In this comprehensive open access book, written for readers from any or no religious background, Leena El-Ali does something remarkable. Never before has anyone taken on every last claim relating to Islam and women and countered it not just with Qur'anic evidence to the contrary, but with easy-to-use tools available to all. How can a woman's testimony be worth half of a man's? How can men divorce their wives unilaterally by uttering three words? And what's with the obsession with virgins in Paradise? Find the chapter on any of the seventeen topics in this book, and you will quickly learn a) where the myth came from and b) how to bust it. The methodology pursued is simple. First, the Qur'an is given priority over all other literary or "scriptural" sources. Second, the meaning of its verses in the original Arabic is highlighted, in contrast to English translations and/or widespread misunderstanding or misinterpretation.

In this comprehensive open access book, written for readers from any or no religious background, Leena El-Ali does something remarkable. Never before has anyone taken on every last claim relating to Islam and women and countered it not just with Qur’anic evidence to the contrary, but with easy-to-use tools available to all. How can a woman’s testimony be worth half of a man’s? How can men divorce their wives unilaterally by uttering three words? And what’s with the obsession with virgins in Paradise? Find the chapter on any of the seventeen topics in this book, and you will quickly learn a) where the myth came from and b) how to bust it. The methodology pursued is simple. First, the Qur’an is given priority over all other literary or “scriptural” sources. Second, the meaning of its verses in the original Arabic is highlighted, in contrast to English translations and/or widespread misunderstanding or misinterpretation.

An individual has the potentiality to develop himself/herself during each period of his/her life. This potential for development can be affected by many diff- ent factors. These factors are divided into two main areas as internal factors and external factors. The common assumption is that internal factors are more effective than external factors. This is the dilemma about learning which p- cess of lifelong learning is related to self-actualization. In this paper, discussion is limited to concept of lifelong learning and self actualization. LIFELONG LEARNING An individual can take proper support form many components such as family, education system, media and peers. However, they may not provide proper s- port for the individual. Thus, the individual needs more pedagogical support to solve problems of life, develop his/her skills and capabilities. The pedagogical support should be given by educational system. Teaching and learning in some areas such as math, science, drawing, social studies and so on were de ned as pedagogical support in the past. But, this approach is weakening in today. During teaching and learning processes teacher and learner should focus on the learning rather than the teaching. The concept of learning is likely to be argued in many dimensions. The c- cepts of teaching and learning tend to be rede ned based on the latest changes.

"A loving testament to the work and reward of the best friendships, the kind where your arms can’t distinguish burden from embrace.” — People New York Times Bestselling author Ann Patchett’s first work of nonfiction chronicling her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy. Ann Patchett and the late Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work. In Gealy's critically acclaimed and hugely successful memoir, Autobiography of a Face, she wrote about losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, years of chemotherapy and radiation, and endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth & Beauty, the story isn't Lucy's life or Ann's life, but the parts of their lives they shared together. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long cold winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined...and what happens when one is left behind. This is a tender, brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty and being uplifted by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.

Follow Andrew Klavan to a deeper, richer understanding of the words of Jesus. Andrew Klavan believed what he read in the Gospels, but he often struggled to understand what Jesus really meant. So he began a journey of wrestling with the beautiful and often strange words of Jesus. He learned Greek in order to read the Gospels in their original languages, and he vowed to set aside any preconceptions about what the Scriptures say. But it wasn't until he began exploring how some of history's greatest writers wrestled with the same issues we confront today--political upheaval, rejection of social norms, growing disbelief in God--that he found a new way of understanding what Jesus meant. In The Truth and Beauty, Klavan combines a decades-long writing career with a lifetime of reading to discover a fresh understanding of the Gospels. By reading the words of Jesus through the life and work of writers such as William Wordsworth and John Keats, Mary Shelley and Samuel Taylor Coleridge--the English romantics--Klavan discovered a way to encounter Jesus in a deeper and more profound way than ever before. For readers seeking to find renewed meaning in the words of Jesus--and for those who are striving for belief in a materialistic world--The Truth and Beauty offers an intimate account of one man's struggle to understand the Gospels in all their strangeness, and so find his way to a life that is, as he says, "the most creative, the most joyful, and surely the most true."

It started with a harmless quest for perfect wash-and-go hair. Every girl wants it, and Siobhan O'Connor and Alexandra Spunt finally found it in a fancy salon treatment. They were thrilled -- until they discovered that the magic ingredient was formaldehyde. Shocked, O'Connor and Spunt left no bottle unturned. If it went on their body (and thus, was absorbed into their skin and bloodstream), they researched it. As it turns out, many of those unpronounceable ingredients in your self-tanner and leave-in conditioner are not regulated and the "natural" on your face wash doesn't mean what you think it does. Now, with the help of top scientists, dermatologists, and makeup artists, the authors share their compelling findings and the easy way to detoxify your beauty regimen. No More Dirty Looks also reveals the safest, most effective products on the market and time-tested home recipes. Finally, you don't need to sacrifice health for beauty -- because coming clean is the best look yet.

The establishment of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a pioneering international event. Never had any country sought to move forward from despotism to democracy both by exposing the atrocities committed in the past and achieving reconciliation with its former oppressors. At the center of this unprecedented attempt at healing a nation has been Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom President Nelson Mandela named as Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. With the final report of the Commission just published, Archbishop Tutu offers his reflections on the profound wisdom he has gained by helping usher South Africa through this painful experience. In No Future Without Forgiveness, Tutu argues that true reconciliation cannot be achieved by denying the past. But nor is it easy to reconcile when a nation "looks the beast in the eye." Rather than repeat platitudes about forgiveness, he presents a bold spirituality that recognizes the horrors people can inflict upon one another, and yet retains a sense of idealism about reconciliation. With a clarity of pitch born out of decades of experience, Tutu shows readers how to move forward with honesty and compassion to build a newer and more humane world.