Useful Enemies

Useful Enemies
Author: Noel Malcolm
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 616
Release: 2019-05-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0192565818

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration. In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal of Islam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself. Examining the works of many famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, and Montesquieu) and many less well-known ones, Useful Enemies illuminates the long-term development of Western ideas about the Ottomans, and about Islam. Noel Malcolm shows how these ideas became intertwined with internal Western debates about power, religion, society, and war. Discussions of Islam and the Ottoman Empire were thus bound up with mainstream thinking in the West on a wide range of important topics. These Eastern enemies were not just there to be denounced. They were there to be made use of, in arguments which contributed significantly to the development of Western political thought.

Know Thy Enemy

Know Thy Enemy
Author: Barry R. Schneider
Publisher: U.S. Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Profiles the personalities and strategic cultures of some of the United States' most dangerous international rivals.

Arabs and Muslims in the Media

Arabs and Muslims in the Media
Author: Evelyn Alsultany
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2012-08-20
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0814707319

After 9/11, there was an increase in both the incidence of hate crimes and government policies that targeted Arabs and Muslims and the proliferation of sympathetic portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. media. Arabs and Muslims in the Media examines this paradox and investigates the increase of sympathetic images of “the enemy” during the War on Terror. Evelyn Alsultany explains that a new standard in racial and cultural representations emerged out of the multicultural movement of the 1990s that involves balancing a negative representation with a positive one, what she refers to as “simplified complex representations.” This has meant that if the storyline of a TV drama or film represents an Arab or Muslim as a terrorist, then the storyline also includes a “positive” representation of an Arab, Muslim, Arab American, or Muslim American to offset the potential stereotype. Analyzing how TV dramas such as The Practice, 24, Law and Order, NYPD Blue, and Sleeper Cell, news-reporting, and non-profit advertising have represented Arabs, Muslims, Arab Americans, and Muslim Americans during the War on Terror, this book demonstrates how more diverse representations do not in themselves solve the problem of racial stereotyping and how even seemingly positive images can produce meanings that can justify exclusion and inequality.

Economics of Sustainable Energy

Economics of Sustainable Energy
Author: Jaan S. Islam
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 644
Release: 2018-10-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1119525926

Co-written by a pioneer of the sustainability movement, this groundbreaking volume offers a new way of thinking about the economics of sustainable energy, a goal that has eluded scientists and economists for decades. Every year, as soon as reports on global economic inequality remind us about the direction our civilization is heading, there is a hysterical reaction, but hysteria dies down within weeks and we go back to the lifestyle that brought us here today. Often the blame is laid on the Millennial generation for their "apathy," "lust for comfort," and "bratty" attitude. Yet, business insider surveys indicate it's the same Millennial generation that overwhelmingly cares for the state of the world and the direction in which our civilization is heading. Nearly 50% of them ranked climate change and destruction of nature as their primary concern. This is followed by concern for war and global conflict, and then global economic inequality. The vast majority of those surveyed are willing and eager to make lifestyle changes. This book breaks open the hypocrisy of our civilization and stops the blame game in its tracks and identifies the root causes of today's world economy, ecology, and global politics. The book demonstrates that changes in lifestyle are necessary but not sufficient. No economic policy or technology development mode has a chance to survive, let alone thrive unless supported by the political establishment. In this process, the government plays a pivotal role. The challenge is to change the attitude of the government from a 'self-serving' controlling mode to a representative philanthropic mode. This new system of economic development and political governance is inspired by a long-forgotten understanding of political economics: medieval Islamic economics. In reviewing the history of economics from trade, currencies, and interest, the strengths and weaknesses of various economic developments over our centuries are evaluated. Based on the historical analysis, a step by step procedure is outlined for this fundamental change in our society today. As a whole, this book is the first in the modern era to offer such a comprehensive analysis, complete with solutions to the entire crisis of today's civilization.

"Muslim"

Author: Zahia Rahmani
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Total Pages: 61
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1941920764

Muslim: A Novel is a genre-bending, poetic reflection on what it means to be Muslim from one of France’s leading writers. In this novel, the second in a trilogy, Rahmani’s narrator contemplates the loss of her native language and her imprisonment and exile for being Muslim, woven together in an exploration of the political and personal relationship of language within the fraught history of Islam. Drawing inspiration from the oral histories of her native Berber language, the Koran, and French children’s tales, Rahmani combines fiction and lyric essay in to tell an important story, both powerful and visionary, of identity, persecution, and violence.

