The New Nation - Internet Edition

The war against tolerance

Chris Hedges

Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are the three stooges of the Christian right. These self-described former Muslim terrorists are regularly trotted out at Christian colleges-a few days ago they were at the Air Force Academy-to spew racist filth about Islam on behalf of groups such as Focus on the Family. It is a clever tactic. Curly, Larry and Mo, who all say they are born-again Christians, engage in hate speech and assure us it comes from personal experience. They tell their audiences that the only way to deal with one-fifth of the world's population is by converting or eradicating all Muslims. Their cant is broadcast regularly on Fox News, including the Bill O'Reilly and Neil Cavuto shows, as well as on numerous Christian radio and television programs. Shoebat, who has written a book called Why We Want to Kill You, promises in his lectures to explain the numerous similarities between radical Muslims and the Nazis, how "Muslim terrorists" invaded America 30 years ago and how "perseverance, recruitment and hate" have fueled attacks by Muslims.

These men are frauds, but this is not the point. They are part of a dark and frightening war by the Christian right against tolerance that, in the moment of another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would make it acceptable to target and persecute all Muslims, including the some 6 million Muslims who live in the United States.

These men stoke these irrational fears. They defend the perpetual war unleashed by the Bush administration and championed by Sen. John McCain. McCain frequently reminds listeners that "the greatest danger facing the world is Islamic terrorism," as does Mike Huckabee, who says that "Islamofascism" is "the greatest threat this country [has] ever faced." George W. Bush has, in the same vein, assured Americans that terrorists hate us for our freedoms, not, of course, for anything we have done.

Described the "war on terror" as a war against totalitarian Islamofascism while the Israeli air force was dropping tens of thousands of pounds of iron fragmentation bombs up and down Lebanon, an air campaign that killed 1,300 Lebanese civilians.

The three men tell lurid tales of being recruited as children into Palestinian terrorist organizations, murdering hundreds of civilians and blowing up a bank in Israel. Saleem says that as a child he infiltrated Israel to plant bombs via a network of tunnels underneath the Golan Heights, although no incident of this type was ever reported in Israel. He claims he is descended from the "grand wazir" of Islam, a title and a position that do not exist in the Arab world. They assure audiences that the Palestinians are interested not in a peaceful two-state solution but rather the destruction of Israel, the murder of all Jews and the death of America. Shoebat claims he first came to the United States as part of an extremist "sleeper cell."

"These three jokers are as much former Islamic terrorists as 'Star Trek's' Capt. James T. Kirk was a real Starship captain," said Mikey Weinstein, the head of the watchdog group The Military Religious Freedom Foundation. The group has challenged Christian proselytizing in the military and denounced the visit by the men to the Air Force Academy.

The speakers include in their talks the superior virtues of Christianity. Saleem, for example, says his world "turned upside down when he was seriously injured in an automobile accident." "A Christian man tended to Kamal at the accident scene, making sure he got the medical treatment he needed," his Web site says. "Kamal's orthopedic surgeon and physical therapist were also Christian men whom over a period of several months ministered the unconditional love of Jesus Christ to him as he recovered. The love and sacrificial giving of these men caused Kamal to cry out to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob acknowledging his need for the Savior. Kamal has since become a man on a new mission, as an ambassador for the one true and living God, the great I Am, Jehovah God of the Bible."

This creeping Christian chauvinism has infected our political and social discourse. It was behind the rumor that Barack Obama was a Muslim. Obama reassured followers that he was a Christian. It apparently did not occur to him, or his questioners, that the proper answer is that there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim, that persons of great moral probity and courage arise in all cultures and all religions, including Islam. Christians have no exclusive lock on virtue. But this kind of understanding often provokes indignant rage. The public denigration of Islam, and by implication all religious belief systems outside Christianity, is part of the triumphalism that has distorted the country since the 9/11 attacks. It makes dialogue with those outside our "Christian" culture impossible. It implicitly condemns all who do not think as we think and believe as we believe as, at best, inferior and usually morally depraved. It blinds us to our own failings. It makes self-reflection and self-criticism a form of treason. It reduces the world to a cartoonish vision of us and them, good and evil. It turns us into children with bombs.

