Forbidding Wrong in Islam: An Introduction (Themes in Islamic History)
by Michael Cook, Patricia Crone
Michael Cook's classic study, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 2001), reflected upon the Islamic injunction to forbid wrongdoing. This book is a short, accessible survey of the same material. Using Islamic history to illustrate his argument, Cook unravels the complexities of the subject by demonstrating how the past informs the present. At the book's core is an important message about the values of Islamic traditions and their relevance in the modern world.
Doctrines of Shi`i Islam: A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices
by Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, Reza Shah Kazemi (Translator)This wide-ranging, comprehensive overview of the main theological and jurisprudential tenets of Shi'i Islam deals with such issues as the nature of being and the problem of evil. The range of themes covered, its precise style, and the means by which traditional Shi'i beliefs and practices are substantiated render this book both informative and original. It offers a valuable insight into mainstream ideological thinking within the official religious establishment in Iran today.
About the AuthorAyatollah Ja'far Sobhani is a senior member of the Council of Mujtahids of the Howza Seminary and Director of the Imam Sadiq Institute, both in Iran.
Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi'ite Islamby Juan ColeJuan Cole examines Shi'i Islam as a world religion that has faced modernity on its own terms. He explores the little known history of Shi'i communities as far afield asBahrain and India, giving attention as well to important centers such as Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. He demonstrates the way in which the Shi'is have sought to define space and time as sacred, and to defend those spaces from encroachment by the Other, whether that other be Sunni Arab, Hindu, or European Christian.
About the AuthorJuan Cole
is Professor of History at the University of Michigan and the editor ofInternational Journal of Middle East Studies.
The Shi'is of Iraq
by Yitzhak NakashNakash's account of the process of community formation in Iraq has fascinating implications for modern Middle Eastern history. In that broad historical revolution which is the settlement of the Middle Eastern tribes, we can see that the agents were: Sufism in most of the Sunni countries; fundamentalist Islam inArabia; and Shi'ism inIraq and Iran. In each case, the primitive Islam of the tribes takes on a new form as an accompaniment to a fundamental change in economic and social life.
The Shi'is of Iraq provides a comprehensive history of Iraq's majority group and its turbulent relations with the ruling Sunni minority. Yitzhak Nakash challenges the widely held belief that Shi'i society and politics in Iraq are a reflection of Iranian Shi'ism, pointing to the strong Arab attributes of Iraqi Shi'ism. He contends that behind the power struggle in Iraq between Arab Sunnis and Shi'is there exist two sectarian groups that are quite similar. The tension fueling the sectarian problem between Sunnis and Shi'is is political rather than ethnic or cultural, and it reflects the competition of the two groups over the right to rule and to define the meaning of nationalism in Iraq. A new introduction brings this book into the new century and illuminates the role that Shi`is could play in postwar Iraq.