History of Islamic Philosophy

History of Islamic Philosophy
Author: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 446
Release: 1996
Genre: Islam
ISBN: 9780415131599

Islamic Philosophy has often been treated as mainly of historical interest, belonging to the history of ideas rather than to philosophy. This is volume challenges this belief. The Routledge History of Philosophy is made up entirely of essays by a distinguished list of writers. They provide detailed discussions of the most important thinkers and the key concepts in Islamic philosophy, from earliest times to the present day.

Native Believer

Native Believer
Author: Ali Eteraz
Publisher: Akashic Books
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2016-04-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1617754595

“[A] wickedly funny Philadelphia picaresque about a secular Muslim’s identity crisis in a country waging a never-ending war on terror.” —O, The Oprah Magazine Ali Eteraz’s much-anticipated debut novel is the story of M., a supportive husband, adventureless dandy, lapsed believer, and second-generation immigrant who wants nothing more than to host parties and bring children into the world as full-fledged Americans. As M.’s life gradually fragments around him—a wife with a chronic illness, a best friend stricken with grief, a boss jeopardizing a respectable career—M. spins out into the pulsating underbelly of Philadelphia, where he encounters others grappling with fallout from the war on terror. Among the pornographers and converts to Islam, punks and wrestlers, M. confronts his existential degradation and the life of a second-class citizen. Darkly comic, provocative, and insightful, Native Believer is a startling vision of the contemporary American experience and the human capacity to shape identity and belonging at all costs. “Native Believer stands as an important contribution to American literary culture: a book quite unlike any I’ve read in recent memory, which uses its characters to explore questions vital to our continuing national discourse around Islam.” —The New York Times Book Review “A page-turning contemporary fiction that addresses burning issues about the very essence of identity, and without question Ali Eteraz is a writer’s writer, one whose ear for the English language is just as acute as fellow naturalized Americans Vladimir Nabokov (born in Russia) or Viet Thanh Nguyen (Vietnam).” —Los Angeles Review of Books

Wonder Beyond Belief

Wonder Beyond Belief
Author: Navid Kermani
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1509514872

What happens when one of Germany’s most important writers, himself a Muslim, immerses himself in the world of Christian art? In this book, Navid Kermani is awestruck by a religion full of sacrifice and lamentation, love and wonder, the irrational and the unfathomable, the deeply human and the divine – a Christianity that today’s Christians rarely speak of so earnestly, boldly and enthusiastically. With the open-minded curiosity of a non-believer – or rather a believer in another faith – Kermani engages with Christian art in its great richness and diversity. The result is an enchanting reflection which reinvests in Christianity both its spectacular beauty and its terror. Kermani struggles with the cross, falls in love at the sight of Mary, experiences the Orthodox Mass and appreciates the greatness of St Francis. He teaches us to see the questions of our present-day lives in the pictures of old masters such as Botticelli, Caravaggio and Rembrandt – not with lectures on art history or theology, but with an intelligent eye for the essential details and the underlying relations to seemingly remote worlds, to literature and to mystical Islam. Kermani’s poetic school of seeing draws us in as we are carried along by his unique perspective on Christianity, rekindling our interest in great art at the same time. We are captivated by his unique and brilliant Islamic reading of the West.

A Handbook of Mohammedan Decorative Arts

A Handbook of Mohammedan Decorative Arts
Author: M. S. Dimand
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Total Pages: 330
Release: 1930-07-01
Genre: Design
ISBN:

The first history of Mohammedan decorative arts to appear in English, this publication from 1930 highlights The Metropolitan Museum of Art's strong Islamic art collection with over 170 works discussed. The diverse selection objects spans over twelve centuries and includes richly illuminated manuscripts, colorful glazed pottery, and intricate woven carpets, among others. Dimand contextualizes Mohammedan decorative arts within the history of Islam and its spread across the world, from the Middle East to Egypt and India.

History of Islamic Philosophy

History of Islamic Philosophy
Author: Oliver Leaman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 816
Release: 2020-08-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000159027

Islamic philosophy has often been treated as being largely of historical interest, belonging to the history of ideas rather than to philosophical study. This volume successfully overturns that view. Emphasizing the living nature and rich diversity of the subject, it examines the main thinkers and schools of thought, discusses the key concepts of Islamic philosophy and covers a vast geographical area. This indispensable reference tool includes a comprehensive bibliography and an extensive index.