These three con artists are not the problem. There is enough scum out there to take their place. Rather, they offer a window into a worldview that is destroying the United States. It has corrupted the Republican Party.

It has colored the news media. It has entered into the everyday clichés we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. It is ignorant and racist, but it is also deadly. It grossly perverts the Christian religion. It asks us to kill to purify the Earth. It leaves us threatened not only by the terrorists who may come from abroad but the ones who are rising from within our midst.

(Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. He spent seven years in the Middle East and reported frequently from Iran. His latest book is American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.)

Financial dealing be conducted with honesty

Tamizul Haque

Barrister-at-Law

I had occasion to look to verse No.29 of Sura Nesa which runs thus :-

O ye who believe!

Eat not up your property

Among yourselves in vanities:

But let there be amongst you

Traffic and trade

By mutual good-will:

Nor kill (or destroy)

Yourselves: for verily

Allah hath been to you

Most Merciful!

Abdullah Yousuf Ali explains this ayat thus :-

Let me paraphrase this verse, for there is profound meaning in it. (1) All your property you hold in trust, whether it is in your name, or belongs to the community, or to people over whom you have control. To waste is wrong (2) In it, 188 of Sura-II (Baqara) the same phrase occurred, to caution us against greed. Here it occurs, to encourage us to increase property by economic use (traffic and trade), recalling Christ's parable of the Talents (Matt. xxv. 14-30), where the servants who had increased their master's wealth were promoted and the servant who had hoarded was cast into darkness. (3) We are warned that our waste may mean our own destruction ("nor kill or destroy yourselves."). But there is a more general meaning also : we must be careful of our own and other people's lives. We must commit no violence. This is the opposite of "trade and traffic by mutual good-will." (4) Our violence to our own brethren is particularly preposterous, seeing that Allah has loved and showered His mercies on us and all His creatures.

While Sayyid Abul Ala Mowdudi explains this ayet thus.

The expression 'wrongfully' embraces all transactions which are opposed to righteousness and which are either legally or morally reprehensible. By contrast, 'trade' signifies the mutual transfer of benefits between the parties concerned, such as that underlying those transactions in which one person provides whatever satisfies the needs of another person and is paid in return. 'Mutual consent' means that the exchange should be free of undue pressure, fraud and deception. Although bribery and interest apparently represent transactions based on mutual consent, closer examination reveals that such consent takes place by constraint and under pressure. In games of chance, too, the participants seem to consent freely to the outcome. This kind of consent, however, is due to the expectation entertained by the participants that they will win. No one takes part anticipating loss. Fraudulent transactions also seem to be based on the mutual consent of the parties concerned. That kind of consent, however, is based on the false assumption that no fraud is involved in the transaction. Nobody who knew that he would be subjected to fraud would consent to be a party to the transaction.

This can be considered either as complementary to the preceding sentence or as an independent statement. If it is complementary, it means that to consume the property of others by wrongful means is tantamount to courting one's own destruction; for such practices corrupt society on such a scale that even the most cunning are not spared their destructive consequences. This is in addition to the severe punishment that is bound to be meted out to such people in the Next Life.

Taken as an independent statement, it can mean either that one should not kill others or that one should not kill oneself. Both the words used and the sequence in which they have been placed by Allah in this verse make each of these three meanings feasible.

This passage also aims at the organisation of a certain aspect of financial dealings in Islamic society, in order that such dealings be conducted with purity and good- will. It goes on to establish the rights of earning and ownership to women on an equal footing with men, according to their respective dues. The aim here is to liquidate pre-Islamic days system and make blood relations the only claimants to inheritance.

This passage is yet another lesson aiming at the refinement of the Islamic character. At the same time it lays down new legal provisions. The two purposes go hand in hand, complementing each other. What Allah legislates for Islamic society refines the Islamic character and organises all practical aspects of life.

