A simple, easy-to-read guide to Islamic spirituality that helps to explain Islam’s ongoing conflict with the Western world.
Translation and exegesis of a classic treatise of Islamic mysticism.
Baghdad wasn’t always a bombed-out, bullet-scarred city. In the ninth century, it was the center of the Islamic world and an academic mecca, embracing scholars translating classic Greek, Roman, Syrian Christian and Indian texts into Arabic. In this milieu, Imam al-Muhasibi wrote Treatise for the Seekers of Guidance, which, in a nutshell, is a explanation of Islamic spiritual development that emphasizes the importance of Muslims cleansing their hearts from worldly attractions and maintaining Taqwa, or a God-consciousness that manifests itself in purposeful action. Shakir, translator and tour guide, walks the reader through the document, sometimes line by line, providing context and clarification through constant references to the Qur’an and Hadith (or prophetic tradition). Occasional illuminating tangents on Islam in the contemporary world, especially post-9/11, break up some of the monotony and redundancy of the treatise, making the translation more readable and relevant to non-Muslims. Through it, the reader can see Islam as a double-edge scimitar. Slicing through the garish material excess and social and moral decay that characterizes a lot of the modern capitalist world, the treatise explains that Muslims were created to worship God and serve others. It’s a simple, beautiful message that makes it easy to understand why Islam is the world’s most popular religion. However, the flip side of the proverbial sword reflects a conundrum. To be saved and make it to paradise in the afterworld, one must maintain a real and present fear of God and endure trials and tribulations while on earth. Shakir is to be lauded for his commentary, bold at times. He criticizes some contemporary Muslims for hypocrisy, as well as slandering, vilifying and despising their brethren, and cites an inability of Muslims to give sincere advice to other Muslims as a cause of ongoing troubles. But he also casts judgment on Western society’s tendency to commoditize everything, making it difficult for Muslims to recast their gaze from earthly delights upward to more divine endeavors.
A simple, easy-to-read guide to Islamic spirituality that helps to explain Islam’s ongoing conflict with the Western world.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9792281-3-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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