Thread by @islamicize

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Been meaning to put together a thread on all the beneficial books that may help the most people. I will keep on adding to this possibly, but here's a list that will suffice for now.

The pdf's of most of these books can be found by typing 'book name' + 'doctype:pdf' into google.

1. Quran
(This is a no-brainer but I must mention it because the Quran has been largely abandoned by most Muslims. This is the only book that is capable of transforming mere...+

...individuals to entire empires, no matter the time and place. It was/is a master shaper of psychologies, a revolutionary force each time it is visited, an engine for the metamorphosis of worldviews. Read it with translation for those that don't understand Arabic)

2. Tafsir ibn kathir
(There are gems within the Quran us laymen cannot extract that the people of knowledge have already extracted, and most times it is these gems that bring about the deepest connections with the Quran. Ibn kathir's tafsir does that in a very technical way...+

...such that no doubt about any letter in each verse is left unanswered. Highly recommended.)

3. Fi Dhilal ul Quran ("In the shade of the Quran" by Sayyid Qutb)
4. Tafhim ul Quran ("Towards understanding the Quran" by Maudui)
5. Message of the Quran by M. Asad

(All three...+

...commentaries have been met with controversy and are still debated and argued over today, I would simply recommend to read them for the benefit there is in them and not to get involved with unnecessary drama. Apart from that, all 3 are highly recommended.)

6. Sahih Bukhari

7. Sahih Muslim
8. Arbaeen an Nawwawi
(The life stories and lessons that one has access to reading ahadith is unmatched to anything else. It has been the biggest boost of Iman and courage for me in times of challenge and ease.)

9. "Studies in hadith literature", M. Azami
(Excellent book by a famous Indian scholar who destroyed orientalists, clearly showed the immense integrity of hadith preservation, and the immense amount of work our scholars have done for us all in 1 book)

10. Islamic creed series 8 volumes by Umar al Ashqar. Brilliantly written for any beginner level student of knowledge.
11. Aqeedah wasitiyyah, Ibn uthaymeen's commentary, 2 volumes. The most detailed aqeedah work I've gone through, gave me the complete understanding.

I have not listed books on fiqh, tarikh (Islamic history), and arabic because I myself am still going through them. Apart from that, I also recommend going through the sciences of each the previously mentioned categories (Quran, hadith, and aqeedah) to get a thorough...

...understanding of the tradition. Also it is recommended you cover the previously mentioned books with people of knowledge, real scholars and their students who are tied to the tradition.

The following books will be listed in no particular order or category, as I myself...+

...jumped around from each one, finishing one starting it over, reading up to 15 books at one time, not finishing some of them, etc.

12. Winning the modern world for Islam, A. Yassine
13. A young Muslim's guide to the modern world, S. Nasr

14. Islam at the crossroads (personal favorite)
15. Man and the universe an Islamic perspective
16. 44 ways to manhood, Taymullah Abdurrahman

17. Diseases of the heart and their cures
18. The best of all husbands
19. Islam and modernism

20. Islam and the Muslim woman today
21. Islam and Western society
22. Westernization and human welfare

23. The wretched of the Earth
24. Pedagogy of the oppressed
25. Impossible state

26. Introduction to Islamic law
27. Islam in Liberalism
28. Desiring Arabs

29. Formations of the secular
30. On suicide bombing
31. The divine reality

32. The twilight of atheism
33. Purdah, status of women in Islam
34. Allah's governance on Earth

35. The great Arab conquests
36. Milestones
37. Islam between East and West

38. Islamic declaration, Alija izetbegovic
39. The crisis of the modern world
40. Man, the unknown

41. Islam and plight of modern man
42. A dying colonialism
43. Al fawaid, a collection of wise sayings

44. This law of ours
45. Between the God the prophets and the God of philosophers
46. Covering Islam

47. Darwinian fairytales, David Stove
48. Decline of the west
49. Islam, liberalism, and ontology

50. Fields of blood, karen armstrong
51. Gender trouble, Feminsim and subversion identity
52. History of Quranic texts
53. Islam the way of revival

54. Islam and secularism, al attas
55. Khalid bin waleed, sword of Allah
56. Killing hope, william blum
57. Lost Islamic history

58. Man made laws vs sharia
59. Myth of Muslim barbarism (highly recommended)
60. Postcolonialism, a short history
61. Recalling the caliphate

62. The great caliphs, the golden age of the abbasid empire
63. Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun
64. Myth of religious violence (another favorite)
65. The structure of scientific revolution

66. The question of culture, Malek bennabi
67. Islam in history and society
68. The clash of civilizations, an Islamic view
69. The ideological attack, Sh. bin Baz

70. The Quranic worldview (highly recommended)
71. Traditional Islam in the modern world

I'll stop here cause there are genuinely too many and the others are outside the scope of this thread. InshaAllah this benefits you all, share it around so others can benefit as well.

In the future I'll do another thread on lectures and papers.