I am now referring from the 2nd to 6th lines of the Ayat 29 of Sura Nisa-IV which appear thus:-

Eat not up your property

Among yourselves in vanities:

But let there be amongst you

Traffic and trade

By mutual good-will:

This passage begins with an address to believers prohibiting all forms of illegal gains and profit. This suggests that what follows aims at the eradication of traces of past, ignorant life from Islamic society. When Muslims are addressed by Allah as believers, the address serves as a reminder of what faith entails.

This passage also emphasises that people must not desire or envy what others may have. They should instead ask only Allah to give them what they wish, for Allah is the One who gives in abundance.

These directives come side by side with the establishment of the rights of earning and ownership to both man and woman. Instructions given with regard to contracts of allegiance stressing the duty to fulfill these contracts and pledges are followed with a statement that Allah witnesses everything. Because He is well aware of man's constitution and what influences his attitude.

This passage also begins with an address to believers prohibiting all forms of illegal gain and profit. What we have here is a prohibition on eating up or devouring one another's wealth illegally, which includes all forms of financial transactions that Allah has not sanctioned or has forbidden, such as cheating, bribery, gambling, monopoly, hoarding of essential goods and all forbidden forms of trade, particularly usury (i.e. taking of iniquitous or illegal interest on a loan).

An exception is made of commercial transactions whereby the buyer and seller enter into these willingly:

But let there be amongst you

Traffic and trade

By mutual good-will:

An apt simile: whereas legitimate trade or industry increases the prosperity and stability of men and nations, a dependence on Usury would merely encourage a race of idlers, cruel blood-suckers, and worthless fellows who do not know their own good and are therefore akin to madmen.

(To be continued)

There are peoples who argue that "trade is just same as usury" and today's modern Banking System, in fact, practices usury in the name of interest on loan. It will be appropriate therefore to study Ayat 275 of Sura Baqara-II in which Allah Subhanahu Tahla replies to them thus :

Those who devour usury

Will not stand except

As stands one whom

The Evil One by his touch

Hath driven to madness

That is because they say:

"Trade is like usury,"

The sharp opposition between legitimate trade and usury supports Abdullah Yousuf Ali's definition when he explains Bai (literary, Sale or Barter) is also used more generally for trade and commerce, and various kinds of transactions.

It is useful to mention the whole argument given by Sayed Quatb in his book entitled as "In the Shade of the Quran Volume-3 at page 115 which runs thus :-

The fact is that a great gulf separate ordinary trade transactions and usurious dealings. There is also a great difference between the benefits trade generates to people and the destructive effects brought about by usury.

Trade is a useful medium that brings commodities to consumers. Thus, it is a marketing service providing the motivation to improve goods and commodities and to make them available to the consumer. It is a service to both producer and consumer, which results in a profit gained by the trader. Skill and effort are essential for the gain to be made. A trader runs the risk of loss as also the prospect of profit.

None of these benefits can be attributed to usury. Usury places a heavy burden on industry, in the shape of interest, which is added to the cost of commodities. It also burdens the trader and consumer with the payment of interest paid by producers. As occurred when the capitalist system managed to gather strength, the usury system imposes a certain direction on industry and investment which does not take into account the interests of industry itself or of the consumers. The first priority is given to an increase in profits so that interest on loans can be paid. No objection is raised even when priority is given to the production of luxury goods, even though the majority of people cannot meet their basic needs. No objection is heard even when large investments are devoted to projects aiming at the illegal satisfaction of lust. The destructive effects of all these on society are not even considered. Additionally, there is the element of ever-continuing profit given to capital, which runs no risk of loss and does not rely on skill or effort, which are necessary for trade. The indictment of the usurious system has many more elements, all of which demand the death sentence for this system. Islam issued this sentence long ago.

