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.