al-Muhaddithat: the women scholars in Islam
$26.00 USD
This book is an adaptation in English of the prefatory volume of a 40-volume biographical dictionary (in Arabic) of women scholars of the Prophet’s hadith. Learned women enjoyed high public standing and authority in the formative years of Islam. For centuries thereafter, women travelled intensively for religious knowledge and routinely attended the most prestigious mosques and madrasas across the Islamic world. Typical documents (like class registers and ijazahs from women authorizing men to teach) and the glowing testimonies about their women teachers from the most revered ulema are cited in detail. An overview chapter, with accompanying maps, traces the spread of centres of hadith learning for women, and their eventual decline. The information summarized here is essential to a balanced appreciation of the role of women in Islamic society.
“...read today, when many Muslim women still don’t dare pray in mosques, let alone lecture leaders in them, Akram’s entry for someone like Umm al-Darda, a prominent jurist in seventh-century Damascus, is startling. As a young woman, Umm al-Darda used to sit with male scholars in the mosque, talking shop... She went on to teach hadith and fiqh, or law, at the mosque, and even lectured in the men’s section; her students included the caliph...” (New York Times)
“...replete with enlightening references... the standard introduction to the study of the women scholars of Islam.” (Muslim World Book Review)
By Mohammad Akram Nadwi
Mohammad Akram Nadwi (alumnus of Nadwat al-Ulama, Lucknow) has written extensively in Arabic and Urdu on hadith, fiqh, Islamic biography, and Arabic grammar; and recently in English: Madrasa Life (2007), Abu Hanifah (2010), two (of the five) volumes of al-Fiqh al-Islama (2007, 2012), and Abu l-Hasan 'Ali al-Nadwi (2013).
The cover shows the study journeys of Fatimah bt. Sa'd al-Khayr and her principal students. She moved from Valencia with her merchant-scholar father to China, then travelled back westward, settling longest in Baghdad. She taught thereafter in Cairo, where she died in 600 ah. (See ch. 3.)
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 314
Bilingual Islamic Education: as taken from the Educational Theories of African Muslim Slaves in Antebellum American
$7.95 USD
A series of short articles and notes on Islamic educational theory, - articles original date is 1835
Cultures of the World: Somalia
$47.07 USD
Fez, City of Islam
$34.99 USD
By Titus Burckhardt
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 175
Publisher: Islamic Texts Society
For You Are a Kenyan Child
$17.99 USD
Imagine you live in a small Kenyan village, where the sun rises over tall trees filled with doves. You wake to the sound of a rooster's crow, instead of an alarm clock and the school bus. Your afternoon snack is a tasty bug plucked from the sky, instead of an apple. And rather than kicking a soccer ball across a field, you kick a homemade ball of rags down a dusty road. But despite this, things aren't that different for a Kenyan child than they would be for an American kid, are they? With so much going on around you, it's just as easy to forget what your mama asked you to do!
By Kelly Cunnane
Art by Ana Juan
Binding: Hardcover
Age: Children
Publisher: Atheneum
Globalizing Somalia
$34.95 USD
This collection of essays demonstrates how chronic state failure and the inability of the international community to provide a solution to the conflict in Somalia has had transnational repercussions.
Following the failed humanitarian mission in 1992-93, most countries refrained from any direct involvement in Somalia, but this changed in the 2000s with the growth of piracy and links to international terrorist organizations. The deterritorialization of the conflict quickly became apparent as it became transnational in nature. In part because of it lacked a government and was unable to work with the international community, Somalia came to be seen as a "testing-ground" by many international actors.Globalizing Somalia demonstrates how China, Japan, and the EU, among others, have all used the conflict in Somalia to project power, test the bounds of the national constitution, and test their own military capabilities.
Contributed by international scholars and experts, the work examines the impact of globalization on the internal and external dynamics of the conflict, arguing that it is no longer geographically contained. By bringing together the many actors and issues involved, the book fills a gap in the literature as one of the most complete works on the conflict in Somalia to date. It will be an essential text to any student interested in Somalia and the horn of Africa, as well as in terrorism, and conflict processes.
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
$15.95 USD
From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era's most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.
With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.
They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS.
Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women's potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it's also the best strategy for fighting poverty.
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If You Knew Me You Would Care
$65.00 USD
If You Knew Me You Would Care represents a journey taken to find women who have survived wars, violence, and poverty in order to collect their stories. The stories go beyond tears and victimhood and reveal joy, love, and forgiveness.
