Islam Books
New York University Press The Divine Names
Book Synopsis
£22.79
New York University Press Muslim American City
Book SynopsisExplores how Muslim Americans test the boundaries of American pluralismIn 2004, the al-Islah Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, set off a contentious controversy when it requested permission to use loudspeakers to broadcast the adhan, or Islamic call to prayer. The issue gained international notoriety when media outlets from around the world flocked to the city to report on what had become a civil battle between religious tolerance and Islamophobic sentiment. The Hamtramck council voted unanimously to allow mosques to broadcast the adhan, making it one of the few US cities to officially permit it through specific legislation. Muslim American City explores how debates over Muslim Americans' use of both public and political space have challenged and ultimately reshaped the boundaries of urban belonging. Drawing on more than ten years of ethnographic research in Hamtramck, which boasts one of the largest concentrations of Muslim residents of any American city, Alisa Perkins shows hoTrade ReviewPerkins lays out the demographic history of the city and delves into gender among American Muslims generally before exploring aspects of Bangladeshi and Yemeni women in Hamtramck. Finally, she wades into municipal issues affecting Muslims, specifically controversies over the broadcast of the call to prayer and LGBTQ rights. The topical coverage of this work is unique. * CHOICE *Muslim American City tells a complicated but important story of the expression of minority religious and civic identity in a US city. The book makes significant interventions in ongoing conversations about gender, sexuality, and Islam and the politics of religious freedom in the United States. * Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses *Meticulously researched and written ... Written for a broad audience, Muslim American City is particularly suitable for those interested in questions of liberalism and religious pluralism in the United States. * Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations *A timely book that answers questions in many important arenas ranging from pluralism and boundary work, to racialization and gender identity... Perkins shows those interested in the sociology of religion a new frontier, one in which we may consider the broader implications of our work in the context of the urban environment. * Sociology of Religion *This theoretically strong volume offers a multifaceted look at how Muslims have made an ideological and political place for themselves in Hamtramck, a small town in the Detroit metro area ... Combining sophisticated theory with solid ethnography, the result is a monograph that reveals the limitations of the standard frameworks that Americans use to understand and navigate racial, religious, and ethnic difference. * Religion *Being mindful of the fluid nature of ethnic identity, Muslim American City portrays different aspects of Muslims’ social lives in the Detroit metropolitan area, providing examples of how multicultural communities can provide opportunities for inclusion in a secular society. The reality that people from different cultures and with distinct values can and do expand their boundaries and fruitfully engage in everyday social exchanges across ethnic boundaries. -- Mehri ‘Mehrsa’ Mohebbi, University of Florida * Journal of Urban Affairs *
£62.90
New York University Press Zoning Faith
£66.75
New York University Press Zoning Faith
£23.55
New York University Press Enduring Otherwise
£21.84
New York University Press Light in the Heavens
Book SynopsisHumanitarian lessons and practical insights from the prophet of IslamThe words of Muhammad, messenger of God and prophet of Islam, have a special place in the hearts of his followers. Wielding an authority second only to the Qur''an, they are cited by scholars in a vast array of disciplinesincluding law, theology, metaphysics, poetry, grammar, history, and medicineand are quoted by Muslims to one another in their daily lives. Light in the Heavens by al-Qadi al-Quda''i, a Sunni judge in the Fatimid court in Egypt, is an outstanding example of a compilation of these sayings, known as hadiths, that circulated orally and were later assembled and written down. From North Africa to India, generations have used Light in the Heavens as a teaching text for children as well as adults, and many of its 1,200 sayings are familiar to individuals of diverse denominations and ethnicities. For Muslimswho consider Muhammad's teachings the fount of wisdom and the beacon of guTrade Review"Easily readable and accessible. Highly recommended and beneficial for the expert, the scholar, and the student of Islamic Studies, while equally expedient for general readers." * Reading Religion *"This distinctly ethical and pragmatic collection . . . offers humanitarian lessons and practical insights with a universal appeal." * Islamic Horizons *"A splendid addition to the new Library of Arabic Literature series . . . [and a] wonderful translation . . . This book will help adjust the 'Western' understanding of Islam from the benighted view acquired from media, government propaganda, and religious bigotry toward the wise, demanding, and impressive way of being human, both at the level of the individual and at the level of society, that it is for a quarter of the human race." * Speculum *"Beautifully edited and translated by Tahera Qutbuddin . . . The book is a welcome addition to the literature on . . . hadith scholarship, and will be of interest to scholars, students, and non-specialist readers interested in classical and medieval Islam, Islamic history, and Islamic studies, particularly Islamic theology and hadith studies." * Digest of Middle East Studies *"Al-Quḍāʽīs book is one of those works not characterized by originality, but by skillful selection of sayings from a huge body of literature, and it was very popular in the Islamic Middle Ages… Overall, I find the translation impressive. [Qutbuddin] deliberately frees herself to use idiomatic English rather than producing a clumsy literal rendering of the Arabic, and in the vast majority of cases, she hits squarely on the core meanings of the Arabic sayings… an excellent edition and translation of an important text." * Orientalistische Literaturzeitung *
£12.99
New York University Press Muslim American Politics and the Future of US
Book SynopsisReveals the important role of Muslim Americans in American politics Since the 1950s, and especially in the post-9/11 era, Muslim Americans have played outsized roles in US politics, sometimes as political dissidents and sometimes as political insiders. However, more than at any other moment in history, Muslim Americans now stand at the symbolic center of US politics and public life. This volume argues that the future of American democracy depends on whether Muslim Americans are able to exercise their political rights as citizens and whether they can find acceptance as social equals. Many believe that, over time, Muslim Americans will be accepted just as other religious minorities have been. Yet Curtis contends that this belief overlooks the real barrier to their full citizenship, which is political rather than cultural. The dominant form of American liberalism has prevented the political assimilation of American Muslims, even while leaders from Eisenhower to ObamaTrade Review"Argues that full cultural and social citizenship has not yet been achieved, yet Muslim Americans matter to key events and ideas in modern America." -- Kathleen Moore,University of California, Santa Barbara"Reminding us that the Nation of Islam and Malik El-Shabazz are the predecessors of the contemporary landscape of Muslim politics, Curtis describes the challenges to liberalism and American empire that came through the forging of an Islamic liberation theology. Written by one of the leading scholars of Muslim history in the United States, this is an urgent book for our time." -- Junaid Rana,Author of Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in the South Asian Diaspora"[Curtis] explores this theme with accessible personal stories, including the evolution of Malcolm X into Malik Shabazz, the stories of four Muslim American women, the deaths of Muslim American soldiers Corporal Kareem Khan and Captain Humayun Khan, and dissident activist Linda Sarsour." * Choice *
£66.60
New York University Press Muslim American City
Book SynopsisExplores how Muslim Americans test the boundaries of American pluralismIn 2004, the al-Islah Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, set off a contentious controversy when it requested permission to use loudspeakers to broadcast the adhan, or Islamic call to prayer. The issue gained international notoriety when media outlets from around the world flocked to the city to report on what had become a civil battle between religious tolerance and Islamophobic sentiment. The Hamtramck council voted unanimously to allow mosques to broadcast the adhan, making it one of the few US cities to officially permit it through specific legislation. Muslim American City explores how debates over Muslim Americans' use of both public and political space have challenged and ultimately reshaped the boundaries of urban belonging. Drawing on more than ten years of ethnographic research in Hamtramck, which boasts one of the largest concentrations of Muslim residents of any American city, Alisa Perkins shows hoTrade Review"Perkins lays out the demographic history of the city and delves into gender among American Muslims generally before exploring aspects of Bangladeshi and Yemeni women in Hamtramck. Finally, she wades into municipal issues affecting Muslims, specifically controversies over the broadcast of the call to prayer and LGBTQ rights. The topical coverage of this work is unique." * CHOICE *"Muslim American City tells a complicated but important story of the expression of minority religious and civic identity in a US city. The book makes significant interventions in ongoing conversations about gender, sexuality, and Islam and the politics of religious freedom in the United States." * Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses *"Meticulously researched and written ... Written for a broad audience, Muslim American City is particularly suitable for those interested in questions of liberalism and religious pluralism in the United States." * Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations *"A timely book that answers questions in many important arenas ranging from pluralism and boundary work, to racialization and gender identity... Perkins shows those interested in the sociology of religion a new frontier, one in which we may consider the broader implications of our work in the context of the urban environment." * Sociology of Religion *"This theoretically strong volume offers a multifaceted look at how Muslims have made an ideological and political place for themselves in Hamtramck, a small town in the Detroit metro area ... Combining sophisticated theory with solid ethnography, the result is a monograph that reveals the limitations of the standard frameworks that Americans use to understand and navigate racial, religious, and ethnic difference." * Religion *"Being mindful of the fluid nature of ethnic identity, Muslim American City portrays different aspects of Muslims’ social lives in the Detroit metropolitan area, providing examples of how multicultural communities can provide opportunities for inclusion in a secular society. The reality that people from different cultures and with distinct values can and do expand their boundaries and fruitfully engage in everyday social exchanges across ethnic boundaries." -- Mehri ‘Mehrsa’ Mohebbi, University of Florida * Journal of Urban Affairs *
£23.74
University of Toronto Press AlRiddah and the Muslim Conquest of Arabia
Book SynopsisThe wars that the new state of Medina wages against tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, after the death of Muhammad, have been known traditionally as Hurub al-Riddah to denote an apostasy from Islam and forcible reconversion. The application of the term Riddah by the classical Muslim historians implied that Arabia was unified and completely converted to Islam before the Prophet's death. Because this legend has been contested by modern scholarship in its re-evaluation of Muhammad's political achievements, a thorough examination of the whole question of the Riddah -- as it is treated in the first sources -- has been rendered inevitable.Dr. Shoufani's conclusions are the outcome of careful comparative study of the traditional sources in the light of modern criticism of these sources. Dr. Shoufani concludes that only some tribes of Najd deserve this unflattering epithet "Ahl al-Riddah," or apostates. Contrary to what Muslim historians have claimed of it, the Riddah was not a religio
£17.99
Cornell University Press The Politics of the Headscarf in the United
