The Search for Beauty in Islam A Conference of the Books

by Abou El Fadl, Khaled

• ISBN13: 9780742550933
• ISBN10: 0742550931
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-12-22
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

In this updated and expanded edition of The Search for Beauty in Islam, Abou El Fadl offers eye-opening and enlightening insights into the contemporary realities of the current state of Islam and the West. Through a conference of the books, an imagined conference of Muslim intellects from centuries past, Abou El Fadl examines the ugliness that has come to plague Muslim realities and attempts to reclaim what he maintains is a core moral value in Islam-the value of beauty. Abou El Fadl argues that the rekindling of the forgotten value of beauty is essential for Muslims today to take back what has been lost to the fundamentalist forces that have denigrated their religion.

Author Biography

Khaled Abou El Fadl is Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law where he teaches Islamic law, Immigration, Human Rights, and International and National Security Law

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Preface for the New Edition	xiii
Introduction	xv
The Conference of Books: The First Admission	1	(4)
The Night's Visitor	5	(3)
The Pirates of the Intellect	8	(4)
The Terror of Bigotry	12	(2)
The Civilization of the Book	14	(4)
The Interminable Conference	18	(2)
On Betrayal	20	(2)
A Prayer	22	(3)
Donkeys Carrying Books	25	(3)
To Murder the Soul	28	(3)
A One More Knowing	31	(2)
Women as an 'Awra	33	(2)
The Authoritative and the Authoritarian	35	(2)
On Obedience	37	(3)
To Suffer the Children	40	(3)
On Forms of Terror	43	(2)
Dial-a-Fatwa	45	(2)
On Knowledge	47	(3)
NYC Bombing	50	(2)
Umm Ahmad and the Judge	52	(2)
The Book Massacres	54	(2)
To Kill Parenthood	56	(3)
Killing Flies	59	(2)
Attending Jum'a	61	(2)
Burdens of a Generation	63	(2)
The Dialectics of an Apology	65	(3)
The Essential Individual	68	(2)
The Search for Beauty	70	(3)
Hegemony and Terrorism	73	(3)
Longing for Brotherhood	76	(2)
The Culture of the Mamnu'	78	(3)
On Being in Love	81	(3)
Lecturing on the Ugly	84	(3)
A Night with the Qalam	87	(3)
A Homily for Ibn Rushd	90	(5)
The Sunna of the Beloved	95	(2)
Colonizing Women	97	(2)
The Page	99	(3)
My Friend	102	(3)
The Truth of Silence	105	(2)
On the Beating of Wives	107	(7)
The Beating of Wives Revisited	114	(9)
In Praise of the Marginal	123	(2)
A Love Song	125	(2)
Migrating to the Shaykhs	127	(5)
On Revising Bigotry	132	(5)
An Encounter With the Shaykh (On the Delusions of the Fog)	137	(4)
Finding the Shaykh	141	(6)
The Book of Suspended Judgment	147	(6)
Dreaming of the Prophet	153	(7)
Women as a Colony	160	(5)
In the Footsteps of the Beloved	165	(3)
The State Between Two States (A Partnership With God)	168	(8)
The Pearls of Beauty (On Re-Finding Our Lost Civilization)	176	(10)
The Intellectual Refugee	186	(4)
When the Devil Speaks	190	(3)
Corrupting God's Book	193	(10)
The Remembrance	203	(16)
The Scholar's Road	219	(10)
Muhammad, the Child	229	(2)
The Revelation	231	(2)
Shades of Divine Light	233	(2)
The Restorations of the Night	235	(2)
The Exorcisms of the Night	237	(3)
The Unity of Strangers	240	(2)
The Testimony	242	(3)
Searching for the House of God	245	(3)
Incoherence	248	(3)
A Breath from God	251	(3)
Derangements	254	(3)
A Leader Among Us	257	(4)
When God Asks the Child	261	(3)
The Sites of Purity	264	(4)
Banning the Conference	268	(4)
9/11	272	(2)
Divine Threads	274	(5)
Embraced by the Beloved	279	(2)
The Shaykha's Endless Jihad	281	(17)
Waves and Rocks	298	(18)
The Lord of the Essence: A Fatwa on Dogs	316	(15)
Thieves of the Dark	331	(4)
Quietus	335	(6)
Notes of the Night	341	(3)
Notes of the Transformation	344	(4)
The First Admission	348	(7)
Glossary of Terms	355	(22)
Selected Biographies	377	(12)
Index	389	(18)
About the Author	407