Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 199 pages. This book examines Syria's religious, intellectual, and political history during the period of transformation before World War I. Focusing on an attempt to reform Islamic belief and practice at the turn of the century, Commins shows how the reformers used debates over the religious law of Islam to advance their visions of a progressive Islamic state. Based on a wide variety of previously unpublished sources, the book will shed new light on a period that is of considerable importance for the modern history of the Middle East. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 386 pages. In a study of the vitality of Islam in late-nineteenth-century north India, Barbara Metcalf explains the response of Islamic religious scholars ('ulama) to the colonial dominance of the British and the collapse of Muslim political power. Clean bright copy of the first printing.
Hardcover. London, Faber & Faber, revised ed., 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. burgundy cloth boards w/ blue & gilt spine plate, 133 pages with color plates & 100 pages of bw plates.
Hardcover. Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 350 pages. Introduction + 10 essays. Specific societies noted incl Traditional China & India, Buddhist Village in North-East Thailand, Kerala, Islamic Learning in Western Sudan, Northern Ghana, Somali Nomads, Madagascar, Melanesia, Pre-Industrial England. Bibliography & Index. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, ochre cloth stamped on the spine in green and gilt, 209 pages. This masterful portrait of an Islamic society undergoing a great social upheaval has become one of the most significant contributions to our understanding of pre-modern Islamic history. Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society concentrates on the Buyid dynasty that ruled in Iran and Iraq during the 10th and II centuries, a period when the Abbasids were in decline and power had fallen into the hands of military groups who could not legitimise it in the same way as the Caliphs. From this confusion emerged a new Muslim society whose essential interests differed from those of the transient and limited dynasty that had preceded it. Page 5 in introduction with a brief ink notation in margin, otherwise clean.
NY, Viking, 4th pr., 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 594 pages, b&w illustrations. Of the great figure in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine. Through his tireless work and countless speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better lives and stronger communities while establishing the template for the self-actualized, independent African American man. In death he became a broad symbol of both resistance and reconciliation for millions around the world. Manning Marable's new biography of Malcolm is a stunning achievement. Filled with new information and shocking revelations that go beyond the Autobiography, Malcolm X unfolds a sweeping story of race and class in America, from the rise of Marcus Garvey and the Ku Klux Klan to the struggles of the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties. Reaching into Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his parents' activism through his own engagement with the Nation of Islam, charting his astronomical rise in the world of Black Nationalism and culminating in the never-before-told true story of his assassination.
Hardcover. New York, HMH Books for Young Readers, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 96 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. SIGNED BY AUTHOR ON TITLE PAGE. Otherwise, clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Color drawings throughout.
Hardcover. NY, powerHouse Books, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 120 pages. An insightful and unbiased account of a much-maligned and rapidly growing culture around the world, taken in perhaps the one place in the world where all manifestations of religious adherents live and work: New York City. The book features photographs, essays, and interviews documenting the mosques that New York's Muslim communities have built at their center, revealing the ways these buildings reflect and create identities for Muslims within a dense and diverse urban fabric. "... Mr. Grazda's penetrating black-and-white photographs and Ms. Dodd's insightful commentaries reveal the range of the city's Islamic houses of worship and their ethnic congregations...."--The New York Times
Softcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, reprint, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 285 pages. In this book noted scholar Thomas L. Pangle brings back a lost and crucial dimension of political theory: the mutually illuminating encounter between skeptically rationalist political philosophy and faith-based political theology guided ultimately by the authority of the Bible. Focusing on the chapters of Genesis in which the foundation of the Bible is laid, Pangle provides an interpretive reading illuminated by the questions and concerns of the Socratic tradition and its medieval heirs in the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic worlds. He brings into contrast the rival interpretive framework set by the biblical criticism of the modern rationalists Hobbes and Spinoza, along with their heirs from Locke to Hegel. The full meaning of these diverse philosophic responses to the Bible is clarified through a dialogue with hermeneutic discussions by leading political theologians in the Judaic, Muslim, and Christian traditions, from Josephus and Augustine to our day. Profound and subtle in its argument, this book will be of interest not only to students and scholars of politics, philosophy, and religion but also to thoughtful readers in every walk of life who seek to deepen their understanding of the perplexing relationship between religious faith and philosophic reason. Name and date on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 340 pages. Proclus was the most important figure in Neo-Platonism when it was established as the dominant philosophy of Late Antiquity. Neo-Platonism is not only the final flowering of Greek thought but also the mode in which it was transmitted to the Byzantine, Western European and Islamic civilisations. Stripping away the complexities surrounding this traditionally difficult philosopher, Lucas Siorvanes takes the reader through Proclus' metaphysics and theory of knowledge with original research examining all aspects of Proclus' work. This is the first book which places Proclus in his complete intellectual context and sheds new light on aspects of Proclus' thought, to which previous scholars have rarely done justice. - Presents a general survey of Proclus and his Neo-Platonism- Introduces results of original research, mainly on his metaphysics, theory of knowledge and science. All areas of Proclus' philosophical interest are covered including religion, physics, astronomy, mathematics and poetry. His philosophy is found in all these because concern with being and truth is central to all. Also introduced is the neglected area of his natural philosophy with its remarkable freshness of thought punctuated by the rejection of Aristotelian science and Ptolemy's cosmology. In this book, Proclus is shown as much more than just a metaphysician.
