Family Life In Islam
Khurshid Ahmad. Islam is a complete way. It has a distinct outlook on life. It gims at producing a unique personality in the individual and a distinct culture for the community based on Islamic ideals and values.The institutians of marriage and the faimily occupy a very important position in this scheme of life. An effort is being made in this small book to explain the Islamic concept of marriage and the family. The original inspiration for this essay came from a recent conference. The Standing Conference on Christian-Muslim Dialogue organised a three day conference at Wood Hall, Wetherby, Yorks, on the family in Christianity and Islam. I was invited to present Islamic viewpoint on the subject. The talk produced immense interest and sparked off very useful discussions in the following days. As the talk was given before a predominantly Christian audience I had to begin with the Islamic approach to life and gradually explain the institution of the family and the principles on which the family relations are built in a Muslim society. The present book is an out-growth of that talk. I hope it will, in its present form, reach a much wider audience and will be helpful in developing a better understanding of the Islamic family.
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
Gary Chapman. Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge. How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life? In the #1 New York Times international bestseller The 5 Love Languages, you’ll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner—starting today. The 5 Love Languages is as practical as it is insightful. Updated to reflect the complexities of relationships today, this new edition reveals intrinsic truths and applies relevant, actionable wisdom in ways that work.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
Stephen R. Covey. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families is a practical guide to navigating the challenges of family life. This newly revised edition includes updated stories, thoughtful new insights from Sandra Covey, and wisdom for navigating the challenges of modern day digital culture. Rooted in the 7 Habits that have transformed the lives of millions, the book is filled with anecdotes from Covey’s own family along with those of countless other families in every stage of life. Inside you’ll find: - A breakdown of the 7 Habits with concrete methods for implementing each of them - Reflection and application questions for both you and your family members—for everyone from young kids to adults - An index of common family challenges along with ways to address them - And much more While each and every family is unique, the 7 Habits offer a proven framework for creating a vibrant family culture of trust and love, no matter what your family situation.
The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships
John Gottman. Powerful, simple five-step program, based on twenty years of innovative research, for greatly improving all of the relationships in your life—with spouses and lovers, children, siblings, and even your colleagues at work. Gottman provides the tools you need to make your relationships thrive. In The Relationship Cure, Dr. Gottman: - Reveals the key elements of healthy relationships, emphasizing the importance of what he calls “emotional connection” - Introduces the powerful new concept of the emotional “bid,” the fundamental unit of emotional connection - Provides remarkably empowering tools for improving the way you bid for emotional connection and how you respond to others’ bids - And more!
The Duties of Brotherhood in Islam
Imam al-Ghazali. Imam al-Ghazali explores the meaning and significance of fraternity in Islam in this brilliant essay from his seminal work, The Revival of the Religious Sciences, which covers material assistance, personal aid, holding one's tongue, speaking out, forgiveness, loyalty, sincerity, and informality.
The Proper Conduct of Marriage in Islam: Adab an-Nikah
Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. This is Book 12 of Ihya 'Ulum ad-Din, the Imam's most famous work. In it are covered every aspect of the institution of marriage. In the words of Imam Ghazali, "Marriage comes to religion's aid, striking devils with dismay. How appropriate that one should study its occasions, preserve its sacred traditions and its etiquette, explain its aims and purposes, and detail the paragraphs and chapters of the subject.
For Women Only
Shaunti Feldhahn. The man in your life carries important feelings so deep inside he barely knows they’re there, much less how to talk about them. Yet your man genuinely wants you to “get” him—to understand his inner life, to know his fears and needs, to hear what he wishes he could tell you. In her landmark bestseller, For Women Only, Shaunti Feldhahn reveals what every woman—single or married—needs to know. Based on rigorous research with thousands of men, Shaunti delivers one eye-opening revelation after another, including: • Why your respect means more to him than your love. • How he feels deep inside about his role as provider. • What it means for a man to be so visually “wired.” • Why sex for him is primarily emotional, not physical. • What he most wishes he could say to you.
The Woman’s Guide to How Men Think: Love, Commitment, and the Male Mind
Shawn Smith. The Woman’s Guide to How Men Think: Love, Commitment, and the Male Mind
Practical Female Psychology
Joseph South. Practical Female Psychology for the Practical Man is a unique examination of women and relationships in an era of material equality between the sexes. Despite vast gains in the welfare of women, especially in the modern West, both men and women are finding relationships ranging from dating to marriage increasingly difficult. The authors draw upon cutting edge science in evolutionary biology, and neuropsychology, and vast personal experience with women to distill some simple and practical principles men will find useful for creating and maintaining relationships with emotionally compatible women.
