The Swahili translation of Dr. Taha Alwani's book (La Ikhraha fi ad-Dean) has just been released.

Volume 27, Number 2, Spring 2010 issue of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS), a joint publication of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America (AMSS) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), has been published.

Click here for the table of contents.

The Islamic Principles and Methods of Teaching

Al Ijtihad: The Journal of the Islamization of Knowledge and Contemporary Issues, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2010.

The book addresses the sensitive topic of Hadith authentication, focusing on the criteria adopted by classical scholars to maintain that concentration on the continuity and accuracy of the chain of narrators, rather than the textual content of Hadith, has led to particular Hadith being included which either contradict other Hadith directly, project the Prophet (S) in an uncharacteristic light, or do not reflect and/or conflict with the teachings of the Qur'an.

IIIT's book Man Between The Two Worldviews: A Qur’anic Perspective in Understanding Self and Understanding the Other has been translated into Tamil. The book is written by Dr. AbdulHamid AbuSulayman and was originally written in Arabic.

Three book by IIIT have been translated recently. Training Guide for Islamic Workers by Dr. Hisham Altalib has been translated into more than 20 languages, Swahili being the latest.  Islamic Methodology by Dr. Fathi Malkawi and The Fundamental Sources of Islamic Methodology by Dr. Ali Jumuah Muhammad have been translated into Azari.

• Authentication of Hadith: Redefining the Criteria
• Where East Meets West: Appropriating the Islamic Encounter for a Spiritual-Cultural Revival
• OP19: The People on the Edge
• OP18: Towards a Fiqh for Minorities (new revised)

Islamic Thought: An Approach to Reform and Crisis in Contemporary Thought, two books by Dr. Taha Jabir Alwani, have been translated into Azari.

Dr. Taha Jabir Al-Alwani is a graduate of Al-Azhar University, Cairo. He authored numerous works including: Source Methodology in Islamic Jurisprudence; Towards a Fiqh for Minorities; The Ethics of Disagreement in Islam; and The Qur'an and the Sunnah: The Time-Space Factor.

This book shatters the myth that naked-eye sighting of the new moon and completing thirty days in the case of weather-related or other obscurities are the only two valid methods of determining the month of Ramadan. The author explains that certainty, not actual sighting, is the real objective of the Sharicah and that the Qur’an does not mandate physical sighting. A careful analysis shows that those hadiths that seemingly require sighting actually require certainty. The assertion that all Muslim scholars prohibit the use of astronomical calculations, both in affirming or negating the month of Ramadan, is not correct. As calculation is now more accurate than naked-eye sighting, due to certain astronomical and scientific advancements, the use of calculation is the closest to the real objective of the Shari‘ah and to the spirit of the hadiths.