If You Knew Me You Would Care is a collaboration between women's rights activist and Women for Women International founder Zainab Salbi and photographer Rennio Maifredi. Together they traveled to Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to seek out women who have been subject to the worst trials individuals must ever face, and yet overcame this adversity. Salbi conducted interviews with women about their definitions of war and peace, about their horrific and tragic pasts and their hopes for the future, and Maifredi photographed each of the women interviewed. The interviews and images together create a compelling, global, first-person account of what it means to be a powerful, female, survivor.
If You Knew Me You Would Care is a celebration of women's stories and strength worldwide.
"The women in this book are an inspiration to all of us who aspire to triumph over adversity. It is a personal peek at the most initimate stories as told by women who have survived war. It is a tribute to them, to their survival, their achievements, and their dreams. I hope people everywhere will take away the powerful message of survival this book inspires."
—Zainab Salbi
by Zainab Salbi
Photographs by Rennio Maifredi
Forewords by Meryl Streep, Annie Lennoz, Ashley Judd, Geena David
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 143
Publisher: Powerhouse Books
Jannah Jewels Book 6: Mystery In Morocco
$11.99 USD
In Book 6 of the Jannah Jewels Adventure Series, they travel to the city of Fes in Morocco. The Jannah Jewels learn about Fatima al-Fihri, the founder of the first university in the world, al-Qarawiyine. Can the Jannah Jewels solve the riddles to find the artifact in Fes before time runs out?
by Tayyaba Syed and Umm Nura
Letters of a Sufi Master: The Shaykh ad-Darqawi
$14.42 USD
This book contains spiritual techniques taken from letters of Shaykh ad-Darqawi. Almost all these letters are concerned with the method and the operative aspects of the Way and are considered among the most direct instructions given on Sufic method to be found in all Sufi literature.
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Polygyny: What It Means When African American Muslim Women Share Their Husbands
$74.95 USD
This book features the voices of women who welcome polygyny, oppose it, acquiesce to it, or even negotiate power in its practices. Majeed examines the choices available to African American Muslim women who are considering polygyny or who are living it. She calls attention to the ways in which interpretations of Islam's primary sources are authorized or legitimated to regulate the rights of Muslim women. Highlighting the legal, emotional, and communal implications of polygyny, Majeed encourages Muslim communities to develop formal measures that ensure the welfare of women and children who are otherwise not recognized by the state.
Debra Majeed is professor of religious studies at Beloit College.
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 192
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas, 15th Anniversary Edition
$25.00 USD - SOLD OUT
Somalis in Minnesota (People Of Minnesota)
$16.95 USD $6.95 USD
The story of Somalis in Minnesota begins with three words: sahan, war, and martisoor. Driven from their homeland by civil war and famine, one group of Somali sahan, pioneers, discovered well-paying jobs in the city of Marshall, Minnesota. Soon the war, news, traveled that not only was employment available but the people in this northern state, so different in climate from their African homeland, were generous in martisoor, hospitality, just like the Somali people themselves.
The diaspora began in 1992, and today more than fifty thousand Somalis live in Minnesota, the most of any state. Many have made their lives in small towns and rural areas, and many more have settled in Minneapolis, earning this city the nickname "Little Somalia" or "Little Mogadishu." Amiable guide Ahmed Yusuf introduces readers to these varied communities, exploring economic and political life, religious and cultural practices, and successes in education and health care. He also tackles the controversial topics that command newspaper headlines: alleged links to terrorist organizations and the recruitment of young Somali men to fight in the civil war back home. This newest addition to the People of Minnesota series captures the story of the state's most recent immigrant group at a pivotal time in its history.
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The African Caliphate: The Life, Works, And Teaching Of Shaykh Usman Dan Fodio (1754-1817)
$16.95 USD - SOLD OUT
This scholarly work focuses on the establishment in 1809, in what is today Northern Nigeria, of the celebrated Sokoto caliphate, which may well have been the last re-establishment, anywhere in the world, of Islam in its entirety, comprising all its many and varied dimensions.
As well as giving the biography of the Shehu and a comprehensive account of the history of his movement, the book also provides an in-depth examination of his teaching and literary works. These factors are all inextricably interwoven since, in a way scarcely equaled by any other historical figure, the Shehu’s writings sparing directly out of the exigencies and requirements of his immediate situation and were what drove his movement foreword and gave it its momentum. As will be seen, his sole inspiration and source of guidance in every instance were the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of his Messenger (pbuh) to such a point that he even died at exactly the same age. It is also astonishing how relevant the Shehu’s teachings are, in spite of the clear difference in both time and environment, to the situation of so many Muslims in the world today and the solution to many of the problems besetting Islam are clearly indicated within its pages.
Malam Ibraheem Sulaiman teaches law at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, and is a research fellow at the University’s Centre for Islamic Legal Studies, where he was the director for a decade. He has attended seminars and conferences in many different countries and presented papers on Islam, Shari’a and political matters.
