Books about Shi ite from Amazon.com

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By recasting the relationship between religion and nationalism in the Middle East, Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr proposes a new framework for understanding Shi'ite politics in Lebanon. Her study draws on a variety of untapped sources, reconsidering not only the politics of the established leadership of Shi'ites but also institutional and popular activities of identity production. Shaery-Eisenlohr traces current Shi'ite politics of piety and authenticity to the coexistence formula in Lebanon and argues that engaging in the discourses of piety and coexistence is a precondition to cultural citizenship in Lebanon. As she demonstrates, debates over the nature of Christianity and Islam and Christian-Muslim dialogue are in fact intertwined with power struggles at the state level.

Since the 1970s, debates in the transnational Shi'ite world have gradually linked Shi'ite piety with the support of the Palestinian cause. Iran's religious elite has backed this piety project in multiple ways, but in doing so it has assisted in the creation of a variety of Lebanese Shi'ite nationalisms with competing claims to religious and national authenticity. Shaery-Eisenlohr argues that these ties to Iran have in fact strengthened the position of Lebanese Shi'ites by providing, as is recognized, economic, military, and ideological support for Hizbullah, as well as by compelling Lebanese Shi'ites to foreground the Lebanese components of their identity more forcefully than ever before.

Shaery-Eisenlohr challenges the belief that Shi'ite identity politics only serve to undermine the Lebanese national project. She also makes clear that the expression of Lebanese Shi'ite identity is a nationalist expression and an unintended result of Iranian efforts to influence the politics of Lebanon.

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Combat with the Self is a compilation of traditions and sayings from the Holy Prophet and his Household (Hadith), classified under various subsections, all broaching the subject of the self, its vices, temptations, strengths and weaknesses. Based on the fact that one's self is one's greatest enemy, the book encompasses universally acknowledged issues of moral and ethical value from honesty and charity to humility and philanthropy. It consists purely of the sayings of the Imams, through which the reader will be left amazed at how congruent the Imams' words are with the message of the Qur'an.
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Price: $17.60 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Timely and exhaustively researched, this book offers a perspective on Shi'ite political activism in Iraq before and after the fall of Saddam Hussein .
Price: $15.39 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Juan Cole examines Shi'i Islam as a world religion that has faced modernity on its own terms. He explores the little known history of Shi'i communities as far afield as Bahrain and India, giving attention as well to important centers such as Lebanon , Iraq, and Iran. He demonstrates the way in which the Shi'is have sought to define space and time as sacred, and to defend those spaces from encroachment by the Other, whether that other be Sunni Arab, Hindu, or European Christian.
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Price: $22.17 [Notify me when price goes down.]