Professor W Montgomery Watt's Books

A History of Islamic Spain

By: Professor W Montgomery Watt,Pierre Cachia

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A History of Islamic Spain

By: Professor W Montgomery Watt,Pierre Cachia

The period of Muslim occupation in Spain represents the only significant contact Islam and Europe was ever to have on European soil. In this important as well as fascinating study, Watt traces Islam's influence upon Spain and European civilization--from the collapse of the Visigoths in the eighth century to the fall of Granada in the fifteenth, and considers Spain's importance as a part of the Islamic empire. Particular attention is given to the golden period of economic and political stability achieved under the Umayyads. Without losing themselves in detail and without sacrificing complexity, the authors discuss the political, social, and economic continuity in Islamic Spain, or al-Andalus, in light of its cultural and intellectual effects upon the rest of Europe. Medieval Christianity, Watt points out, found models of scholarship in the Islamic philosophers and adapted the idea of holy war to its own purposes while the final reunification of Spain under the aegis of the Reconquista played a significant role in bringing Europe out of the Middle Ages. A survey essential to anyone seeking a more complete knowledge of European or Islamic history, the volume also includes sections on literature and philology by Pierre Cachia. This series of "Islamic surveys" is designed to give the educated reader something more than can be found in the usual popular books. Each work undertakes to survey a special part of the field, and to show the present stage of scholarship here. Where there is a clear picture this will be given; but where there are gaps, obscurities and differences of opinion, these will also be indicated. Full and annotated bibliographies will afford guidance to those who want to pursue their studies further. There will also be some account of the nature and extent of the source material. The series is addressed in the first place to the educated reader, with little or no previous knowledge of the subject; its character is such that it should be of value also to university students and others whose interest is of a more professional kind.

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Page Count

220

Publisher

Transaction Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

0202309363

ISBN 13

9780202309361

The Hajj Today

A Survey of the Contemporary Pilgrimage to Makkah

By: David E. Long,Professor David Long

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The Hajj Today

A Survey of the Contemporary Pilgrimage to Makkah

By: David E. Long,Professor David Long

The Qu'ran admonishes Muslims that "the pilgrimage to the temple is an obligation due to God from those who are able to journey there." Today over one and a half million pilgrims annually fulfill this Fifth Pillar of Islam, the Hajj. Saudi Arabia conquered the Hijaz in part to protect Hajjis from abuses in the management of the Hajj. How does that country now administer the religious event that brings so many people, often poor and illiterate, into one small area to perform a variety of complex rituals? How does the government protect its visitors' health and safety, and ensure their proper guidance through the necessary rites? How does it move so many pilgrims in and out of what is essentially an out-of-the-way desert? David Long has set this thoughtful examination of the twentieth-century Hajj within its historical framework. He first provides a clear, concise description of the rituals either necessary or traditional to the proper performance of the Hajj; he then relates how the inhabitants of Mecca used to manage the pilgrimage and finally, relates how the new Saudi rulers gradually brought the Hajj service industry under government regulation. Today there is probably no agency of the Saudi government which is not at least tangentially concerned with the Hajj. Only in the area of health did there exist a history of public management. By the early nineteenth century it had become all too clear that the Hajj served to carry diseases endemic to the Orient to Europe, and by the end of that century health and quarantine procedures were under international control. Today the Saudi government has sole control of these matters. Oil revenue vastly exceeds Hajj revenues--once a major source of Saudi income--but the Hajj continues to play an enormous role in the religious, social, and political life of the country. And even in economics it structures the Saudi businessman's year and provides part- or full-time employment to more Saudi citizens than does the oil industry. This volume contains an extensive bibliography, appendixes containing statistical material on recent Hajjs, maps, and a glossary.

