The Movement of Life and the Balance of Health: Ibn Sīnā on Exercise, Regimen, and the Preservation of the Body (Ancient Wisdom Collection)

The Movement of Life and the Balance of Health: Ibn Sīnā on Exercise, Regimen, and the Preservation of the Body (Ancient Wisdom Collection)

    Sunday, May 31, 2026   No comments

 This volume presents a curated and thematically organized translation of selected passages on riyāḍa (exercise) from the Canon of Medicine (al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb) of Ibn Sīnā. Drawing on Books I-IV of the Canon, it brings together both the systematic chapters in which exercise is treated as a central component of regimen, and the numerous dispersed references in which it appears as a governing principle in physiology, pathology, and therapy.In Ibn Sīnā's medical thought, exercise is a foundational mechanism of life. It sustains the body's internal balance by promoting transformation, aiding digestion, and preventing the accumulation of harmful residues. Its proper use-defined by moderation, timing, and adaptation to individual condition-extends across all domains of medicine: from the preservation of health and the development of the body, to the treatment of disease and the regulation of daily life. This volume traces that breadth, showing how a single principle operates across multiple levels of a unified medical system. 

Ibn Sīnā (980-1037), known in the Latin tradition as Avicenna, was one of the most influential physicians and philosophers of the medieval world. His Canon of Medicine remained a central medical text in both the Islamic world and Europe for centuries. Combining clinical observation with philosophical rigor, he articulated a comprehensive vision of the human body as a dynamic system governed by processes of balance, transformation, and motion.By assembling and translating these passages, this volume offers both a focused study of riyāḍa and an entry point into Ibn Sīnā's broader medical philosophy-one that continues to invite reflection on the nature of health, the role of movement, and the enduring continuity of knowledge across time and civilizations.

القانون في الطب The Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb)

القانون في الطب The Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb)

    Sunday, May 31, 2026   No comments

الكتاب القانون في الطب موسوعة طبية عظيمة ألّفها العالم 

الموسوعي الفارسي ابن سينا (أفيسينا) في أوائل القرن الحادي عشر الميلادي. ويتكوّن الكتاب من خمسة كتب شاملة، يقدّم من خلالها عرضًا منهجيًا موسوعيًا للمعرفة الطبية، جامعًا بين الخبرات التجريبية للتراث الطبي اليوناني والروماني والهندي والإسلامي. يشمل القانون المبادئ الأساسية للنظرية الطبية، وعلم الأدوية، وعلم الأمراض، والتشخيص، والمعالجة، إلى جانب صيدلية واسعة من العقاقير المفردة والمركبة. وقد حاز هذا العمل شهرة واسعة بفضل وضوحه وتنظيمه ودقّته العلمية، وظلّ مرجعًا طبيًا رئيسيًا في العالمين الإسلامي والأوروبي لأكثر من ستة قرون. كما ساهم في وضع مناهج التعليم الطبي في العصور الوسطى، ورسّخ قواعد الممارسة السريرية، وطرق حفظ الصحة وتركيب الأدوية. أصبح هذا العمل متاحًا الآن في خمسة مجلدات.المؤلفابن سينا (980-1037م)، المعروف في الغرب اللاتيني باسم أفيسينا، فيلسوفًا وطبيبًا وعالمًا فارسيًا تركت مؤلفاته أثرًا بالغًا في تطوّر الفكر العلمي والفلسفي في كل من العالمين الإسلامي والأوروبي. يُعتبر أحد أبرز أعلام العصر الذهبي الإسلامي، وقد ألّف أكثر من 450 كتابًا في مجالات متعددة، من أبرزها الفلسفة، والطب، والفلك، والمنطق، والرياضيات. وتُعدّ مؤلفاته الأهم، القانون في الطب وكتاب الشفاء، مثالًا بارزًا على مزجه بين الفلسفة الأرسطية والبحث العلمي التجريبي. وقد مثّلت منهجيته الدقيقة في التشخيص والتجريب والممارسة الطبية الأخلاقية نقطة تحوّل في تاريخ الطب. ولا يزال إرثه حاضرًا بقوة في تاريخ العلوم الطبية، وفي تقاليد الفكر العقلي والبحث الإنساني.

Law and Governance in Islamic Societies

Law and Governance in Islamic Societies

    Friday, September 06, 2024   No comments

Law and Governance in Islamic Societies is a translation from Arabic of two lectures by Abd al-Wahāb Kallāf (d. 1956). The materials were originally published in Arabic in two different books. One was published in 1971 under the title Khulāsat Tārīkh al-Tashrī` al-Islāmī. The other was published nearly ten years later under the title al-Sulutāt al-thalātha fī al-islām.