Book SynopsisThe Politics of the Headscarf in the United States investigates the social and political effects of the practice of Muslim-American women wearing the headscarf (hijab) in a non-Muslim state. The authors find the act of head covering is not politically motivated in the US setting, but rather it accentuates and engages Muslim identity in uniquely American ways.Transcending contemporary political debates on the issue of Islamic head covering, The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States addresses concerns beyond the simple, particular phenomenon of wearing the headscarf itself, with the authors confronting broader issues of lasting import. These issues include the questions of safeguarding individual and collective identity in a diverse democracy, exploring the ways in which identities inform and shape political practices, and sourcing the meaning of citizenship and belonging in the United States through the voices of Muslim-American women themselves.<Trade ReviewThose who are looking at the identity construction and citizenship practices of Muslim-American women will find this book useful for understanding the intersection of religion and politics in the lives of American Muslim women. This book also illuminates several research areas such as American Islam, Islam and politics, and Muslim women in a minority context. * Choice *Featuring interviews as well as quantitative data, this book is an excellent assessment of the experience of Muslim-American women who wear the hijab.... This is an important read for those interested in understanding the unique experiences of Muslim women in America today. * Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual *Offers notable results to interpret the role of religion in the current political environment in the United States. * Reading Religion *This book provides an immense amount of data and is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of the veil. * Ethnic and Racial Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Islamic Head Covering 2. Unity amid Diversity? 3. Visibly Different 4. Islamic Ethics and Practices of Head Covering in American Political Life 5. Head Covering and Political Participation 6. Citizenship without Representation Conclusion and Implications
£19.94
Cornell University Press Order out of Chaos
Book SynopsisOrder out of Chaos explains why Iraqis turned to the mosque after state collapse. In 2003, the US-led invasion of Iraq destroyed the Bathist state. Despite this the citizens of Basra established predictable routines of daily life and social order as the familiar and customary structures of state-imposed order collapsed. What enabled individuals in Basra to work together to produce order amid anarchy? The answer: the Friday mosque. A week after the regime fell, Shii imams introduced Friday congregational prayers and associated sermons for the first time in most places since the 1950s. These sermons facilitated the spread of common knowledge and coordination, both locally and nationally, and contributed to the emergence of a relatively cohesive imagined community of Iraqi Shia that came to dominate Iraq''s political order.Combining rational choice approaches, ethnographic understanding, and GIS analysis, David Siddhartha Patel reveals the interconnecTable of Contents1. Order, Authority, and Identity 2. The Sanctions-Era Roots of Postinvasion Developments 3. Collapse 4. The Emergence of Local Orders 5. The Geography of Order 6. Ayatollahs' Networks and National Authority 7. The Limits of Sunni Religious Authority 8. Beyond Basra and Beyond Sermons
£97.20
Cornell University Press Far from the Caliphs Gaze
Book SynopsisHow do you prove that you''re Muslim? This is not a question that most believers ever have to ask themselves, and yet for members of India''s Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, it poses an existential challenge. The Ahmadis are the minority of a minoritypeople for whom simply being Muslim is a challenge. They must constantly ask the question: What evidence could ever be sufficient to prove that I belong to the faith? In Far from the Caliph''s Gaze Nicholas H. A. Evans explores how a need to respond to this question shapes the lives of Ahmadis in Qadian in northern India. Qadian was the birthplace of the Ahmadiyya community''s founder, and it remains a location of huge spiritual importance for members of the community around the world. Nonetheless, it has been physically separated from the Ahmadis'' spiritual leaderthe caliphsince partition, and the believers who live there now and act as its guardians must confront daily the reality of this separation even while attempTrade ReviewThis book opens new horizons... [it] is solidly researched and makes valuable contributions to several fields. * JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY *Table of ContentsIntroduction: A Troubled Relationship with Truth 1. The History of the Ahmadi-Caliph Relationship 2. An Enchanting Bureaucracy 3. A Failure to Doubt? Polemics and Sectarianism in Qadian 4. Prayer Duels to the Death: The Mubahala 5. Televising Islam: The Aesthetics of Caliphate Conclusion: The Problem with Proof
£22.79
Cornell University Press Polymaths of Islam Power and Networks of
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAnyone interested in the implications of the Russian absorption of a cosmopolitan civilization undergoing significant structural change in its political, intellectual, and social life should keep a copy of Polymaths of Islam by their bedside. This work sets the agenda for the study of Central Asia's intellectual and social history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and will remain the reference text on the subject for a long time. * Russian Review *[The book is] a masterwork of scholarship. Pickett's book is a tour de force of history and cultural sensitivity. * New Trends in Social and Liberal Sciences *Pickett provides an important foundation for a future study of the gradations of prestige among less elite Islamic scholars, and their interactions with more popular religious figures. * Canadian-American Slavic Studies *James Pickett's Polymaths of Islam is another great contribution in line with recent works of scholars on the history of Bukhara and its role in Eurasian history. The book is a great contribution to Central Asian history and will serve the needs of a diverse readership. * Ab Imperio *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Islamic Scholars and the Central Asian Backdrop 1. Defamiliarizing the Familiar: Conceptualizing Religion and Culture in Turko-Persia 2. Centering Bukhara: The Reconstruction and Mythologization of an Abode of Knowledge 3. Bukhara Center: Islamic Scholars as a Network of Human Exchange 4. Patricians of Bukhara: Turkic Nobility, Persianate Pedagogy, and Islamic Society 5. High Persianate Intellectuals: The Many, Many Guises of the Ulama 6. Between Sharia and the Beloved: Culture and Contradiction in Persianate Sunnism 7. Opportunity from Upheaval: Scholarly Dynasties between Nadir Shah and the Bolshevik Revolution 8. The Sovereign and the Sage: The Precarious, Paradoxical Relationship between the Ulama and Temporal Power Conclusion: United in Eclecticism Epilogue: Efflorescence before the Eclipse
£43.20
Cornell University Press Indonesians and Their Arab World
Book SynopsisIndonesians and Their Arab World explores the ways contemporary Indonesians understand their relationship to the Arab world. Despite being home to the largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia exists on the periphery of an Islamic world centered around the Arabian Peninsula. Mirjam Lücking approaches the problem of interpreting the current conservative turn in Indonesian Islam by considering the ways personal relationships, public discourse, and matters of religious self-understanding guide two groups of Indonesians who actually travel to the Arabian Peninsulalabor migrants and Mecca pilgrimsin becoming physically mobile and making their mobility meaningful. This concept, which Lücking calls guided mobility, reveals that changes in Indonesian Islamic traditions are grounded in domestic social constellations and calls claims of outward Arab influence in Indonesia into question. With three levels of comparison (urban and rural areas, Madura and Central Java, and migrantTrade Review[T]he book certainly presents an important topic in contemporary Indonesian Islam and society and is greatly useful for those concerned with the issues of transnational migration, pilgrimage, and human mobility. * International Journal of Asian Studies *Mirjam Lücking's book is a worthwhile contribution to the relationship between Indonesia and the greater Islamic world, or countries in the Middle East. This book is recommended for anyone interested in the influence of the Arab world in shaping Indonesian Muslims' everyday interactions with Islam. * Asian Studies Review *The findings of the ethnographic fieldwork provide[s] a rich collection of the views of Indonesians toward those of Arab descent. [T]his is a must-read book for Indonesianists or Indonesians studying Islam in Java and Madura. * International Quarterly for Asian Studies *This is a well written and well researched ethnographic study, and a stimulating contribution to the discussion on the Arabization of Indonesian Muslim culture. * Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde *Lücking's well-researched book offers an important contribution to migration and mobility studies, as well as the understanding of Indonesian's contemporary views and connection to the Arab world. Indonesians and Their Arab World is well worth reading. * Pacific Affairs *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Whose Arab World Is It? 1. Indonesia and the Arab World, Then and Now 2. The Beaten Tracks and Embedded Returns of Migrants and Pilgrims 3. Arab Others Abroad and at Home 4. Alternative Routes in Madura and Translational Moments in Java Conclusion: Continuity through Guided Mobility
£97.20
Cornell University Press Indonesians and Their Arab World
Book SynopsisIndonesians and Their Arab World explores the ways contemporary Indonesians understand their relationship to the Arab world. Despite being home to the largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia exists on the periphery of an Islamic world centered around the Arabian Peninsula. Mirjam Lücking approaches the problem of interpreting the current conservative turn in Indonesian Islam by considering the ways personal relationships, public discourse, and matters of religious self-understanding guide two groups of Indonesians who actually travel to the Arabian Peninsulalabor migrants and Mecca pilgrimsin becoming physically mobile and making their mobility meaningful. This concept, which Lücking calls guided mobility, reveals that changes in Indonesian Islamic traditions are grounded in domestic social constellations and calls claims of outward Arab influence in Indonesia into question. With three levels of comparison (urban and rural areas, Madura and Central Java, and migrantTrade Review[T]he book certainly presents an important topic in contemporary Indonesian Islam and society and is greatly useful for those concerned with the issues of transnational migration, pilgrimage, and human mobility. * International Journal of Asian Studies *Mirjam Lücking's book is a worthwhile contribution to the relationship between Indonesia and the greater Islamic world, or countries in the Middle East. This book is recommended for anyone interested in the influence of the Arab world in shaping Indonesian Muslims' everyday interactions with Islam. * Asian Studies Review *The findings of the ethnographic fieldwork provide[s] a rich collection of the views of Indonesians toward those of Arab descent. [T]his is a must-read book for Indonesianists or Indonesians studying Islam in Java and Madura. * International Quarterly for Asian Studies *This is a well written and well researched ethnographic study, and a stimulating contribution to the discussion on the Arabization of Indonesian Muslim culture. * Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde *Lücking's well-researched book offers an important contribution to migration and mobility studies, as well as the understanding of Indonesian's contemporary views and connection to the Arab world. Indonesians and Their Arab World is well worth reading. * Pacific Affairs *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Whose Arab World Is It? 1. Indonesia and the Arab World, Then and Now 2. The Beaten Tracks and Embedded Returns of Migrants and Pilgrims 3. Arab Others Abroad and at Home 4. Alternative Routes in Madura and Translational Moments in Java Conclusion: Continuity through Guided Mobility
£22.49
Cornell University Press Claiming Belonging
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction: Making Muslim Constituents Visible 1. Discrimination, Advocacy, and Collective Identity 2. From Muslims in America to American Muslims 3. From the Patriot Act to the "Muslim Ban" 4. The Rise of the Muslim American Lobby 5. Domestic Advocacy: Between Contestation and Collaboration 6. Advocating for the Muslim Ummah Conclusion: Who Speaks for American Muslims?
£97.20
Cornell University Press Recasting Islamic Law
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Constitutions and the Making and Unmaking of Egyptian Nationalism 1. Constitutions, National Culture, and Rethinking Islamism 2. The Sharia as State Law 3. Constitution Making in Egypt Part II: Recasting Islamic Law: Case Studies 4. The Ulama, Religious Authority, and the State 5. The "Divinely Revealed Religions" 6. The Family Is the Basis of Society 7. Judicial Autonomy and Inheritance Conclusion
£17.09
Cornell University Press Claiming Belonging
Book SynopsisClaiming Belonging dives deep into the lives of Muslim American advocacy groups in the post-9/11 era, asking how they form and function within their broader community in a world marked by Islamophobia. Bias incidents against Muslim Americans reached unprecedented levels a few short years ago, and many groups responded through actionorganizing on the national level to become increasingly visible, engaged, and assertive.Emily Cury draws on more than four years of participant observation and interviews to examine how Muslim American organizations have sought to access and influence the public square and, in so doing, forge a political identity. The result is an engaging and unique study, showing that policy advocacy, both foreign and domestic, is best understood as a sphere where Muslim American identity is performed and negotiated.Claiming Belonging offers ever-timely insight into the place of Muslims in American political life and, in Table of ContentsIntroduction: Making Muslim Constituents Visible 1. Discrimination, Advocacy, and Collective Identity 2. From Muslims in America to American Muslims 3. From the Patriot Act to the "Muslim Ban" 4. The Rise of the Muslim American Lobby 5. Domestic Advocacy: Between Contestation and Collaboration 6. Advocating for the Muslim Ummah Conclusion: Who Speaks for American Muslims?
