History of religion Books

Book SynopsisHuaiyu Chen is Professor of Buddhism and Chinese Religions at Arizona State University, USA.

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Book SynopsisBrian J. McVeigh is in private practice as a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) and is Senior Researcher and Advisor at the Julian Jaynes Society.

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Book SynopsisThe rise of Ottoman Sarajevo in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is emblematic of a unified new Muslim community whose conversion to Islam and booming social and economic growth unified both the city and its hinterland. Primarily based on a wide array of Ottoman administrative sources, this monograph builds on earlier studies of Sarajevo and other Ottoman cities to analyze the critical social and economic factors behind these developments.Numerous references to manumitted slave converts to Islam can be found among Sarajevo’s pious foundations. Many of these manumitted slaves held hereditary posts in the pious foundations, thus becoming part of the urban elite. In the countryside, Muslims dominated rural elites from the initial Ottoman conquest onwards. The peasants and petty nobility converted much more gradually. Their steady conversion can be partially tied to the practice of disproportionately distributing privately-held arable land to Muslims and Muslim converts.These new converts became critical participants in the city’s newly emerging economy. The manumitted slaves who staffed the pious foundations often distributed cash credit at interest to the merchantry and urban notables, helping fuel further economic development. Arable land holders often used their privileges to sell their lands to the highest bidder. The state, which often sanctioned such purchases, helped promote higher grain production and the expansion of urban elites into the countryside.

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Book SynopsisHijab: Word of God or Word of Man? is the most comprehensive and exhaustive study of the subject of the Islamic veil to date. According to Muslim authorities, the Islamic veil is a religious obligation. For them, Muslim women who fail to wear the hijab commit a major sin that merits punishment in hell and even eternal damnation. Since the rise of Islamist movements in the twentieth century, some Muslims have gone as far as to mandate fines, imprisonment, physical punishment, rape, and even death for young girls and women who wear so-called "bad hijab," or who fail to veil. What does the Qur'an really say regarding women's dress? What does the hadith literature of Islam teach? How did Muslim women dress throughout history? What impact did culture have on the process? What moral and ethical conclusions can we draw regarding the rules governing women's clothing? These are the questions that are answered in this seminal study.

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