Seventh and eighth-century papyri, inscriptions, and coins constitute the main evidence for the rise of Arabic as a hegemonic language emerging from the complex fabric of Graeco-Roman-Iranian Late Antiquity. This volume examines these sources in order to gauge the social ecology of Arabic writing within the broader late antique continuum. Starting from the functional interplay of Arabic with other languages in multilingual archives as well as the mediality of practices of public Arabic writing, the study correlates the rise of Arabic as an imperial language to social interactions: the negotiation between the Arab-Muslim imperial elite and non-Arabicized regional elites of the early Islamic empire. Using layout, formulae and technical terminology to trace common patterns and disruptions across sources from the Atlantic to Central Asia, the volume illuminates the distinctive formal varieties of official Umayyad and early Abbasid imperial documents compared to informal Arabic writings as well as to neighboring scribal traditions in other languages. The volume connects documentary practices to broader imperial policies, opening an unprecedented window into the strategies of governance that lay at the core of the early Islamic empire.

This book encourages insurance companies and regulators to explore offering Islamic insurance to boost the insurance industry in India. The distinctive features of Takaful also make it appealing even to non-Muslims. According to the 2012 World Takaful Report, India has immense potential for Takaful is based on the size of its Muslim population and the growth of its economy. However, it is surprising that Takaful has yet to be introduced in India since it has been offered in non-majority Muslim countries, such as Singapore, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. When the concept and practice of Takaful are examined, it is free from interest, uncertainty, and gambling. These are the main elements prohibited in Islam. However, it has been evidenced that these elements are also banned in teaching other religions believed by the Indians. Given this landscape, this book fills the gap in research on the viability of Takaful in India, focusing on its empirical aspects by examining the perception of Indian insurance operators toward Takaful.

For centuries, Muslim countries and Europe have engaged one another through theological dialogues, diplomatic missions, political rivalries, and power struggles. In the last thirty years, due in large part to globalization and migration from Islamic countries to the West, what was previously an engagement across national and cultural boundaries has increasingly become an internalized encounter within Europe itself. Questions of the Hijab in schools, freedom of expression in the wake of the Danish Cartoon crisis, and the role of Shari'a have come to the forefront of contemporary European discourse.
The Oxford Handbook of European Islam is the first collection to present a comprehensive approach to the multiple and changing ways Islam has been studied across European countries. Parts one to three address the state of knowledge of Islam and Muslims within a selection of European countries, while presenting a critical view of the most up-to-date data specific to each country. These chapters analyze the immigration cycles and policies related to the presence of Muslims, tackling issues such as discrimination, post-colonial identity, adaptation, and assimilation. The thematic chapters, in parts four and five, examine secularism, radicalization, Shari'a, Hijab, and Islamophobia with the goal of synthesizing different national discussion into a more comparative theoretical framework. The Handbook attempts to balance cutting edge assessment with the knowledge that the content itself will eventually be superseded by events. Featuring eighteen newly-commissioned essays by noted scholars in the field, this volume will provide an excellent resource for students and scholars interested in European Studies, immigration, Islamic studies, and the sociology of religion.

This book brings together international scholars of Islamic philosophy, theology and politics to examine these current major questions: What is the place of pluralism in the Islamic founding texts? How have sacred and prophetic texts been interpreted throughout major Islamic intellectual history by the Sunnis and Shi'a? How does contemporary Islamic thought treat religious and political diversity in modern nation states and in societies in transition? How is pluralism dealt with in modern major and minor Islamic contexts? How does modern political Islam deal with pluralism in the public sphere? And what are the major internal and external challenges to pluralism in Islamic contexts? These questions that have become of paramount relevance in religious studies especially during the last three-four decades are answered as critically highlighted in Islamic founding sources, the formative classical sources and how it has been lived and practiced in past and present Islamic majority societies and communities around the world. Case studies cover Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, and Thailand, besides various internal references to other contexts.

Was Salman Rushdie right to have written The Satanic Verses ? Were the protestors right to have done so? What about the Danish cartoons? This book examines the moral questions raised by cultural controversies, and how intercultural dialogue might be generated within multicultural societies.