This revised translation is based on the Arabic text of al-Sulutāt al-thalātha fī al-islām, which was published in 1980, but also checked against some of Kallaf's ideas published in his other works, including `Ilm uṣūl al-fiqh, al-ijtihād wa-'l-taqlīd, and fiqh al-siyāsa al-shar`iyya.

About the author: 

Abdul Wahhab Khallaf (1888 - 1956) is one of the most prominent jurists and expert in modern Sunni Islamic thought.

Born Abd al-Wahhab Abd al-Wahid Khallaf in the city of Kafr al-Zayyat in March 1888. He received a traditional religious education that led to his completion of the memorization the Qur'an. He joined al-Azhar in 1900. He completed his studies at the Sharia School in 1915 and was one of the first students to join the prominent institution since it was founded in 1907.

Abdul-Wahhab Khallaf became a Sheikh and worked at al-Azhar's Sharia Judiciary School immediately after his graduation, and he remained there until the start of the 1919 Revolution. During the revolution, he moved to take a judicial position in the Sharia courts (1920). He was appointed director of mosques in the Ministry of Endowments in 1924, and to the Courts Inspection Department in 1931.

In 1936, he was appointed to a professorship of Islamic law position at Cairo University, and he remained affiliated with the institution until his passing due to illness in 1956.

  

al-Muqaddima (Arabic Edition)

al-Muqaddima (Arabic Edition)

    Monday, June 17, 2024   No comments

This work is a revised edition of al-Muqaddima (Arabic) checked against seven different editions. Al-Muqaddima is Ibn Khaldun's introduction to Kitab al-Ibar (The Book of Lessons and the Record of Beginnings and News in the Days of the Arabs, Persians, and Berbers and Their Contemporaries of the Greatest Sultans) and it quickly became the most important book in Ibn Khaldun's body of works. Al-Muqaddima can be summarized as a set of foundational theories that Ibn Khaldun established for the study of human civilization, al-hadara, as he called it and assumed that civilization is not affected by singular individual events and ideas but rather by societies. Ibn Khaldun found that these laws can be applied to societies living in different times, for example, an agricultural society is the same agricultural society centuries removed or at any time in history. What we will are discovering about Ibn Khaldun's work is him being a systems thinker, one who held that human beings are the outcome of their circumstances and their natural and manmade systems they live by.

About the Author:

Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun was born on May 27, 1332 CE, corresponding to the first of Ramadan 732 AH, in the city of Tunis during the Hafsid era. He died on March 16, 1406 CE, correspond-ing to Ramadan 25, 808 AH, at the age of 76 years. He was buried in one of the Sufi cemeteries outside Bab al-Nasr in Cairo.

History of Economics: Keynes, Durkheim, Weber, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Ibn Khaldun

History of Economics: Keynes, Durkheim, Weber, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Ibn Khaldun

    Wednesday, May 08, 2024   No comments

Philosophy of economy, or economics, is an area of inquiry concerned with economic activities, institutions, and ideas. Throughout history, thinkers have explained and theorized about the role of the governments (State) in shaping economic activities and principles. Here, we recommend reading this list of readings(English) to understand the origins and evolution of economics over the past 600 years.

Islamic Law and Jurisprudence: mecelle-Ottoman Civil

Islamic Law and Jurisprudence: mecelle-Ottoman Civil

    Monday, April 01, 2024   No comments

 

The civil code of the last dynasty that ruled the Islamic community (umma), the Ottoman Sultanate, is a rich body of text for those interested in understanding the connection between legal principle and legal code. The document, formally known as the mecelle (majalla), is based on Hanafism that originated during the second Islamic century (8th century)-a school of jurisprudence that is rooted in reason (ra'y) as opposed to tradition (hadith), making it a remarkable source for learning about the origins and evolution of classical Islamic law from the formative period to the fall of the caliphate system (20th century).

Islamic Law and Jurisprudence is an updated translation of the Ottoman Civil Code. This body of law was applied in Muslim-majority countries in Southwest Asia, North Africa, and the Balkans before, during and immediately after the end of the British and French colonization of Muslim majority countries.

