Light in the Heavens

"Easily readable and accessible. Highly recommended and beneficial for the expert, the scholar, and the student of Islamic Studies, while equally expedient for general readers." ~Reading Religion

"This distinctly ethical and pragmatic collection . . . offers humanitarian lessons and practical insights with a universal appeal." ~Islamic Horizons

"A splendid addition to the new Library of Arabic Literature series . . . [and a] wonderful translation . . . This book will help adjust the 'Western' understanding of Islam from the benighted view acquired from media, government propaganda, and religious bigotry toward the wise, demanding, and impressive way of being human, both at the level of the individual and at the level of society, that it is for a quarter of the human race." ~Speculum

"Beautifully edited and translated by Tahera Qutbuddin . . . The book is a welcome addition to the literature on . . . hadith scholarship, and will be of interest to scholars, students, and non-specialist readers interested in classical and medieval Islam, Islamic history, and Islamic studies, particularly Islamic theology and hadith studies." ~Digest of Middle East Studies

"Al-Quḍāʽīs book is one of those works not characterized by originality, but by skillful selection of sayings from a huge body of literature, and it was very popular in the Islamic Middle Ages… Overall, I find the translation impressive. [Qutbuddin] deliberately frees herself to use idiomatic English rather than producing a clumsy literal rendering of the Arabic, and in the vast majority of cases, she hits squarely on the core meanings of the Arabic sayings… an excellent edition and translation of an important text." ~Orientalistische Literaturzeitung