Islam and other faiths. It is a rich source for dispelling misconceptions—for example, only 10 percent of Muslims are Arabic, and only a quarter of those reside in the Middle East—and for understanding tensions between groups within and outside Islam. More importantly, it gives readers a portrait of Islam not as a religion of extremists, but as a dynamic living faith practiced by people of all kinds in virtually every corner of the world.