In modern times, dates and date palms are ubiquitous across the Middle East. There are markets filled from wall to wall with dates and products made from date palms. Despite the constant changes to the world economy, dates have held strong as an important part of Middle Eastern life. If yo...
These six days of fasting, together with the Ramadan fasts, are equal to fasting lasting throughout the year. The thinking behind this custom is that a decent deed in Islam is compensated 10 times; thus, fasting 30 days amid Ramadan and 6 days amid Shawwāl is proportional to fasting the ...
Payment of Zakah is again an injunction frequently repeated in the Qur'an, yet it was the Prophet (peace be upon him) who gave the rules and regulations for its payment and collection. These are but two example; but since Islam covers the entire sphere of human activities, hundreds of poi...
The shift of the port from the hinterland to the coast in the sixteenth century was probably connected to basic changes in the hinterland-coastal relationship in much of Southeast Asia at that time, due to Islamization, renewed Chinese contact and im-migration, and the arrival of Europeans ...
although they have been modified in form to fit the style of this publication and enable independent access to the sources mentioned. Dates of death for scholars have again only been included where they are present in the published Arabic text, although ...
CHAPTER 1 Introduction Roy Ellen Background The 1990s witnessed a growing acknowledgement world wide of the importance of local ecological knowledge in the context of food security and sustainable development (Warren, Slikkerveer and Brokensha 1995; Sillitoe, Bicker and Pottier 2002; Pottier, Bicker...
smelly, fly-ridden city made of salt slabs with camel skin roofs and entirely bereft of any trees. All food had to be brought in from outside, dates from the north and millet from the south. People travelled from the south to collect...
Medina lies 2,050 feet (625 meters) abovesea levelon a fertileoasis. It is bounded on the east by an extensivelavafield, part of which dates from avolcanic eruptionin 1207ce. On the other three sides, the city is enclosed by arid hills belonging to the Hejaz mountain range. The highes...
Islam The most-honouredmuhājirūn, considered among those known as theCompanions of the Prophet, are those who emigrated with Muhammad to Medina. They are praised in theQurʾānfor their early conversion toIslam(sābiqah) and for the subsequent hardships they endured in Mecca, which forced the...
The Old City is dominated by the raised platform of theTemple Mount—known in Hebrew as Har Ha-Bayit, the site of theFirst and Second Temples, and known to Islam as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (“The Noble Sanctuary”), a Muslim holy place containing theDome of the Rock,Al-Aqsa Mosque, ...