The Islamic world has a poor record in terms of modernization and democracy. However, the source of this situation is not religion, but factors including colonialism, international economic and trading systems, and the role of the military, among others. Recognizing these themes allows the consideration of possible remedies for change in the Muslim world. The Islamic world has a poor record in terms of modernization and democracy. However, the source of this situation is not religion-Islam-but rather factors including colonialism, international economic and trading systems, and the role of the military, among others. Recognizing these themes allows the consideration of possible remedies for change in the Muslim world. The distinguished scholars contributing to this volume identify key factors-some intrinsic to the Muslim world, and some external-that contribute to Islam's current predicament. Contrary to much prevailing thought and opinion, Islam is neither monolithic nor impervious to change. It is neither anti-democratic nor inherently anti-modernization. Islam itself, as this book shows, is not the root cause of the malaise of the Islamic world.

Most Western non-Muslim women couldn't envision surrendering their freedom and being forced to comply with Saudi women's entrapped customs which have existed for the past 1,400 years. Did you know that Saudi Arabia's religious police, known as the Mutawa, can take any woman to jail for not covering her hair or wearing an abaya? How would you imagine yourself living a life being compelled to abide by the power and values of men: not being able to drive, talk with your driver, shop alone without a male escort, leave the country without a male escort, or be seen alone with a non-related male?

INFIDEL BEHIND THE PARADOXICAL VEIL - A Western Woman's Experience in Saudi Arabia is a personal story of startling encounters such as mentioned above while Jeanette English lived in Riyadh, the most restrictive city in Saudi Arabia, where women who by Shariah law and culture are considered to be the weaker sex. Jeanette candidly unmasks a unique experience which exposes the enigmatic issues affecting Saudi women. Their struggle for equality and freedom of choice is a hot topic with an accelerating interest in the subject of male dominance over them, stirring an intrinsic controversy over which many Westerners are confused.

This is a timely book offering extraordinary insight into the real Saudi woman before, during and after the author's year in Riyadh which will turn a few cynical heads toward understanding the issues and challenges in their achieving fair treatment, particularly now in the 21st century. Forced to wear the hijab, Jeanette read the Quran and, in learning about Islam and talking with Saudi women, was able to look behind the veil which many Westerners can only read about. Most authors and journalists who write on this subject have not lived her experience.

Throughout the last two decades, the modern dialogue movement has gained worldwide significance. The knowledge about its origins is, however, still very limited. This book presents a wide range of insights from eleven case studies into the early history of several important international interreligious/interfaith dialogue organizations that have shaped the modern development of interreligious dialogue from the late nineteenth century up to the present. Based on new archival research, they describe, on the one hand, how these actors put their ideals into practice and, on the other, how they faced many challenges as pioneers in the establishment of new interreligious/interfaith organizational structures. This book concludes with a comparison of those case studies, bringing to light new and broader historico-sociological understanding of the beginnings of international and multi-religious interreligious/interfaith dialogue organizations over more than one century. The World's Parliament of Religions / 1893 The Religioeser Menschheitsbund / 1921 The World Congress of Faiths / 1933-1950 The Committee on the Church and the Jewish People of the World Council of Churches / 1961 The Temple of Understanding / 1968 The International Association for Religious Freedom / 1969 The World Conference on Religion and Peace / 1970 The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions / 1989-1991 The Oxford International Interfaith Centre / 1993 The United Religions Initiative / 2000 The Universal Peace Federation / 2005 Based on these analyses, the authors identify three distinct groups with sometimes-conflicting interests that are shaping the movement: individual religious virtuosi, countercultural activists, and representatives of religious institutions. Published in cooperation with the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious & Intercultural Dialogue, Vienna.

Gai Eaton's "Islam and the Destiny of Man" is a wide-ranging study of the religion of Islam from a traditional point of view. Covering all aspects that a reader would wish to know about Islam-including the Qur'an, the life of the Prophet, Islamic history, Islamic law, art and mysticism-"Islam and the Destiny of Man" explains what it means to be a Muslim and describes how Islam has shaped the hearts and minds of Muslims down the centuries. However, in "Islam and the Destiny of Man", Gai Eaton is concerned not simply with Islam in isolation, but with the very nature of religious faith, its spiritual and intellectual foundations and the light it casts upon the mysteries and paradoxes of the human condition.

