Makers of Islamic Civilization – serie

This book places Biruni in his historical and cultural context within the long-term history of medieval Eurasia. It outlines the course of Biruni's life, clarifying key questions about his associations, travels, and patrons. Following an overview of Biruni's chief interests, it details his major works to illustrate the breadth of Biruni's output and his intellectual approach, especially his attention to language, esteem for knowledge, and commitment to objective truth. An account of his institutional context and relationships elucidates his friendships and rivalries, notably with Avicenna. The book also shows how varied paths of transmission affected the legacy of Biruni and its reception in global scientific and literary traditions. Finally, a timeline, list of key works, and detailed bibliographic essay will guide readers into further study of Biruni and his thought.

Haji Imdadullah (1817-1899) was a prominent Sufi shaykh of the Chishti order. The first part of his life coincided with the period when the British were consolidating their power over India. His family were long settled in the small towns in the north of the country. During the repression that followed the 1857 Uprising against British rule, Imdadullah migrated to the Ottoman Hijaz and settled in Makka where he remained until his death. From there Imdadullah was able to establish his authority among a large and dispersed community of scholars and sufis. He continued to guide his disciples from across the Indian Ocean through his correspondence and his books. His authority spread further in India and into the wider Islamic world. His life, works, and legacy offer a window on an early stage of Muslim response to the forced encounter with the processes of modernization just as they gathered momentum. This book explains how Imdadullah came to be respected as a spiritual forefather of key seminaries at Deoband, Saharanpur and Lucknow, and of important movements such as Tablighi Jamaat and Jamiat-i Ulama-i Hind. It highlights some of the major intellectual trends of the period and their continued relevance: the convergence between the sufi and scholarly traditions; the networks that linked South Asian intellectuals with their peers elsewhere in the Islamic world; their use of print and improved transportation to sustain trans-Asian networks and to manoeuvre within them. It explains also how Imdadullah stood out among his contemporaries on account of his commitment to minimizing disputes over ritual and doctrine that were rife among Muslims in India and elsewhere.

Abu al-A`la Mawdudi (1903-1979) was a major Muslim scholar-activist of the Indian subcontinent. His writings, which deal with an extraordinarily wide range of subjects, and the political organization he founded, Jama`at-i Islami (Islamic Party), to give practical expres-sion to his programme of Islamic revivalism, have deeply - in some instances, decisively - influenced the religious landscape of the sub-continent and the larger Muslim world. This book aims to provide a compact introduction to Mawdudi's contribution to Islamic scholarship and activism, and a reappraisal of that contribution in the light of the best scholarship about him. Mawdudi, his works, and his political party have been the subject of numerous studies. Mustansir Mir brings into relief the central motif of Mawdudi's many-sided work, namely Islam as a system of thought and practice. The idea of Islam as a system predates Mawdudi, but it is Mawdudi's working out of that idea that distinguishes him from his contemporary thinkers and writers. Speaking overall, Mawdudi, more than any other modern Muslim thinker, can be said to have redefined the Islamic problematic for the present age.