£18.99
Cornell University Press Cultivating the Past Living the Modern
Book SynopsisCultivating the Past, Living the Modern explores how and why heritage has emerged as a prevalent force in building the modern nation state of Oman. Amal Sachedina analyses the relations with the past that undergird the shift in Oman from an Ibadi shari''a Imamate (19131958) to a modern nation state from 1970 onwards. Since its inception as a nation state, material forms in the Sultanate of Omansuch as old mosques and shari''a manuscripts, restored forts, national symbols such as the coffee pot or the dagger (khanjar), and archaeological siteshave saturated the landscape, becoming increasingly ubiquitous as part of a standardized public and visual memorialization of the past. Oman''s expanding heritage industry, exemplified by the boom in museums, exhibitions, street montages, and cultural festivals, shapes a distinctly national geography and territorialized narrative. But Cultivating the Past, Living the Modern demonstraTrade ReviewParticularly compelling is the book's attention to the ways the shift from premodern forms of governance premised upon certain kinds of Islamic ethical practice and engagement with the divine are reworked through this transition, with consequences for the social, political, and material worlds premised on these relations. This book offers many important insights, making it an excellent contribution to the anthropologies of Islam and the Middle East, the history of the Arabian Gulf, and critical scholarly perspectives on material heritage practices. * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Heritage Discourse and Its Alterities 1. Reform and Revolt through the Pen and the Sword 2. Nizwa Fort and the Dalla during the Imamate 3. Museum Effects 4. Ethics of History Making 5. Nizwa, City of Memories 6. Nizwa's Lasting Legacy of Slavery 7. The al-Lawati as a Historical Category Conclusion: Cultivating the Past
£97.20
Cornell University Press Cultivating the Past Living the Modern
Book SynopsisCultivating the Past, Living the Modern explores how and why heritage has emerged as a prevalent force in building the modern nation state of Oman. Amal Sachedina analyses the relations with the past that undergird the shift in Oman from an Ibadi shari''a Imamate (19131958) to a modern nation state from 1970 onwards. Since its inception as a nation state, material forms in the Sultanate of Omansuch as old mosques and shari''a manuscripts, restored forts, national symbols such as the coffee pot or the dagger (khanjar), and archaeological siteshave saturated the landscape, becoming increasingly ubiquitous as part of a standardized public and visual memorialization of the past. Oman''s expanding heritage industry, exemplified by the boom in museums, exhibitions, street montages, and cultural festivals, shapes a distinctly national geography and territorialized narrative. But Cultivating the Past, Living the Modern demonstraTrade ReviewParticularly compelling is the book's attention to the ways the shift from premodern forms of governance premised upon certain kinds of Islamic ethical practice and engagement with the divine are reworked through this transition, with consequences for the social, political, and material worlds premised on these relations. This book offers many important insights, making it an excellent contribution to the anthropologies of Islam and the Middle East, the history of the Arabian Gulf, and critical scholarly perspectives on material heritage practices. * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Heritage Discourse and Its Alterities 1. Reform and Revolt through the Pen and the Sword 2. Nizwa Fort and the Dalla during the Imamate 3. Museum Effects 4. Ethics of History Making 5. Nizwa, City of Memories 6. Nizwa's Lasting Legacy of Slavery 7. The al-Lawati as a Historical Category Conclusion: Cultivating the Past
£23.39
Cornell University Press Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India
Book SynopsisMaking Place for Muslims in Contemporary India looks at how religion provides an arena to make place and challenge the majoritarian, exclusionary, and introverted tendencies of contemporary India.Places do not simply exist. They are made and remade by the acts of individuals and communities at particular historical moments. In India today, the place for Muslims is shrinking as the revanchist Hindu Right increasingly realizes its vision of a Hindu nation. Religion enables Muslims to re-envision India as a different kind of place, one to which they unquestionably belong. Analyzing the religious narratives, practices, and constructions of religious subjectivity of diverse groups of Muslims in Old Delhi, Kalyani Devaki Menon reveals the ways in which Muslims variously contest the insular and singular understandings of nation that dominate the sociopolitical landscape of the country and make place for themselves. Menon shows how religion is concerned not just Trade ReviewThis volume by Menon is a timely exploration of the dynamics of place-creation in modern India. * Choice *Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India is a valuable document that seriously takes issue with the lives of the people in question. * International Journal of Asian Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part 1: Landscapes of Inequality 1. A Place for Muslims 2. Gender and Precarity Part 2: Making Place 3. Perfecting the Self 4. Living with Difference 5. Life after Death Conclusion
£22.79
Cornell University Press Fluid Jurisdictions
Book SynopsisThis wide-ranging, geographically ambitious book tells the story of the Arab diaspora within the context of British and Dutch colonialism, unpacking the community''s ambiguous embrace of European colonial authority in Southeast Asia. In Fluid Jurisdictions, Nurfadzilah Yahaya looks at colonial legal infrastructure and discusses how it impacted, and was impacted by, Islam and ethnicity. But more important, she follows the actors who used this framework to advance their particular interests. Yahaya explains why Arab minorities in the region helped to fuel the entrenchment of European colonial legalities: their itinerant lives made institutional records necessary. Securely stored in centralized repositories, such records could be presented as evidence in legal disputes. To ensure accountability down the line, Arab merchants valued notarial attestation land deeds, inheritance papers, and marriage certificates by recognized state officials. Colonial subjects continuaTrade ReviewIn Fluid Jurisdictions, Nurfadzilah Yahaya masterfully shows the predicament of diasporic Arabs in the British Straits and Dutch Indies in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. * HistPhil *She draws on material from multiple international archives to examine the interplay between colonial projections of order and their realities, Arab navigation of legally plural systems in Southeast Asia and beyond, and the fraught and deeply human struggles that played out between family, religious, contract, and commercial legal orders. * Law & Society Review *[The book is] innovative [and] well-researched. Fluid Jurisdictions scrutinizes the Hadramī relations with other Muslims, their pursuit of capital accumulation, and their permanence in the region. [The book] tells a multifaceted story of a community that, in several ways, consented to colonial rule in order to improve their conditions within the system. * Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia *One might consider Nurfadzilah Yahaya's Fluid Jurisdictions a new addition to the literature, but this would discount the active role that Yahaya has played in shaping the conversation from its outset. Although this is her first book, it is one that bears the imprint of her long engagement with the discussion on law in transregional spaces. * Law and History Review *Fluid Jurisdictions by Nurfadzilah Yahaya begins to answer these questions through a rich, textured, and fascinating account of the Arab diaspora and its engagements with colonial and Islamic law. Through rigorous research, detailed historical analysis and animated storytelling, [the book] draws readers into the mobile and intimate legal worlds created by Arab merchants. * Law & Social Inquiry *Fluid Jurisdictions has managed to cast a wide net over an ostensibly specific study on an elite diasporic community. This is a laudable accomplishment. * Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society *[The] reviewers respond to Fluid Jurisdictions enthusiastically, remarking on its refreshing methodological approach, the richness of its multilingual archival source base, and the historical complexity that emerges from Yahaya's comparison of two distinct imperial spaces. Collectively, they highlight the relevance of the book across regional and disciplinary literatures * H-Diplo *Nurfadzilah Yahaya's assiduous, illuminating and novel engagement with the making of colonial law forms the foundation of incisive historical analysis. Fluid Jurisdiction's disciplined focus on colonial law is not only an exemplary approach to questions of ethnicity and identity but also opens up the possibility of novel comparisons and conversations between South East Asia and the world. * South East Asia Research *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Establishing Legal Domains 1. The Lure of Bureaucracy: British Administration of Islamic Law in the Straits Settlements 2. Surat Kuasa: Powers of Attorney across the Indian Ocean 3. Resident Aliens: Exclusions of Arabs in the Netherlands Indies 4. Legal Incompetence: Jurisdictional Complications in the Netherlands Indies 5. Constructing the Index of Arabs: Colonial Imaginaries in Southeast Asia 6. Compromises: The Limitations of Diasporic Religious Trusts Conclusion: Postcolonial Transitions
£24.69
Cornell University Press The Wolf King
Book SynopsisWinner of the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize Winner of the Dionisius A. Agius Book Prize The Wolf King explores how political power was conceptualized, constructed, and wielded in twelfth-century al-Andalus, focusing on the eventful reign of Muhammad ibn Sad ibn Ahmad ibn Mardanish (r. 11471172). Celebrated in Castilian and Latin sources as el rey lobo/rex lupus and denigrated by Almohad and later Arabic sources as irreligious and disloyal to fellow Muslims because he fought the Almohads and served as vassal to the Castilians, Ibn Mardanish ruled a kingdom that at its peak constituted nearly half of al-Andalus and served as an important buffer between the Almohads and the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. Through a close examination of contemporary sources across the region, Abigail Krasner Balbale shows that Ibn Mardanish's short-lived dynasty was actually an attempt to integrate al-Andalus more closely with the Islamic Eastparticularly the Abbasid caliphate. At stake in his battles against the Almohads was the very idea of the caliphate in this period, as well as who could define righteous religious authority. The Wolf King makes effective use of chronicles, chancery documents, poetry, architecture, coinage, and artifacts to uncover how Ibn Mardanish adapted language and cultural forms from around the Islamic world to assert and consolidate powerand then tracks how these strategies, and the memory of Ibn Mardanish more generally, influenced expressions of kingship in subsequent periods. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.Trade ReviewThe Wolf King is an important work of interdisciplinary and comparative history that employs an array of textual, visual, and material evidence to reincorporate al-Andalus into the broader world of the medieval Mediterranean. * Mediterranean Historical Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Ibn Mardanish as Historical Figure and Historiographic Subject 1. Caliph and Madhi: The Battle over Power in the Islamic Middle Period 2. Rebel against the Truth: Almohad Visions of Ibn Mardanish 3. Filiative Networks: Lineage and Legitimacy in Sharq al-Andalus 4. Material Genealogies and the Construction of Power 5. Vassals, Traders, and Kings: Economic and Political Networks in the Western Mediterranean 6. Renaissance and Assimilation after the Almohad Conquest 7. The Reconquista, a Lost Paradise, and Other Teleologies
£88.33
Cornell University Press Order out of Chaos
Book SynopsisOrder out of Chaos explains why Iraqis turned to the mosque after state collapse. In 2003, the US-led invasion of Iraq destroyed the Bathist state. Despite this the citizens of Basra established predictable routines of daily life and social order as the familiar and customary structures of state-imposed order collapsed. What enabled individuals in Basra to work together to produce order amid anarchy? The answer: the Friday mosque. A week after the regime fell, Shii imams introduced Friday congregational prayers and associated sermons for the first time in most places since the 1950s. These sermons facilitated the spread of common knowledge and coordination, both locally and nationally, and contributed to the emergence of a relatively cohesive imagined community of Iraqi Shia that came to dominate Iraq''s political order.Combining rational choice approaches, ethnographic understanding, and GIS analysis, David Siddhartha Patel reveals the interconnecTable of Contents1. Order, Authority, and Identity 2. The Sanctions-Era Roots of Postinvasion Developments 3. Collapse 4. The Emergence of Local Orders 5. The Geography of Order 6. Ayatollahs' Networks and National Authority 7. The Limits of Sunni Religious Authority 8. Beyond Basra and Beyond Sermons
£24.29
Cornell University Press Religious Appeals in Power Politics