Why Men Are the Way They Are
Warren Farrell. Farrell has conducted role-playing workshops with thousands of men and women for more than 20 years. His ground-breaking research is the basis for the book, which most experts agree may be one of the most extraordinary, eye-opening books of our time.
Save the Males: Why Men Matter Why Women Should Care
Kathleen Parker. With piercing wit and perceptive analysis, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Kathleen Parker explores how men, maleness, and fatherhood have been under siege in American culture for decades. She argues that the feminist movement veered off course from its original aim of helping women achieve equality and ended up making enemies of men. The pendulum has swung from the reasonable middle to a place where men have been ridiculed in the public square and the importance of fatherhood has been diminished—all to the detriment of women and children, who ultimately suffer most. Exploring our burgeoning culture of permissiveness and the impact of anti-male attitudes on families and relationships, Kathleen Parker tackles some of the more taboo subjects in today’s sexual politics and culture wars that will have America talking about saving the males.
10 Principles for Doing Effective Couples Therapy
John M. Gottman. In 10 Principles for Doing Effective Couples Therapy, two of the world’s leading couple researchers and therapists give readers an inside tour of what goes on inside the consulting rooms of their practice. They have been doing couples work for decades and still find it challenging and full of learning experiences. This book distills the knowledge they've gained over their years of practice into ten principles at the core of good couples work. Each principle is illustrated with a clinically compiled case plus personal side-notes and storytelling.
Home: The Happy Luddite's Guide to Domestic Self-Sufficiency
Ken Albala. The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home is not about extreme, off-the-grid living. It’s for city and suburban dwellers with day jobs: people who love to cook, love fresh natural ingredients, and old techniques for preservation; people who like doing things themselves with a needle and thread, garden hoe, or manual saw. Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger Henderson spread the spirit of antiquated self-sufficiency throughout the household. They offer projects that are decidedly unplugged and a little daring.
The Man's Guide to Women: Scientifically Proven Secrets from the Love Lab About What Women Really Want
John Gottman. Results from world-renowned relationship expert John Gottman’s famous Love Lab have proven an incredible truth: Men make or break relationships. Based on 40 years of research, The Man’s Guide to Women unlocks the mystery of how to attract, satisfy, and succeed with a woman for a lifetime. For the first time ever, there is a science-based answer to the age-old question: What do women really want in a man? Dr. Gottman, author of the New York Times bestseller The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, and his wife and collaborator, clinical psychologist Julie Schwartz Gottman, PhD, have pored over the research along with bestselling coauthors Douglas Abrams and Rachel Carlton Abrams, MD. Together, they have written this definitive guide for men, providing answers on everything from how to approach a woman and build a connection with her to how to truly satisfy her in bed and know when the relationship is on the right track. The Man’s Guide to Women is a must-have playbook for how to play—and win—the game of love.
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work has revolutionized the way we understand, repair, and strengthen marriages. John Gottman’s unprecedented study of couples over a period of years has allowed him to observe the habits that can make—and break—a marriage. Here is the culmination of that work: the seven principles that guide couples on a path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship. Straightforward yet profound, these principles teach partners new approaches for resolving conflicts, creating new common ground, and achieving greater levels of intimacy. Gottman offers strategies and resources to help couples collaborate more effectively to resolve any problem, whether dealing with issues related to sex, money, religion, work, family, or anything else.
Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
Karen Armstrong. Karen Armstrong believes that while compassion is intrinsic in all human beings, each of us needs to work diligently to cultivate and expand our capacity for compassion. Here, she sets out a program that can lead us toward a more compassionate life. The twelve steps Armstrong suggests begin with “Learn About Compassion” and close with “Love Your Enemies.” In between, she takes up “compassion for yourself,” mindfulness, suffering, sympathetic joy, the limits of our knowledge of others, and “concern for everybody.” She suggests concrete ways of enhancing our compassion and putting it into action in our everyday lives, and provides, as well, a reading list to encourage us to “hear one another’s narratives.” Throughout, Armstrong makes clear that a compassionate life is not a matter of only heart or mind but a deliberate and often life-altering commingling of the two.