The Colour of Home
$9.95 USD - SOLD OUT
Hassan feels out of place in a cold, grey country so different from his colourful Somalian home, which he was forced to leave because of war. But gradually things change...
By Mary Hoffman & Karin Littlewood
Binding: Paperback
Age: Children
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children's Books
the good braider: a novel
$9.99 USD
The Good Braider was selected as the 2013 Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year and a book of Outstanding Merit.
In spare free verse laced with unforgettable images, Viola's strikingly original voice sings out the story of her family's journey from war-torn Sudan, to Cairo, and finally to Portland, Maine. Here, in the sometimes too close embrace of the local Southern Sudanese Community, she dreams of South Sudan while she tries to navigate the strange world of America—a world where a girl can wear a short skirt, get a tattoo, or even date a boy; a world that puts her into sharp conflict with her traditional mother who, like Viola, is struggling to braid together the strands of a displaced life. Terry Farish's haunting novel is not only a riveting story of escape and survival, but the universal tale of a young immigrant's struggle to build a life on the cusp of two cultures.
The author of The Good Braider has donated this book to the Worldreader program.
By Terry Farish
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 221
Publisher: Skyscape
The Herd Boy
$17.00 USD
by Niki Daly
Veiling in Africa
$28.00 USD
The tradition of the veil, which refers to various cloth coverings of the head, face, and body, has been little studied in Africa, where Islam has been present for more than a thousand years. These lively essays raise questions about what is distinctive about veiling in Africa, what religious histories or practices are reflected in particular uses of the veil, and how styles of veils have changed in response to contemporary events. Together, they explore the diversity of meanings and experiences with the veil, revealing it as both an object of Muslim piety and an expression of glamorous fashion.
Edited by Elisha P. Renne
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 238
Voices of Resistance: Oral Histories of Moroccan Women
$31.95 USD
Providing new information on women's participation in the Moroccan independence movement, Voices of Resistance offers a rare opportunity to hear Moroccan women speak freely about their personal lives. Each woman is introduced in terms of her family background and personal style, and the interviews are given texture and context by references to Moroccan history and popular culture, including contemporary songs and poems. These women are storytellers, and they lived through stirring times. Their active struggle against French colonialism also challenged and redefined traditional Moroccan ideas about women's roles in society. The narratives reconstruct the little-known history of Moroccan feminism and nationalism and probe the lives of a remarkable group of Islamic women whose voices have never been heard until now.
by Alison Baker
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 352
Voices of the Poor in Africa
$29.95 USD $19.95 USD
Elizabeth Isichei explores the Atlantic slave trade, as reflected in the poetics of rumour and the poetics of memory -- an approach different from the quantitative and demographic studies which have transformed the subject over the past twenty years. To this and to her study of popular consciousness in the colony and postcolony, she brings together a wide range of disciplines -- ethnography, art and art history, and contemporary literary theory among them -- to look at the intellectual history of Africa, from African rather than European premises. The result is a history of popular consciousness which shows the experiences of ordinary people, often in protest to an ongoing experience of exploitation.
Elizabeth Isichei is Professor of Religious Studies, Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand and author of over a dozen books on African history and religion. She holds an Oxford doctorate, and a D.Litt from the University of Canterbury, and is a fellow of the Royal Society [N.Z.]
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 297
Publisher: University of Rochester Press
Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees
$17.95 USD
First published in France in 2012 as Wangari Maathai, la femme qui plantait des millions d'arbres.
By Franck Prévot
Illustrated by Aurelia Fronty
Binding: Hardcover
Age: Children
Pages: 48
Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing
Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa
$17.99 USD
From the author of "The Librarian of Basra" comes a picture book based on the true story of Wangari Maathai, an environmental and political activist in Kenya and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 who sets out to replenish her country's forests. Full color.
By Jeanette Winter
Binding: Hardcover
Age: Children
Pages: 32
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Women and Islamic Revival in a West African Town
$29.00 USD
In the small town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, Malam Awal, a charismatic Sufi preacher, was recruited by local Muslim leaders to denounce the practices of reformist Muslims. Malam Awal's message has been viewed as a mixed blessing by Muslim women who have seen new definitions of Islam and Muslim practice impact their place and role in society. This study follows the career of Malam Awal and documents the engagement of women in the religious debates that are refashioning their everyday lives. Adeline Masquelier reveals how these women have had to define Islam on their own terms, especially as a practice that governs education, participation in prayer, domestic activities, wedding customs, and who wears the veil and how. Masquelier's richly detailed narrative presents new understandings of what it means to be a Muslim woman in Africa today.
by Adeline Masquelier
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 343
