On March 5, 2021, Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church, enters Iraq for a historic visit. As he embarks on a pilgrimage to the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq, the birthplace of Abraham, the Pope first stops in the holy city of Najaf to meet with Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Sistani.In this timely and authoritative work, the authors (Hassan al-Hakeem and Jalal Moughania) provide insight into the significance of Shiʿa Islam's Marjiʿiyyah, led today by Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Sistani, as a voice of peace, tolerance, and moderation in today's world. With a foreword by Ayatollah Sayyid Muneer al-Khabbaz, a leading professor in the Islamic Seminary and a student of Grand Ayatollah Sistani, this original work provides a comprehensive background to this historic visit and an insider's introduction to Shiʿa Islam and its worldview. ------------ "I am delighted to recommend this excellent work by Hasan al-Hakeem and Jalal Moughania, two bright young scholars of Islam. They both have skillfully provided a valuable context of the historic meeting between Pope Francis and Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Sistani in March 2021. Building on this analysis, the book presents a concise and accessible introduction to Shi'a Islam and its primary teachings.""The book not only offers an enriching perspective about the philosophy and ideals of Islam but thoughtfully examines the role of traditions and institutions, especially the seminary in Najaf, that helped Shia Muslims survive through many challenges across the fourteen centuries of Islamic history. A detailed take on importance of religious education and relevance of Muslim identity formation today adds great value to the work.""It is a highly recommended reading for both Muslim and non-Muslim audiences interested in having a deep dive into core Islamic principles as well as theological intricacies that define Islam today. The insights this book offers are so critical for our understanding of Islamic diversity as well as Islam's constructive potential to offer solutions to global challenges today."-Dr. Hassan Abbas, a scholar and professor of international relations teaching in Washington D.C is author of The Prophet's Heir: The Life of Ali ibn Abi Talib (Yale University Press, March 2021).

This timely work explores two influential religious traditions that might seem to have little in common: Twelver Shi'i Islam and Roman Catholicism. With the worldwide rise of religious fundamentalism, it is imperative that religious movements such as Chri

"BAGHDAD WAS BURNING." With these words, Ambassador L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer begins his gripping memoir of fourteen danger-filled months as America's proconsul in Iraq. My Year in Iraq is the only senior insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In vivid, dramatic detail, Bremer reveals the previously hidden struggles among Iraqi politicians and America's leaders, taking us from the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the White House Situation Room and the Pentagon E-Ring. His memoir carries the reader behind closed doors in Baghdad during hammer-and-tongs negotiations with emerging Iraqi leaders as they struggle to forge the democratic institutions vital to Iraq's future of hope. He describes his private meetings with President Bush and his admiration for the president's firm wartime leadership. And we witness heated sessions among members of America's National Security Council -- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice -- as Bremer labors to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq. He admires the selfless and courageous work of thousands of American servicemen and -women and civilians in Iraq. The flames Bremer describes on arriving in Baghdad were from fires started by looters. One of his first acts was to request an additional 4,000 Military Police to help restore order in the streets. For most of the next year, as the insurgency spread, Bremer resisted efforts by generals and senior Defense Department civilians to reduce American troop strength prematurely, replacing our forces with ill-trained, poorly led Iraqi police and soldiers. And he lays to rest the myth that the Coalition disbanded Saddam's army, a force comprised of Shiite draftees who had deserted and refused to serve under their former Sunni officers. Bremer also describes his frustration with intelligence operations that concentrated on the search for weapons of mass destruction while the insurgency gathered strength. Bremer faced daunting problems working with Iraq's traumatized and divided population to find a path to a responsible and representative government. The Shia Arabs, the country's long-repressed majority, deeply distrusted the Sunni Arab minority who had held power for centuries and had controlled the detested Baath Party. Iraq's non-Arab Kurds teetered on the brink of secession when Bremer arrived. He had to find Sunnis willing to participate in the new political order. Some in the U.S. government pushed for what Bremer would come to call a cut-and-run policy that would have quickly delivered governance of Iraq to a handful of unrepresentative anti-Saddam exiles. Bremer vigorously resisted this ill-conceived course. He takes the reader inside marathon negotiations as he and his team shepherded Iraq's new leaders to write an interim constitution with guarantees for individual and minority rights unprecedented in the region. My Year in Iraq is required reading for all those interested in the real story of how America responded to its gravest recent overseas crisis.

This edited volume engages a long-standing religious power, the Holy See, to discuss the impact of the structural and postsecular transformations of international relations through the emergence of a global and digital public sphere. Despite the legal construction that enables the separation of the Holy See as a distinct legal entity, it is also an instrument for the papacy to represent externally and regulate internally the global and transnational Catholic Church. The Holy See is also the tool that enables the papacy to address a transnational or a global public beyond Catholic adherence – most prominently through journeys that are often at the same time state visits and pastoral journeys. Instead of understanding these hybrid roles as an irregular exemption, the contributions of the book argue that the Holy See should be seen as a certainly special but nevertheless quite normal actor of international and public diplomacy.

This book is a unique collection of alternative Muslim voices, predominantly from Europe, who come from a variety of backgrounds - academia, theology, acting, activism - and who make a transformational contribution to the debate of the future of Islam and Muslims in the West.

Profiles the personalities and strategic cultures of some of the United States' most dangerous international rivals.