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The life and legacy of one of Mohammad’s closest confidants and Islam’s patron saint: Ali ibn Abi Talib Ali ibn Abi Talib is arguably the single most important spiritual and intellectual authority in Islam after prophet Mohammad. Through his teachings and leadership as fourth caliph, Ali nourished Islam. But Muslims are divided on whether he was supposed to be Mohammad’s political successor—and he continues to be a polarizing figure in Islamic history. Hassan Abbas provides a nuanced, compelling portrait of this towering yet divisive figure and the origins of sectarian division within Islam. Abbas reveals how, after Mohammad, Ali assumed the spiritual mantle of Islam to spearhead the movement that the prophet had led. While Ali’s teachings about wisdom, justice, and selflessness continue to be cherished by both Shia and Sunni Muslims, his pluralist ideas have been buried under sectarian agendas and power politics. Today, Abbas argues, Ali’s legacy and message stands against that of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and Taliban.
For nearly three decades, scholars and policymakers have placed considerable stock in judicial reform as a panacea for the political and economic turmoil plaguing developing countries. Courts are charged with spurring economic development, safeguarding human rights, and even facilitating transitions to democracy. How realistic are these expectations, and in what political contexts can judicial reforms deliver their expected benefits? This book addresses these issues through an examination of the politics of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court, the most important experiment in constitutionalism in the Arab world. The Egyptian regime established a surprisingly independent constitutional ...
From the John Holmes Library collection.
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In northern Sumatra, as in Malaya, colonial rule embraced an extravagant array of sultans, rajas, datuks and uleebalangs. In Malaya the traditional Malay elite served as a barrier to evolutionary change and survived the transition to independence, but in Sumatra a wave of violence and killing wiped out the traditional elite in 1945-46. Anthony Reid's The Blood of the People, now available in a new edition, explores the circumstances of Sumatra's sharp break with the past during what has been labelled its "social revolution." The events in northern Sumatra were among the most dramatic episodes of Indonesia's national revolution, and brought about more profound changes even than in Java, from ...