The proofs and the transmitted texts have been established as authentic in the highest degree that the Prophet is alive and tender... that he fasts and performs pilgrimage every year, and that he purifies himself with water which rains on him." Al-Haytami, Al-Jawhar al-Munazzam. "Al-Sham, or Greater Syria, is the name of the lands known today as Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ has mentioned that al-Sham has immense virtues, superseded only by the holy precincts of Mecca and Madina." Shaykh Gibril Fouad Haddad "Allah has granted me the favor of writing a vast treatise covering the substantial research which has been done on the subject of al-Isra' wal-Mi'raj ...and recite it in the public meetings... to commemorate Isra' wal-Mi'raj..." Al-Sayyid Muhammad Ibn 'Alawi al-Maliki
This is biographical material that al-T'abari appended to his History, bringing together biographies of Companions and successors of the Prophet. Many chapters are devoted to women who played a role in the transmission of knowledge.
Provides an insight into the everyday lives of Sufi devotees of the eighth-eleventh centuries and the moral and ethical dilemmas they were facing. This work invites the reader to explore the world of Islamic ascetic and mystical piety.
This is an opuscule of forty hadiths by Imam Ibn Hajar which he narrates from forty different Companions through forty Shuyukh in a myriad of places; from the old Salihiyya quarter of Damascus to the Riyad al-Jannah in the Prophets (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) mosque. The book is a joy (al-Imta) to read since not only the subject matter is interesting but the actual isnads of the hadith with their special features. Writing forty hadith collections has been an old scholarly tradition tracing its origins to Abdullah ibn Mubarak and its justification going as far back as to the Prophet. In this respect, the reader becomes a part of this blessed historical tradition, especially with Ibn Hajar's initiation of the book with the hadith al-musalsal bi al-awwaliyya. The Author Imam Ahmad ibn Ali al-Asqalani (d. 852/1448), famously known as Ibn Hajar after one of his ancestors is arguably the best hadith scholar of the Mamluk period. The Dhahabi of his time and the amir al-muminin of the hadith scholars. Suyuti says that he drank from the well of ZamZam and prayed to Allah to give him more knowledge than Shams ad-Din adh-Dhahabi. He is the author of over 300 books some going into lengthy volumes. He died on Friday 28 Dhi al-Hijja 852 Hijri and was buried in al-Qarrafa, Cairo, now famously known as the City of the Dead (Madinat al-mawta).
Volume XXI of The History of al-Ṭabarī (from the second part of 66/685 to 73/693) covers the resolution of "the Second Civil War." This conflict, which has broken out in 64/683 after the death of the Umayyad caliph Yazīd I, involved the rival claims of the Umayyads (centered in Syria) and the Zubayrids (centered in the Hijaz), each of whom claimed the caliphal title, Commander of the Faithful. Both parties contented for control of Iraq, which was also the setting for al-Mukhtār's Shīʿite uprising in al-Kūfah during 66/685 and 67/686. Khārijite groups were active in south-western Iran and central Arabia, even threatening the heavily settled lands of Iraq. By the end of 73/692, the Umayyad regime in Damascus, led by Abd-al-Malik, had extinguished the rival caliphate of Ibn al-Zubayr and had reestablished a single, more or less universally acknowledged political authority for the Islamic community. Al-Ṭabarī's account of these years is drawn from such earlier historians as Abu Mikhnaf, al-Madāʾinī , and al-Waqidi and includes eyewitness accounts, quotations from poems, and texts of sermons. Notable episodes include al-Mukhtār's slaying of those who had been involved in the death of al-Husayn at Karbala, the death of al-Mukhtār at the hands of Muṣʿab ibn al-Zubayr, the revolt of Amr ibn Saʿīd in Damascus, the death of Muṣʿab at the Battle of Dayr al-Jathaliq, and al-Hajjaj's siege and conquest of Mecca on behalf of Abd-al-Malik. There are excursuses on the chair that al-Mukhtār venerated as a relic of Ali, the biography of the colorful brigand ʿUbayd Allāh b. al-Ḥurr, and the development of the secretarial office in Islam. The translation has been fully annotated. Parallels in the works of Ibn Sa'd, al-Baladhuri, and the Kitabal-Aghani have been indicated in the notes where these accounts supplement or diverge from that of al-Ṭabarī.
