In his new book, The Alchemy of Innovation, published in early 2013, Javed Akhtar Mohammed explores, through interviews with several well-known personalities, the different facets of innovation, considered as the lifeblood of successful organizations, communities, and societies, past and present. Professor Al-Hassani, President of FSTC, one of the interviewed personalities, sheds light on innovation in the classical Islamic civilisation and describes the general context in which past scholars of the Muslim World applied innovation to create a developed society, whose contributions and influence are still visible in today's world.

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection at the University of Pennsylvania is a private library focusing on late medieval and early modern manuscripts. The collection contains a valuable set of original manuscripts, a great part of which can be viewed online through a dedicated website, after having been digitized by the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image. The Islamic manuscripts form a significant part of the collection, including Al-Karaji's Inbat al-miyah al-khafiya, Al-Khazini's Kitab mizan al-hikma, and various manuscripts of medicine, logic, mathematics, literature and several copies of the Quran. The following article presents the Schoenberg Collection, with a focus on some selected Islamic manuscripts of science and medicine.

Economics textbooks claim that money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. But this theory is not supported by evidence. On the contrary, David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that since the first agrarian empires 5,000 years ago, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors. Setting up in his stunning analysis an unconventional history of world economy, he shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history— in which we learn so many surprising facts, such as the information that Adam Smith had Latin translations of Al-Ghazali and Al-Tusi's works in his library, suggesting that the writings of the two Islamic thinkers may have been among his sources, for instance in his theory of the division of labour.

Written nearly a thousand years ago, Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's tenth-century cookbook is the most comprehensive work of its kind. Its recent edition and English translation offers a unique glimpse into the culinary culture of the Medieval Islam. This traditional cookbook with more than 600 recipes from the luxurious cuisine of classical Islam is also a rare guide to the contemporary culinary culture. Its numerous anecdotes and poems unfold the role of food in the politics of Islam's golden era. Informative and entertaining to scholars and general readers, the book has recently been edited and translated into English by Nawal Nasrallah. We present in the following review this important book, with references and links to related literature on the Islamic cuisine.

In Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man, Dr Nayef Al-Rodhan outlines a new theory of history. Defining "sustainable history" as "a durable progressive trajectory in which the quality of life on this planet … is premised on the guarantee of human dignity for all times and under all circumstances", he links it tightly to good governance. He considers basically that the sustainability of history is dependent on the attainment of good governance paradigms limiting the excesses of human nature and ensuring a climate of happiness and productivity by the promotion of reason and dignity. The author proposes minimum criteria for good governance that are sensitive to local cultures and histories but meet certain common global values to ensure maximum and sustainable moral and political cooperation.

Ranging across poetry, court documents, agronomy manuals, and early garden representations and richly illustrated with pictures and site plans, Islamic Gardens and Landscapes by Dr Fairchild Ruggles is a book of impressive scope sure to interest scholars and enthusiasts alike.

For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic. In this compelling, inspiring book, Jim Al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world. All scientists have stood on the shoulders of giants. But most historical accounts today suggest that the achievements of the ancient Greeks were not matched until the European Renaissance in the 16th century, a one thousand year period dismissed as the Dark Ages.

This is a book review of Ibn El-Heysem ve Yeni Optik (Ibn al-Haytham and the New Optics) by Huseyin Gazi Topdemir published in 2008 in Turkish as the first book of a series on scientific leaders of the east. The book introduces the scientific works and achievements of Ibn al-Haytham who lived in the 11th century and is regarded as a pioneer in the field of optics. The author talks extensively about his principal book titled Kitab al-Manazir (The Book of Optics) and discusses the great extent of his influence on the Muslim and Western worlds.

In February 2009, Jonathan Lyons published 'The House of Wisdom', a riveting history which reveals the vital role the Islamic civilisation played in knowledge creation and how this treasure reached the West. In this fascinating and thoughtful book, Jonathan Lyons restores credit to the contribution of the Arabs and Muslims in the human long and patient effort of building human civilisation, explores and reveals the extent of their learning and describes the intrepid adventures of the European intellectuals of the high Middle Ages who went in search of it and who, in doing so, laid the foundations of what we now call the Renaissance.

Aise Asli Sancar, a renowned writer and lecturer on women's issues has said when she began investigating the subject of Ottoman women, she realized that they were much more complex and multifaceted than they are usually portrayed to be. Noting that Ottoman women were described as submissive and suppressed women entrapped in the harem, Sancar says the imperial harem was a more diverse and complex institution than she had formerly thought it to be. This is the main theme of her book: Ottoman Women: Myth and Reality reviewed in this article by Qaisra Shahraz, the well known writer and novelist. Suitable for all publics, the book, a well written and enjoyable to read piece, presents an engaging and appealing image of Ottoman women, far away from the clichés widely spread in the contemporary literature.