Sufism in Central Asia: New Perspectives on Sufi Traditions, 15th-21st Centuries brings together ten original studies on historical aspects of Sufism in this region. A central question, of ongoing significance, underlies each contribution: what is the relationship between Sufism as it was manifested in this region prior to the Russian conquest and the Soviet era, on the one hand, and the features of Islamic religious life in the region during the Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras on the other? The authors address multiple aspects of Central Asian religious life rooted in Sufism, examining interpretative strategies, realignments in Sufi communities and sources from the Russian to the post-Soviet period, and social, political and economic perspectives on Sufi communities. Contributors include: Shahzad Bashir, Devin DeWeese, Allen Frank, Jo-Ann Gross, Kawahara Yayoi, Robert McChesney, Ashirbek Muminov, Maria Subtelny, Eren Tasar, and Waleed Ziad.

Antonia Bosanquet's Minding Their Place is the first full-length study of Ibn al-Qayyim's (d. 751/1350) collection of rulings relating to non-Muslim subjects, Ahkam ahl al-dhimma. It offers a detailed study of the structure, content and authorial method of the work, arguing that it represents the author's personal composition rather than a synthesis of medieval rulings, as it has often been understood. On this basis, Antonia Bosanquet analyses how Ibn al-Qayyim's presentation of rulings in Ahkam ahl al-dhimma uses space to convey his view of religious hierarchy. She considers his answer to the question of whether non-Muslims have a place in the Abode of Islam, how this is defined and how his definition contributes to Ibn al-Qayyim's broader theological world-view.

The Sound Traditions: Studies in Ismaili Texts and Thought is a collection of Ismail K. Poonawala's articles on Ismaili studies. Divided into three sections, the volume consists of nineteen articles that have been published over a long period of more than forty years. Part One focuses on Ismaili sources and the question of their authorship. The aspects of Ismaili rational discourses are examined in Part Two. Focusing on the scriptural knowledge of Ismaili tradition, Part Three then delves into investigating al-Qadi al-Nu'man's life and contribution. This volume is an excellent gateway to the study of origins and development of Ismaili thought.

Saintly Spheres and Islamic Landscapes explores the creation, expansion, and perpetuation of the material and imaginary spheres of spiritual domination and sanctity that surrounded Sufi saints and became central to religious authority, Islamic piety, and the belief in the miraculous. The cultural and social constructs of Islamic sainthood and the spatial inscription of saintly figures have fascinated and ignited scholars across a range of disciplines. By bringing together a broad scope of perspectives and case studies, this book offers the reader the first comprehensive, albeit variegated, exposition of the evolution of saintly spheres and the emplacements of spiritual power in the Muslim world across time and place. Contributors: Angela Andersen, Irit Back, Devin DeWeese, Daphna Ephrat, Jo-Ann Gross, Nathan Hofer, Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, Sara Kuehn, Bulle Tuil Leonetti, Silvia Montenegro, Alexandre Papas, Paulo G. Pinto, Fatima Quraishi, Eric Ross, Itzchak Weismann, Pnina Werber, and Ethel Sara Wolper.

This book discusses the "long fifteenth century" in Iberian history, between the 1391 pogroms and the forced conversions of Aragonese Muslims in 1526, a period characterized by persecutions, conversions and social violence, on the one hand, and cultural exchange, on the other. It was a historical moment of unstable religious ideas and identities, before the rigid turn taken by Spanish Catholicism by the middle of the sixteenth century; a period in which the physical and symbolic borders separating the three religions were transformed and redefined but still remained extraordinarily porous. The collection argues that the aggressive tone of many polemical texts has until now blinded historiography to the interconnected nature of social and cultural intimacy, above all in dialogue and cultural transfer in later medieval Iberia. Contributors are Ana Echevarria, Gad Freudenthal, Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, Maria Laura Giordano, Yonatan Glazer-Eytan, Eleazar Gutwirth, Felipe Pereda, Rosa M. Rodriguez Porto, Katarzyna K. Starczewska, John Tolan, Gerard Wiegers, and Yosi Yisraeli.

In 'Ala' al-Dawla al-Simnani between Spiritual Authority and Political Power: A Persian Lord and Intellectual in the Heart of the Ilkhanate, Giovanni Maria Martini investigates the personality of a major figure in the socio-political and cultural landscape of Mongol Iran. In pursuing this objective, the author follows parallel paths: Chapter 1 provides the most updated reconstruction of Simnani's (d. 736/1336) biography, which, thanks to its unique features, emerges as a cross-section of Iranian society and as a microhistory of the complex relationships between a Sufi master, Persian elites and Mongol rulers during the Ilkhanid period; Chapter 2 contains a study on the phenomenon of Arabic-Persian diglossia in Simnani's written work, arguing for its socio-religious function; in Chapters 3 to 6 the critical editions of two important, interrelated treatises by Simnani are presented; finally, Chapter 7 offers the first full-length annotated translation of a long work by Simnani ever to appear in a Western language.

Although Turkey is a secular state, it is often characterised as a Muslim country. In her latest book, Lejla Voloder provides an engaging and revealing study of a Bosniak community in Turkey, one of the Muslim minorities actually recognised by the state in Turkey. Under what circumstances have they resettled to Turkey? How do they embrace Islam? How does one live as a Bosniak, a Turkish citizen, a mother, a father, a member of a household, and as one guided by Islam? The first book based on fieldwork to detail the lives of members of the Bosnian and Bosniak diaspora in Turkey, A Muslim Minority in Turkey makes a unique contribution to the study of Muslim minority groups in Turkey and the Middle East.