What is the nature and social role of women? In today’s Shi‘ism, these questions are often answered through the “separate-but- equal” ideology which emphasizes the role of women as wives and mothers, and places men in authority. But is this the only ideology which can be derived from Shi‘i scriptural sources? This book takes a more nuanced approach to that question by exploring how women are portrayed in hadith on ancient sacred narrative – the stories of the prophets. It shows far more diverse views on what it means to be a woman (and, by extension, a man) – and that early Shi‘is held competing views about ideals for women.

A study of the identity-formation process that the Christians of Syria-Palestine experienced during the Umayyad Caliphate. It approaches this subject by using John of Damascus and his writings on Islam as a case-study. This provides an exhaustive study of the available historical data in order to stimulate some further thought on John of Damascus’s theology and legacy from a contextual and intercultural methodology. Such an examination has not yet been pursued in the scholarship of Byzantine Christianity during that era. Proceeding from a centralizing ‘context’, the monograph revisits John of Damascus’s legacy (and the Umayyad Christians’ identity-formation of that era) from the perspective of his historical, Islamic-Arabic context, and not from any assumed, metanarrative, common to contemporary pro-Byzantine theology scholars.

Middle Eastern Minorities and the Arab Spring: Identity and Community in the Twenty-First Century examines eleven minority groups in the early years of the so-called Arab Spring. Wide-ranging in scope, minorities of diverse religious and ethno-linguistic backgrounds are included from North Africa, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. Each has experienced the Arab Spring differently and uniquely depending upon their context. Of particular concern to the international team of scholars involved in this volume, is the interaction and reaction of minorities to the protest movements across the Arab World that called for greater democratic rights and end to respective autocratic regimes. While some minorities participated in the Arab Spring, others were wary of instability and the unintended effects of regime change – notably the rise of violent Islamism. The full effects of the Arab Spring will not be known for years to come, but for the minorities of the Middle East, the immediate future seems certainly tenuous at best.

The current volume is an annotated translation of selections from a noteworthy Muslim theologian Said Nursi (1876-1960) on the Quranic theme of oneness of God (tawhid). Given the scarcity of theological themes in Islamic literature in English as well as the lack of studies on Said Nursi, who wrote in Ottoman Turkish, the book is an important contribution to the field. It offers a contemporary peek into the view that faith in God could be profoundly meaningful and fulfilling spiritual path.