Analyzes how American Muslim women assert themselves as religious actors in the US and beyond, using the Qur'an as a tool for social justice and community building The Women's Mosque of America (WMA), a multiracial, women-only mosque in Los Angeles, is the first of its kind in the United States. Since 2015, the WMA has provided a space for Muslim women to build inclusive communities committed to gender and social justice, challenging the dominant mosque culture that has historically marginalized them through inadequate prayer spaces, exclusion from leadership, and limited access to religious learning. Tazeen M. Ali explores this congregation, focusing on how members contest established patriarchal norms while simultaneously contending with domestic and global Islamophobia that renders their communities vulnerable to violence. Drawing on textual analysis of WMA sermons and ethnographic interviews with community members, and utilizing Black feminist and womanist frameworks, Ali investigates how American Muslim women create and authorize new conceptions of Islamic authority. Whereas the established model of Islamic authority is rooted in formal religious training and Arabic language expertise, the WMA is predicated on women's embodied experiences, commitments to social and racial justice, English interpretations of the Qur'an, and community building across Islamic sects and in an interfaith context. Situating the US at the center rather than at the margins of debates over Islamic authority and showing how American Muslim women assert themselves as meaningful religious actors in the US and beyond, Ali's work offers new insights on Islamic authority as it relates to the intersections of gender, religious space, and national belonging.

Gavin D'Costa breaks new ground in this authoritative study of the Second Vatican Council's doctrines on other religions, with particular attention to Judaism and Islam. The focus is exclusively on the doctrinal foundations found in Lumen Gentium 16 that will serve Catholicism in the twenty first century. D'Costa provides a map outlining different hermeneutical approaches to the Council, whilst synthesising their strengths and providing a critique of their weaknesses. Moreover, he classifies the different authority attributed to doctrines thereby clarifying debates regarding continuity, discontinuity, and reform in doctrinal teaching. Vatican II: Catholic Doctrines on Jews and Muslims expertly examines the Council's revolutionary teaching on Judaism which has been subject to conflicting readings, including the claim that the Council reversed doctrinal teachings in this area. Through a rigorous examination of the debates, the drafts, the official commentary, and with consideration of the previous Council and papal doctrinal teachings on the Jews, D'Costa lays bare the doctrinal achievements of the Council, and concludes with a similar detailed examination of Catholic doctrines on Islam. This innovative text makes essential interventions in the debate about Council hermeneutics and doctrinal teachings on the religions.

When revolutionary hero Gamal Abdel Nasser dismantled and suppressed Egypt's largest social movement organization during the 1950s, few could have imagined that the Muslim Brotherhood would not only reemerge, but could one day compete for the presidency in the nation's first ever democratic election. While there is no shortage of analyses of the Muslim Brotherhood's recent political successes and failures, no study has investigated the organization's triumphant return from the dustbin of history. Answering the Call examines the means by which the Muslim Brotherhood was reconstituted during Anwar al-Sadat's presidency. Through analysis of structural, ideological, and social developments during this period in the history of the Islamic movement, a more accurate picture of the so-called "Islamic resurgence" developsone that represents the rebirth of an old idea in a new setting. The Muslim Brotherhood's success in rebuilding its organization rested in large part on its ability to attract a new generation of Islamic activists that had come to transform Egypt's colleges and universities into a hub for religious contention against the state. Led by groups such as al-Gama'ah al-Islamiyyah (The Islamic Society), the student movement exhibited a dynamic and vibrant culture of activism that found inspiration in a multitude of intellectual and organizational sources, of which the Muslim Brotherhood was only one. By the close of the 1970s, however, internal divisions over ideology and strategy led to the rise of factionalism within the student movement. A majority of student leaders opted to expand the scope of their activist mission by joining the Muslim Brotherhood, rejuvenating the struggling organization, and launching a new phase in its history. Answering the Call is an original study of the history of this dynamic and vibrant period of modern Egyptian history, giving readers a fresh understanding of one of Egypt's most pivotal eras.