This volume of al-Ṭabarī's History covers nearly a quarter of a century, and after covering the very brief caliphate of al-Hādī, concentrates on that of Hārūn al-Rashīd. During these years, the caliphate was in a state of balance with its external foes; the great enemy, Christian Byzantium, was regarded with respect by the Muslims, and the two great powers of the Near East treated each other essentially as equals, while the Caucasian and Central Asian frontiers were held against pressure from the Turkish peoples of Inner Eurasia. The main stresses were internal, including Shī'ite risings on behalf of the excluded house of 'Alī, and revolts by the radical equalitarian Khārijites; but none of these was serious enough to affect the basic stability of the caliphate. Hārūn ar-Rashīd's caliphate has acquired in the West, under the influence of a misleading picture from the Arabian Nights, a glowing image as a golden age of Islamic culture and letters stemming from the Caliph's patronage of the exponents of these arts and sciences. In light of the picture of the Caliph which emerges from al-Ṭabarī's pages, however, this image seems to be distinctly exaggerated. Al-Rashīd himself does not exhibit any notable signs of administrative competence, military leadership or intellectual interests beyond those which convention demanded of a ruler. For much of his reign, he left the business of government to the capable viziers of the Barmakīd family--the account of whose spectacular fall from power forms one of the most dramatic features of al-Ṭabarī's narratives here--and his decision to divide the Islamic empire after his death between his sons was to lead subsequently to a disastrous civil war. Nevertheless, al-Ṭabarī's story is full of interesting sidelights on the lives of those involved in the court circle of the time and on the motivations which impelled medieval Muslims to seek precarious careers there. A discounted price is available when purchasing the entire 39-volume History of al-Ṭabarī set. Contact SUNY Press for more information.
Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, or Deaths of Eminent Men and History of the Sons of the Epoch, was the noted Arabic scholar Ibn Khallikan's most well-known and respected work. The author worked on the tome from 1256 to 1274, compiling names, genealogies, and histories of prominent or conspicuous men in the Islamic world. The final work was translated into English by William Mac Guckin de Slane and is longer than 2,700 pages. It has been quoted by many Arabic rhetoricians and grammarians in other works, as it is considered one of the most important records of Arabic history ever written. Here, separated into four volumes, the Biographical Dictionary is an essential work for any student of Muslim culture and literature. Volume I includes: An Introduction by Mac Guckin de Slane; the Preface by the author; passages in the original Arabic; a detailed index of all biographies; notes from the translator for each biography; and genealogies of hundreds of Muslim figures, including Osama Ibn Murshid, Jaafar the Barmekide, Muhammad Ibn Habib, and Shawar. IBN KHALLIKAN (1211-1282) was a thirteenth century Arabic scholar who studied in Damascus, Mosul and Aleppo, specializing in the fields of language, theology, and law, including jurisprudence. He became a well-respected judge in Cairo, eventually becoming a chief judge in Damascus in 1261. Khallikan wrote several books, but his most well known was Deaths of Eminent Men and History of the Sons of the Epoch, often referred to as the "Biographical Dictionary," which took him almost 20 years to complete. Khallikan retired from his position as judge just before his death in 1282. He was one of the most well-known historians and theologians in Egypt.
For all Muslims the QurE3/4an is the word of God. In the first centuries of Islam, however, many individuals and groups, and some ShiEis, believed that the generally accepted text of the QurE3/4an is corrupt. The ShiEis asserted that redactors had altered or deleted among other things all passages that supported the rights of EAli and his successors or that condemned his enemies. One of the fullest lists of these alleged changes and of other variant readings is to be found in the work of al-SayyArA (3rd/9th century), which is indeed among the earliest ShiEi books to have survived. In many cases the alternative readings that al-SayyArA presents substantially contribute to our understanding of early ShiEi doctrine and of the early and numerous debates about the QurE3/4an in general.
In terms of the Science of Theological Statement [Kalam] Abd Allah Baydawi (d. 1316?) concisely outlines perceived Islamic reality - in its modes of the naturally Possible, the apodictically Divine, and the humanly heroic Prophetic - as the process of perfecting man's spiritual structure.
First published in 1989. This is the first translation of the Muwatta' in the English language. Imam Malik came from a family of learning and grew up in Madina al-Munawarra which was the capital of knowledge at that time, especially the knowledge of hadith. Known as one of the great reciter’, Malik's predisposition for retention and understanding of knowledge he took it upon himself to serve the shari'a and to preserve the Prophetic sunna. He did this by relaying it from those notable Tabi'un with whose knowledge he was satisfied and whose words he thought worthy of conveying and by his work he opened the way for all later writers and cleared a path for the compilation of Islamic law.
The initial years (126-145) of al-Manṣūr's reign presented several significant challenges to nascent ʿAbbāsid hegemony, and the resulting confrontations constitute the central focus of this section of Ṭabarī's Tarikh. After Abu Jafar succeeded his brother Abū Al-ʿabbās as caliph, the second of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty, he moved against his recalcitrant uncle, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī, and against the potential threat that he perceived in the person of the commander in Khurasan, Abu Muslim. Eliminating the latter and containing the former freed the caliph to address a series of other onslaughts and insurrections. Starting with the year 144, however, Ṭabarī turned to this volume's principal preoccupation, to which half of the book is devoted. Judging by the attention given to it, he clearly perceived the Hasanid rebellions of Muhammad b. Abdallah (the Pure Soul) and of his brother Ibrahim to be the most substantial attack on Abbasid authority to arise in the first years of that dynasty. Ṭabarī's description of the prolonged search for Muhammad and Ibrahim and of the caliphal vengeance visited upon their father and family provides an extended prelude to the vivid battle and death scenes in Medina and Bakhamra. Yet, elaboration of these events does not eclipse mention of all other Abbasid activity. To bridge the account of Muhammad's defeat and that of Ibrahim's uprising, Ṭabarī inserted a narrative interlude depicting the site selection and preliminary construction of al-Manṣūr's most celebrated achievement, the City of Peace, Baghdad.