It is this type of confusion between usury and trade which necessitated this clarification to be made in the form of an exception, stated in the Quranic verse as: Believers have been cautioned by Allah Subhanahu Tahla not to "EAT-UP your property among yourselves in vanities, But let there be amongst you, Traffic and Trade By mutual goodwill", i.e. which they conduct by mutual consent.

Again in Ayat 10 of Sura 61 that is Sura Saff Allah Subhanahu Tahla has spoken about Tijarat, bargain, trade, traffic, transactions: something given or done in return for something which we desire to get. What we give or do on our part is described in verse 11 below and what we get it described in verse 12.

I am reproducing the Ayat 11 of Sura Saff-61 for better understanding of my readers.

That ye believe in Allah

And His Apostle, and that

Ye strive (your utmost)

In the cause of Allah,

With your property

And your persons:

That will be best for you,

If ye but knew!

It would indeed be a great and wonderful bargain to give so little and get so much, if we only knew and understood the comparative value of things,-the sacrifice of our fleeting advantages for forgiveness, the love of Allah, and eternal bliss.

Again Ayat 12 of Sura Saff-61 Allah assures the believers of the faith that Allah will forgive their sins, and admit them to the Garden beneath which Rivers flow, and to Beautiful Mansions in Gardens of Eternity that is indeed the Supreme Achievement.

In Ayat 9 of Sura Jumua that is sura 62 of Holy Quran Allah speaks thus :

O ye who believe!

When the call is proclaimed

To prayer on Friday

(The Day of Assembly),

Hasten earnestly to the Remembrance

Of Allah, and leave off

Business (and traffic):

That is best for you

If ye but knew!

Abdullah Yousuf Ali explains this ayat thus :-

Friday, "the Muslim Sabbath" is primarily the Day of Assembly, the weekly meeting of the congregation, when we show our unity by sharing in common public worship, preceded by a Khutba, in which the Imam (or Leader) reviews the week's spiritual life of the Community and offers advice and exhortation on holy living. Notice the gradations of social contact for Muslims if they followed the wise ordinances of their Faith. (1) Each individual remembers Allah for himself or herself five or more times every day in the home or place of business, or local mosque, or open air, as the case may be. (2) On Friday in every week, there is a local meeting in the central mosque of each local center, - it may be a village, or town, or ward of a big city. (3) At the two Ids every year, there is a larger local area meeting in one center, the Idgah. (4) Once at least in a lifetime, where possible, a Muslim shares in the vast international assemblage of the world, in the center of Islam, at the Meccan Pilgrimage. A happy combination of decentralization and centralization, of individual liberty and collective meeting, and contact at various stages or grades. The mechanical part of this ordinance is easy to carry out. Are we carrying out the more difficult part? -the spirit of unity, brotherhood, mutual consultation, and collective understanding and action?

The idea behind the Muslim weekly "Day of Assembly" is different from that behind the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) or the Christian Sunday. The Jewish Sabbath is primarily a commemoration of Allah's ending His work and resting on the seventh day: we are taught that Allah needs no rest, nor does He feel fatigue (2-255). The Jewish command forbids work on that day but says nothing about worship or prayer ; our ordinance lays chief stress on the remembrance of Allah. Jewish formalism went so far as to kill the spirit of the Sabbath, and call forth the protest of Jesus: "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. But the Christian Church, although it has changed the day from Saturday to Sunday, has inherited the Jewish spirit: witness the Scottish Sabbath; except in so far as it has been secularized. Our teaching says: 'When the time for Jumu'a Prayer comes, close your business and answer the summons loyally and earnestly, meet earnestly, pray, consult and learn by social contact: when the meeting is over, scatter and go about your business.

The immediate and temporal worldly gain may be the ultimate and spiritual loss, and vice versa.

In Ayat 10 of Sura Jumu'a Holy Quran clearly speaks that "when the Prayer Is finished then people may Disperse through the land And seek the Bounty of Allah and celebrate The Praise of Allah Often so that they may prosper".

Prosperity is not to be measured by wealth or worldly gains. There is a higher prosperity, -the health of the mind and the spirit.