Islamic law, politics, and governance books

Islamic law, politics, and governance books

    Friday, July 28, 2023   No comments

 

Books on Sharia and Fiqh:

• Islamic Law and Jurisprudence: According to Hanafism and Adopted Ottoman Civil Code (mejelle)
• Law and Governance in Islamic Societies  – by Abd Al-Wahhab Khallaf (Author)
• 
  
• A History of Islamic Law (The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys)
• Abrogation in the Qur'an and Islamic Law (Routledge Studies in Religion)
• An Introduction to Islamic Law
• Anatomy of Dissent in Islamic Societies: Ibadism, Rebellion, and Legitimacy
• Between God and the Sultan: A History of Islamic Law
• Coercion and Responsibility in Islam: A Study in Ethics and Law (Oxford Islamic Legal Studies)
• Contesting Justice: Women, Islam, Law, and Society
• Contesting Justice: Women, Islam, Law, and Society by Ahmed E. Souaiaia (2009-01-08)
• Copyright in Islamic Law
• Doubt in Islamic Law: A History of Legal Maxims, Interpretation, and Islamic Criminal Law (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)
• Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law: Justice and Ethics in the Islamic Legal Process (Library of Islamic Law)
• Introduction to Islamic Law: Principles of Civil, Criminal, and International Law under the Shari'a
• Islamic Finance: Law, Economics, and Practice
• Islamic Law According to Five Schools of Jurisprudence
• Islamic Law and Civil Code: The Law of Property in Egypt
• Islamic Law and Empire in Ottoman Cairo
• Islamic Law and Governance in Contemporary Iran: Transcending Islam for Social, Economic, and Political Order
• Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law
• Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions
• Islamic Law and Society in Iran: A social history of Qajar Tehran (Royal Asiatic Society Books)
• Islamic Law Texts
• Islamic Law Texts: The Ottoman Code (mejelle; majalla)
• Islamic Law, Gender and Social Change in Post-Abolition Zanzibar
• Islamic Law: According to Ja`fari School of Jurisprudence
• Islamic Law: According to Ja`fari School of Jurisprudence
• Islamic Law: Cases, Authorities and Worldview
• Islamic Law: Theory and Practice
• Islamic Property Law: Cases And Materials For Comparative Analysis With The Common Law (Carolina Academic Press Casebook Series)
• Maqasid Al-Shariah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach
• ON THE SOURCES OF ISLAMIC LAW AND PRACTICES
• On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks, and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Western Africa
• Pakistan's Blasphemy Laws: From Islamic Empires to the Taliban
• Poverty of Interest: Theories and Practices of Islamic Finance and Exchange Laws
• Pragmatism in Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History (Middle East Studies Beyond Dominant Paradigms)
• Religious Pluralism and Islamic Law: Dhimmis and Others in the Empire of Law (Oxford Islamic Legal Studies)
• Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)
• Shari'a Politics: Islamic Law and Society in the Modern World
• Shari'ah Law: An Introduction
• The Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions
• The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History
• The Islamic Conception of Justice
• The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani's Siyar
• The Logic of Law Making in Islam: Women and Prayer in the Legal Tradition (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)
• The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East
• The Origins of Islamic Law: The Qur'an, the Muwatta' and Madinan Amal (Culture and Civilization in the Middle East)
• The Politics of Islamic Law: Local Elites, Colonial Authority, and the Making of the Muslim State
• The Sunna and its Status in Islamic Law: The Search for a Sound Hadith (Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law)
• Toward An Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, and International Law (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East)
  
• 
  
• Treatise on Rights, by Zayn Al-Abidin Ali Ibn Al-Hussain 
• Women and Shari'a Law (Library of Islamic Law)
• Islamic Law and Government
  
  

Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima, vol. 1; Tunisian edition, Arabic

Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima, vol. 1; Tunisian edition, Arabic

    Friday, July 29, 2022   No comments

 Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima, vol. 1; Tunisian edition, 

Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima, vol. 2; Tunisian edition,

Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima, vol. 2; Tunisian edition,

    Thursday, July 28, 2022   No comments

 
Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima, vol. 2; Tunisian edition, Arabic.

Ibn Khaldun'is Muqaddima, as translated by Franz Rosenthal (in 1958-69)

Ibn Khaldun'is Muqaddima, as translated by Franz Rosenthal (in 1958-69)

    Tuesday, July 05, 2022   No comments

Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah--Prolegomenon, translated by Franz Rosenthal in 1958; 

this eBook is based on the the one-volume abridged version of Rosenthal’s translation that appeared in 1969.