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Page Count

212

Publisher

SUNY Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0873953827

ISBN 13

9780873953825

The Middle East

The Politics of the Sacred and Secular

By: Professor Shahrough Akhavi

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The Middle East

The Politics of the Sacred and Secular

By: Professor Shahrough Akhavi

Amidst recent hype about events in the Middle East, there have been few attempts to get below the surface and develop a fuller understanding of what politics means there. The Middle East: The Politics of the Sacred and Secular redresses this balance and provides essential historical and theoretical context. In this book, Shahrough Akhavi shows that the way people think about politics in the Middle East has developed in response to historical experience. Islam has obviously played a pivotal role and the book does much to disentangle myth and reality about Islamic responses to politics. Refreshingly, however, the book focuses on the universal concepts of the individual, civil society, the state, justice, authority and obligation and how these have been interpreted by Middle Eastern thinkers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Akhavi builds a dynamic picture of a politically exciting and engaged region. The fresh perspective this book brings to global political theory, and the background it gives students of politics in the Middle East make it an important addition to the World Political Theories series.

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Page Count

265

Publisher

Zed Books Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1848137346

ISBN 13

9781848137349

Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation

By: Barry S. Kogan,Clarence and Robert Efroymson Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Religious Thought and Philosophy Barry S Kogan

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Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation

By: Barry S. Kogan,Clarence and Robert Efroymson Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Religious Thought and Philosophy Barry S Kogan

Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation examines the controversial causation issue. That causes produce their effects and can be known to do so is the view that Averroes defends in his Tahafut Al-Tahafut, where he summarizes and evaluates the debates about causation--debates that took place over several generations between the philosophers and the theologians of medieval Islam. Drawing from his Tahafut, his commentaries, and other writings, Kogan shows that Averroes' discussion of causation represents a dialogue across the generations and a rich contribution to the history of the causal controversy. Averroes responds to al-Ghazali's proto-Humean critique of the philosophers' account which treats causation as an entailment relation. In this response Averroes develops an independent position that is of philosophical interest because it clearly anticipates many of the contemporary responses to Hume associated with the singularist position. Building on this analysis, Kogan resolves many long-standing paradoxes in Averroes' treatment of miracles, eternal creation, God's causal knowing, and the theory of emanation.

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Page Count

366

Publisher

SUNY Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0887060633

ISBN 13

9780887060632

The Earth and Its Peoples

A Global History to 1200

By: Richard W. Bulliet,Pamela Kyle Crossley,Daniel R. Headrick,Professor of Social Sciences and History Daniel R Headrick,Steven W. Hirsch,Lyman L. Johnson,David Northrup

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The Earth and Its Peoples

A Global History to 1200

By: Richard W. Bulliet,Pamela Kyle Crossley,Daniel R. Headrick,Professor of Social Sciences and History Daniel R Headrick,Steven W. Hirsch,Lyman L. Johnson,David Northrup

The Earth and Its Peoples was one of the first texts to present world history in a balanced, global framework, shifting the focus away from political centers of power. This truly global text for the world history survey course employs a fundamental theme, the interaction of human beings and the environment, to compare different times, places, and societies. Special emphasis is given to technology (in its broadest sense) and how technological development underlies all human activity. Highly acclaimed in their fields of study, the authors bring a wide array of expertise to the program. A combination of strong scholarship and detailed pedagogy gives the book its reputation for rigor and student accessibility. The Fourth Edition features extensive new coverage of world events, including globalization in the new millennium. Coverage of China has also been extensively reorganized and rewritten.

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Page Count

438

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0618771522

ISBN 13

9780618771523

Islam

An Introduction

By: Annemarie Schimmel,Former Professor Emerita Indo-Muslim Culture Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Annemarie Schimmel

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Islam

An Introduction

By: Annemarie Schimmel,Former Professor Emerita Indo-Muslim Culture Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Annemarie Schimmel

It is a splendid introduction--carefully researched and comprehensive, yet readable. It corrects many popular and erroneous notions about Islam that prevail in non-Muslim societies. For the general reader there are many profound insights of great consequence, for example, the passages on women, marriage, and inheritance, or the section on jihad, nearly always completely misunderstood in the press." -- BOOK JACKET.

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Page Count

178

Publisher

SUNY Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0791413276

ISBN 13

9780791413272

Book's by Professor W Montgomery Watt

A History of Islamic Spain

A History of Islamic Spain

The Hajj Today

The Hajj Today

The Middle East

The Middle East

Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation

Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation

The Earth and Its Peoples

The Earth and Its Peoples

Islam

Islam

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