Marriage Contract Party of the First Part: Jake McClellan I promise to hold Laura when she cries at silly movies, pour tea for Molly and her friends at tea parties and be the official family mistletoe hanger. From this day forward Molly is my daughter…and Laura is my wife, friend and…lover. Party of the Second Part: Laura Halstead I promise to laugh at Jake's jokes, ride shotgun on his tandem bicycle and eat the fish he catches (though I refuse to clean them…). I gladly welcome him into my house, into my bed and into my…life. Both Parties do hereby decree that this contract is based solely on convenience, and not on matters of the heart… A most convenient arrangement…until they fell in love.

The Sensuous Sheikh: Married for Duty Newly crowned Sheikh Zayed Al Afzal needs to earn his people's allegiance. And that means the one thing this wicked playboy has always avoided--marriage! His viziers may have a bevy of beautiful options for him, but when Zayed meets exquisite Nadia Amani he makes a choice that's all his own. Now, with the wedding contract signed and sealed, Zayed learns the shocking truth--Nadia is his enemy's daughter! But in the dark desert nights Zayed's desire for his princess intensifies and anger gives way to a sensual hunger that begs to be satisfied... The world's sexiest billionaires finally say "I do!"

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Heidelberg Catechism was first issued in the kingdom of the Electoral Palatinate in the year 1563. As early as 1623 it was translated into the Malay language, a predecessor of the modern-day Indonesian language. This Malay translation was used all over the Indonesian archipelago to teach newly converted Christians and to prepare them for baptism. Even now the Heidelberg Catechism is used in many Indonesian churches and connects them to many other reformed churches all over the world where the Heidelberg Catechism is being used also. One of these Indonesian churches is the Christian Church from North-Central Java (Gereja Kristen Jawa Tengah Utara - GKJTU), a fruit of the missionary work of Neukirchen Mission and Salatiga Mission. Nevertheless, in the 21st century the Indonesian churches have to face many new challenges in the field of culture, religious plurality, science and technology, etc. As an answer to these challenges the Synod Assembly of the Christian Church from North-Central Java launched this 21st Century Update of the Heidelberg Catechism in 2008. Even for Christians outside Indonesia these 69 questions and answers may be helpful in facing modern challenges which are surprisingly similar in Indonesia and in other parts of the world, such as: "How can culture be renewed?" - "According to the Christian faith, where does religious plurality come from?" - "May the church be active in politics?" - "Does salvation in Christ also affect science, humanities and technology?" - and 65 other interesting questions and answers, all of them very brief, concise and biblically based. The purpose of this annotated English translation is to make these questions and answers accessible for Christians outside Indonesia.

It is often said that marriage in Islamic law is a civil contract, not a sacrament. If this is so, this means that the marriage contract is largely governed by the same rules as other contracts, such as sale or hire. But at the same time marriage is a profound concern of the Islamic scriptures of Qur’an and Sunna, and thus at the very core of the law and morality of Islam and of the individual, familial, and social life of Muslims. This volume collects papers from many disciplines examining the Muslim marriage contract. Articles cover doctrines as to marriage contracts (e.g., may a wife stipulate monogamy?); historical instances (e.g., legal advice from thirteenth-century Spain); comparisons with Jewish and canon law; contemporary legal and social practice; and projects of activists for women worldwide. Demonstrating a new and powerful focus for comparative and historical inquiries into Islamic law and social practices, this book marks a fresh point of departure for the study of Muslim women.

Preface I have been teaching the history of performing arts and Javanese dance, Yogyakarta style, for twenty years, and there have always been two features of this history that made me think and rethink: (1) wayang wong was never performed outside the palace’s walls until the first quarter of the twentieth century, becase it was considered a pusaka (sacred heiloom): and (2) wayang wong performances were always put on the Tratag Bangsal Kĕncana stage and started at dawn. Numerous ex-wayang wong dancers of the Yogyakarta court gave me the same answers to my questions about hese facts. They said that: (1) wayang wong was a pusaka because it was created by Sultan Hamĕngkubuwana I; and (2) wayang wong performances we put on stage at the dawn of the day because it was karsa-Dalĕm, the Sultan’s will. In my opinion, there must be something particularly significant behind the creation of wayang wong, because the Surakarta court never performed this dance genre, and I realized that to obtain satisfactory answers to these questions I would have to do extensive research on this subject. In August, 1977, when I participated in the World Music Congress at Berkeley, I met Professor Judith Becker. On onve occasion I taled with her concerning the possibility of my pursuin a Ph.D. degree at the University of Michigan with a dissertation topic, “Wayang Wong”. She responded wholeheartedly and, without any delay, made a long distance call to her husband, Professor Alton L. Becker. Both of them became my teachers, advisors and co-chairmen. After my return from Berkeley I started to do research on some aspects of wayang wong. In 1980 I began my course work in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan emphasizing three areas of study: (1) Southeast Asian Performance Traditions; (2) Southeast Asian History; and (3) Southeast Asian Literature. With the assistance of the Asian Cultural Council I continued my research at the Asia Society and the Library of Performing Arts in New York. There I scrutinized wayang wong films, especially the one of the lakon Mintaraga made by Mr. Tassilo Adam in 1926. Although the film is very choppy, it gave me priceless information about he magnificent production and also about the large audience of kawula-Dalĕm, the Sultan’s subjects. Who witnessed the perfor-mance. With the assistance of the Asian Cultural Council, the Ford Foundation and the University of Michigan I returned to Java during the summer of 1981 to continue by research at the Yogya-karta court libraries. The Sanabudaya Museum, and to interview numerous ex-wayang wong dancers. From these activities the first evidence for my hypothesis emerged, i.e., that wayang wong was a state ritual and not just a mere entertainment in the Yogyakarta court. By reading numerous wayang wong texts –Sĕrat Kandha and Sĕrat Pocapan, all in Javanese handwriting--, manuscripts about he Yogyakarta’s pusakas, and by analysing the conception of kingship of Mataram, I obtainded enough data to confirm my hypothesis further. It became apparent to me that wayang wong was created by Sultan Hamĕngkubuwana I in the late 1970’s as a revival of the Old javanese wayang wang. Photographs play a significant role in this work, since visual information about this dance drama gives us a clear image of numerous scenes. With the exception of figures nos. 1317, 69 and 84 all the photographs and pictures are from my own collection and drawing. Photographs are, nevertheless, motionless shots of dance movement and, therefore, cannot distinguish the movements of one character from another. Hence I have felt it necessary to put the basic movements of the twenty-one wayang wong types of character in Labanotation.