Book SynopsisReligious Appeals in Power Politics examines how states use, or attempt to use, confessional appeals to religious belief and conscience to advance political strategies and objectives. Through case studies of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, Peter S. Henne demonstrates that religion, although not as high profile or well-funded a tool as economic sanctions or threats of military force, remains a potent weapon in international relations. Public policy analysis often minimizes the role of religion, favoring military or economic matters as the important arenas of policy debate. As Henne shows, however, at transformative moments in political history, states turn to faith-based appeals to integrate or fragment international coalitions. Henne highlights Saudi Arabia''s 1960s rivalry with Egypt, the United States''s post-9/11 leadership in the global war on terrorism, and the Russian Federation''s contemporary expansionism both to reveal the presence a
£97.20
Cornell University Press Religious Appeals in Power Politics
Book SynopsisReligious Appeals in Power Politics examines how states use, or attempt to use, confessional appeals to religious belief and conscience to advance political strategies and objectives. Through case studies of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, Peter S. Henne demonstrates that religion, although not as high profile or well-funded a tool as economic sanctions or threats of military force, remains a potent weapon in international relations. Public policy analysis often minimizes the role of religion, favoring military or economic matters as the important arenas of policy debate. As Henne shows, however, at transformative moments in political history, states turn to faith-based appeals to integrate or fragment international coalitions. Henne highlights Saudi Arabia''s 1960s rivalry with Egypt, the United States''s post-9/11 leadership in the global war on terrorism, and the Russian Federation''s contemporary expansionism both to reveal the presence a
£19.79
Stanford University Press Making Moderate Islam: Sufism, Service, and the
Book SynopsisDrawing on a decade of research into the community that proposed the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," this book refutes the idea that current demands for Muslim moderation have primarily arisen in response to the events of 9/11, or to the violence often depicted in the media as unique to Muslims. Instead, it looks at a century of pressures on religious minorities to conform to dominant American frameworks for race, gender, and political economy. These include the encouraging of community groups to provide social services to the dispossessed in compensation for the government's lack of welfare provisions in an aggressively capitalist environment. Calls for Muslim moderation in particular are also colored by racist and orientalist stereotypes about the inherent pacifism of Sufis with respect to other groups. The first investigation of the assumptions behind moderate Islam in our country, Making Moderate Islam is also the first to look closely at the history, lives, and ambitions of the those involved in Manhattan's contested project for an Islamic community center.Trade Review"Making Moderate Islam is an important contribution to the urgent questions around Muslims and citizenship. The central characters and debates here are striking, and even dramatic—including a post-9/11 climate, election-year grandstanding, right-wing punditry, think-tank support, and imperial logics of containment—and Corbett does a splendid job of identifying and invoking many of the players, tropes, and consequences of the story of the 'Ground Zero Mosque.'" -- Sohail Daulatzai * author of Black Star, Crescent Moon *"Scholarship on Islam in America has generally overlooked the practices of middle-class Muslims and social elites, who, in the wake of the 2010 'Ground Zero Mosque' controversy, suddenly found themselves under attack despite having played by the rules. By uncovering the historical context of this national anti-Muslim campaign, Corbett demonstrates, in lively prose, how conceptualizations of 'moderate Islam' are the product of an interplay between race, class, and religion in America." -- Kambiz GhaneaBassiri * author of A History of Islam in America *"[T]his is not merely a well-done micro-history with impressive, long-term ethnographic sources. It is, at its core, a book tackling broader and theoretical notions of 'moderate' Islam, American belonging, and the limited acceptance of marginalized bodies within the American body politic...Because Corbett grounds her analysis in the local but focuses throughout on larger issues like race, gender, ethnicity, and religion in America, Making Moderate Islam is a valuable—and eminently teachable—monograph for scholars and students of Islam, America, and religious studies writ large." -- Ilyse R Morgenstein Fuerst * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *"Corbett's conclusion, that limits to inclusion require communities to work with others to achieve their goals rather than separately or some will advance while others remain behind, extrapolates from the case study central to this book to the wider issue of social inclusion and advancement. This book is highly recommended as a thoroughly researched and riveting discussion of how American Muslims negotiate identity, belonging, and acceptance in the United States." -- Clinton Bennett * Religious Studies Review *"Making Moderate Islam is a highly readable, engaging, and important contribution to the ongoing scholarship of Islam in America. Corbett is to be commended in using the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy as an example of the limits to calls for religious toleration and moderation. The book is also a fascinating introduction to modern American Sufi practice in its various forms."––Salma Ahmad, Reading ReligionTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Debating Moderate Islam chapter abstractIn December 2009, Feisal Abdul Rauf announced plans to open a thirteen-story Islamic community center in Manhattan. A prominent imam, Sufi shaykh, and the internationally recognized leader of the Cordoba Initiative (founded in 2004 to "heal" the divide between "Islam and the West"), Rauf designed Cordoba House to educate Americans about the truths Islam shares with other faiths and to exemplify the "moderate Islam" he had spent nearly a decade promoting—most notably in his 2004 book. This chapter briefly introduces Rauf's organizations and his primary message of moderation, outlining the political, economic, racial, and gendered components of his philosophy that will be further explored in the rest of the book. Additionally, it discusses how Rauf's narrative of immigrant assimilation both replicates and obscures the racialized tactics previous religious minorities and immigrants used to claim belonging in the U.S. 1Islamic Traditions and Conservative Liberalisms chapter abstractThis chapter parses the central components of Rauf's narrative of moderate Islam in order to reveal the political, economic, and philosophical similarities between Rauf's thought and that of some of his detractors—in particular, Newt Gingrich. These similarities, derived from Rauf's father's work with Gingrich's mentor (American Enterprise Institute neoliberal pundit, Michael Novak) during an era in which white ethnic religious minorities tried to prove their commitments to capitalism, illuminate the racialized tropes of assimilation and inevitable upward mobility many marginalized religious groups have echoed and adapted while explaining their own traditions in ways that demonstrate compatibility with American free-market capitalism and Protestant-derived secularism. 2Service, Anti-socialism, and Contests to Represent American Muslims chapter abstractChapter Two reveals how Feisal Abdul Rauf's father, a high-profile immigrant imam from whom Rauf derived much of his material, worked with Catholic and Jewish neoliberals in the 1970s while competing with other Muslim leaders—particularly, black Americans—to serve as a spokesperson for Muslims in the U.S. The chapter covers the political and economic developments that have given rise to tensions between many black American Muslims and American Muslims of Arab and South Asian ancestry. These tensions, which involve contests since the 1960s over political representation, religious authority, and economic resources, have inspired both black American and immigrant Muslims to emphasize their embrace of free-market capitalism and their participation in community service as they jockey for influence with American elites. 3Sufism and the Moderate Islam of the New Millennium chapter abstractLocating Rauf's Sufi order within the history of Sufism in the U.S., this chapter tracks Rauf's change from a real estate agent and part-time imam into the leader of the ASMA Society, an organization devoted to promoting Sufism in America. It examines the thinkers and leaders who most influenced Rauf, charts Rauf's journey in co-founding the ASMA Society with Daisy Khan (his wife) and Faiz Khan (no relation), then illuminates how and why Rauf and Khan, like Rauf's Jerrahi shaykh decades earlier, shifted from describing their organization as Sufi in orientation to one devoted to cultural appreciation. This is a strategy (entirely sincere) that Rauf's shaykh had followed when Sufi orders where banned in Turkey, and one Rauf and Khan pursued after 9/11, once Americans began to broadly fear "political Islam." 4From Sufism Without Politics to Politics without Sufism chapter abstractThis chapter maps the creation and evolution of Rauf's and Khan's organizations, the ASMA Society and Cordoba Initiative, discussing Rauf's and Khan's shift from describing their work as Sufi, American, and cultural in orientation to interreligious, international, and policy-oriented. In the process, it shows how Rauf's and Khan's goals and self-presentations changed as they attempted to accomplish their objectives while simultaneously meeting different non-Muslim elites' shifting demands for particular kinds of moderate spokespersons. Initially promoting cultural programs and the aesthetic beauty of Islam as a means of building bridges with other Americans, Rauf and Khan increasingly emphasized political goals as they established relationships with national and international leaders and government officials. In the meantime, they also de-emphasized Sufism, which could pose problems for Rauf's status as a Muslim legal authority in some of the countries where he spoke on behalf of the U.S. State Department. 5The Micro-politics of Moderation chapter abstractChapter Five describes some of the racial and ethnic assumptions underlying Rauf's cultural, sociological, and historical writings and explores how Muslims at Rauf's mosque responded to his teachings. It shows how Rauf positioned Sufism as the bridge between a multitude of differences, including those separating immigrant Muslims from black American Muslims, rich Muslims from poor, Sunni from Shi'a, and (in his words) Islam from the West. It focuses, though, on how Rauf's dervishes struggled with aspects of his definition of moderation—particularly Rauf's insistence that Muslims overcome their own limited cultural traditions so as to align their practice of Islam with American democracy and capitalism. Examining some of the issues New York Sufis faced in trying to live this moderate Islam after 2001, I focus on the ways they adopted and altered such arguments so as to deal with the racial, economic, and political disparities they confronted. 6"The Prophet's Feminism": Women's Labor and Women's Leadership chapter abstractChapter Six examines how Muslims dealt with the gaps between Rauf's and Khan's idea of America and the gendered realities of their daily lives. Promoting women's rights was a central component of Rauf's and Khan's work during the decade after 9/11, and they made the same assertions about women's equality as they did about religious and racial equality, presenting it as a fait accompli. For many women who attended Masjid al-Farah, though, gender equality was more elusive—not because they were Muslim, but because social gains for women in the U.S. failed to meet the hopes and promises of liberal feminists. Chapter Six also looks at how attitudes at the mosque toward women's rights activists and toward female religious leaders who were part of the community varied not just in relation to religious doctrine, but in relation to how much these women engaged in various kinds of community service. 7Islam in the Age of Obama: "What's More American than Service?" chapter abstractAs Rauf and Khan spent increasing amounts of time away over the years in order to pursue their ASMA and Cordoba projects, Rauf enjoined his dervishes to take up greater responsibilities of service to their Sufi order and community. As I discuss in this chapter—which includes a larger examination of the politics, hopes, and fears animating the emphasis on community service among American Muslims since the Islamic center controversy—some of Rauf's dervishes interpreted his instructions to serve and to model moderation in ways other than he intended, leading to disagreements over the nature of the Islamic center project, a split within Rauf's group, and to the ultimate demise of Cordoba House as Rauf envisioned it. Charting the controversy over the "Ground Zero Mosque," this chapter concludes with the state of Rauf's organizations five years later. Conclusion: Community Service and the Limits of Inclusion chapter abstractExamining larger Muslim American efforts to prove their patriotism through community service since 2009, the final segment of the book reminds readers of the racism built into dominant U.S. understandings of Muslim moderation and immigrant assimilation. Not only does this account reveal the painful choices that many spokespersons for Muslim Americans face and the gaps between high-minded ideals and the lived experiences of Muslims in the U.S., it also reemphasizes that marginalized groups in America have often gained provisional acceptance (though not always equality) at the expense of others. In so doing, the conclusion to Making Moderate Islam both exposes the power dynamics Muslim Americans are caught in at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as well as calls into question the larger limits of liberal inclusion for religious and racial minorities in the United States and the longer histories of provisional tolerance that have masqueraded as "acceptance."