Ayat 11 of the Sura Jumua-62 Allah cautions us not to be distructed by the craze for amusement or gain. If one leads a righteous and sober life, Allah will provide for him in all senses, better than any provision one can possibly think of.

Islam urges Muslims to enjoy the bounties provided by Allah Subhanahu Tahla and sets no quantitative limits to the extent of material growth of Islamic society. I have also sighted as above ayat 10 of Sura 62 where Allah has directed the Ummah that when the Jumu'a prayer is ended, then disperse in the land and seek of Allah's bounty. If Allah provides any one with an opportunity for earning his livelihood, let him not leave it unexploited until it is exhausted. From Bokhari, Muslim and Tirmidhi, one would find that when any Muslim who plants a tree or cultivates a field such that a bird, or a human being, or an animal eats from it, this act will be counted as an act of charity.

Islam also expects from the believers of the Faith to refrain from bagging. Islam goes even further than this. It urges Muslims to gain mastery over nature because, according to the Holy Quran, all resources in the heavens and the earth have been created for the service of mankind.

Now coming back to ayat 29 of Sura Nesa-IV the commitment of Islam to individual freedom distinguishes it sharply from socialism or any system, which abolishes individual freedom. Free mutual consent of the buyer and the seller is, according to all schools of Muslims jurisprudence, a necessary condition for any business transactions. This conditions springs from the verse of the Holy Quran which runs thus :-

O ye who believe!

Eat not up your property

Among yourselves in vanities:

But let there be amongst you

Traffic and trade

By mutual good-will:

The Holy Prophet is also reported to have said: Leave people alone for Allah gives them provision through each other. The only system that would conform to this spirit of freedom in the Islamic way of life is one where the conduct of a large part of the production and distribution of goods and services is left to individuals or voluntarily constituted groups, and where each individual is permitted to sell to or buy from whom he wants at a price agreeable to both the buyer and seller.

The market mechanism may also be considered to be an integral part of the Islamic economic system because, on the one hand, the institution of private property is not workable without it; and, on the other, it offers the consumers a chance to express their desires for the production of goods of their liking by their willingness to pay the price and also gives resources-owners an opportunity to sell their resources in accordance with their free will.

As a matter of policy I give a conclusion to my treatise for better understanding of my readers. There is no strictly worldly sector of life according to Islam. Action in every field of human activity including the economic, is spiritual provided it is in harmony with the goal and values of Islam. These goals and values are summarized by some authors as follows :-

1. Economic well-being within the framework of moral and norm of Islam;

2. Universal brotherhood and justice;

3. Equitable distribution of income; and

4. Freedom of individual within the context of social welfare.

Islam strikes a balance between the two extremes of capitalism and socialism. Being appreciative of their role Islam harmonizes the individual and the state in such a way that individuals have the freedom necessary to develop their potentialities and not to encroach upon the rights of their fellowmen. It also gives the community and the state adequate powers to regulate and control the socio-economic relationships so as to guard and maintain this harmony in human life. The basis of this whole structure as envisaged by Islam is the reciprocity of love between individuals and groups; it is not erected on the basis of hatred and class conflict as is the case with socialism.

Exploring the origins of Islamic civilisation

Muhammad Khan

Born in Gachahar, Dinajpur, in British India in 1944 and brought up and educated in East Pakistan, Dr Muhammad Beg obtained his bachelors and masters degrees in Islamic history from Rajshahi University before he proceeded to Christ's College, Cambridge University, where he obtained a doctorate in Middle Eastern history in 1971. He was in England when Pakistan broke up and the eastern wing of the country became known as Bangladesh.

With the assistance of the late Dr Martin Lings (Abu Bakr Siraj al-Din), the famed author of The Life of Muhammad, he was able to obtain temporary work at the British Museum in London and in 1972 he became a British citizen. Then he moved to Malaysia where he taught Islamic history at the National University of Malaysia for more than a decade.

