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Midnight's Children |
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| Author: |
Salman Rushdie |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0140132708 |
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Book Review
Anyone who has spent time in the developing world will know that one of Bombay's claims to fame is the enormous film industry that churns out hundreds of musical fantasies each year. The other, of course, is native son Salman Rushdie--less prolific, perhaps than Bollywood, but in his own way just as fantastical. Though Rushdie's novels lack the requisite six musical numbers that punctuate every Bombay talkie, they often share basic plot points with their cinematic counterparts. Take, for example, his 1980 Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children: two children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947--the moment at which India became an independent nation--are switched in the hospital. The infant scion of a wealthy Muslim family is sent to be raised in a Hindu tenement, while the legitimate heir to such squalor ends... |
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The Children of Abraham |
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| Author: |
F. E. Peters |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0691120412 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Review
Jewish Book World : F.E. Peters' revision of this important, accessible discussion of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition is a welcome contribution for a new generation.
Review
William A. Graham, Dean, Harvard Divinity School : I know of no more measured and thoughtful historical survey of the formative development of the conjoined tradition of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought and practice than this one.
Jack Miles, author of "God: A Biography and Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God" : The Children of Abraham is a concise introduction to the work of a scholar who thinks about every aspect of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam 'in triplicate.' This new edition deserves a warm welcome.
Jane Dammen McAuliffe, general editor of the "Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an" :... |
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The Islamic Year: Surahs, Stories and Celebrations (Crafts, Festivals and Family Activities Ser) |
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| Author: |
Noorah Al-Gailani, et al |
Book Review
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Paperback
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| ISBN: |
1903458145 |
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From Publishers Weekly
PW has complained for some time about the lack of informative books about Islamic holidays and celebrations, and this book begins to fill that void. Aimed at school-age children and their parents, it is loaded with activities, crafts, recipes and stories to help children understand the meaning behind holiday traditions. The authors discuss some variations in holiday celebrations by Muslims around the world; in Turkey, Sufi whirling dances are performed during the evenings of Ramadan, while in Bangladesh, the wealthy give clothes to the poor. The book is imaginatively structured around the life of the prophet Muhammad, with holidays arranged as they relate to the prophet's life and work: his birth, his ascension, etc. The New Year's holiday (hijrah) is explained by pairing it with Muhammad's migration from Mecca... |
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Children of Abraham |
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| Author: |
Khalid Duran |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0881257249 |
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| Availability: |
This title is not currently available. |
From Publishers Weekly
Duran, editor of the journal TransIslam, misses a great opportunity to educate his Jewish audience about the extensive similarities between Judaism and Islam. Pockets of the book are enlightening. He accurately describes the archaism of Shari'a (Islamic law) in the modern world, and makes a strong point that Islamism, or fundamentalist Islam, is a political, not religious, movement. However, Duran spends the bulk of the text on Islamists, belying their small population. He writes that "the history of Jewish-Muslim relations is so complex that one can list as many positive as negative examples of their interaction," yet he relates mostly the negative ones, sabotaging his ostensible purpose. He also misstates facts about Islam and women in Islam, and mishandles the description of dhimmi (minority status) in Islam.... |
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Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary |
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| Author: |
Walter Dean Myers |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0590481096 |
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From Publishers Weekly
In his preface, Newbery Honor book author Myers ( Scorpions ; Fallen Angels ) notes that Malcolm X's pivotal impact on the civil rights movement of the '60s was the result of his distinctive, dramatic approach: "It was Malcolm's anger, his biting wit, his dedication, that put the hard edge on the movement, that provided the other side of the sword, not the handle of acceptance and nonviolence, but the blade." Appropriately, it is with incisive, precise prose that the author chronicles the labyrinthine path of Malcolm's life, from his 1925 birth in Omaha to his assassination in Harlem 40 years later. Seamlessly fusing historical notes on the era with the activist's story, Myers tells of Malcolm's childhood, which was greatly influenced by his father, a disciple of Marcus Garvey; his life as a youth on the streets... |
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Why They Fear Rastafari and Nation of Islam |
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| Author: |
Ras Cardo |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
1425700209 |
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| Availability: |
Print-on-demand title. Ships within 5-15 days. |
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Muslim Child |
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| Author: |
Rukhsana Khan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0807553077 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From School Library Journal
