This book shifts analytical focus from macro-politicization and securitization of Islam to Muslims' choices, practices and public expressions of faith. An empirically rich analysis, the book provides rich cross-country evidence on the emergence of autonomous faith communities as well as the evolution of Islam in the broader European context.

"This is a remarkable piece of scholarship that illuminates general and specific tendencies in Islamic education in South Thailand. Armed with an enormous amount of rich empirical detail and an elegant writing style, the author debunks the simplistic Orientalist conceptions of Wahhabi and Salafi influences on Islamic education in South Thailand. This work will be a state-of-the-art source for understanding the role of Islam and the ongoing conflict in this troubled region of Southeast Asia. The book is significant for those scholars who are attempting to understand Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, and also for those who want deep insights into Islamic education and its influence in any area of the Islamic world." - Raymond Scupin, Professor of Anthropology and International Studies Lindenwood University, USA "Few books address the sensitive issue of Islamic education with empathy as well as critical distance as Joseph C. Liow's Islam, Education, and Reform in Southern Thailand. He examines global networks of religious learning within a local Thai as well as regional Asian context by brilliantly revealing the intersections between religion, politics and modernity in an accessible and illuminating manner. Traditional educational institutions rarely receive such sensitive and balanced treatment. Liow's book is a tour de force and mandatory reading for policy-makers, academics and all of those interested in current affairs." - Ebrahim Moosa, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, Department of Religion, Associate Director, Duke Islamic Studies Center (DISe, Duke University, USA "Islam, Education, and Reform in Southern Thailand is Joseph Chinyong Liow's critical attempt to map out the reflexive questioning, locations of authority, dynamics and contestations within the Muslim community over what constitutes Islamic knowledge and education. Through the optics of Islamic education in Southern Thailand, Liow manages to brilliantly portray the ways in which Muslim minority negotiate their lives in the local context of violence and the global context of crisis of modernity." - Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Senior Research Scholar, Thailand Research Fund, Author of The Life of this World: Negotiated Muslim Lives in Thai Society

This groundbreaking book offers in-depth analysis of the modern Islamic state, applying a quantitative measurement of how Muslim majority nations meet the definition. Content for the book was developed through extensive debate among a panel of distinguished Sunni and Shia Muslim scholars over seven years.

Scholar, mystic and visionary, Ibn 'Alwan lived through the transition from Ayyubid to Rasulid rule in thirteenth-century Yemen. He was well known in his time for his critique of the ruling elites and their governance, and left behind a substantial body of writings on Islamic mysticism, theology, law and exegesis of the Qur'an. Here Muhammad Aziz presents a comprehensive portrait of Ibn 'Alwan, delineating the religious and political background in Yemen, the development of Sufi orders, the interplay between Sufi, Shi'i and Sunni traditions, and the impact of Ibn 'Alwan on the history of Sufism and Islam. The first study of Ibn 'Alwan in English, "Religion and Mysticism in Early Islam" is essential reading for all those interested in mysticism, early Islam, Sufism, and religion and history more generally.

From the early narratives of such colonial writers as Jonathan Edwards to the more recent conversion experiences of Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, America is rich in both conversions and autobiographies. This volume provides a sourcebook for the study of American religious conversion narratives. It includes entries providing biographical, bibliographic, and critical commentary on thirty significant writers of conversion narratives. The subjects include writers of early colonial America, such as Mary Rowlandson and John Woolman, nineteenth-century women writers, such as Carry Nation and Ann Eliza Young, and writers from the twentieth-century social gospel movement, such as John Cogley and Dorothy Day. Chapters on subjects such as Jim Bakker give insight into the rise of televangelism. Finally, chapters on such writers as Frederick Douglass, Eldridge Cleaver, and Piri Thomas cover the conversion experiences of those who lived outside mainstream American culture.

The chapters are arranged alphabetically. Each one is divided into sections providing a short biography, discussing the narrative, covering criticism of the narrative, and a bibliography. The work concludes with a bibliographic essay and a full subject index.

This book provides vital references to peace, integration and human rights in Islam and how Muslims living in the West can integrate in Western society without compromising their faith. The scholar discusses historical background on Human rights and democracy that was introduction in Muslim-majority countries with key references from Islamic classical texts. The author presents examples from the life of Prophet Muhammad as a model for nurturing peace and harmony in a diverse world beckoning for a solution. The author explores the Constitition of Medina as the first constitution in human history; a mechanisms used by the Prophet to established peace, democracy, security, knowledge and learning, human rights and equality, and socio-political prosperity.

