Considered by Muslims as the only true art, calligraphy has played a prominent role in Islamic culture since the time of the prophet Muhammad. Exploring this central role of the written word in Islam and how writing practices have evolved and adapted...

With tremendous speed, the Islamic State has moved from the margins to the center of life in the Middle East. Despite recent setbacks, its ability to conquer and retain huge swaths of territory has demonstrated its skillful tactical maneuvering, ambi...

In "Becoming a New Self", Moshe Sluhovsky examines the diffusion of spiritual practices among lay Catholics in early modern Europe. By offering a close examination of early modern Catholic penitential and meditative techniques, Sluhovsky makes the ca...

A leading biblical scholar's landmark work challenges the historical realism that has dominated the discipline for more than two centuries. How can a modern person, informed by science and history, continue to recite the traditional creeds and confe...

For sale in CIS only! This collection seeks to advance our understanding of intra-Islamic identity conflict in the Middle East. Instead of treating distinctions between and within Sunni and Shia Islam as primordial and immutable, it examines how pol...

For sale in CIS only! Northern and central Nigeria have been engulfed in a violent insurgency campaign waged by Jama'atu Ahlis Sunnah Lidda'awati w'al Jihad, a.k.a. "Boko Haram", and for a time, its splinter group "Ansaru". From its inception an inw...

Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often...

For sale in CIS only! "Blood Year" is an unsparingly honest, self-critical analysis of the collapse of western counterterrorism strategy, by one of its original architects. As a soldier, counterterrorism official, and Chief Strategist in the US Stat...

Examining a wide array of ancient writings, Brent Nongbri dispels the commonly held idea that there is such a thing as "ancient religion". Nongbri shows how misleading it is to speak as though religion was a concept native to pre-modern cultures; at...

Written by the core faculty of the Hebrew Program at Brandeis University, Brandeis Modern Hebrew is an accessible introduction to the Hebrew language for American undergraduates and high school students. Its functional and contextual elements are des...