Grades 2-4--Avowedly didactic, as its subtitle indicates, Muslim Child presents aspects of the daily lives of Muslim youngsters in various locales, including Canada, the U.S., Nigeria, and Pakistan. The child's-eye view substantially increases the likelihood that non-Muslim readers will be able to internalize and understand what the protagonists are feeling and thinking, even if the religious basis of those thoughts and emotions is unfamiliar. In one story, a young American Muslim grumbles about having to wake before dawn for morning prayer and then spends a good deal of his energy during the prayer trying to suppress a fart, which will render the prayer ritually unclean. In another tale, a Canadian boy is embarrassed to have his school friends see his mother in her full-body dress, with head and face... |
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Mosque |
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| Author: |
David Macaulay |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover
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| ISBN: |
0618240349 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
From School Library Journal
Grade 5 Up-Macaulay's books on architecture are by now an institution in themselves, and this latest addition to the series maintains the high quality of its predecessors. Using, as always, a fictional framework to hold his nonfictional material, the author introduces readers to Admiral Suha Mehmet Pasa, a wealthy aristocrat living in Istanbul, who decides in his declining years to fund the building of a mosque and its associated buildings-religious school, soup kitchen, public baths, public fountain, and tomb. Detailing the activities of the architect and workers, Macaulay creates a from-the-ground-up look not only at the actual construction, but also at the uses of the various buildings, most of which will be unfamiliar to Westerners. In his preface, the artist states that he has based his invented mosque... |
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Islam |
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| Author: |
Masoud Kheirabadi |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0791078590 |
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Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Idealogy and the War on Terror |
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| Author: |
Mary Habeck |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0300113064 |
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* Yale historian Habeck takes Muslim terrorists at their word. They aren't envious of liberal democracy or the consumer society. Religion drives them--specifically, an exclusivist, triumphalist vision of Islam that Habeck calls jihadism to point up its holy-war-like character rather than its orthodoxy. The latter is problematic, for while jihadism is based on universally accepted Muslim principles and traditions, what it has forged out of them is highly controversial, not least because jihadists consider Muslims who disagree with them to be unbelievers as worthy of destruction as non-Muslims. Habeck traces the current of Islamic thought that eventuated in jihadism from an early-fourteenth-century scholar and the eighteenth-century founder of the harshly restrictive Islam predominant in Saudi Arabia to four... |
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Salaam: A Muslim American Boy's Story |
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| Author: |
Tricia Brown, Ken Cardwell (Photographer) |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover
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| ISBN: |
0805065385 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
Book Description
A sensitive and loving portait of a Muslim-American family |
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Princess Sultana's Daughters |
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| Author: |
Jean Sasson |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0967673755 |
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From Publishers Weekly
Sasson's sequel to Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil is another page-turner related by "Princess Sultana." A member of the royal family of Saudi Arabia, Sultana now is married to a progressive prince, but this privileged status does not protect her or her two daughters from the country's repressive laws against women. Though a devout Muslim, Sultana believes the entrenched male power structure has perverted religious doctrine to justify veiling women and depriving them of basic civil liberties. The lack of opportunity to forge equal relationships with men before and after marriage, Sultana argues, is why one of her daughters became fanatically religious and the other suffered a mental breakdown. This eye-opening account is limited to life among the royals rather than a critique of Saudi Arabian... |
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Ali and Nino |
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| Author: |
Kurban Said |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0385720408 |
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Book Review
As is true of all great literature, Kurban Said's Ali and Nino has timeless appeal. Set in the years surrounding the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union, Said's tale of an Azerbaijani Muslim boy in love with a Georgian Christian girl is both tender and disturbingly prescient. The novel, first published in 1937, begins as Ali Khan Shirvanshir is finishing his last year of high school: We were a very mixed lot, we forty schoolboys who were having a Geography lesson one hot afternoon in the Imperial Russian Humanistic High School of Baku, Transcaucasia: thirty Mohammedans, four Armenians, two Poles, three Sectarians, and one Russian. The multi-ethnic Baku, it seems, stands at a crossroads between West and East, and, as the smug Russian professor informs his pupils, it is their responsibility to... |
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American Islam : Growing up Muslim in America |
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| Author: |
Richard Wormser |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback
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| ISBN: |
0802776280 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
From Publishers Weekly
Punctuating his writing with short quotes drawn from interviews with young people, Wormser (Hoboes) discusses issues faced by Muslims in America. First he outlines basic tenets of the religion, then focuses on two quite different groups, immigrants from the Middle East and African Americans. He emphasizes matters relevant to teens, such as navigating the strict codes of Islamic dating, dealing with peer pressure, and adapting ancient customs to modern life. On the whole, his account tends to idealize his subjects. For example, after introducing the popularly held belief that "Muslim men rule the household," the author quotes a Muslim (male): "It doesn't make sense to try and dominate your wife.... Islam teaches that the man has the final decision in the family, but you should always discuss things with your wife... |
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Sweetness in the Belly |