Principles of Marriage and Family Ethics
Ibrahim Amini. It is a beneficial guidance for husbands and wives as they embark on a shared journey, together. No matter the background of new husband and wife, there is cultural, religious, and other baggage that requires filtering. Better sooner than later. A highly recommended read for those serious about their relationship and the recognition that marriage is a gift - made sacrosanct in the eyes of God, and must be treated as a treasured covenant. Many people are successful in their careers, yet fail miserably in marriage. And no wonder - many read hundreds of books and study countless hours for their careers. But for their marriage?
Why Gender Matters, Second Edition: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences
Leonard Sax. A revised and updated edition (with more than 70% new material) of the evergreen classic about the innate differences between boys and girls and how best to parent and teach girls and boys successfully, with completely new chapters on sexual orientation and on transgender and intersex kids. Eleven years ago, Why Gender Matters broke ground in illuminating the differences between boys and girls--how they perceive the world differently, how they learn differently, how they process emotions and take risks differently. Dr. Sax argued that in failing to recognize these hardwired differences between boys and girls, we ended up reinforcing damaging stereotypes, medicalizing normal behavior (see: the rising rates of ADHD diagnosis), and failing to support kids to reach their full potential. In the intervening decade, the world has changed drastically, with an avalanche of new research which supports, deepens, and expands Dr. Sax's work. This revised and updated edition includes new findings about how boys and girls interact differently with social media and video games; a completely new discussion of research on gender non-conforming, LGB, and transgender kids, new findings about how girls and boys see differently, hear differently, and even smell differently; and new material about the medicalization of bad behavior.
Bent Rib (A Journey Through Women's Issues in Islam)
Huda Khattab. This is a new, fully-revised edition of Huda Khattab’s discussion of important women’s issues in Islam. It examines several controversial topics such as domestic violence, female genital mutilation, polygyny and the failure to educate women and girls, and points out the divergence between Islamic teaching and actual culturally-influenced practice. In this 3rd edition of Bent Rib, important information has been updated and new and interesting developments in these areas are discussed with regard to their impact on Muslim women and their society.
The Better Half: On the Genetic Superiority of Women
Dr. Sharon Moalem. Here are some facts: Women live longer than men. They have stronger immune systems. They're better at fighting cancer and surviving famine, and even see the world in a wider variety of colors. They are simply stronger than men at every stage of life. Why is this? And why are we taught the opposite? To find out, Dr. Sharon Moalem drew on his own medical experiences - treating premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit; recruiting the elderly for neurogenetic studies; tending to HIV-positive orphans in Thailand - and tried to understand why in every instance men were consistently less likely to thrive. The answer, he discovered, lies in our genetics: two X chromosomes offer a powerful survival advantage. With clear, captivating prose that weaves together eye-opening research, case studies, diverse examples ranging from the behavior of honeybees to American pioneers, as well as experiences from his personal life and his own patients, Moalem explains why genetic females triumph over males when it comes to resiliency, intellect, stamina, immunity and much more. He also calls for a reconsideration of our male-centric, one-size-fits-all view of medical studies and even how we prescribe medications - a view that still sees women through the lens of men.
The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men
Christina Hoff Sommers. Girls and women were once second-class citizens in the nation’s schools. Americans responded with concerted efforts to give girls and women the attention and assistance that was long overdue. Now, after two major waves of feminism and decades of policy reform, women have made massive strides in education. Today they outperform men in nearly every measure of social, academic, and vocational well-being. Christina Hoff Sommers contends that it’s time to take a hard look at present-day realities and recognize that boys need help. Called “provocative and controversial...impassioned and articulate” (The Christian Science Monitor), this edition of The War Against Boys offers a new preface and six radically revised chapters, plus updates on the current status of boys throughout the book. Sommers argues that the problem of male underachievement is persistent and worsening. Among the new topics Sommers tackles: how the war against boys is harming our economic future, and how boy-averse trends such as the decline of recess and zero-tolerance disciplinary policies have turned our schools into hostile environments for boys. As our schools become more feelings-centered, risk-averse, competition-free, and sedentary, they move further and further from the characteristic needs of boys. She offers realistic, achievable solutions to these problems that include boy-friendly pedagogy, character and vocational education, and the choice of single-sex classrooms.
