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This article assesses the importance of the biblical book of Daniel in the first four Islamic centuries, focusing in particular on the legendary materials contained in Daniel 1–6. The article is divided into three sections. In the first section the treatments of Daniel 1–6 in Isrāʾīliyyāt works are examined, and it is shown that summaries of Daniel 1–6 in these works display evidence of oral transmission. Additionally, it is shown that some authors' familiarity with Daniel legends led them to insert this character into “biblical” narratives that do not otherwise relate to him. In the second section it is argued that Daniel's exploits were so widely known that they served as a sort of yardstick for judging the relative importance of some other “heroic” figures who are described in classical Islamic sources. In the third section it is postulated that the introductory sections of Ibn Hishām's Sīra consciously relate stories with Daniel-ic associations in order to bring the Sīra into line with the Christian Gospels.

From the cleric-led Iranian revolution to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, many people have been surprised by what they see as the modern reemergence of an antimodern phenomenon. This book helps account for the increasingly visible public role of traditionally educated Muslim religious scholars (the `ulama) across contemporary Muslim societies. Muhammad Qasim Zaman describes the transformations the centuries-old culture and tradition of the `ulama have undergone in the modern era--transformations that underlie the new religious and political activism of these scholars. In doing so, it provides a new foundation for the comparative study of Islam, politics, and religious change in the contemporary world. While focusing primarily on Pakistan, Zaman takes a broad approach that considers the Taliban and the `ulama of Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and the southern Philippines. He shows how their religious and political discourses have evolved in often unexpected but mutually reinforcing ways to redefine and enlarge the roles the `ulama play in society. Their discourses are informed by a longstanding religious tradition, of which they see themselves as the custodians. But these discourses are equally shaped by--and contribute in significant ways to--contemporary debates in the Muslim public sphere. This book offers the first sustained comparative perspective on the `ulama and their increasingly crucial religious and political activism. It shows how issues of religious authority are debated in contemporary Islam, how Islamic law and tradition are continuously negotiated in a rapidly changing world, and how the `ulama both react to and shape larger Islamic social trends. Introducing previously unexamined facets of religious and political thought in modern Islam, it clarifies the complex processes of religious change unfolding in the contemporary Muslim world and goes a long way toward explaining their vast social and political ramifications.

With What ?Isa ibn Hisham Told Us, the Library of Arabic Literature brings readers an acknowledged masterpiece of early 20th-century Arabic prose. Penned by the Egyptian journalist Muhammad al-Muwaylihi, this exceptional title was first introduced in serialized form in his family's pioneering newspaper Misbah al-Sharq (Light of the East), on which this edition is based, and later published in book form in 1907. Widely hailed for its erudition and its mordant wit, What ?Isa ibn Hisham Told Us was embraced by Egypt's burgeoning reading public and soon became required reading for generations of Egyptian school students. Bridging classical genres and the emerging tradition of modern Arabic fiction, What ?Isa ibn Hisham Told Us is divided into two parts, the second of which was only added to the text with the fourth edition of 1927. Sarcastic in tone and critical in outlook, the book relates the excursions of its narrator ?Isa ibn Hisham and his companion, the Pasha, through a rapidly Westernized Cairo at the height of British occupation, providing vivid commentary of a society negotiating-however imperfectly-the clash of imported cultural values and traditional norms of conduct, law, and education. The \"Second Journey\" takes the narrator to Paris to visit the Exposition Universelle of 1900, where al-Muwaylihi casts the same relentlessly critical eye on European society, modernity, and the role of Western imperialism as it ripples across the globe. Paving the way for the modern Arabic novel, What ?Isa ibn Hisham Told Us is invaluable both for its sociological insight into colonial Egypt and its pioneering role in Arabic literary history.

Islam, its rapid spread and development and a wide variety of interpretations regarding its beliefs and practices, is a subject of vigorous debate and discussion both from theological and academic perspectives. Both these approaches are quite distinct--theological presentation of a religion differs from the academic presentation. In the former, religion is defined and explained by using religious terms, whereas, the latter while defining the religion employs various other terms other than religion itself that are derived from the academic disciplines such as history, sociology, etc. The book Muslim Identities: An Introduction to Islam by Aaron W. Hughes who holds the Phillip S. Bernstein Chair in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester is an commendable attempt to introduce Islam and its development and diversity across the centuries to the religious studies students.

Safran reviews \"The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham Ibn Abd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads\" by Khalid Yahya Blankenship.

\"The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham Ibn Abd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads\" by Khalid Yahya Blankinship is reviewed.

Carter reviews \"Grammar and Semantics in Medieval Arabic: A Study of Ibn-Hisham's 'Mughni L-Labib\" by Adrian Gully.

Le prince al-Mughîra (950-976), dernier né du calife al-Nâsir (913-961), est connu par l’extraordinaire pyxide d’ivoire à son nom, conservée au musée du Louvre, et pour avoir été sommairement exécuté le jour même de la mort de son frère al-Hakam II (961-976) et de l’avènement de son neveu Hishâm II. Cet article fait le lien entre ces deux faits établis, en montrant qu’al-Mughîra était le véritable héritier désigné de son frère al-Hakam, avant d’être remplacé dans ce rôle par le fils encore mineur d’al-Hakam, contre les traditions de la dynastie et contre la loi de l’islam qui écartent l’idée d’un calife mineur. À la mort d’al-Hakam, un fort parti tente de rendre ses droits au prince Mughîra, d’où son exécution sommaire (puis celle de ses partisans) par les soins d’Ibn Abî ‘Âmir, le futur al-Mansûr, régent du califat (978-1002). Le souvenir de cet assassinat – et de ce coup d’État — jouera un rôle dans la révolte contre le fils d’al-Mansûr en 1009, et finalement dans le naufrage du califat. Inversement, la grandeur d’al-Mansûr, révérée par les historiens arabes comme les orientalistes, a contribué à avaliser le meurtre et à faire sombrer la mémoire d’al-Mughîra.