The Venture of Islam has been honored as a magisterial work of the mind since its publication in early 1975. In this three-volume study, illustrated with charts and maps, Hodgson traces and interprets the historical development of Islamic civilization from before the birth of Muhammad to the middle of the twentieth century. This work grew out of the famous course on Islamic civilization that Hodgson created and taught for many years at the University of Chicago. In the second work of this three-volume set, Hodgson investigates the establishment of an international Islamic civilization through about 1500. This includes a theoretical discussion of cultural patterning in the Islamic world and the Occident. "This is a nonpareil work, not only because of its command of its subject but also because it demonstrates how, ideally, history should be written."—The New Yorker

This concise and authoritative guide provides a complete survey of Islamic history and thought from its formative period to the present day. It examines the unique elements which have combined to form Islam, in particular the Qu'ran and the influence of Muhammad, and traces the ways in which these sources have interacted historically to create Muslim theology and law, as well as the alternative visions of Islam found in Shi'ism and Sufism. Combining core source materials with coverage of current scholarship and of recent events in the Islamic world, Andrew Rippin introduces this hugely diverse and widespread religion in a succinct, challenging and refreshing way. Using a distinctive critical approach which promotes engagement with key issues, from fundamentalism and women's rights to problems of identity and modernity, it is ideal for students seeking to understand Muslims and their faith. The improved and expanded third edition now contains brand new sections on twenty-first century developments, from the Taliban to Jihad and Al Qaeda, and includes updated references throughout.

Al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) is one of the most influential thinkers of Islam. There is hardly a genre of Islamic literature where he is not regarded as a major authority. Islamic Law, Sufism, ethics, philosophy, and theology are all deeply shaped by him. Yet in the past thirty years, the field of Ghazālī-studies has been shaken by the realization that Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 428/1037) and other philosophers had a strong influence on him. Now, after the 900th anniversary at his death, the field emerges stronger than ever. This second volume of Islam and Rationality: The Impact of al-Ghazālī brings together twelve leading experts on al-Ghazālī who write about his thought and the impact it had on later Muslim thinkers. Contributors are: Anna Ayşe Akasoy, Ahmed El Shamsy, Kenneth Garden, Frank Griffel, Jules Janssens, Damien Janos, Taneli Kukkonen, Stephen Ogden, M. Sait Özervarlı, Martin Riexinger, Ulrich Rudolph, and Ayman Shihadeh.

The articles selected for this volume explore emergent issues in the contemporary relationship between Islam and science and present studies of eight major voices in the discourse. Also included is a section on the operationalization of Islamic science in the modern world and a section on studies in traditional Islamic cosmology.

Looks at modern Muslim views on religious authority, including feminism's `new' Islam and shows how these views affect the perception of the Qur'an and the figure of Muhammad in the traditional practice of Islam.

A scholarly and authoritative history of the emergence and growth of Islam in Iran during the early and later medieval periods. This book, by I. P. Petrushevsky, the foremost Soviet Iranologist, was originally published in Russia in 1966. After discussing the Arabian environment in which the faith of Islam arose, and the character—legal, social and doctrinal—of the new message, the author moves on to trace the peculiarly Iranian development of Islamic beliefs, the schisms which arose in its early history, and the eventual creation of a Sunni orthodoxy. Written from the Russian perspective, with Russia's long contact with Iranian and Turkish Muslim neighbors, it provides a stimulating and salutary balance to the study of the Islamic world.