The Hadith are Islam’s most influential texts after the Qur’an. They outline in detail what the Qur’an often leaves unsaid. The Hadith are a foundation for Islamic law and theology and a key to understanding the worldview of Islam and why many Muslims do the things they do. This book subjects the Hadith to a critical analysis from a biblical perspective. In a scholarly and respectful way, it exposes significant inconsistencies within these ancient documents and highlights potential problems with the Muslim-Christian interface.

"In this wide-ranging and masterly work, Ahmad Dallal examines the significance of scientific knowledge and situates the culture of science in relation to other cultural forces in Muslim societies. He traces the ways the realms of scientific knowledge and religious authority were delineated historically. For example, the emergence of new mathematical methods revealed that many mosques built in the early period of Islamic expansion were misaligned relative to the Ka'ba in Mecca; this misalignment was critical because Muslims must face Mecca during their five daily prayers. The realization of a discrepancy between tradition and science often led to demolition and rebuilding and, most important, to questioning whether scientific knowledge should take precedence over religious authority in a matter where their realms clearly overlapped"--Page 2 of cover.

This book is an attempt to explore why Muslims are in conflict with themselves, and why Muslims have been living in an isolation and intellectual vacuum. This book is an attempt to find out why Islam, as embodied in the Mushaf, calls for a sharply different set of norms than those adopted by the majority of Muslims. To search for answers, the book uses, as much as possible, two sources: the first is critical reasoning, and the second is the Mushaf. In sharp contrast to the vast majority of books on Islam, this one does not base the validity of it's argument on the stature of past or present Muslim personalities and scholars irrespective of their high status and reverence amongst the majority of Muslims. The book takes a methodical approach to analyzing the techniques that evolved throughout the ages to marginalize the Muslims' mind and to project reason as the archenemy of Islam. It analyses alleged prophetic narratives (Hadith) and interpretations of the Mushaf by prominent jurists to confirm that rationalism and reason were both, and largely, disconnected from Muslims' intellectual discourse, at least in the overwhelmingly dominant religious material that has reached us. This book analyses fundamental contradictions in the way the vast majority of Muslims perceive Islam, and how the conceived and practiced Muslim or "Islamic" doctrines lack a foundation in the Mushaf. The book goes behind the scene, so to speak, to analyze reasons behind such a perceived disconnect. The book provides a context to the severe intellectual underdevelopment amongst most Muslims vis-à-vis their understanding of their religion. It looks at canonized practices and doctrines that emerged throughout the ages through dubious scholarship to maintain a docile, hopeless, aimless, and subservient Muslim umma. It brings to the forefront stark contradictions between the canonized Muslim doctrines and the Mushaf that many Muslims choose to ignore. The book challenges the use of Hadith as a source of Islamic legislation. It takes an unconventional perspective of the Mushaf's exegesis and reaches conclusions that are based on reason and the Mushaf's direct text, yet are contradictory to conventional Muslim doctrines. The book explores the culture of violence championed by the historically triumphant Muslim scholars, jurisprudents and clergy, whose "scholarship" triumphed, and morphed that of other scholars who put the Mushaf first and everything else as secondary. It questions whether such culture inspired past and contemporary violent movements. The book revisits fundamental doctrines and canonized laws and looks carefully at their evolution and their connection to the Mushaf. Two chapters in the book address the two most important sources of Islamic Law: Hadith and the Mushaf. The analyses in these two chapters lead to unconventional conclusions, thus establishing a new perspective that stems purely from the Mushaf and critical reasoning. The conclusions in these two chapters put Hadith in a perspective and context that is completely non-convergent with prevailing Muslim doctrines. The conclusions have direct implications on what is typically perceived as Islamic law and the controversial doctrine of Sharia.

The Prophetic Tradition: The Challenge of Islam is an enlightening set of lectures given by Norman O. Brown during the 1980s, exploring a wide-ranging array of topics concerning Islam. Brown reveals the overlooked relationship between Islam and early Christianity, exploring Islam’s relation to, and revision of, the Christian tradition, the literary innovation of the Qu’ran, the nature of revolutionary and political Islam, and the vision of a world civilization. Throughout these lectures, which are remarkably pertinent today, Brown seeks to educate the reader on misunderstood areas of Islam, including the split between the Sunni and Shi’ite sects and Islam’s exemplification of the broad themes of art and imagination in human life. The author’s world-historical perspective of religion and tradition gives readers a crucial alternative to the divisive “clash of civilizations” view that paints Islam as at odds with the West. He exposes the unifying strands between Islam and early Judeo-Christian doctrine, showing that Islam is in fact a genuine part of “Western” tradition, and more importantly, part of a global tradition that embraces us all.

Through a close, contextualized, and interdisciplinary reading in Hadith compilations, theological treatises, and historical sources, this book offers an evaluation and understanding of the traditionalistic endeavours to define anthropomorphism in the most crucial and indeed most formative period of Islamic thought.

This book is the first work that comprehensively presents the accounts of Lia Eden, a former flower arranger who claims to have received divine messages from the Archangel Gabriel and founded the divine Eden Kingdom in her house in Jakarta. This book places Lia Eden’s prophetic trajectory in the context of diverse Indonesian spiritual and religious traditions, by which hundreds of others also claimed to have been commanded by God to lead people and to establish religious groups. This book offers a fresh approach towards the rich Indonesian religious and spiritual traditions with particular attention to the accounts of the emergence of indigenous prophets who founded some popular religions. It presents the history of prophetic tradition which remains alive in Indonesian society from the colonial to reform period. It also explores the ways in which these prophets rebelled against two hegemonies: colonial power in the past and Islamic orthodoxy in the present. The discussion of this book focuses on Lia Eden including her biography, claims to prophethood and divinity, the development of her group Eden Kingdom, her challenge to Islamic orthodoxy under the banner of the MUI (Indonesian Ulama Council), her persecution by radical groups, her experiences in court trials and imprisonment, and public responses to her emergence. The discussion also covers other themes currently drawing public attention in Indonesia, such as pluralism, religious freedom, tolerance, discrimination against minorities, and secularisation.

The voices in this book belong to parliamentarians, city councillors, doctors and engineers, a few professors, lawyers and social workers, owners of small businesses, translators, and community activists. They are also all Muslims, who have decided to become engaged in political and civic organizations. And for that reason, they constantly have to explain themselves, mostly in order to say who they are not. They are not fundamentalists, not terrorists, and most do not support the introduction of Islamic religious law in Europe - especially not its application to Christians. This book is about who these people are, and what they want. This book is based on three hundred interviews with European Muslim leaders from six European countries: Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, and Germany. The question of Islam in Europe is not a matter of global war and peace but raises difficult questions about the positions of Christianity and Islam in public life, and about European identities. Europe's Muslim political leaders are not aiming to overthrow liberal democracy and to replace secular law with Islamic religious law. Those are the positions of a minority. There is not one Muslim position on how Islam should develop in Europe but many views, and most Muslims are rather looking for ways to build institutions that will allow European Muslims to practice their religion in a way that is compatible with social integration.