£23.39
Stanford University Press Sharia Compliant: A User's Guide to Hacking
Book SynopsisFor over a thousand years, Muslim scholars worked to ensure that Islamic law was always fresh and vibrant, that it responded to the needs of an evolving Muslim community and served as a moral and spiritual compass. They did this by "hacking" Islamic law in accordance with changing times and contexts, diving into the interconnected Islamic legal tradition to recalibrate what was outdated, making some laws work better and more efficiently while leaving others undisturbed. These hacking skills made Islamic law both flexible and relevant so that it could meet the needs of a community with changing values while remaining true to its ancient roots. Today, the hacking process has stalled in the face of unprecedented structural challenges, and Islamic law has stagnated. This book is designed to revitalize the hacking tradition by getting readers involved in the process. It walks them through the ins and outs of Islamic legal change, vividly describing how Muslim scholars have met new and evolving challenges on topics as diverse as abolition, democracy, finance, gender, human rights, sexuality, and more. And it provides step-by-step instructions for readers to hack laws for themselves, so that through their engagement and creativity, they can help Islamic law regain its intrinsic vitality and resume its role as a forward-looking source for good in the world.Trade Review"In this original and thought-provoking book, Rumee Ahmed shows how law and practice can interact to shape as well as reflect a community's collective wisdom. He tackles with authority a highly complex and contested set of concepts in Islamic law, making them highly accessible."—Ziba Mir-Hosseini, University of London"A superb introduction to changing and reforming Islamic law from within the tradition."—Ziauddin Sardar, author of Mecca: The Sacred City and Editor of Critical Muslim"This book is a must-read for believers as well as researchers—those tired of being apologists, those who have exhausted the dull repertoire of arguments that Islam is a religion of peace, and those facing an onslaught of hatred, discrimination, and misrepresentation. Rumee Ahmed honors a timeless faith, a Holy Book, a wise Prophet, and generations of enlightened acolytes who do not defend the faith as much as they uphold its very tenets."—Azza Karam, UN Population Fund and UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Religion and Development"A creative and accessible exploration of Islamic law and tradition. I learned a lot from this book." —Eboo Patel, Founder and President of the Interfaith Youth Core, and author of Acts of Faith and Interfaith Leadership"Nothing is trickier than convincing believers that religious law evolves—and that they should try to shape its evolution. Sharia Compliant takes on this task with verve and optimism...by busting myths and urging development the book makes a meaningful contribution to contemporary Islamic thought and politics." —Noah R. Feldman, Harvard Law School and author of The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State"In this superbly written work, Rumee Ahmed skillfully turns complex notions into accessible ideas. He shows the reader how to independently connect classical Islamic law with the challenges of contemporary life, using real-life examples. This book is for the scholar, activist, and lay person alike. It achieves the difficult task of democratizing the production of Islamic legal knowledge today by making it possible for all to participate in its creation. A considerable and much-needed feat!"—Marwa Sharafeldin, Musawah: Global Movement for Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family"In a book aimed mainly at fellow Muslims, Ahmed (Univ. of British Columbia, Canada) suggests that more efficient solutions can recapture the ability of Islamic law to adapt to contemporary needs. He speaks of patching (accommodating) and hacking (revising) as vehicles through which temporary and long-lasting applications can be made to a variety of domestic, commercial, and criminal proceedings....Recommended."—L. Rosen, CHOICE"Ahmed's in-depth book demonstrates how flexible Islamic law can be as it evolves to tackle the issues of 21st century life and will appeal to lay readers interested in the textual origins of popularly held beliefs about the Koran."—Publisher's Weekly"Rumee offers us hope that change is not only feasible in Islamic law but is integral to it, as that is how it has survived through centuries of Muslim communities in all times, places and context....I am grateful for his book."—Junaid Jahangir, Maydan"Rumee Ahmed has provided a spirited, accessible (and no doubt in some corners controversial) handbook for harmonizing proposed ethical and moral components in the Islamic tradition. The book should be required reading for those who want to understand how modern thinkers in Islamic law grapple with legitimacy, tradition, and a changing world."—Ian M. Hartshorn, Terrorism and Political Violence
£19.79
Stanford University Press Whose Islam?: The Western University and Modern
Book SynopsisIn this incisive new book, Megan Brankley Abbas argues that the Western university has emerged as a significant space for producing Islamic knowledge and Muslim religious authority. For generations, Indonesia's foremost Muslim leaders received their educations in Middle Eastern madrasas or the archipelago's own Islamic schools. Starting in the mid-twentieth century, however, growing numbers traveled to the West to study Islam before returning home to assume positions of political and religious influence. Whose Islam? examines the far-reaching repercussions of this change for major Muslim communities as well as for Islamic studies as an academic discipline. As Abbas details, this entanglement between Western academia and Indonesian Islam has not only forged powerful new transnational networks but also disrupted prevailing modes of authority in both spheres. For Muslim intellectuals, studying Islam in Western universities provides opportunities to experiment with academic disciplines and to reimagine the faith, but it also raises troubling questions about whether and how to protect the Islamic tradition from Western encroachment. For Western academics, these connections raise pressing ethical questions about their own roles in the global politics of development and Islamic religious reform. Drawing on extensive archival research from around the globe, Whose Islam? provides a unique perspective on the perennial tensions between insiders and outsiders in religious studies.Trade Review"Abbas writes vividly and with a clarity and verve that make both mundane historical events and technically daunting theoretical debates accessible, engaging, and recognizably important. This is one of the most interesting works in Islamic education and Islamic studies in recent years. Its combination of literary clarity and intellectual sophistication is a rare one."—Robert Hefner, Boston University"A groundbreaking contribution to the global intellectual history of Islamic Studies, showing the entanglements of Cold War-era North American universities with the transformation of religious education in postcolonial Indonesia. Whose Islam? invites us to rethink the politics of the connections between the Western academic study of religion and modern Muslim engagement with Islamic tradition."—Cemil Aydin, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill"Megan Brankley Abbas has written an altogether remarkable and impressive analysis of the entanglements of Indonesian Islam and Western universities. It is readable, bold in its argument, and detailed in all the ways that good history should be."—Philip Fountain, The Developing Economies"[Whose Islam?] makes important contributions to the study of Islamic higher education in Indonesia. It is carefully researched and well written and will be particularly useful for Indonesia specialists unfamiliar with Islamic education in the country as well as for Islamic Studies scholars unfamiliar with Indonesia."—Mark R. Woodward, Pacific AffairsTable of ContentsIntroduction: N/A 1. Building a Modern Islamic College 2. McGill University as a "Midwife for the Islamic Reformation" 3. A Fusionist Transformation at the Ministry of Religious Affairs 4. Islam and Development, Chicago-Style 5. The Specter of Academic Imperialism Conclusion: The Future of Islamic Studies
£86.40
Stanford University Press Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and
Book SynopsisAt the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of Central Asians made the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Traveling long distances, many lived for extended periods in Ottoman cities dotting the routes. Though technically foreigners, these Muslim colonial subjects often blurred the lines between pilgrims and migrants. Not quite Ottoman, and not quite foreign, Central Asians became the sultan's spiritual subjects. Their status was continually negotiated by Ottoman statesmen as attempts to exclude foreign Muslim nationals from the body politic were compromised by a changing international legal order and the caliphate's ecumenical claims. Spiritual Subjects examines the paradoxes of nationality reform and pan-Islamic politics in late Ottoman history. Lâle Can unravels how imperial belonging was wrapped up in deeply symbolic instantiations of religion, as well as prosaic acts and experiences that paved the way to integration into Ottoman communities. A complex system of belonging emerged—one where it was possible for a Muslim to be both, by law, a foreigner and a subject of the Ottoman sultan-caliph. This panoramic story informs broader transregional and global developments, with important implications for how we make sense of subjecthood in the last Muslim empire and the legacy of religion in the Turkish Republic. Trade Review"Spiritual Subjects is a beautifully and imaginatively crafted history of the hajj as a social, cultural, political, and spiritual phenomenon. Lâle Can humanizes the Central Asian pilgrims, telling their stories with the same grace and veneration that they showed in the course of their spiritual journey. A remarkable work that critically reexamines legal and cultural questions of Central Asian Muslim belonging to Ottoman imperial and Turkish national communities."—Christine Philliou, University of California, Berkeley"In this beautifully written book, Lâle Can offers us a striking new vision of the late Ottoman Empire and its relationship with pilgrims from Central Asia. Part study of Ottoman transformation, part social history of travel and the hajj, Spiritual Subjects will reshape our understanding of Islam in the late Ottoman order."—Adeeb Khalid, Carleton College"Spiritual Subjects offers a powerful message. Outlining the history of the Central Asian Ottoman-period Hajj, this book narrates a tale that has previously been known only in partial relief. The story Lâle Can tells here deftly opens up a fascinating new world to readers."—Eric Tagliacozzo, Cornell University"Can's ability to weave first-person voice with historical analysis is effective, even moving, and she does so without detracting from the deep erudition and archival foundations of the work. Here Spiritual Subjects welds governmental questions of imperial citizenship international law and the Ottoman Empire's nationalization reforms, as well as grassroots questions of Sufi social and pietistic networks, in a seamless and riveting narrative."—Faiz Ahmed, Iranian Studies"Lâle Can's Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire is a meticulously researched and beautifully crafted book on the Central Asian hajj and Ottoman management of religious mobility."—Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, Jadaliyya"Spiritual Subjects is a fascinating story of movement, faith, and integration that acknowledges the geopolitical concerns and considerations of imperial rivalry at the end of empire but pushes that to the background in order to bring to life the experiences of what Can calls 'ordinary' people."—Mustafa Tuna, Journal of Islamic Studies"Spiritual Subjects is not only an important study with a new and fascinating perspective on our understanding of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century hajj but also a fundamental reading for Ottomanist scholars who wish to better understand a global perspective of Istanbul at the end of empire."—Tyler Kynn, The Middle Ground Journal"Can's well-crafted study encourages us to see the humanity in the juxtapositions of pilgrims and a state and society that struggled to accommodate them in a time, not unlike our own, when foreign travelers were frequently depicted as vectors of threat and disease instead of the diverse set of individuals, motivations, and aspirations they inevitably include."—Benjamin J. Fortna, American Historical Review"Spiritual Subjects is a masterful study of deep learning and analytical sophistication. It bridges Ottoman, Russian, Chinese, Islamic, and global history subfields with grace, style, and creativity, presenting novel and important insights on a strikingly wide and diverse set of themes."—Robert D. Crews, International Journal of Middle East StudiesTable of Contents1. Rewriting the Road to Mecca 2. Sufi Lodges as Sites of Transimperial Connection 3. Extraterritoriality and the Question of Protection 4. Petitioning the Sultan 5. From Pilgrims to Migrants and De Facto Ottomans Conclusion: A Return to Sultantepe
£75.20
Stanford University Press Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and
