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This book deals with an Ayyūbid-Mamlūk Egyptian jurist's attempt to come to terms with the potential conflict between power, represented in the state, and authority, represented in the schools of law, particularly where one school enjoys a privileged status with the state. It deals with the history of the relationship between the schools of law, particularly in Mamlūk Egypt, in the context of the running history of Islamic law from the formative period during which ijtihād was the dominant hegemony, into the post-formative period during which taqlīd came to dominate. It also deals with the internal structure and operation of the madhhab, as the sole repository of legal authority. Finally, the book includes a discussion of the limits of law and the legal process, the former imposing limits on the legal jurisdiction of the jurists and the schools, the latter imposing limits on the executive authority of the state

Even among those who actively pursue greater public recognition for Islam as a way of life, the Muslim world is not a monolith. Failure to recognize this leads to an unnecessary swelling of the ranks of those whom the West takes as enemies. Professor Amitai Etzioni suggests that this myopia can be overcome via a distinction between those he refers to as Preachers versus those he refers to as Warriors. I see considerable evidence in favor of Professor Etzioni's thesis, both contemporaneously and historically, and his thesis opens up much needed space within which to reconsider America's relationship with the Muslim world. Still, the impoverished language with which we have become accustomed to discussing Islam in the West makes it difficult to hold these possibilities in relief and keep them from being overcome by what Professor Etzioni refers to as "Multiple Realism Deficiency Disorder (MRDD)."

In his provocative essayKnowledge and Politics, Harvard Law School professor Roberto Unger undertook what has since become a familiar critique of the contemporary social and political order. Beginning with the main postulates of Enlightenment epistemology, Unger contended that our acceptance of "liberal philosophy" has divided us, as moral beings, between the private world of value and desire and the public world of rules and reason. Since, moreover, reason functions as the medium of public (and ostensibly egalitarian) discourse, its inevitable exaltation over desire threatens, where it does not undermine, our sense of self and personality. Modern man, according to Unger, is inextricably ensconced between the irreconcilable poles of individuality and citizenship. From religious fundamentalism to Afro-centrism, from classical and radical feminism to multi-culturalism, modernity is evolving into an endless concatenation of reactions against the threat of domination that lurks beneath the demand to justify personal values and predilections through the impersonal language of reason, a medium over which some of us possess greater mastery than others, even if, as moderns (or perhaps post-moderns) we recognize that reason is not autonomous but can operate only in the interest of values already present.

In his seminal and pioneering work, al-Risāla, al-Shafiʿi, the founder of juridical uṣul al-fiqh, laid down the following maxim:God has obliged us to follow everything the Prophet instituted (sanna). And He has rendered adherence to this obedience to Him and turning away from it disobedience [to Him] for which He excuses no one.

Formerly one of the largest and most militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, Egypt's al-Gama'ah al-Islamiyah is believed to have played an instrumental role in numerous acts of global terrorism, including the assassination of President Anwar Sadat and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In later years, however, the organization issued a surprising renunciation of violence, repudiating its former ideology and replacing it with a shari'a-based understanding and assessment of the purpose and proper application of jihad. This key manifesto of modern Islamist thought is now available to an English-speaking audience in an eminently readable translation by noted Islamic scholar Sherman A. Jackson. Unlike other Western and Muslim critiques of violent extremism, this important work emerges from within the movement of Middle Eastern Islamic activism, both challenging and enriching prevailing notions about the role of Islamists in fighting the scourge of extremist politics, blind anti-Westernism and, alas, wayward jihad

English translation of a series of four corrective Arabic manifestos issued by the Gama'ah Islamiyah, who formed part of the coalition of radical Islamists groups that is believed to have played an instrumental role in acts of global terrorism, including the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1997, the imprisoned leaders renounced political violence as a means of pursuing their goal of Islamicising the Egyptian state and society. This came of a reexamination of their former position in light of what they came to understand of shari'ah and the proper application of jihad.

Cover -- THE SWORD OF AMBITION -- Letter from the General Editor -- Title -- Copyright -- CONTENTS -- Abbreviations -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- A Note on the Text -- Notes to the Introduction -- THE SWORD OF AMBITION -- The First Chapter, On the Reprehensibility of Employing Dhimmis for the Muslims' Jobs, in Fifteen Sections -- The First Section: The Testimony of the Illustrious Book -- The Second Section: The Example of the Messenger of God -- The Third Section: The Testimony of the Ancient Authorities -- The Fourth Section: The Example of Imam Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, God Be Pleased with Him -- The Fifth Section: The Example of Imam ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb -- The Sixth Section: The Example of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān -- The Seventh Section: The Deeds of al-Ḥajjāj -- The Eighth Section: The Example of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, God Be Pleased with Him -- The Ninth Section: The Events That Took Place in the Days of Caliph al-Manṣūr -- The Tenth Section: The Events That Took Place in the Days of Caliph al-Mahdī -- The Eleventh Section: The Events That Took Place in the Days of Caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd -- The Twelfth Section: The Events That Took Place in the Days of Caliph al-Maʾmūn -- The Thirteenth Section: The Events That Took Place in the Days of al-Mutawakkil -- The Fourteenth Section: The Events That Took Place in the Days of Caliph al-Muqtadir Bi-llāh -- The Fifteenth Section: Examples of the Jews' Ignominy, Wickedness, and Trickery -- The Second Chapter, A Description of the Copts and Their Perfidies, in Fifteen Sections -- The First Section: A General Description of Them -- The Second Section: Why the Copts Specialize as Secretaries and Neglect Other Professions -- The Third Section: Concerning Their Pervasive yet Imperceptible Influence in the Land of Egypt.