Softcover. NY, Oxford University Press, reprint, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wraps, 184 pages, coloe illustrations. From before the days of Moses up through the 1960s, slavery was a fact of life in the Middle East. Pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims bought and sold at the slave markets for millennia, trading the human plunder of wars and slave raids that reached from the Russian steppes to the African jungles. But if the Middle East was one of the last regions to renounce slavery, how do we account for its--and especially Islam's--image of racial harmony? How did these long years of slavery affect racial relations? In Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Bernard Lewis explores these questions and others, examining the history of slavery in law, social thought, and practice over the last two millennia. Bright, clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 236 pages including index. Translation and Introduction by Mahmoud Sadri & Ahmad Sadri. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Lexington KY, University Press of Kentucky, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 328 pages, in a bright unclipped dust jacket, b&w illustrations. Noted for his charisma, talent, and striking good looks, director Rex Ingram (18931950) is ranked alongside D. W. Griffith, Marshall Neilan, and Erich von Stroheim as one of the greatest artists of the silent cinema. Ingram briefly studied sculpture at the Yale University School of Art after emigrating from Ireland to the United States in 1911; but he was soon seduced by the new medium of moving pictures and abandoned his studies for a series of jobs in the film industry. Over the next decade, he became one of the most popular directors in Hollywood, directing smash hits such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), and Scaramouche (1923). n Rex Ingram, Ruth Barton explores the life and legacy of the pioneering filmmaker, following him from his childhood in Dublin to his life at the top of early Hollywood's A-list and his eventual self-imposed exile on the French Riviera. Ingram excelled in bringing visions of adventure and fantasy to eager audiences, and his films made stars of actors like Rudolph Valentino, Ramon Novarro, and Alice Terry-his second wife and leading lady. With his name a virtual guarantee of box office success, Ingram's career flourished in the 1920s despite the constraints of an increasingly regulated industry and the hostility of Louis B. Mayer, who regarded him as a dangerous maverick.Barton examines the virtuoso director's career and controversial personal life-including his conversion to Islam, the rumors surrounding his ambiguous sexuality, and the circumstances of his untimely death. This definitive biography not only restores the visionary filmmaker to the spotlight but also provides an absorbing look at the daring and exhilarating days of silent-era Hollywood.
Hardcover. NY, Columbia University Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR on the red front fly leaf. With penetrating insight Combs-Schilling illuminates the remarkable survival of one of the world's oldest monarchies, still ruling after 1200 years. The author unravels the paradox of this ancient yet progressive institution that has weathered invasion, economic collapse, and colonial assault. The pillars of stability for which political analysts typically search -- military strength, bureaucratic control, and commercial prosperity -- have often been absent in Morocco, sometimes for centuries. How then has the monarchy stood firm? In this remarkable book, Combs-Schilling argues that the answer is to be found in the distinctive forms of ritual practice developed during times of great crises. Unique among Islamic governments, the Moroccan monarchy became cnetral to the popular celebrations of the most sacred rituals of Islam, cloaking itself in their sanctity. Combs-Schilling breaks new ground in thinking about ritual. The author explores the consequences of the replication and reinforcement of Morocco's national ceremonies in villages and homes and the metaphorical equivalence thereby built. The author outlines how ritual metaphors simultaneously fuse the monarchy with the hallowed prophets of Islam and the mundane structures of family life.
Hardcover. London, Thames and Hudson, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 144 pages, Color photos by Ara Guller. Sinan was the greatest architect of the Ottoman Golden Age of the sixteenth century when the Ottoman Empire reached its zenith of power and magnificence. His style marks the apogee of Turkish art. Under Sleyman the Magnificent and his succcessor Selmi II, Sinan designed hundreds of buildings: mosques, palaces, tombs, mausolea, hospitals, schools, caravanserai, bridges, aqueducts and baths, many of them presented and analysed in this book. In his greatest works, he adapted Byzantine and Islamic styles to produce something quite new: a centralized organization of absolute space unhindered by pillars or columns and covered by a soaring dome. An architect of genius in a dynamic new empire expanding into both Asia and Europe, he was a true man of the Renaissance. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. New York, Random House , 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 402 pages. Cloth boards in a bright dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. The subjects of Salman Rushdie's collection of non-fiction range from The Wizard of Oz, U2, India and Indian writing, the death of Princess Diana, and football, to twentieth-century writers including Angela Carter, Arthur Miller, Edward Said, J. M. Coetzee and Arundhati Roy. In a central section, 'Messages from the Plague Years', Rushdie focuses on the fight against the Iranian fatwa, presenting texts both personal and political, which show for the first time how it was to live through those days. Rushdie's columns for the New York Times confront current issues - Kashmir, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Islam and the West - as well as lighter topics such as reality TV, sport and sleaze. The book ends with the lectures that give it its title - Rushdie's exploration of the theme of frontiers: crossing them, breaking taboos, and - in the light of September 11 - the world of permeable frontiers in which we all live.
Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 416 pages. The essays, speeches, and opinion pieces assembled in Step Across This Line, written over ten years, cover an astonishing range of subjects. The collection chronicles Rushdie's intellectual odyssey and is also an especially personal look into the writer's psyche. With the same fierce intelligence, uncanny social commentary, and very strong opinions that distinguish his fiction, Rushdie writes about his fascination with The Wizard of Oz, his obsession with soccer, and the state of the novel, among many other topics. Most notably, delving into his unique personal experience fighting the Iranian fatwa, he addresses the subject of militant Islam in a series of challenging and deeply felt responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The book ends with the eponymous "Step Across This Line," a lecture Rushdie delivered at Yale in the spring of 2002, which has never been published before and is sure to prompt discussion.
Softcover. NY, Columbia University Press, 1st pbk., 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 232 pages, b&w illustrations. Focusing on the immediate pre-revolutionary period and the first decade of the Islamic Republic, Bayat discusses the economic and political strategies of 'ordinary'[Iranian] people, mainly in Tehran.... He demonstrates that, for these people at least, the populist revolution did not bring about the changes that they needed or wanted. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Albany, State University of New York Press, 2nd pr., 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in glazed boards, 184 pages with index. The renowned Islamic scholar combines his research into Sufi doctrine and history with a rich account of the spiritual and metaphysical significance of sufism as a living tradition. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY/London, Verso, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dustjacket. The violence that has ravaged Algeria has often defied explanation. Regularly invoked in debates about political Islam, transitions to democracy, globalization, and the right of humanitarian interference, Algeria's tragedy has been reduced to a clash of stereotypes: Islamists vs.a secular state, terrorists vs. innocent civilians, or generals vs. a defenseless society. The prevalence of such simplistic representations has disabled public opinion inside as well as outside the country and contributed to the intractability of the conflict. This collection of essays offers a radical corrective to Western misconceptions. Rejecting essentialist and determinist approaches, Hugh Roberts explores the outlook and evolution of the various internal forces as they emerged--the Islamists, the Berberists, the factions within the army, and the regime in general--and he looks at external interests and actors. Clean copy.
Softcover. Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 310 pages. One of the incidental consequences of the success of British arms in eighteenth-century India was the appearance of a number of publications which reflect the intense curiosity of contemporary Europeans about strange peoples, their manners and religions. Of the three principal religions of India, Hinduism attracted the most attention. European contact with Islam was several centuries old, while few travellers could identify Buddhism with any certainty. This book reprints some of the most significant English contributions to the early European understanding of Hinduism. Paper covers with light wear.
Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st pbk, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, yellow wrappers, 258 pages. Examines the unique religious brotherhoods of Morocco, tracing their origins to two saints from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Sidi Ali ben Hamdush and Sidi Ahmed Dghughi. Known for their dramatic and sometimes controversial rituals, such as trance dances and acts of self-mutilation, the Hamadsha are healers who address spiritual and psychogenic ailments through symbolic and therapeutic practices. Their activities, deeply rooted in the Moroccan cult of saints, reflect a complex interplay of Islamic mysticism, local traditions, and social dynamics. Through these rituals, the Hamadsha incorporate patients into their brotherhoods, providing them with new roles and a symbolic framework to articulate and resolve personal and societal tensions. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, historical analysis, and psychoanalytic perspectives, this study explores the Hamadsha's history, their organizational structure, and their relationship with Moroccan culture and religion. It examines the saints' tombs as focal points of veneration, the social dynamics of the brotherhoods, and their therapeutic methods, including pilgrimages and trance dances. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Washington DC, National Geographic Society, 1924, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth covers with black spine labels with gilt lettering. Six issues from the first half of 1924, 696 pages devoid of ads or inserts. Clean, bright pages, some color, mostly b&w. Include:s 1, Lost Tribes of Islam, Eastern Darfur; 2, Carthage Acheology; 3, Sahara by Automobile; 4, Hawaiian Islands; 5, Sakurajima, Japan volcanic eruption; 6, Norway; and 7, Tunisia. Clean, no markings. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.