The essays in the book under review formed part of his introductory lectures on Islamic history and civilization at the National University of Malaysia.

Thereafter, he moved to the University of Brunei Darussalam as an Associate Professor of Islamic history and civilization, and lectured there for four years. During this period he authored and edited scores of books and treatises including Islamic and Western Concepts of Civilization (1979, reprinted 2006), Wisdom of Islamic Civilization (1980, reprinted 2006), Social Mobility in Islamic Civilization (1981, reprinted 2006) and Historic Cities of Asia (1985) among others.

After teaching for nearly two decades in the Far East, Dr Beg returned to Cambridge in 1990, where he resumed his career as a lecturer and researcher. In addition, he has contributed entries to prominent publications like The Encyclopaedia of Islam (second edition, Leiden), Islam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul, Turkey) and The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World (Oxford, 1995).

However, it was Dr Beg's Brief Lives of the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (2002, revised edition 2003) which captured my attention. Having already read scores of books on the life and times of the Prophet (pbuh) and his companions (sahabah), I found this book very unusual and informative because the author adopted a historical approach to the lives of the sahabah. In his foreword to the second edition of the Brief Lives, Dr Beg wrote, "A cursory glance at the biographical books written by Islamic scholars between the Second and the Ninth century AH/Eighth to Fifteenth century AD indicates the range of documentation available to modern scholars. Many of these books are, however, deficient in one respect. It would seem that early Islamic biographers did not pay much attention to the chronology of events in the lives of the first Islamic generation. This particular deficiency is also found in some of the preliminary writings on the lives of the Companions which are presently proliferating in various parts of the world." (p6)

The author's historical approach to the lives of the Prophet's companions represents an important shift away from the traditional hagiographical works of both the early and modern Muslim writers about the first Islamic generation. For this reason, the author should consider undertaking a similar approach to the sirah (life and times) of the Prophet (pbuh). The need for a modern, critical historical approach to the life and times of the Prophet (pbuh) from an Islamic perspective has been long felt but it was the late Dr Muhammad Hamidullah who came very close to achieving this in his Le Prophete de l'Islam (2 vols, Paris, 1959). However, having read most of Dr Beg's books and treatises I feel he is ideally placed to accomplish this important task.

Steeped in traditional Islamic thought and history and also trained in modern methods of research and scholarship, in the book under review, Dr Beg attempts to explore the origins of Islamic civilization in order to identify and examine the historical basis of Islam as a global religion, culture and civilization. In Dr Beg's own words, "The study of Islam, from the theological, historical and sociological point of view, has been attempted by many scholars of diverse backgrounds. Some of these writings are genuine attempts to explain Islam to readers who are not familiar with the subject. Other approaches have been polemical, and some have presented Islam from a cross-cultural perspective. Islam has also been discussed by scholars interested in comparative religion. Each scholarly attempt to present Islam from a new perspective has yielded a new interpretation of Islam. Moreover, each new interpretation can be useful to readers of different backgrounds." (p1)

Being a historian by profession, the author pursues a historical-cum-multi-disciplinary approach to analysing the origin and development of Islam as a global religion and civilization. Consisting of nine essays, a synopsis and a short preface, in this book, the author provides a complex but cogent answer to the question: what is the origin of Islam as a religion, culture and civilization?

In the first essay, the author surveys the works of several Western writers on Islam including Humphrey Prideaux, Richard Bell, Charles Torrey and Robert Serjeant, and shows how their theories concerning the origin of Islam do not stand up to serious scrutiny. Although this essay provides a useful survey of Western scholarship on the early Islamic period, a fuller and more comprehensive survey of Western scholarship on the origins of Islam in general, and the life and times of the Prophet (pbuh) and the Qur'an in particular, has been provided by the late Dr Muhammad Mohar Ali in his Sirat al-Nabi and the Orientalists (2 vols, Madina, 1997) and The Qur'an and the Orientalists (Ipswich, 2004). These two books should be read along with Dr Muhammad Mustafa al-Azami's On Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Riyadh, 1985) and The History of the Qur'anic Text (Leicester, 2003) for an exhaustive critique of Western scholarship on the origins of Islam.

