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A panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Muḥammad to the birth of the modern eraThis book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity.After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history. It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization. It then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the key military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific.At the same time, A History of the Muslim World contains numerous primary-source "ations that expose the reader to a variety of acutely insightful voices from the Muslim past

"In Michael Cook's words, this book is "about a substantial slice of human history delimited by a particular cultural characteristic: adherance to Islam in some form or other. [...] A commitment to Islam makes a difference. Wherever a society and its rulers have come to be Muslim, this has meant a major discontinuity with its pre-Islamic past and a significant expansion of its relations with the wider Muslim world." Starting in the pre-Islamic Middle East, Cook returns a sense of wonder to how Muhammad could not only become a prophet of a new monotheistic religion but also unite the Arab tribes behind it and create a state that would conquer much of the territory that belonged to the Byzantines and the Sasanians, the two empires that had balanced power in the region for hundreds of years. Exploring the high culture of the Abbasids, Cook then charts the disintegration of the Caliphate and the brief rise of the Fatimids and the Mongols of the Steppe. He covers the Ottomans (Turkish), Safavids (Iranian), Mughals (India), and ventures to East Africa, Madagascar, Somalia, Southeast Asia, and many places between. An epilogue gestures to major themes in the post-1800 world"--

Cover -- Series Page -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- I: The Origins of Kalām -- II: Pharaonic History in Medieval Egypt -- III: Magian Cheese: An Archaic Problem in Islamic Law -- IV: Early Islamic Dietary Law -- V: 'Anan and Islam: The Origins of Karaite Scripturalism -- VI: Weber and Islamic Sects -- VII: The Heraclian Dynasty in Muslim Eschatology -- VIII: Eschatology and the Dating of Traditions -- IX: An Early Islamic Apocalyptic Chronicle -- X: The Opponents of the Writing of Tradition in Early Islam -- XI: Ibn Qutayba and the Monkeys -- XII: A Koranic Codex Inherited by Mālik from his Grandfather -- Index.

Managing Machine-Readable Archives: Progress with Description and Exchange Standards

Black Fatherhood, Adoption, and Theology: A Contextual Analysis and Response is a qualitative exploration into the complex intersection of Black fatherhood, adoption, and theology. It is primarily based on the narratives of three Black adoptive fathers who formally adopted non-kinship children. The book takes a closer look at these experiences through the three dominant phases of an adoption experience and gives specific attention to the sociological, psychological, and theological dynamics at play. Ultimately, the book provides a constructive pastoral theology of adoption that sets forth guidelines of care for this population of adoptive fathers as well as others with an experience of adoption