The other contemporary documents included are a new English translation of Leo Africanus's description of West Africa, some letters relating to Sa'dian diplomacy and conquests in the Sahara and Sahel, al-Ifrani's account of Sa'dian conquest of Songhay, and an account of this expedition by an anonymous Spaniard.
The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems – both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.
This section of the History of al-Ṭabarī covers the caliphate of Muḥammad al-Amīn, who succeeded his father, Hārūn al-Rashīd on March 24, 809, and was killed on September 25, 813. The focus of this section is a single event, the civil war between al-Amīn and his half-brother al-Maʾmūn. Before his death, al-Rashīd had arranged for the succession in a series of documents signed at Mecca and deposited for safekeeping in the Ka'bah. Al-Amīn was to become caliph; al-Maʾmūn was to govern Khurasan with virtual autonomy from Baghdad. Al-Amīn could neither remove his brother from office nor interfere with his revenues or military support. Furthermore, al-Maʾmūn was named as al-Amīn's successor, and al-Amīn was forbidden to alter the succession. If either brother violated these conditions, he was to forfeit his rights. It soon became apparent that the good will to carry out these arrangements did not exist. Disagreement broke out when al-Amīn insisted that many of the forces that had accompanied al-Rashīd and al-Maʾmūn to Khurasan return to Baghdad. When the majority of army commanders obeyed the new caliph's orders, al-Maʾmūn was enraged and countered with measures to secure his position. Angry letters were exchanged, with al-Amīn pressing his brother to make concessions that al-Maʾmūn regarded as contrary to the succession agreement. By March 811, military conflict was imminent. Al-Amin demanded that certain border districts be returned to the control of Baghdad. When al-Maʾmūn refused, al-Amīn despatched an expedition to seize the districts. Al-Amīn's resort to force ended in disaster. Al-Maʾmūn's forces, led by Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn and Harthamah ibn A'yan, quickly closed in on Baghdad. In a siege lasting over a year, Baghdad suffered extensive damage from the fighting and from bombardment by siege engines. Gangs of vagrants and paupers, organized by al-Amīn into irregular units, fought a kind of urban guerrilla war. But, with Tahir and Harthamah enforcing the siege and with most of al-Amīn's associates having switched their loyalties to the winning side, the caliph was forced to sue for terms. These were worked out among representatives of al-Amīn, Tahir, and Harthamah. However, when the caliph boarded the boat that was to take him into Harthamah's custody, troops loyal to Tahir assaulted and capsized the boat. Al-Amīn fell into the Tigris, was apprehended, and was executed that night on orders from Tahir. Thus ended this phase of the civil war. Al-Maʾmūn was now caliph. Al-Ṭabarī i's history of these years includes accounts by participants in the event, diplomatic letters betweenal-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn, Tahir's long letter toal-Maʾmūn on the circumstances of al-Amin's death, and a dramatic eyewitness account of al-Amīn's last hours. Also noteworthy is a 135-verse poem describing the devastation of Baghdad. The section ends with a series of literary anecdotes on the character of al-Amīn.
The 20 years' caliphate of al-Maʾmūn began as a stormy period in Middle Eastern history; after the comparatively peaceful reign of his father Hārūn al-Rashīd, the caliphate was plunged into violent civil warfare in both Iraq and Arabia, involving the sons of al-Rashīd, rivals for the supreme authority, and various other sectarian rebels and aspirants for power. Yet once peace was secured and the caliphate lands united once more, al-Maʾmūn's reign settled down into one of the most exciting and innovative of the mediaeval caliphate. The Caliph himself was a highly cultivated man who possessed a keen intellectual curiosity and who interested himself in the practical sciences, astronomy and mathematics. He also encouraged the translating of Greek philosophical, scientific and medical works from Greek and Syriac into Arabic and involved himself in theological controversies in which the dialectical techniques of the Greek thinkers were to figure. Ṭabarī's history of this period constitutes a prime source for political and military history. His racy and vivid style, including many verbatim conversations and documents, brings the Caliphate of al-Maʾmūn very much alive. A discounted price is available when purchasing the entire 39-volume History of al-Ṭabarī set. Contact SUNY Press for more information.
This work is a translation and study of a ninth- through fifteenth-century manuscript, Kitāb al-Hadāyā wa al-Tuḥaf. The manuscript furnishes a wealth of varied information offering insights into the period immediately preceding Islam and extending through the first four centuries of Islamic rule.
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