The subject of the second essay is the first Islamic State founded by the Prophet (pbuh) in Madinah. In this essay the author traces the origins of this first City-State especially in relation to the Constitution of Madinah. Since the author is an expert on the lives of the sahabah, he also provides an illuminating and well documented account of those companions who played a pivotal role in consolidating Islam in its early days. Although the historians tend to divide early Islamic history into two periods, namely the era of the first four Caliphs and the Umayyad period, Dr Beg argues that early Islamic history should instead be divided into the era of the Caliphs who were sahabah (that is, from Abu Bakr to Muawiyah) and the period of those Caliphs who were not sahabah (that is, from Yazid to Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, thus covering the first century of Hijrah). Although this is an interesting suggestion, it is doubtful whether the Islamic scholars and historians would take this suggestion seriously because Muawiyah is largely considered to have been a King rather than a Caliph. The same is true of all the other Umayyad rulers other than perhaps Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz.

By contrast, essays 3, 4, 5 and 6 are titled as follows: 'Equality and Meritocracy in Early Islamic Society', 'Women of Arabia during the First Islamic Century/7th Century AD', 'Menial Labour and Craftsmanship' and 'The Origins of Islamic Cities'. These are some of the most informative essays I have read on the early Islamic period. The author has literally ploughed through the classical Arabic as well as modern sources on the early Islamic period and in so doing he has developed a coherent and most illuminating picture of the early Islamic society. Although the subject matter of essay 3 has been discussed by the author in considerable detail in his Social Mobility in Islamic Civilization, this essay nevertheless throws fresh light on the issue of social mobility/stratification in the early Islamic society. Likewise, in essay 4, after analysing the position of women in seventh century Arabia, the author concludes that Islam substantially improved women's position and status throughout Arabian society.

However, the most unusual and interesting part of this book is essay 6. Since the author obtained his doctorate on the subject of menial labour during the early Abbasid period, it is not surprising that this essay provides a detailed and insightful analysis of different types of professions which existed during the early Islamic period. Dr Beg begins by exploring Islamic attitudes to work, labour, craftsmanship and skill, and then explains how small-scale industries (such as grain-mills, textiles, handicrafts, factories and shipyards) emerged in the Muslim world during the Umayyad period. Thereafter, in essay 6 the author provides an equally enlightening analysis of the origins of early Islamic cities like Makkah, Madinah, Basra, Kufa, al-Fustat, Wasit and Baghdad. Some of the information contained in this essay also appears in the author's Historic Cities of Asia (Kuala Lumpur, 1985).

Unlike the four aforementioned essays, a lot has already been written concerning the subject matter of the remainder of this book, namely the basic features of Islamic art, architecture and science. As such, Markus Hattstein and Peter Delius's Islam: Art and Architecture (Knoemann, 2004), Titus (Ibrahim) Burckhardt's Art of Islam: Language and Meaning (London, 1976) and Seyyed Hossein Nasr's Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study (London, 1976) and Science and Civilization in Islam (Cambridge, 1987) provide a detailed exploration of the topics covered by Dr Beg in the last three essays of this book.

Nevertheless, I found these essays very useful and informative because the author analyses Islamic art, architecture and science from a historical perspective. Now in his early sixties, the author has spent a lifetime studying and researching Islamic history and culture and, as such, this book contains a wealth of historical data, information, as well as illuminating discourse on the origins of Islam as a global religion, culture and civilization. Although published by the author himself, I feel this book can be improved further by thorough re-editing. The fonts are too small, the index is very brief and in the bibliography 'idem' appears on pages 300 to 302 instead of the author's names. These minor issues aside, Dr Beg should be congratulated for his invaluable contribution to Islamic history and culture.

(Muhammad Khan is the author of the forthcoming book The Muslim 100: The Life, Thought and Achievement of the Most Influential Muslims in History.)