Book SynopsisAt the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of Central Asians made the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Traveling long distances, many lived for extended periods in Ottoman cities dotting the routes. Though technically foreigners, these Muslim colonial subjects often blurred the lines between pilgrims and migrants. Not quite Ottoman, and not quite foreign, Central Asians became the sultan's spiritual subjects. Their status was continually negotiated by Ottoman statesmen as attempts to exclude foreign Muslim nationals from the body politic were compromised by a changing international legal order and the caliphate's ecumenical claims. Spiritual Subjects examines the paradoxes of nationality reform and pan-Islamic politics in late Ottoman history. Lâle Can unravels how imperial belonging was wrapped up in deeply symbolic instantiations of religion, as well as prosaic acts and experiences that paved the way to integration into Ottoman communities. A complex system of belonging emerged—one where it was possible for a Muslim to be both, by law, a foreigner and a subject of the Ottoman sultan-caliph. This panoramic story informs broader transregional and global developments, with important implications for how we make sense of subjecthood in the last Muslim empire and the legacy of religion in the Turkish Republic. Trade Review"Spiritual Subjects is a beautifully and imaginatively crafted history of the hajj as a social, cultural, political, and spiritual phenomenon. Lâle Can humanizes the Central Asian pilgrims, telling their stories with the same grace and veneration that they showed in the course of their spiritual journey. A remarkable work that critically reexamines legal and cultural questions of Central Asian Muslim belonging to Ottoman imperial and Turkish national communities."—Christine Philliou, University of California, Berkeley"In this beautifully written book, Lâle Can offers us a striking new vision of the late Ottoman Empire and its relationship with pilgrims from Central Asia. Part study of Ottoman transformation, part social history of travel and the hajj, Spiritual Subjects will reshape our understanding of Islam in the late Ottoman order."—Adeeb Khalid, Carleton College"Spiritual Subjects offers a powerful message. Outlining the history of the Central Asian Ottoman-period Hajj, this book narrates a tale that has previously been known only in partial relief. The story Lâle Can tells here deftly opens up a fascinating new world to readers."—Eric Tagliacozzo, Cornell University"Can's ability to weave first-person voice with historical analysis is effective, even moving, and she does so without detracting from the deep erudition and archival foundations of the work. Here Spiritual Subjects welds governmental questions of imperial citizenship international law and the Ottoman Empire's nationalization reforms, as well as grassroots questions of Sufi social and pietistic networks, in a seamless and riveting narrative."—Faiz Ahmed, Iranian Studies"Lâle Can's Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire is a meticulously researched and beautifully crafted book on the Central Asian hajj and Ottoman management of religious mobility."—Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, Jadaliyya"Spiritual Subjects is a fascinating story of movement, faith, and integration that acknowledges the geopolitical concerns and considerations of imperial rivalry at the end of empire but pushes that to the background in order to bring to life the experiences of what Can calls 'ordinary' people."—Mustafa Tuna, Journal of Islamic Studies"Spiritual Subjects is not only an important study with a new and fascinating perspective on our understanding of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century hajj but also a fundamental reading for Ottomanist scholars who wish to better understand a global perspective of Istanbul at the end of empire."—Tyler Kynn, The Middle Ground Journal"Can's well-crafted study encourages us to see the humanity in the juxtapositions of pilgrims and a state and society that struggled to accommodate them in a time, not unlike our own, when foreign travelers were frequently depicted as vectors of threat and disease instead of the diverse set of individuals, motivations, and aspirations they inevitably include."—Benjamin J. Fortna, American Historical Review"Spiritual Subjects is a masterful study of deep learning and analytical sophistication. It bridges Ottoman, Russian, Chinese, Islamic, and global history subfields with grace, style, and creativity, presenting novel and important insights on a strikingly wide and diverse set of themes."—Robert D. Crews, International Journal of Middle East StudiesTable of Contents1. Rewriting the Road to Mecca 2. Sufi Lodges as Sites of Transimperial Connection 3. Extraterritoriality and the Question of Protection 4. Petitioning the Sultan 5. From Pilgrims to Migrants and De Facto Ottomans Conclusion: A Return to Sultantepe
£19.79
Stanford University Press Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and
Book SynopsisAt the turn of the millennium, Middle Eastern and Muslim Germans had rather unexpectedly become central to the country's Holocaust memory culture—not as welcome participants, but as targets for re-education and reform. Since then, Turkish- and Arab-Germans have been considered as the prime obstacles to German national reconciliation with its Nazi past, a status shared to a lesser degree by Germans from the formerly socialist East Germany. It is for this reason that the German government, German NGOs, and Muslim minority groups have begun to design Holocaust education and anti-Semitism prevention programs specifically tailored for Muslim immigrants and refugees, so that they, too, can learn the lessons of the Holocaust and embrace Germany's most important postwar democratic political values. Based on ethnographic research conducted over a decade, Subcontractors of Guilt explores when, how, and why Muslim Germans have moved to the center of Holocaust memory discussions. Esra Özyürek argues that German society "subcontracts" guilt of the Holocaust to new minority immigrant arrivals, with the false promise of this process leading to inclusion into the German social contract and equality with other members of postwar German society. By focusing on the recently formed but already sizable sector of Muslim-only anti-Semitism and Holocaust education programs, this book explores the paradoxes of postwar German national identity.Trade Review"Esra Özyürek has written a path-breaking and much needed book on the multifaceted, constitutive ways by which Turkish- and Arab-background migrants shaped German Holocaust memory and how it shaped their identity in return. Based on ethnographic research, this is a fundamental contribution that rewrites our understanding of the development of Holocaust memory in Germany"—Alon Confino, author of A World Without Jews"German Holocaust memory culture is often held up as a model for other nations to imitate. But, as Esra Özyürek shows in this provocative and ethnographically rich book, the story is much more complicated. Subcontractors of Guilt is a fascinating study of belonging and exclusion in post-Holocaust Germany and a must-read for all who are interested in contemporary Europe."—Michael Rothberg, author of Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization"Subcontractors of Guilt is an essential intervention into contemporary German debates around migration, Muslim minorities, anti-Semitism, and Holocaust memory. By centering the perspectives of young German Muslims, Özyürek's insightful study offers an important corrective to narratives that too often fail to do so."—Fatima El-Tayeb, Yale University"This powerful, well-informed book would make a fine addition to any academic library. Recommended."—S. Anderson, CHOICETable of ContentsIntroduction: German Holocaust Memory and the Redemptive Path toward Democracy 1. Rebelling against the Father, Democratizing the Family 2. Export-Import Theory of Muslim Antisemitism in Germany 3. Wrong Emotions / Wrong Empathy for the Holocaust 4. Subcontracting Guilt, Policing Victimhood 5. Visiting Auschwitz as Pilgrimage and as Shock Therapy Conclusion: Can Muslims Flip the Script of the German Memory Theater?
£64.80
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Between Quran and Kafka: West-Eastern Affinities
Book SynopsisWhat connects Shiite passion plays with Brecht�s drama? Which of Goethe�s poems were inspired by the Quran? How can Ibn Arabi�s theology of sighs explain the plays of Heinrich von Kleist? And why did the Persian author Sadeq Hedayat identify with the Prague Jew Franz Kafka? �One who knows himself and others will here too understand: Orient and Occident are no longer separable�: in this new book, the critically acclaimed author and scholar Navid Kermani takes Goethe at his word. He reads the Quran as a poetic text, opens Eastern literature to Western readers, unveils the mystical dimension in the works of Goethe and Kleist, and deciphers the political implications of theatre, from Shakespeare to Lessing to Brecht. Drawing striking comparisons between diverse literary traditions and cultures, Kermani argues for a literary cosmopolitanism that is opposed to all those who would play religions and cultures against one another, isolating them from one another by force. Between Quran and Kafka concludes with Kermani�s speech on receiving Germany�s highest literary prize, an impassioned plea for greater fraternity in the face of the tyranny and terrorism of Islamic State. Kermani�s personal assimilation of the classics gives his work that topical urgency that distinguishes universal literature when it speaks to our most intimate feelings. For, of course, love too lies �between Quran and Kafka�. Trade Review"This engaging collection of essays by Kermani… examines topics ranging from 10th-century poetic convention to modern-day extremist attacks in an expertly crafted critique of the East-West paradigm that often dominates contemporary discussions of immigration, globalism, and the preservation of ethnic and national identities... [It] will be a worthwhile read for anyone who is interested in better understanding the intellectual ties that bridge a social and cultural division that is popularly conceived as being thousands of years wide."—Publisher's Weekly "The moral power behind Kermani’s extraordinary achievements is scarcely paralleled among all the great figures of German literature."—Süddeutsche Zeitung "Through his work Kermani shows us the challenges facing the critical mind today and what it can achieve."—Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "As one of its best-known intellectuals, Kermani represents the new Germany."—Der Spiegel "Kermani is living proof that, even in the generation after Walser and Habermas, the intellectual has not become obsolete as a public figure. He also attests to the source of this vitality, which comes both from education and from an active participation in the world that he observes."—Die Zeit "In the end, Kermani's exquisite book is marked by a refusal of the fundamentalist’s temptation to let Islam's dogma eclipse its aesthetic permeability, and a refusal to let taut entanglements slacken into cultural amnesia. Taken together, these essays give texture to the tapestry of affinities that weaves together the two poles of his heritage — and, perhaps, of ours."—LA Review of BooksTable of ContentsA Personal Note 1. Don't Follow the Poets! The Quran and Poetry 2. Revolt against God Attar and Suffering 3. World without God Shakespeare and Man 4. Heroic Weakness Lessing and Terror 5. God Breathing Goethe and Religion 6. Filth of My Soul Kleist and Love 7. The Truth of Theatre The Shiite Passion Play and Alienation 8. Liberate Bayreuth! Wagner and Empathy 9. Swimming in the Afternoon Kafka and Germany 10. The Purpose of Literature Hedayat and Kafka 11. For Europe Zweig and the Borders 12. In Defence of the Glass Bead Game Hesse and Decadence 13. The Violence of Compassion Arendt and Revolution 14. Tilting at Windmills Mosebach and the Novel 15. One God, One Wife, One Cheese Golshiri and Friendship 16. Chant the Quran Singingly Neuwirth and Literalist Orthodoxy Appendix On the 65th Anniversary of the Promulgation of the German Constitution Speech to the Bundestag, Berlin, May 23, 2014 On Receiving the Peace Prize of the German Publishers' Association Speech in St Paul's Church, Frankfurt am Main, October 18, 2015 About the Text Index
£49.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Between Quran and Kafka: West-Eastern Affinities
Book SynopsisWhat connects Shiite passion plays with Brecht�s drama? Which of Goethe�s poems were inspired by the Quran? How can Ibn Arabi�s theology of sighs explain the plays of Heinrich von Kleist? And why did the Persian author Sadeq Hedayat identify with the Prague Jew Franz Kafka? �One who knows himself and others will here too understand: Orient and Occident are no longer separable�: in this new book, the critically acclaimed author and scholar Navid Kermani takes Goethe at his word. He reads the Quran as a poetic text, opens Eastern literature to Western readers, unveils the mystical dimension in the works of Goethe and Kleist, and deciphers the political implications of theatre, from Shakespeare to Lessing to Brecht. Drawing striking comparisons between diverse literary traditions and cultures, Kermani argues for a literary cosmopolitanism that is opposed to all those who would play religions and cultures against one another, isolating them from one another by force. Between Quran and Kafka concludes with Kermani�s speech on receiving Germany�s highest literary prize, an impassioned plea for greater fraternity in the face of the tyranny and terrorism of Islamic State. Kermani�s personal assimilation of the classics gives his work that topical urgency that distinguishes universal literature when it speaks to our most intimate feelings. For, of course, love too lies �between Quran and Kafka�. Trade Review"This engaging collection of essays by Kermani… examines topics ranging from 10th-century poetic convention to modern-day extremist attacks in an expertly crafted critique of the East-West paradigm that often dominates contemporary discussions of immigration, globalism, and the preservation of ethnic and national identities... [It] will be a worthwhile read for anyone who is interested in better understanding the intellectual ties that bridge a social and cultural division that is popularly conceived as being thousands of years wide."—Publisher's Weekly "The moral power behind Kermani’s extraordinary achievements is scarcely paralleled among all the great figures of German literature."—Süddeutsche Zeitung "Through his work Kermani shows us the challenges facing the critical mind today and what it can achieve."—Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "As one of its best-known intellectuals, Kermani represents the new Germany."—Der Spiegel "Kermani is living proof that, even in the generation after Walser and Habermas, the intellectual has not become obsolete as a public figure. He also attests to the source of this vitality, which comes both from education and from an active participation in the world that he observes."—Die Zeit "In the end, Kermani's exquisite book is marked by a refusal of the fundamentalist’s temptation to let Islam's dogma eclipse its aesthetic permeability, and a refusal to let taut entanglements slacken into cultural amnesia. Taken together, these essays give texture to the tapestry of affinities that weaves together the two poles of his heritage — and, perhaps, of ours."—LA Review of BooksTable of ContentsA Personal Note 1. Don't Follow the Poets! The Quran and Poetry 2. Revolt against God Attar and Suffering 3. World without God Shakespeare and Man 4. Heroic Weakness Lessing and Terror 5. God Breathing Goethe and Religion 6. Filth of My Soul Kleist and Love 7. The Truth of Theatre The Shiite Passion Play and Alienation 8. Liberate Bayreuth! Wagner and Empathy 9. Swimming in the Afternoon Kafka and Germany 10. The Purpose of Literature Hedayat and Kafka 11. For Europe Zweig and the Borders 12. In Defence of the Glass Bead Game Hesse and Decadence 13. The Violence of Compassion Arendt and Revolution 14. Tilting at Windmills Mosebach and the Novel 15. One God, One Wife, One Cheese Golshiri and Friendship 16. Chant the Quran Singingly Neuwirth and Literalist Orthodoxy Appendix On the 65th Anniversary of the Promulgation of the German Constitution Speech to the Bundestag, Berlin, May 23, 2014 On Receiving the Peace Prize of the German Publishers' Association Speech in St Paul's Church, Frankfurt am Main, October 18, 2015 About the Text Index
£18.04
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Radicalized Loyalties: Becoming Muslim in the
