Editor's Shelf pictures the books as they appear on the shelf. It's more of an inventory of recent arrivals than any serious assesment of the book.

THE ABRAHAMIC FAITHS Judaism, Christianity, Islam: Similarities & Contrasts By Jerald F. Dirks, ISBN : 1-59008-031-9
 

The book presents the similarities and contrasts between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It shows how each of the three religions shares a common core of religious and ethical teachings with the other two, although differing in places with regard to specific doctrine and dogma.

THE FIRST AND FINAL COMMANDMENT A Search for Truth in Revelation within the Abrahamic Religions By Dr. Laurence B. Brown, MD
ISBN: 1-59008-028-9

A powerful challenge to conventional Judeo-Christian theology, The First and Final Commandment begins by defining the internal conflicts that fracture the metaphysical worlds of Judaism and Christianity from within, and indeed, which demand reappraisal of the Judeo-Christian scriptures themselves. Incorporating detailed analysis, this work continues on to document the criptural evidences that suggest continuity in revelation from Judaism to Christianity and, in the end, to orthodox (Sunni) Islam. Provocative and thought-provoking, intelligent and inspiring, this book enters the melee of two thousand years of religious debate with clarity of vision, accuracy of detail, and common sense conclusions which boldly confront conventional Judeo-Christian conclusions.
 

Contemporary Arab Thoughts, STUDIES IN POST - 1967 Arab Intellectual History, By: Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi' ISBN: 0-7453-2169-0

'Contemporary Arab Thought' is a complex term, encompassing a constellation of social, political, religious and ideological ideas that have evolved over the past two hundred years - ideas that represent the leading positions of the social classes in modern and contemporary Arab societies.

Distinguished Islamic scholar Ibrahim Abu-Rabi' addresses such questions as the Shari'ah, human rights, civil society, secularism and globalization. This is complimented by a focused discussion on the writings of key Arab thinkers who represent established trends of thought in the Arab world, including Muhammad 'Abid al-Jabiri, Adallah Laroui, Muhammad al-Ghazali, Rashid al-Ghannoushi, Qutatnine Zurayk, Mahdi 'Amil and many others.

Before 1967, some Arab countries launched hopeful programmes of modernisation. After the 1967 defeat with Israel, many of these hopes were dashed. This book retraces the Arab world's aborted modernity of recent decades. Abu-Rabi' explores the development of contemporary Arab thought against the historical background of the rise of modern Islamism, and the impact of the West on the modern Arab world.

Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse. The University of Chicago Press. 2005. By: Mansoor Moddel,
ISBN:0-226-53333-6

During the Medieval period, the The Islamic world has experienced extensive social changes in modern times--the rise of new social classes, the formation of massive bureaucratic and military states, and the incorporation of its economies into the world capitalist structure. Yet despite these changes, a national consensus on even the most important principles of social organization--the form of government, the status of women, national identity, and rule making--has yet to emerge

An ambitious comparative historical analysis of ideological production in the Islamic world from the mid-1800s to the present, Mansoor Moaddel's Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism provides a unique perspective for understanding the social conditions of these discourses. Moaddel characterizes these movements in terms of a sequence of cultural episodes characterized by ideological debates and religious disputations, each ending with a revolution or military coup. Understanding how the leaders of these movements formulated their discourses is, for Moaddel, the key to understanding Middle Eastern history. This premise allows him to unlock for readers the historical process that started with Islamic modernism and ended with fundamentalism.
 

Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination by Ebrahim Moosa, The University of North Carolina Press, ISBN: 0-691-12370-5

How old is prejudice against black people? Were the racist attitudes that fueled the Atlantic slave trade firmly in place 700 years before the European discovery of sub-Saharan Africa? In this groundbreaking book, David Goldenberg seeks to discover how dark-skinned peoples, especially black Africans, were portrayed in the Bible and by those who interpreted the Bible--Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Unprecedented in rigor and breadth, his investigation covers a 1,500-year period, from ancient Israel (around 800 B.C.E.) to the eighth century C.E., after the birth of Islam. By tracing the development of anti-Black sentiment during this time, Goldenberg uncovers views about race, color, and slavery that took shape over the centuries--most centrally, the belief that the biblical Ham and his descendants, the black Africans, had been cursed by God with eternal slavery.
 

UNDERSTANDING ISLAM A guide for the Judaeo-Christian reader By Dr. Jerald F. Dirks , ISBN : 1-59008-021-1

In Understanding Islam Dr. Dirks offers a timely and factually correct alternative to understanding Islam. It is written for the Western, and primarily Christian reader. The primary focus of the Book is on what is termed Sunni Islam, i.e., the Islam practiced by approximately 85-90% of the self-professed Muslims in the world. The Book is unique in several respects. It treats Islam from its own point of view. It is written by a natural-born American for the Western reader, and thus may avoid some of the cultural overlay that accompanies some books on Islam written by other Muslim authors. The author is an American who has practiced Islam both while living in America and in the Middle East, thus offering a broader perspective than would have otherwise been possible. As a convert from Christianity to Islam, and as a former ordained minister within Christianity, the author does a very good job of expounding the commonalties and contrasts of Islam with Judaism and Christianity, while still avoiding the temptation to distort Islam by interpreting it from within a Judaeo-Christian perspective. The reader is introduced to Islam almost exclusively through the two primary sources of Islam, i.e., the Qur'an and the Sunnah, which are the only completely authoritative sources on Islam.