The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought
Sachiko Murata. The Tao of Islam is a rich and diverse anthology of Islamic teachings on the nature of the relationships between God and the world, the world and the human being, and the human being and God. Focusing on gender symbolism, Sachiko Murata shows that Muslim authors frequently analyze the divine reality and its connections with the cosmic and human domains with a view toward a complementarity or polarity of principles that is analogous to the Chinese idea of yin/yang. Murata believes that the unity of Islamic thought is found, not so much in the ideas discussed, as in the types of relationships that are set up among realities. She pays particular attention to the views of various figures commonly known as "Sufis" and "philosophers," since they approach these topics with a flexibility and subtlety not found in other schools of thought. She translates several hundred pages, most for the first time, from more than thirty important Muslims including the Ikhwan al-Safa', Avicenna, and Ibn al-'Arabi.
The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society
Debra Soh. Is our gender something we’re born with, or are we conditioned by society? In The End of Gender, neuroscientist and sexologist Dr. Debra Soh uses a research-based approach to address this hot-button topic, unmasking popular misconceptions about the nature vs. nurture debate and exploring what it means to be a woman or a man in today’s society. Both scientific and objective, and drawing on original research and carefully conducted interviews, Soh tackles a wide range of issues, such as gender-neutral parenting, gender dysphoric children, and the neuroscience of being transgender. She debates today’s accepted notion that gender is a social construct and a spectrum, and challenges the idea that there is no difference between how male and female brains operate. The End of Gender is conversation-starting “required reading” (Eric R. Weinstein, PhD, host of The Portal) that will arm you with the facts you need to come to your own conclusions about gender identity and its place in the world today.
The Myth of Male Power
Warren Farrell. The Myth of Male Power helps each family member understand that genuine power is neither status nor money, but “control over one's life.” He documents that virtually every society that has survived has done so by persuading its sons to be disposable--whether in war or in work; and therefore indirectly as dads. And disposability is not power. Considered the Bible of men's studies—yet highly empathetic to women (Dr. Farrell was repeatedly elected to the Board of the National Organization for Women in NYC)-- the meticulously researched The Myth of Male Power takes the listener on a captivating journey around the world, throughout history, biology, the Bible, the law, and everyday life, challenging every currently-held assumption about men, women and the family. In his compassionate voice, Warren answers questions like, "Doesn't the fact that men earn more mean they have more power?" with "The road to high pay is a toll road—tolls such as working more hours, being away from our family, being engineers, not artists…." Farrell posits that men have mistakenly defined power as "feeling obligated to earn money someone else spends while he dies sooner." To help each family member appreciate parents and grandparents, Farrell shares, "in the past, neither sex had genuine power; both sexes had roles: women's role: raise children; men's role: raise money. Our grandparents didn't preach rights--they preached responsibilities. Both moms and dads sacrificed so their children's lives would be better than theirs."
Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man
Norah Vincent. A journalist’s provocative and spellbinding account of her eighteen months spent disguised as a man. Norah Vincent became an instant media sensation with the publication of Self-Made Man, her take on just how hard it is to be a man, even in a man’s world. Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me), Vincent spent a year and a half disguised as her male alter ego, Ned, exploring what men are like when women aren’t around. As Ned, she joined a bowling team, took a high-octane sales job, went on dates with women (and men), visited strip clubs, and even managed to infiltrate a monastery and a men’s therapy group. At once thought-provoking and pure fun to read, Self-Made Man is a sympathetic and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism.
The Honor of Women in Islam
Yusuf Da Costa. Relying explicitly on the source texts of Islam, including the Holy Quran and the sayings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Dr. da Costa details the true rights and roles of Muslim women. He then presents several leading female figures from Islamic history whose exemplary lives truly demonstrate the honor and power God has bestowed upon women. If we consider Islam in its traditional form, as practiced by the majority of Muslims throughout the world, and not the handful of fundamentalists to whom our attention is often drawn, we too may witness The Honor of Women in Islam.
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters
Abigail Shrier. Until just a few years ago, gender dysphoria—severe discomfort in one’s biological sex—was vanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of the population, emerged in early childhood, and afflicted males almost exclusively. But today whole groups of female friends in colleges, high schools, and even middle schools across the country are coming out as “transgender.” These are girls who had never experienced any discomfort in their biological sex until they heard a coming-out story from a speaker at a school assembly or discovered the internet community of trans “influencers.” Unsuspecting parents are awakening to find their daughters in thrall to hip trans YouTube stars and “gender-affirming” educators and therapists who push life-changing interventions on young girls—including medically unnecessary double mastectomies and puberty blockers that can cause permanent infertility.