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| Author: |
Camilla Gibb |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
159420084X |
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From Publishers Weekly
With sure-handed, urgent prose, Gibb (The Petty Details of So-and-So's Life) chronicles the remarkable spiritual and geographical journey of a white British Muslim woman who struggles with cultural contradictions to find community and love. Lilly Abdal, orphaned at age eight after the murder of her hippie British parents, grows up at an Islamic shrine in Morocco. The narrative alternates between Harar, Ethiopia, in the 1970s, where she moved in pilgrimage at age 16, and London, England, in the '80s, where she lives in exile from Africa, working as a nurse. Ignoring the cries of "farenji," or foreigner, she starts a religious Muslim school in Harar. Later, in London, along with her friend Amina, Lilly runs a community association for family reunification of Ethiopian refugees. Each month, she reads the list of... |
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Muhammad |
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| Author: |
Demi (Illustrator) |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover
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| ISBN: |
0689852649 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
From School Library Journal
Grade 3 Up-Demi's somewhat reverent picture-book introduction to Muhammad is similar in format to her Buddha (Holt, 1995). Born into a powerful and influential Meccan tribe in the year A.D. 570, Muhammad was nursed for five years by a desert woman who recognized his "inner beauty and greatness." Between the ages of 40 and 63, he had many visions that revealed to him the words that became the Koran and the Five Pillars of Islam. Although he quickly gained many followers, his attempts to convert the idol-worshipping Meccans to monotheism annoyed the Quraysh tribal leaders, forcing the Muslims into military confrontations. Ultimately, he was able to unite the feuding Arab tribes into the Ummah brotherhood. Demi states that he granted religious tolerance to Christians and Jews, but forced them to pay a "tribute"... |
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Islam |
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| Author: |
Neil Morris |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0872266931 |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 4-7-Informative if occasionally disjointed, these two books both overlap with and contain different material from titles in the "What Do We Know about-?" series (Peter Bedrick) and the "Beliefs and Cultures" series (Children's, 1996; o.p.). Both titles include historical background ranging from the religions' beginnings to the present, information on basic beliefs and practices, and overviews of both the core ethnic groups from which the religions sprang and the various other groups into which both faiths have spread. There are multiple illustrations per page in the now-familiar "Eyewitness" style (DK), which provides a great deal of visual support for the text, while necessarily limiting the size of the art. In both presentations, the point of view is that of a believer, especially in... |
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Zinnia's Flower Garden |
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| Author: |
Monica Wellington (Illustrator) |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover
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| ISBN: |
0525473688 |
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Usually ships in 24 hours |
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2 - Wellington's familiar gouache cartoons skillfully meld with photographs of flowers for a merry trek through every season of gardening. Red-haired Zinnia, with the help of her cat and dog pals, demonstrates the skills that bring forth a brilliant wealth of blossoms. The author augments the discussion of the process with instructive border illustrations. Each spread also features tidbits of information such as the types of clouds, the life cycle of a butterfly, parts of a flower, or money math (atop the page of her lemonade and flower stand). Wellington wraps up the tale with a page of tips for growing one's own bouquets. A title that is rich in application and enjoyment. - Gay Lynn Van Vleck, Henrico County Library, Glen Allen, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division... |
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Ayat Jamilah: Beautiful Signs: A Treasury of Islamic Wisdom for Children and Parents (Aesop Prize (Awards)) |
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| Author: |
Sarah Conover, et al |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback
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| ISBN: |
0910055947 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up–This book aims to do for Islam what Conover's Kindness (EWU, 2000) did for Buddhism: reflect the ethos of the religion in a treasury of stories accessible to teens. Here, too, pithy sayings from the tradition are framed on full pages between the narratives, and 22 pages of notes and sources provide foundations and suggest further exploration. These stories from the Qur'an, from Muslim history, hadiths (oral tradition), and folktales originated in the Middle East, China, Indonesia, Africa, and even Muslim Spain; several are from Sufi teachings (e.g., Rumi's). Although many feature mullahs, women star in a couple of tales. Focusing on life lessons, even the stories identified as historical can have an idealized moral: a band of robbers converted by the honesty of a youth, or a thief reformed... |
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Islam |
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| Author: |
Matthew S. Gordon |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
019521885X |
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From Publishers Weekly
Gordon provides an accessible, well-written and evenhanded introduction to Islam, one of the world's fastest-growing religions. In brief chapters, he discusses the rise of Islam; the centrality of its sacred text, the Qur'an; the importance of the Prophet Muhammad; the major developments of both Sunni and Shi'i Islam (including "sub-sects" of both traditions); the ethical principles and "Five Pillars" of the faith; the role of the mosque and of sacred sites such as Mecca; the concept of sacred time and the Islamic lunar calendar; Muslims' beliefs about death and the afterlife; and Islam in the modern world. Throughout, Gordon provides a balanced approach, noting, for example, that the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1990 fatwah against novelist Salman Rushdie was opposed by many Islamic scholars and that the religion is... |
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