Mecca is the heart of Islam. It is the birthplace of Muhammad, the direction towards which Muslims turn when they pray and the site of pilgrimage which annually draws some three million Muslims from all corners of the world. Yet Mecca's importance goes beyond religion. What happens in Mecca and how Muslims think about the political and cultural history of Mecca has had and continues to have a profound influence on world events to this day. In this captivating book, Ziauddin Sardar unravels the significance of Mecca. Tracing its history, from its origins as a 'barren valley' in the desert to its evolution as a trading town and sudden emergence as the religious centre of a world empire, Sardar examines the religious struggles and rebellions in Mecca that have powerfully shaped Muslim culture. Interweaving stories of his own pilgrimages to Mecca with those of others, Sardar offers a unique insight into not just the spiritual aspects of Mecca - the passion, ecstasy and longing it evokes - but also the conflict between heritage and modernity that has characterised its history. He unpeels the physical, social and cultural dimensions that have helped transform the city and also, though accounts of such Orientalist travellers as Richard Burton and Charles Doughty, the strange fascination that Mecca has long inspired in the Western imagination. And, ultimately, he explores what this tension could mean for Mecca's future. An illuminative, lyrical and witty blend of history, reportage and memoir, this outstanding book reflects all that is profound, enlightening and curious about one of the most important religious sites in the world.

In recent years Abdolkarim Soroush has become known as one of the leading moderate revisionist thinkers of the Muslim world. These essays translated into English for the first time set forth Soroush's views on such matters as the freedom of the Muslim believe to interpret the Qur'an, the inevitability of change in religion, the necessity of freedom of belief, and the compatibility of Islam with democracy. This book will be of great interest, both here and abroad, to students and scholars of the Middle East and its politics, and Islam.

The Place of the Mosque: Genealogies of Space, Knowledge, and Power extends Foucault's analysis Of Other Spaces and the "ideological conflicts which underlie the controversies of our day [that] take place between pious descendants of time and tenacious inhabitants of space." The book uses this framework to illuminate how mosques have been threatened in the past, from the Cordoba Mosque in the eighth century to the development of Moorish aesthetics in nineteenth-century United States to the clashes surrounding the building of mosques in the West in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Foucault's genealogy allows us to elaborate and study the subjects that are caught in the emergence of a battle-the social and political will to power, the networks of power and the rituals of power-in the interstitial space which define the subjects and clears a space ruling both the body and space. In going beyond individual buildings to broader geographical and genealogical dimensions of the power struggles, The Place of the Mosque reconciles the public space experience, governmentality, and micro powers, paving the way for a new philosophical language. Expanding architectural and urban regional approaches, Kahera shows the biopolitical significance of the problem of space.

Sacred Violence and Religious Violence examines the place that ideology or political religion plays in legitimizing violence to bring about a purer world. In particular, the book examines Islamism and the western secular, liberal democratic responses to it.

For the first time, in one, book, are the three most popular English translations of the Qur an: the ones by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Marmaduke Pickthall, and Muhammad Habib Shakir. Two of them, Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Muhammad Habib Shakir are Arabic scholars

This book is the first of two volumes that aim to produce something not previously attempted: a synthetic history of Muslim responses to the Bible, stretching from the rise of Islam to the present day. It combines scholarship with a genuine narrative, so as to tell the story of Muslim engagement with the Bible. Covering Sunni, Imami Shi'i and Isma'ili perspectives, this study will offer a scholarly overview of three areas of Muslim response, namely ideas of corruption, use of the Biblical text, and abrogation of the text. For each period of history, the important figures and dominant trends, along with exceptions, are identified. The interplay between using and criticising the Bible is explored, as well as how the respective emphasis on these two approaches rises and falls in different periods and locations. The study critically engages with existing scholarship, scrutinizing received views on the subject, and shedding light on an important area of interfaith concern.

"Al-Ghazali on the Ninety-nine Beautiful Names of God" (al-Masad al-asna fi sharh asma'Allah al-husna) is based on the Prophet's teaching that `Ninety-nine Beautiful Names' are truly predicated of God. In this work, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali explores the meaning and resonance of each of these divine Names, and reveals the functions they perform both in the cosmos and in the soul of the spiritual adept. In addition, Ghazali explains how man's perfection and happiness consists in being moulded by the qualities of God. Although some of the book is rigorously analytical, the author never fails to attract the reader with his profound mystical and ethical insights, which has made this book one of the perennial classics of Muslim thought, popular among Muslims to this day.