The Boy Crisis - Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It
Warren Farrell. What is the boy crisis? It's a crisis of education. For the first time in American history, our sons will have less education than their dads. It's a crisis of mental health. As boys become young men, their suicide rates go from equal to girls to six times that of young women. It's a crisis of sexuality. Sex is a minefield for our sons. They're bombarded with mixed messages, afraid of being either too sensitive or not sensitive enough. It's a crisis of fathering. Boys with less-involved fathers are more likely to drop out of school, drink, do drugs, become delinquent, and end up in prison. It's a crisis of purpose. Boys' old senses of purposes, being a warrior, a leader, or a sole breadwinner, are fading. Many bright boys are experiencing a "purpose void", feeling alienated, withdrawn, and addicted to immediate gratification. Compounding this issue are addicting video games that lead to distraction and ADHD. So, what is The Boy Crisis? A comprehensive blueprint for what parents, teachers, and policy-makers can do to renew our sons' sense of purpose to help them become men, fathers, and leaders worthy of our respect.
Domestic Tranquility
F. Carolyn Graglia. The principal targets of feminist fire in the on-going "gender wars" are not men but traditional wives and mothers, says a lawyer-turned-housewife in a powerful critique of contemporary feminism. With a profound understanding of the quandary of modern women, Carolyn Graglia shows that the cultural assault on marriage, motherhood, and traditional sexuality, rooted in the pursuit of economic and political power, has robbed women of their surest source of fulfillment. Mrs. Graglia traces the origins of modern feminism to the post-war exaltation of marketplace achievement, which bred dissatisfaction with women's domestic roles. In a masterly analysis of seminal feminist texts, she reveals a conscious campaign of ostracism of the housewife as a childish "parasite". Turning to the feminist understanding of sexuality, now pervasive in our culture, she shows how it has distorted and impoverished sex by stripping it of its true significance. Finally, after exposing feminism's totalitarian impulse and its contribution to the "tangle of pathologies" that have left marriage and family life in tatters, she argues for a renewed appreciation of the transforming experience of motherhood and the value of the domestic vocation.
The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are (Still) Going Broke
Elizabeth Warren. In this exposé, Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi show that modern middle-class families are increasingly trapped by the grinding reality of flat wages and rising costs. Warren and Tyagi reveal how a ferocious bidding war for housing and education has silently engulfed America's suburbs, driving up the cost of keeping families in the middle class, and placing unprecedented pressure on hard-working families. Revolutionary when it was first published in 2003, The Two-Income Trap remains disturbingly relevant today. Now with a new introduction by the authors, The Two Income Trap shows why the usual remedies won't solve the problem and points toward the policy changes that would create better opportunities for both parents and children.
Futuwwah and raising males into sacred manhood
Dawud Walid. Futuwwah and Raising Males into Sacred Manhood concisely discusses the principles within futuwwah, or spiritual chivalry, that young men should strive to embody and should inculcate into our communities. While the virtues discusses in this text are not all exclusively related to young males becoming men, this book is tailored towards males, and the specific issues faced by males as they strive to grow into the path of manhood. Just as young women need their own spaces to learn from women how to become honorable sisters, young men require their own special places to instill in them the virtues of upright brothers.
Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women
Renee Engeln. Today’s young women face a bewildering set of contradictions when it comes to beauty. They don’t want to be Barbie dolls but, like generations of women before them, are told they must look like them. They’re angry about the media’s treatment of women but hungrily consume the outlets that belittle them. They mock modern culture’s absurd beauty ideal and make videos exposing Photoshopping tricks, but feel pressured to emulate the same images they criticize by posing with a "skinny arm." They understand that what they see isn’t real but still download apps to airbrush their selfies. Yet these same young women are fierce fighters for the issues they care about. They are ready to fight back against their beauty-sick culture and create a different world for themselves, but they need a way forward. In Beauty Sick, Dr. Renee Engeln, whose TEDx talk on beauty sickness has received more than 250,000 views, reveals the shocking consequences of our obsession with girls’ appearance on their emotional and physical health and their wallets and ambitions, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. Combining scientific studies with the voices of real women of all ages, she makes clear that to truly fulfill their potential, we must break free from cultural forces that feed destructive desires, attitudes, and words—from fat-shaming to denigrating commentary about other women. She provides inspiration and workable solutions to help girls and women overcome negative attitudes and embrace their whole selves, to transform their lives, claim the futures they deserve, and, ultimately, change their world.