A richly illustrated history and sourcebook spanning the world of Islamic architecture. Islamic architecture is a broad topic, covering some 1,400 years up to the present day. The richness of building types, regional styles, and architectural details is reflected here, with a striking balance of familiar and unfamiliar, of world-renowned masterpieces and lesser-known gems. All eras and regions are represented, but with an eye for some of the creative...

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and religious scholar redirects his lifelong focus on Christianity and takes open-minded look at the Qur'an, finding the original meaning of the sacred text and showing numerous parallels between it and the Old and New Testaments. --

"A ... history that brings to life the fascinating and complex world of the Prophet, Muhammad is the story of how peace is the rule and not the exception for one of the world's most practiced religions."--Jacket.

From Algeria and Libya to Egypt and Syria, the Arab world commands Western headlines, even as its complex politics and cultures elude the grasp of most Western readers and commentators. Perhaps no other region is so closely linked to contemporary U.S. foreign policy, and nowhere else does the unfolding of events have such significant consequences for America. This book argues that the key to understanding the Arab world today, and in the years ahead,...