In any field whether scientific, business, or social ethics plays a critical role in determining what is acceptable in a particular community and what is considered taboo. The source of these preconditions is often a complex interweaving of tradition and rational thought. Socio-Cybernetic Study of God and the World-System investigates morality in a socio-scientific worldview, examining the epistemology of existence in conjunction with Islamic monotheistic law to generate a world-system that governs action and reaction in the context of a variety of cognitive and social environments. Readers with backgrounds in finance and economics can utilize this book to construct a more thorough theoretical understanding of their societal and professional associations."

It is the first study which comprehensively, systematically and critically examines the role and usefulness of the concept of Maqasid al-Shari'a (higher Objectives of Islamic Law) in contemporary Muslim reformist thought in relation to number of specific issues pertaining to Islamic legal philosophy, law, ethics and the socio-political sphere.

This title includes an assessment of the influence and impact of the Islamic scholar and activist Fethullah Gulen, and those who are inspired by him, on contemporary Islam. This edited collection deals with the challenges and opportunities faced by Muslims and the wider society in Europe following the Madrid train bombings of 2003 and the London Transport attacks of 2007. The contributors explore the challenges to the concept and practice of civility in public life within a European context, and demonstrates the contributions that can be made in this regard by the thought and practice of the global movement associated with the Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen. The importance and distinctiveness of teaching of Gulen and the practice of the movement is that it is rooted in a confident Turkish Islamic heritage while being fully engaged with modernity. It offers the possibility of a contextualised renewal of Islam for Muslims in Europe while being fully rooted in the teachings of the Qu'ran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. This volume is an important contribution to the study of the movement, which advocates the freedom of religion while making an Islamic contribution to the wider society based on a commitment to service of others.

A comprehensive guide to three global religions that have established strong local communities in South Africa, this work is a valuable resource for scholars, students in religious studies, African studies, anthropology, and history. Beginning with a general introduction to the immigrant origins, minority status, and global connections of each tradition, the book proceeds to organize and generously annotate the literature according to religion. This volume, combined with two other annotated bibliographies, "African Traditional Religion in South Africa" and "Christianity in South Africa" (both Greenwood, 1997), will become the standard reference text for South African religions.

With special attention to historical and social conditions, this work examines the distinctively South African forms of these important minority religions in South Africa. In each section, an introductory essay identifies significant themes. The bibliography annotations that follow are concise yet detailed essays, written in an engaging and accessible style and supported by an exhaustive index. The book, therefore, provides a full and complex profile of three religious traditions that are firmly located in South African history and society.

This book is written with the objective of reasonably addressing the need of Muslim gays and lesbians for a life which involves intimacy, affection and companionship within the confines of a legal contract. Contemporary conservative Muslim leaders unreasonably promote false marriages with straight spouses, failing which they prescribe the "solution" of permanent celibacy as a "test." This book delves into an extensive scholarship on the same sources that conservative Muslim leaders draw on-the Qur'an, Hadith and jurisprudence. It is argued that the primary sources of Muslim knowledge addressed sexual acts between the same gender in the context of inhospitality, exploitation, coercion and disease, but not true same-sex unions; past Muslim scholarship is silent on the issue of sexual orientation and Muslim same-sex unions. The arguments of contemporary conservative Muslim leaders are deconstructed and the case for Muslim same-sex unions is made based on jurisprudential principles and thorough arguments from within the Muslim tradition.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam: An Introduction to Monotheism shows how a shared monotheistic legacy frames and helps explain the commonalities and disagreements among Judaism, Christianity and Islam and their significant denominations in the world today. Taking a thematic approach and covering both historical and contemporary dimensions, the authors discuss how contemporary geographic and cultural contexts shape the expression of monotheism in the three religions. It covers differences between religious expressions in Israeli Judaism, Latin American Christianity and British Islam. Topics discussed include scripture, creation, covenant and identity, ritual, ethics, peoplehood and community, redemption, salvation, life after death, gender, sexuality and marriage. This introductory text, which contains over 30 images, a map, a timeline, chapter afterthoughts and critical questions, is written by three authors with extensive teaching experience, each a specialist in one of the three monotheistic traditions.

Both the Quran and Bible purportedly hold the keys to creation, but when you examine both closely, only one of them holds up.

