Product Description: Francis Valerian Hammond: the most gifted young Egyptologist of his generation—or a crackpot so unstable that he merits his current residence in the locked ward of a psychiatric facility? Scrawled writings from his cell hint at a lost treasure known as King Solomon’s Wand—an artifact that Hammond claims somehow links the Egyptian prince Khaemwaset, son of pharaoh Ramses the Great, with otherworldly visitors called the Seraphs...read more

Product Description: This book explores the richness of Pakistans religious landscape, giving attention to a number of topics: Shia flagellation processions, Urdu-language pulp fiction, streetside rituals involving animals (pariah-kites and fortune-telling parrots), and the use of sorcery to contend with the jinns that are believed to infest cities such as Lahore...read more

Product Description: Horse of Karbala is a study of Muharram rituals and interfaith relations in three locations in India: Ladakh, Darjeeling, and Hyderabad. These rituals commemorate an event of vital importance to Shia Muslims: the seventh-century death of the Imam Husain, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the battlefield of Karbala in Iraq...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This book describes what Shiism means to those who actually practice it and serves as both an excellent introduction to the subject and an original work of scholarship.