As its title clearly implies, "Madinan Society at the Time of the Prophet" (SAAS) is a work that brings out the most important aspects of life in the early Muslim community. Its author, the renowned scholar of sirah and Sunnah studies Professor Akram Diya' al'Umari, has expended a great deal of effort in order to make this book more than just a recitation of the historical record. The result is a breakthrough in historiographical methodology, as Dr. al'Umari has effectively succeeded in combining the strict methodological guidelines used by traditional Muslim scholars of the Sunnah and usul al hadith with modern methods of historical criticism. Volume One of this important new work, subtitled "Its Characteristics and Organization", aims at presenting the reader with an accurate description of the society brought about through the efforts of the Prophet (SAAS) and his Companions, the society viewed by every successive generation of Muslims as the ideal in temporal spiritual values.Volume Two of this important new work, subtitled "The Jihad Against the Mushrikun", deals with the all-important subject of the relations of the struggling new community with the forces that threatened its very existence. Without a doubt, the exemplary behavior of the Prophet (SAAS) and his Companions during the long years that they remained under attack has remained a continued source of inspiration for all Muslims. Its contemporary relevance and significance to the Ummah is a matter that needs no explanation.

The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS), established in 1984, is a quarterly, double blind peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary journal, published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), and distributed worldwide. The journal showcases a wide variety of scholarly research on all facets of Islam and the Muslim world including subjects such as anthropology, history, philosophy and metaphysics, politics, psychology, religious law, and traditional Islam.

For too long now, the Qur’an and the Sunnah, great sources of strength, purity, knowledge and inspiration for the Ummah, have not been adequately tapped. Skirting their peripheries or over-dwelling on one or two of their multifarious facets and tributaries has done a disservice to the immense potential of the fountainhead, while denying the Ummah- indeed the whole world- innumerable benefits from them. Now that the Ummah is becoming increasingly aware of its own problems as well as latent powers, and yearns to revive its leading role in the forging of history and cilization, the issue of drawing on the wellspring becomes more relevant and urgent. Revisiting these two sources is no longer a scholastic, academic, nostalgic, or escapist indulgence, but a great journey of discovery that promises untold rewards. Paradoxically, the journey through the resplendent pages of the Qur’an and the Sunnah to a time and place in the past should yield a more mature awareness of the dynamics of social and historical change and a human being’s role on earth, honing and sharpening the Muslims’ capacity to deal with the demands of the present moment and the challenges of the future. Suggestions for a new reading of the Qur’an and the Sunnah have been put forward from Islamic and other angles in the recent years. In this book Dr. Al-Alwani and Dr. Khalil, two well-known Muslim thinkers, contribute their views for a proper approach to these sources from within the Islamic framework.

Considering that the accepted juridical sources of Islam are valid for all times and places, ijtiahd may be described as a creative but disciplined intellectual effort to derive legal rulings from those sources while taking into consideration the variables imposed by the fluctuating circumstances of Muslim society. Consigning ijtihad to be annals of history is a denial of the rationalistic, egalitarian, and humane aspects of a realistic and durable Faith. The act would be a repudiation of the requisites of changing times and of the clamoring need to rid the Ummah of its present baggage of malaise and enable it to forge ahead, inspiring other nations and communities. It can be proved historically that the Ummah only entered its current crisis after ijtihad fell into disuse and was gradually replaced by taqlid. It is only through ijtihad that Muslims will be able to construct a new specific methodological infrastructure capable of addressing the crisis of Islamic thought and so, propose alternatives for the many problems of the contemporary world. The courage that needs to accompany such a mission is tremendous, the methodology massive an meticulous. With this work, Dr Al-Alwani has contributed to the debate on this vital issue. The very way he tackled it-sometimes with boldness, sometimes with caution-shows that the debate is not an open-and shut issue, and that it needs to be widen quickly in view of the urgency of the situation.

This paper not only addresses the intellectual crisis in the Muslim world as manifested in the present state of Muslim thought, knowledge, education, and civilization- a crisis which is directly responsible for the Muslim world's social, economic, and political problems- but it also presents compelling and thought-provoking ideas for an alternative cultural strategy likely to alleviate the Ummah's malaise and benefit humanity at large. Dr. Al-Alwani argues that the proposed cultural strategy has never been so urgent and imperative and must establish the Islamic world view with rational educational policies on the basis of firm principles and as far-sighted strategy with the aim of dispelling the religious/secular disparity in education while keeping constantly in touch with our time.

Comparative Economic Theory: Occidental and Islamic Perspectives seeks first to elucidate the nature and methodology of Islamic political economy as a process-oriented social economy guided by its cardinal epistemology of Oneness of God (Divine Unity). From this premise is then derived the episteme of unification of knowledge upon which is developed the methodological content of an extremely interactive, integrative and revolutionary world-view of political economy and a meta-theory of the socio-scientific order. Secondly, while laying out the building blocks of Islamic political economy and its much wider methodological implication for the socio-scientific order, this book offers a comparative study of occidental thought in the same areas. Thirdly, topics of microeconomics and macroeconomic theory are covered. This book concludes with chapters on methodology and an analytical postscript to show how the interactive, integrative and evolutionary world-view of knowledge-induced systems described by the Islamic political economy presents new visions of scientific thinking.