Similarities between esoteric and mystical currents in different religious traditions have long interested scholars. This book takes a new look at the relationship between such currents. It advances a discussion that started with the search for religious essences, archetypes, and universals, from William James to Eranos. The universal categories that resulted from that search were later criticized as essentialist constructions, and questioned by deconstructionists. An alternative explanation was advanced by diffusionists: that there were transfers between different traditions. This book presents empirical case studies of such constructions, and of transfers between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the premodern period, and Judaism, Christianity, and Western esotericism in the modern period. It shows that there were indeed transfers that can be clearly documented, and that there were also indeed constructions, often very imaginative. It also shows that there were many cases that were neither transfers nor constructions, but a mixture of the two.

Due to the long presence of Muslims in Islamic territories (Al-Andalus and Granada) and of Muslims minorities in the Christians parts, the Iberian Peninsula provides a fertile soil for the study of the Qur'an and Qur'an translations made by both Muslims and Christians. From the mid-twelfth century to at least the end of the seventeenth, the efforts undertaken by Christian scholars and churchmen, by converts, by Muslims (both Mudejars and Moriscos) to transmit, interpret and translate the Holy Book are of the utmost importance for the understanding of Islam in Europe. This book reflects on a context where Arabic books and Arabic speakers who were familiar with the Qur'an and its exegesis coexisted with Christian scholars. The latter not only intended to convert Muslims, and polemize with them but also to adquire solid knowledge about them and about Islam. Qur'ans were seized during battle, bought, copied, translated, transmitted, recited, and studied. The different features and uses of the Qur'an on Iberian soil, its circulation as well as the lives and works of those who wrote about it and the responses of their audiences, are the object of this book.

Shaping a Muslim State provides a synthetic study of the political, social, and economic processes which formed early Islamic Egypt. Looking at a corpus of previously unknown Arabic papyrus letters, dating from between AD 730 and 750, which were written to a Muslim administrator and merchant in the Fayyum oasis in Egypt, Sijpesteijn examines the reasons for the success of the early Arab conquests and the transition from the pre-Islamic Byzantine system and its Egyptian executors to an Arab/Muslim state. By examining the impact of Islam on the daily lives of those living under its rule, the volume highlights the striking newness of Islamic society while also acknowledging the influence of the ancient societies which preceded it. The book applies theoretical discussions about governance, historiography, (social) linguistics, and source criticism to understand the dynamics of early Islamic Egypt, as well as the larger process of state formation in the Islamic world.

This work charts the political, sociological and demographic factors that have shaped the position of Christian and Jewish minorities under Islam in the past and today. Focusing on the Arab world and on Turkey, the authors show how Christianity and Judaism survived and, at times, even prospered in the region, thus modifying the view of Islam as an inevitably unbending and radical religion. They also demonstrate that the position of the minorities was badly affected in the wake of confrontations with the Christian West - at the time of the Crusades, after the first victories of the Spanish Reconquista, with the humiliations meted out to the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and North Africa, and once again with the creation of the state of Israel.

This book analyzes how AKP's embedded intellectuals operate as media spin doctors, exploring their transformation from passionately engaged intellectuals into apparatchiks. This project adapts a post-Soviet geography approach to the media, intelligentsia, and political discourse as derivative of authoritarian regimes to the Turkish context. It offers a fresh look at the Turkish political and intellectual scene and a comparative study of the populist-authoritarian politics of Turkey. Situated in the literature on the post-Soviet authoritarian regimes and their ways of governing, as well as their manipulation of public opinion, the book analyzes AKP-aligned intellectuals as apparatchiks. Gurpinar explores the different constellations of pro-AKP intellectuals vindicating the AKP regime from various angles, including: liberal/progressive intellectuals who initially supported the party for its liberal vistas but continued their support by twisting their progressive rhetoric; Islamist intellectuals blending their Islamism with populism; and national security intellectuals who joined after the AKP came to propagate a national security agenda. The book also provides an overview of the mechanisms of political technology, including the media landscape and its running by the AKP, intellectuals themselves as operators of political technology, and the problem of "cultural power." The book will be of interest to those studying comparative authoritarian politics, populism, political communication, and scholars of Middle East and Eastern Europe.