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Ibn Battuta was, without doubt, one of the world’s truly great travellers. Born in 14th century Morocco, and a contemporary of Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta has left us an account in his own words of his remarkable journeys throughout the Islamic world and beyond: journeys punctuated by adventure and peril, and stretching from his home in Tangiers to Zaytun in faraway China. Whether sojourning in Delhi and the Maldives, wandering through the mazy streets of Cairo and Damascus, or contesting with pirates and shipwreck, the indefatigable Ibn Battuta brings to vivid life a medieval world brimming with marvel and mystery

The teacher and guide of souls, Muhammad ibn al-H_shim_ was born to pious parents, both prophetic scions who traced their lineage back to al-_asan ibn ‘Al_ rad_allahu `anhu, in 1298 A.H. in the town of Sabdou, which lies in the vicinity of Tlemcen, one of the main cities of Algeria. His father was one of the city’s scholars, and a judge therein. When he died, he left behind him young children; the Shaykh was the oldest of them.

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

Nana Asma’u (1793 -1864) was a prolific Muslim scholar, poet, historian, and educator. Daughters are still named after her; her poems, read and recited privately and in public, still move people profoundly; the memory of her remains a vital source of inspiration and hope. She was a devout, learned Muslim, courageous, independent-minded, and able to observe, record, interpret and influence the major public events that happened around her. Her example as an educator is still followed: the system she set up in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, for the education of rural women, has not only survived in its homeland through the traumas of the colonization of West Africa and the establishment of the modern state of Nigeria, but is also being revived and adapted elsewhere, notably among Muslim women in the USA.

Written by an expert on both languages spoken by Rumi, Turkish and Persian, this is an authoritative but accessible introduction to this important 13th-century historian and mystic poet. Concentrating on the social and cultural environment in which Rumi lived and produced his influential works, the book describes the war-torn lives of the people in Asia Minor at the time and makes the point that few figures in history have made an appeal for peace so enlightened that it travelled down the centuries. A selection of passages from Rumi's works explains his core philosophy in his own words.

Imam Shahid Hassan al Banna

Scholars of Hadith