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Glimpses of World History, a book written by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1934, is a panoramic sweep of the history of humankind. It is a collection of 196 letters on world history written from various prisons in British India between 1930–1933. The letters were written to his young daughter Indira, and were meant to introduce her to world history.

The letters start off with one he sends to his daughter on her birthday. He says he is sad about not being able to send her any "material" gift from prison, so he would try to give her something he can "afford", a series of letters from his heart.

Written from prison, where he had no recourse to reference books or a library but his personal notes, Glimpses of World History contains the history of humankind from 6000 BC to the time of writing of the book. It covers the rise and fall of great empires and civilizations from Greece and Rome to China and West Asia; great figures such as Ashoka and Genghis Khan, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Vladimir Lenin; wars and revolutions, democracies and dictatorships.

Download this ebook at the following:

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A coalition of Christian, Muslim and civil rights groups said it’s planning a demonstration Saturday outside a suburban Detroit Lowe’s store to protest the home improvement chain’s decision to pull ads from a reality TV show about U.S. Muslims.

Executives of the Mooresville, N.C.-based company have said the TLC network’s “All-American Muslim” show became a “lightning rod” for complaints. The company acted after an email campaign against it by the conservative Christian group the Florida Family Association.

The travel planning site Kayak.com also has pulled its ads from “All-American Muslim.” The show tracks the lives of five families in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, a center for Michigan’s large Arab-American community.

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The idea that nation should have a philosophical premise upon which to present their ideals, and structure their governments is not new to Muslims. Before the great Western political philosophers and thinkers advanced ideas on social contracts and constitutions, Islam had addressed these ideas and formulated a system of governance designed to protect and promote the inalienable rights of individuals, along with the common good.

The first among these concepts, which might be viewed as an Islamic political theory, is the concept of ummat, or community in Islam. It is through the idea of community that Islam viewed the organization of societies, the rights of individuals, and the need for, and the basic duties of an authority to oversee the affairs of state. Islam does not dictate the specific aspects of nation building and government structuring that we have come to see as key to a government's ability to protect individual liberties, guide economic prosperity and afford its members a reasonable expectation of security. Yet, neither does Islam prohibit Muslim governments from the adaptation of such systems, even if they didn't take their final shape from the doctrine of Islam.

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"This is a message from [Prophet] Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion [in religion] is to be on them…”