Book SynopsisThere is widespread concern today about the “radicalization” of young muslim men, and the deprived areas of Western cities are believed to have become breeding grounds of home-grown extremism. But how do young Muslims growing up in the cities of the West really live? This book takes us beyond the rhetoric and into the housing estates on the outskirts of Paris to meet Adama, Radouane, Hassan, Tarik, Marley, and a shadowy figure whose name suddenly and brutally became known to the world at the time of the Charlie Hebdo shootings: Amédy Coulibaly. Seeing Amédy through the eyes of close friends and other young Muslim men in the neighbourhoods where they grew up, Fabien Truong uncovers a network of competing loyalties and maps the road these youths take to resolve the conflicts they face: becoming Muslim. For these young men, Islam stands, often alone, as a resource, a gateway – as if it were the last route to “escape” without betrayal and to “fight” in a meaningful and noble way. Becoming Muslim does not necessarily lead to the radicalized “other”. It is more like a long-distance race, a powerful reconversion of the self that allows for introspection and change. But it can also lead to a belligerent presentation of the self that transforms a dead-end into a call to arms.Trade Review"Truong vividly describes the lives of young men from immigrant backgrounds in the Paris banlieue, charting their trajectories from dropping out of school towards crime and then prison. This is an extremely valuable book, rich in ethnographic detail and very well written: I was irresistibly drawn in to this world of kickbacks, payoffs and unsettlingly deep resentment against the whole of French society."—David Lehmann, University of Cambridge, UK "Truong take us deep inside the personal world of six immigrant young men from France's disreputable urban periphery. He shows how they navigate the promises and demands of the school, the street economy, the prison and the police, and why they are attracted (or not) by Islam as a 'floating political imaginary.' An insightful and urgent contribution to the analysis of the social fabrication of terrorists that punctures the sonorous but empty notion of 'radicalization.'"—Loïc Wacquant, University of California, Berkeley "It is not a clash of civilizations that Fabien Truong vividly describes but a collapse of communities, as young men in transitional stages of their life search for significance in the West's Muslim diaspora. If you want to understand how most overcome feelings of rootlessness and despair and how a few become jihadis, read this book."—Scott Atran, CNRS, Paris, and University of Oxford "... an excellent ethnography of Muslim masculinity."—Times Higher Education "... a thoughtful, well-crafted ethnography that humanizes the faceless, amorphous 'Muslim youth' of the French banlieues."—Los Angeles Review of Books "Radicalized Loyalties is an outstanding study of the social worlds of immigrant young men living in the urban periphery of Paris.... The book will be of great interest to scholars within the cross-disciplinary field of (counter)terrorism studies as well as to social scientists and anthropologists interested in state-margin relationships, Islam, the secular state, and the administration of the urban periphery in the West."EthnosTable of ContentsNote to the Reader Acknowledgements Introduction: The call of the ground Friday the 13th Behind absurdity, the social world The magic of "radicalization" A bad religion for "bad seeds"? Finding Allah at street-level Chapter 1: Common histories Making a home in public housing: a French history "Boys will be boys" Conflicting loyalties, recognition of debts "A white fence-post in a dark forest" Rebels without a cause, or a cause without rebels? Chapter 2: On the margins of the city Imprints of school The incompleteness of le business Common criminals Masculine machines Police, death, and hatred: a political trinity Chapter 3: Reconversions Being or becoming Muslim? The "community" illusion The Koran: reading and sharing In the here and now: getting better Beyond the here and now: being the best The value of reconversion and the reconversion of values Chapter 4: War and Peace Turning thirty: the verdict Toward a sociology of inner peace Kif-kif Desires for Syria: going off to war, over there "I am Amédy": at war, over here Epilogue Notes Index
£49.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Returned: They Left to Wage Jihad, Now
Book SynopsisSince 2012, hundreds of men and women have left Western countries to join jihadist groups fighting in Syria. Many are still there, many have been killed, but some have chosen to return to their countries of origin. French Journalist David Thomson met some of those who came back. Bilel, Yassin, Zoubeir, Lena, each has a different profile and story. Some have returned disgusted by the violence of the Syrian battlefields, or the terrorist attacks that have struck across Europe; they try to become forgotten, living under extreme surveillance. Others return seriously wounded or psychologically destroyed. Others still are in jail, a breeding ground for broader radicalization. And some have come back to continue to carry out jihad in Europe. In utmost secrecy, David Thomson gathered their testimonies and recounts them in this remarkable and revealing book. With ISIS losing ground on all fronts, the steady flow of jihadists returning to Europe represents one of the greatest challenges facing countries across the continent. This nuanced analysis of the social, religious, political, familial and psychological factors that push people to violent extremism is more necessary now than ever. It will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand how we might address this threat.Trade Review"Thrilling... a major contribution to the debate."Financial Times"This season's publishing sensation."Le Figaro"A unique and illuminating work on this unsettling subject."Le Monde"France's favorite public intellectual."Foreign Policy“gripping”Spiked UK “It should be required reading for British politicians and police chiefs.”Gavin Mortimer, writer, historian and television consultant
£37.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd An Imaginary Racism: Islamophobia and Guilt
Book Synopsis‘Islamophobia’ is a term that has existed since the nineteenth century. But in recent decades, argues Pascal Bruckner in his controversial new book, it has become a weapon used to silence criticism of Islam. The term allows those who brandish it in the name of Islam to ‘freeze’ the latter, making reform difficult. Whereas Christianity and Judaism have been rejuvenated over the centuries by external criticism, Islam has been shielded from critical examination and has remained impervious to change. This tendency is exacerbated by the hypocrisy of those Western defenders of Islam who, in the name of the principles of the Enlightenment, seek to muzzle its critics while at the same time demanding the right to chastise and criticize other religions. These developments, argues Bruckner, are counter-productive for Western democracies as they struggle with the twin challenges of immigration and terrorism. The return of religion in those democracies must not be equated with the defence of fanaticism, and the right to religious freedom must go hand in hand with freedom of expression, an openness to criticism, and a rejection of all forms of extremism. There are already more than enough forms of racism; there is no need to imagine more. While all violence directed against Muslims is to be strongly condemned and punished, defining these acts as ‘Islamophobic’ rather than criminal does more to damage Islam and weaken the position of Muslims than to strengthen them.Trade Review‘Wielding his pen like a scalpel, Pascal Bruckner unmasks the pieties and truisms of left-wing cant with the deftness and precision to which his readers have become accustomed. By virtue of his principled refusal to acquiesce to the commonplaces of contemporary cultural conformity, Bruckner has become nothing less than a hero of our time.’Richard Wolin, City University of New York ‘In the worldwide debate over the Islamist movement, nobody has been more incisive than Pascal Bruckner, and nobody has been more influential. He set the terms of the debate many years ago, and he continues to do so. He is a brilliant writer, and An Imaginary Racism is a characteristically brilliant book.’ Paul Berman, author of The Flight of the Intellectuals ‘Provocative and well-argued, An Imaginary Racism reveals how the concept of Islamophobia has been politicized and distorted, and what this says about the West today. An important work for our times.’ Richard J. Golsan, Texas A&M University‘brave and necessary… Bruckner… has long been a crucial voice in the fight against the new false pieties that are abetting reactionary forces within Islam. We need to attend to his warning, and his promise: “It is impossible to escape the challenge of the century now beginning: In collaboration with the enlightened or moderate Muslims who are its main victims, we must defeat the fanaticism of the Islamists.” This is an “immense task,” Bruckner concludes, but nothing is more necessary if we want democracy to survive, let alone thrive, in the 21st century.’The TabletTable of ContentsA Note on the Text Introduction: A Semantic Revolution Part I The Fabrication of a Crime of Opinion 1. The Disappearance of Race, the Proliferation of Racists 2. A Weapon of Mass Intimidation 3. The Miracle of Transubstantiation Part II The Left Suffering from Denial 4. Islamo-Leftism, or the Conjunction of Resentments 5. An Unnatural Marriage 6. The Victim's Guilt, the Murderer's Innocence Part III Are Muslims the Equivalent of Jews? 7. From the Principle of Equivalence to the Principle of Substitution 8. Exterminations Galore 9. The Jew, An Accursed White 10. A Semantic Racket Part IV Are We Guilty of Existing? 11. The Criminalization of Reticence 12. Minorities, Protection or Prison? 13. The Racism of the Anti-Racists 14. Should the West be De-Colonized? Part V What is God's Future? 15. Is the War on Terror a Sham? 16. Resistance or Penitence 17. Western Values are not Negotiable 8. Weary of God 19. The Grandeur and the Tragedy of Tolerance Epilogue: On History as a Warning Notes
£32.79
University of Pennsylvania Press Beyond Sectarianism
Book Synopsis
£35.10
Bristol University Press Muslims and Humour: Essays on Comedy, Joking, and
Book SynopsisThis thought-provoking collection offers a multi-disciplinary approach on the subject of humour, Muslims, and Islam. Beginning with theoretical perspectives and scriptural guidance on permissible and restricted humour, the volume presents a variety of case studies about Muslim comedic practices in various cultural, political, and religious contexts. This unprecedented scholarship sheds new light on common misconceptions about humour and laughter in Islam and deftly tackles sensitive themes from blasphemy to freedom of speech. Chapter 9 is available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Table of ContentsIntroduction - Bernard Schweizer and Lina Molokotos-Liederman PART I Theoretical Perspectives on Islam and Humour 1 Ridicule in the Qur’an: The Missing Link in Islamic Humour Studies - Mostafa Abedinifard 2 Laughter in the Discursive Tradition? Emotions of Muḥammad as the Topic of a Pious Arabic-English Reader - Georg Leube 3 Humour in Islamic Literature and Muslim Practices: Virtue or Vice? - Walid Ghali PART II Muslim Humour Practices in Islamicate Societies: Textual Media 4 Using/Abusing the Qur’an in Jocular Literature: Blasphemy, Qur’anophilia, or Familiarity? - Yasmin Amin 5 A 'Stupid Lur' Mocks Allah and Mullah: Sociocultural Implications of the Luri Jokes Cycle - Fatemeh Nasr Esfahani PART III Muslim Humour Practices in Islamicate Societies: Visual Media and Performance 6 Al- Bernameg: How Bassem Youssef Ridiculed Religious Fundamentalists and Survived the ‘Defamation of Religion’ Charge - Moutaz Alkheder 7 Arab Cartoonists and Religion: The Interdependence of Transgression and Taboo - Chourouq Nasri 8 Hizbullah’s Humour: Political Satire, Comedy, and Revolutionary Theatre - Joseph Alagha 9 ‘Putting the Fun Back into Fundamentalism’: Toying with Islam and Extremism in Comedy - Mona Abdel-Fadil PART IV Muslim Comedy in North America 10 Queering Islam in Performance: Gender and Sexuality in American Muslim Women’s Stand-up Comedy - Jaclyn A. Michael 11 Comedy as Social Commentary in Little Mosque on the Prairie: Decoding Humour in the First ‘Muslim Sitcom’ - Jay Friesen Conclusion - Bernard Schweizer and Lina Molokotos-Liederman Bibliography on Islam and Humour
£76.50
University of Arkansas Press A Muslim Primer: A Beginner's Guide to Islam
Book SynopsisA Muslim Primer covers the basic beliefs of Islam and provides an informative source for both lay and professional readers. First published in 1992, it has proven to be a valuable handbook for all attempting to better understand the tenets of the religion of a major portion of the world’s population. The reader is introduced to the authority of the Quran, the prophethood of Muhammad, the Wisdom of the Law, the Five Pillars of Islam, and to other fundamental principles of the religion. Distinctions are made between Sunni and Shiite traditions and the Sufi mystical dimension of Islam.Well organized, visually appealing, and accurate, A Muslim Primer is useful to pre-collegiate and collegiate students of Islam, church and community study groups, and travelers, both tourists and business people.Trade Review[This book] not only tackles such sensitive contemporary issues as the Islamic view on women, veiling, and human rights, but also provides a useful survey of Western cultural indebtedness to a rich Islamic heritage." —Ellen-Fairbanks, author of World of Islam: Images and Echoes
£21.56
University of South Carolina Press Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and
Book SynopsisA consideration of three of the most contentious ethical issues of our time - abortion, war and euthanasia - from the Muslim perspective. Scholars of Islamic studies have collaborated to produce this volume which both integrates Muslim thinking into the field of applied ethics and introduces readers to an aspect of the religion long overlooked in the West. This collective effort sets forth the relationship between Islamic ethics and law, revealing the complexity and richness of the Islamic tradition as well as its responsiveness to these controversial modern issues. The contributors analyze classical sources and survey the modern ethical landscape to identify guiding principles within Islamic ethical thought. Clarifying the importance of pragmatism in Islamic decision-making, the contributors also offer case studies related to specialized topics, including ""wrongful birth"" claims, terrorist attacks, and brain death. The case studies elicit possible variations on common Muslim perspectives. The contributors situate Muslim ethics relative to Christian and secular accounts of the value of human life, exposing surprising similarities and differences. In an introductory overview of the volume, Jonathan E. Brockopp underscores the steady focus on God as the one who determines the value of human life, and hence as the final arbiter of Islamic ethics. A foreword by Gene Outka places the volume in the context of general ethical studies, and an afterword by A. Kevin Reinhart suggests some significant ramifications for comparative religious ethics.
