Showing results for "Sons" in Religious Studies

Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status...and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader.

As the adopted son of two cult leaders, Benjamin Risha was raised to someday assume a place of leadership in the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation with the Bible, and his parents’ interpretation of it, as his guide. He believed the prophecies of his adoptive mother and father. However, when none of it happened, and the foundation slid from bucolic communal lifestyle to insufferable criminality that included absolute obedience to the Alamos, Benjamin knew he had to escape.

Twenty-seven years ago, Matthieu Ricard gave up a promising career as a scientist to study Tibetan Buddhism—not as a detached observer but by immersing himself in its practice under the guidance of its greatest living masters. Years later, this project was born, and Ricard met with his father, Jean-Francois Revel—a French philosopher who became world famous for his challenges to both Communism and Christianity. At an inn, these two profoundly thoughtful men explored questions that have occupied humankind throughout its history.

When Brandon Blackmore left the FLDS Church in 2012, he had to endure seeing his children taken from him by the cult—and fought tooth and nail to keep the FLDS from trafficking his children. This is that story.

The Hanuman Chalisa is a Vedic devotional hymn in praise of Hanuman authored by the poet sage Tulsi Das. The word "chālīsā" means the number forty in Sanskrit, as the Hanuman Chalisa has forty verses. Lord Hanuman is a great devotee of Sri Ram and one of the central characters in the epic Ramayan. Hanuman is also an incarnation of Shiva. The qualities of Hanuman—his strength, courage, wisdom, celibacy, devotion to Lord Ram, and the many names by which he is known are all in the Hanuman Chalisa. Devotional recitation of this sacred prayer is done by millions every day.

In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.