A closer examination of Muhammad's life and the Quran shows that both are opposed to all that God declares pure and holy. Join author John Tharp, who has traveled the world and studied these texts side by side, as he explores

why it's no accident that the Ten Commandments were omitted from the Quran; which facts show Muhammad's life and teachings are not pure and holy; how Islam's teachings contribute to a world full of turmoil.

Tharp also examines the secrets that Muslims don't share with people outside of their religion, as well as the future implications of the continuing conflict between Islam and Christianity.

Cross the boundaries that divide Christianity, Islam and, other world religions to determine how and why they are different and why these differences are important. You'll develop a deep understanding of how satanic deception breeds hostility against those who live a godly life in "The Quran."

This book is about the history of the conflict between Shia sects, how different sects originated and what are the basic beliefs of world known Usuli Shia sect i.e. State religion of Iran, and how it differs from the True Shia religion. Usuli sect was founded only 10 centuries ago, and only 5 or 6 so-called Shia scholars accepted it in 4th and 5th Hijra century. After that for many centuries Shia scholars and public hated this man-made religion. Only few centuries ago Allama Hilli and his company propagated it again, and he was the first to call himself Ayatollah (which is forbidden in Islam). Baqir Behbahani used power and all other tactics to suppress the Shia religion and occupied shia institutions and mosques, so Usuli sect dominated. What are the true teachings of Shia Islam. The religion presented and practiced by Iranian government is not the Tru Shia Islam, infact they are the biggest enemies of Allah, Infallibles asws and Muslims.

Offering new perspectives on the relationship between Shi'is and Sufis in modern and pre-modern times, this book challenges the supposed opposition between these two esoteric traditions in Islam by exploring what could be called "Shi'i Sufism" and "Sufi-oriented Shi'ism" at various points in history. The chapters are based on new research in textual studies as well as fieldwork from a broad geographical areas including the Indian subcontinent, Anatolia and Iran. Covering a long period stretching from the early post-Mongol centuries, throughout the entire Safawid era (906-1134/1501-1722) and beyond, it is concerned not only with the sphere of the religious scholars but also with different strata of society. The first part of the volume looks at the diversity of the discourse on Sufism among the Shi'i "ulama" in the run up to and during the Safawid period. The second part focuses on the social and intellectual history of the most popular Shi'i Sufi order in Iran, the Ni'mat Allahiyya. The third part examines the relationship between Shi'ism and Sufism in the little-explored literary traditions of the Alevi-Bektashi and the Khaksariyya Sufi order. With contributions from leading scholars in Shi'ism and Sufism Studies, the book is the first to reveal the mutual influences and connections between Shi'ism and Sufism, which until now have been little explored.

The Western world often fears many aspects of Islam, without the knowledge to move forward. On the other hand, there are sustained and complex debates within Islam about how to live in the modern world with faith. Alison Scott-Baumann and Sariya Contractor-Cheruvallil here propose solutions to both dilemmas, with a particular emphasis on the role of women. Challenging existing beliefs about Islam in Britain, this book offers a paradigm shift based on research conducted over 15 years. The educational needs within several groups of British Muslims were explored, resulting in the need to offer critical analysis of the provision for the study of classical Islamic Theology in Britain. Islamic Education in Britain responds to the dissatisfaction among many young Muslim men and women with the theological/secular split, and their desire for courses that provide combinations of these two strands of their lived experience as Muslim British citizens. Grounded in empirical research, the authors reach beyond the meta-narratives of secularization and orientalism to demonstrate the importance of the teaching and learning of classical Islamic studies for the promotion of reasoned dialogue, interfaith and intercultural understanding in pluralist British society.

For anyone with an interest in the early history of Islam, this erudite anthology will prove to be informative and enlightening.
Scholars have long known that the text of the Koran shows evidence of many influences from religious sources outside Islam. For example, stories in the Koran about Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other characters from the Bible obviously come from the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospels. But there is also evidence of borrowing in the Koran from more obscure literature.
In this anthology, the acclaimed critic of Islam Ibn Warraq has assembled scholarly articles that delve into these unusual, little-known sources. The contributors examine the connections between pre-Islamic poetry and the text of the Koran; and they explore similarities between various Muslim doctrines and ideas found in the writings of the Ebionites, a Jewish Christian sect that existed from the second to the fourth centuries. Also considered is the influence of Coptic Christian literature on the writing of the traditional biography of Muhammad.