£21.80
University of South Carolina Press Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The
Book SynopsisMessianic Hopes and Mystical Visions tells the story of the Nurbakhshiya, an Islamic messianic movement that originated in fifteenth-century central Asia and Iran and survives to the present in Pakistan and India. In the first full-length study of the sect, Shahzad Bashir illumines the significance of messianism as an Islamic religious paradigm and illustrates its centrality to any discussion of Islamic sectarianism. By tracing Nurbakhshi activity in the Middle East and central and southern Asia through more than five centuries, Bashir brings to view the continuities and disruptions within Islamic civilization across regions and over time. Bashir effectively captures the way Nurbakhshis have understood and debated the meaning of their tradition in various geographical and temporal contexts. Bashir provides a detailed biography of the movement's founder, Muhammad Nurbakhsh (d. 1464). Born to a Twelver Shi'i family, Nurbakhsh declared himself the mahdi, or the Muslim messiah, as an adept of the Kubravi Sufi order under the influence of the teachings of the great Sufi master Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1240). Nurbakhsh's religious worldview, which Bashir treats in depth in this volume, offers a new window onto the intellectual world of the late medieval Islamic East. Although Nurbakhsh met with limited success as a claimant to the title of mahdi during his lifetime, his movement prospered after his death as his disciples remained active in Timurid and Safavid Iran, central Asia, and Ottoman Anatolia. Bashir analyzes the spread of the Nurbakhshiya as well as its greatest sociopolitical triumph - transplantation into Kashmir in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, from where the movement extended into neighboring Ladakh and Baltistan. Making use of previously unexamined sources, Bashir recounts every phase of Nurbakshi history, paying particular attention to the reinterpretation and adjustment of the tradition in each local context.
£36.51
University of South Carolina Press Self and Secrecy in Early Islam
Book SynopsisThis book presents an original inquiry into the meanings of concealment and revelation in early Arabo-Islamic texts. In this comparative analysis of the significance of keeping and revealing secrets in early Islamic culture, Ruqayya Yasmine Khan draws from a broad range of Arabo-Islamic texts to map interconnections between concepts of secrecy and identity. In early Islamic discourse, Khan maintains, individual identity is integrally linked to a psychology of secrecy and revelation - a connection of even greater importance than what is being concealed or displayed. Khan further maintains that secrecy and identity demarcate boundaries for interpersonal relations when governed by the cultural norms of discretion espoused in these texts.As evidence for her study, Khan explores religious and literary representations of secrecy in classical texts as diverse as the Qur'an, the ""Book of Concealing the Secret and Holding the Tongue"" by al-Jahiz, and courtly love poems, including the story of Majnun and Layla. These works represent divergent approaches to spiritual, ethical, and romantic life in early Islam; yet Khan extrapolates from each a shared construction of secrecy and revelation.In advancing our understanding of the dynamic tensions between secrecy and revelation as depicted in these early Arabo-Islamic discourses, Khan illustrates that the creation of individual identity and subjectivity was inherently tied to these same tensions. The resulting analysis opens new vistas for understanding the meanings of secrecy in Islamic studies, Qur'anic studies, Islamic philosophy and mysticism, and Arabic literary studies as well as European intellectual history.
£32.36
University of South Carolina Press Women Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India
Book SynopsisWomen Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India combines historical data with years of ethnographic fieldwork to investigate women's participation in the culture of Sufi shrines in India and the manner in which this participation both complicates and sustains traditional conceptions of Islamic womanhood. Kelly Pemberton's fieldwork offers an assessment of the contemporary circumstances under which a woman may be recognized as a spiritual authority or guide--despite official denial of such status--and an examination of the discrepancies between the commonly held belief that women cannot perform in the public setting of shrines and her own observations of women doing precisely that. She demonstrates that the existence of multiple models of master and disciple relationships have opened avenues for women to be recognized as spiritual authorities in their own right. Specifically Pemberton explores the work of performance, recitation, and ritual mediation carried out by women connected with Sufi orders through kinship and spiritual ties, and she maps shifting ideas about women's involvement in public ritual events in a variety of contexts, circumstances, and genres of performance. She also highlights the private petitioning of saints, the Prophet, and God performed by poor women of low social standing in Bihar Sharif. These women are often perceived as being exceptionally close to God yet are compelled to operate outside the public sphere of major shrines.
£45.90
Potomac Books Inc Islam Without a Veil
Book SynopsisKazakhstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia that has been under the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbayev since independence in 1991, has proven that a mostly Muslim nation can be active on the international scene.
£24.29
University of Iowa Press Heir to the Crescent Moon
Book SynopsisFrom age five, Sufiya Abdur-Rahman, the daughter of two Black Power–era converts to Islam, feels drawn to the faith even as her father, a devoted Muslim, introduces her to and, at the same time, distances her from it. Abdur-Rahman’s father and mother abandoned their Harlem mosque before she was born and divorced when she was twelve. Forced apart from her father—her portal into Islam—she yearns to reconnect with the religion and, through it, reconnect with him. In Heir to the Crescent Moon, Abdur-Rahman’s longing to comprehend her father’s complicated relationship with Islam leads her first to recount her own history, and then delves into her father’s past. She journeys from the Christian righteousness of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.’s 1950s Harlem, through the Malcolm X–inspired college activism of the late 1960s, to the unfulfilled potential of the early 1970s Black American Muslim movement. Told at times with lighthearted humor or heartbreaking candor, Abdur-Rahman’s story of adolescent Arabic lessons, fasting, and Muslim mosque, funeral, and Eid services speaks to the challenges of bridging generational and cultural divides and what it takes to maintain family amidst personal and societal upheaval. She weaves a vital tale about a family: Black, Muslim, and distinctly American.
£13.95
University of South Carolina Press Partners of Zaynab: A Gendered Perspective of Shia Muslim Faith
Book SynopsisHow do pious Shia Muslim women nurture and sustain their religious lives? How do their experiences and beliefs differ from or overlap with those of men? What do gender-based religious roles and interactions reveal about the Shia Muslim faith? In Partners of Zaynab, Diane D'Souza presents a rich ethnography of urban Shia women in India, exploring women's devotional lives through the lens of religious narrative, sacred space, ritual performance, leadership, and iconic symbols.Religious scholars have tended to devalue women's religious expressions, confining them to the periphery of a male-centered ritual world. This viewpoint often assumes that women's ritual behaviors are the unsophisticated product of limited education and experience and even a less developed female nature. By illuminating vibrant female narratives within Shia religious teachings, the fascinating history of a shrine led by women, the contemporary lives of dynamic female preachers, and women's popular prayers and rituals of petition, Partners of Zaynab demonstrates that the religious lives of women are not a flawed approximation of male-defined norms and behaviors, but a vigorous, authentic affirmation of faith within the religious mainstream.D'Souza questions the distinction between normative and popular religious behavior, arguing that such a categorization not only isolates and devalues female ritual expressions, but also weakens our understanding of religion as a whole. Partners of Zaynab offers a compelling glimpse of Muslim faith and practice and a more complete understanding of the interplay of gender within Shia Islam.
£41.36
University of South Carolina Press Shurāt Legends, Ibāḍī Identities: Martyrdom, Asceticism, and the Making of an Early Islamic Community
Book SynopsisIn Shurāt Legends, Ibādī Identities, Adam Gaiser explores the origins and early development of Islamic notions of martyrdom and of martyrdom literature. He examines the catalogs or lists of martyrs (martyrologies) of the early shurāt (Khārijites) in the context of late antiquity, showing that shurāt literature, as it can be reconstructed, shares continuity with the martyrologies of earlier Christians and other religious groups, especially in Iraq, and that this powerful literature was transmitted by seventh– century shurāt through their successors, the Ibādiyya. Gaiser examines the sources of poems and narratives as quasi-historical accounts and their application in literary creations designed to meet particular communal needs, in particular, the need to establish and shape identity.Gaiser shows how these accounts accumulated traits—such as all-night prayer vigils, stoic acceptance of death, and miracles-—of a wider ascetic and apocalyptic literature in the eighth century, including martyrdom narratives of Eastern Christianity. By establishing focal points of piety around which a communal identity could be fashioned, such accounts proved suitable for use in missionary activity in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Gaiser also documents the reshaping of these narratives for more quietist purposes: emphasizing moderated rather than violent action, diplomacy, and respect for other Islamic sects as also being monotheistic, rather than condemning them as sinful.Along with refashioning narratives, Gaiser details the Ibādī efforts to compile collections into genealogies, both biographical dictionaries and lineages of the true faith linking individuals and communities to local saints and martyrs. He also shows how this more nuanced history led to the formation of rules and authorities governing the shurāt. Employing rarely examined manuscript materials to shed light on such processes as identity formation and communal boundary maintenance, Gaiser traces the course by which this martyrdom literature and its potentially dangerous implications came to be institutionalized, contained, and controlled.
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