This book provides an introduction to the vision of an economic system based completely on the Holy Qur'an-a system defined as a collection of institutions, representing rules of behavior, prescribed by Allah for humans, and the traditions of the Messenger. The authors argue that the main reason for the economic underperformance of Muslim countries and their economies has been non-compliance with the prescribed rules of behavior. Rule non-compliance has been chiefly due to the failure of Muslims to comprehend the Metaframework of the Qur'an and the Archetype Model of the Prophet Mohammad and interpret them in ways compatible with their own generation and time. Askari and Mirakhor believe these rules (institutions), properly adapted to prevailing conditions present what they consider as an ideal economic system.

Scholars from various disciplines worked together to present the first interdisciplinary book to address the issue of Islam, secularism and globalization. The book has a clear structure which represents its interdisciplinary approach: the first section addresses the philosophical and historical discussion about Islam and secularism; the second section discusses the topic from an ethnographical and social anthropological viewpoint; and the final section addresses Islam, secularism and globalization from a political viewpoint. This unique collection not only offers innovative research and new material, it also provides empirical examples and theoretical debates, and could therefore also be used as a textbook for courses on Islam, globalization, anthropology, politics, sociology and law.

Writing has come face-to-face with a most crucial juncture: to negotiate with the inescapable presence of violence. From the domains of contemporary Middle Eastern literature, this book stages a powerful conversation on questions of cruelty, evil, rage, vengeance, madness, and deception. Beyond the narrow judgment of violence as a purely tragic reality, these writers (in states of exile, prison, martyrdom, and war) come to wager with the more elusive, inspiring, and even ecstatic dimensions that rest at the heart of a visceral universe of imagination. Covering complex and controversial thematic discussions, Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh forms an extreme record of voices, movements, and thought-experiments drawn from the inner circles of the Middle Eastern region. By exploring the most abrasive writings of this vast cultural front, the book reveals how such captivating outsider texts could potentially redefine our understanding of violence and its now-unstoppable relationship to a dangerous age.

FEW BRITISH EXPLORERS IN ARABIA have produced books whose importance as travelogues is trans-cended by their literary quality. One such is The Holy Cities of Arabia, published to critical acclaim in 1928, with its author hailed as a worthy successor to Burckhardt, Burton and Doughty. Unrivalled among works by Western travellers to Islam's holy cities, this account of a pilgrimage to Makkah in 1925-26 is made all the more remark-able by its author's timing. In 1925 `Abd al-`Aziz Ibn Saud brought to an end centuries of rule over the Hijaz by the Hashimite sharifs and their Ottoman overlords. Rutter, living as a learned Muslim Arab in a Makkan household, had a ringside seat as Riyadh imposed its writ on Islam's holy cities. As striking as his account of life in Makkah before modernization are his interviews with Ibn Saud, and his journeys to al-Ta'if and to the City of the Prophet, al-Madinah. The Holy Cities of Arabia proved to be its author's only full-length work. After a brief career as a Middle East traveller, Rutter lapsed into obscurity. This new edition aims to revive a neglected masterpiece and to establish Rutter's reputation. Little was known about him until now and the introduction tells the story of his life for the first time, assessing his talents as a travel writer and analysing his significance as a British convert.

This is an analytical and reflective look at the contribution that Christian-Muslim partnerships can make to community cohesion.In "Religious Cohesion in Times of Conflict" Andrew Holden presents the results and analysis of the key findings of a sociological investigation which seeks to establish the contribution that Christian-Muslim partnerships can make to community cohesion.Beginning with a historical and sociological overview of faith relations, a description of the empirical methodology and a discussion of the evolution of Christian-Muslim partnerships, Andrew Holden goes on to highlight how the fieldwork data demonstrates the challenges of uniting young people in segregated towns and cities. He considers the implications of the findings for education policy, examining some of the ways in which schools and colleges can promote faith cohesion, and further addresses the issue of faith leadership, considering how the changing faith landscape affects the work of Christian and Muslim clerics.He concludes by considering possible ways forward for Christian-Muslim relations both in Britain and in the international context and for the development of new partnerships between faith and secular organizations.

The Dawn of Islamic Literalism: Rise of the Crescent Moon is a book written specifically for the People of the Occident. It places the subject matter, which is unfamiliar to most westerners, in chronological sequence and historical context. It exposes readers to the Qur'an, and to the traditions of Muhammad, as they occurred in the 6th and 7th century. However, unlike most other related works, it provides commentary and analysis from both an Islamic literalist and a Western perspective. It aims to give the reader an awareness into the ideology and behavior of 7th century Muslims and to help provide insight into contemporary Islamic literalism and its implications for the Western world.

Who or what is a religiously ideal Believer and Woman in Islam? This book identifies, compares, and contrasts how two contemporary Muslim groups here termed Neo-Traditional Salafis and progressive Muslims interpret the Qur'an and Sunna in order to construct what each considers to be a religiously ideal concept of a 'Believer' and 'Woman' in Islam. This is the first work which systematically focuses on identifying and explaining which interpretational mechanisms are responsible for the often very different interpretations of these two concepts.

Religion in Europe is currently undergoing changes that are reconfiguring physical and virtual spaces of practice and belief, and these changes need to be understood with regards to the proliferation of digital media discourses. This book explores religious change in Europe through a comparative approach that analyzes Atheist, Catholic, and Muslim blogs as spaces for articulating narratives about religion that symbolically challenge the power of religious institutions. The book adds theoretical complexity to the study of religion and digital media with the concept of hypermediated religious spaces. The theory of hypermediation helps to critically discuss the theory of secularization and to contextualize religious change as the result of multiple entangled phenomena. It considers religion as being connected with secular and post-secular spaces, and media as embedding material forms, institutions, and technologies. A spatial perspective contextualizes hypermediated religious spaces as existing at the interstice of alternative and mainstream, private and public, imaginary and real venues. By offering the innovative perspective of hypermediated religious spaces, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, the sociology of religion, and digital media.

This book discusses inner peace from an Islamic theological and spiritual perspective, the writings of Said Nursi, a twentieth century Muslim scholar. Inner peace is a topic of great interest in the world at present. While happiness and mental health have been extensively discussed from a psychological and sociological perspective, and while inner peace has been written about from various religious viewpoints, there is very little scholarly work on inner peace from an Islamic theological and spiritual perspective. This book addresses this significant gap. With Islam being the second largest religion in the world, this book provides an important contribution to the literature on a faith tradition which is followed by so many. In addressing the intersection between Islam, spirituality and psychology, this book makes an original contribution to the literature on modern Islamic thinkers like Nursi, and to the broader fields of Islamic studies, and theology, philosophy and well-being studies.

The expert essays in this volume deal with critically important topics concerning Islam and politics in both the pre-modern and modern periods, such as the nature of government, the relationship between politics and theology, Shi'i conceptions of statecraft, notions of public duty, and the compatibility of Islam and democratic governance.

As a wave of popular unrest toppled autocratic rulers across the Middle East and North Africa, many in the West watched with growing concern as Islamists came to power. The continued prominence of Islam in the struggle for democracy in the Muslim world has confounded Western democracy theorists, who largely consider secularism a prerequisite for democratic transition. In Political Islam in the Age of Democratization, Kamran Bokhari and Farid Senzai offer a comprehensive view of the complex nature of contemporary political Islam and its relationship to democracy. With a useful theoretical framework, classification of Islamists, and rich historical context, this book is a compelling and insightful analysis of Islamism and the role that religion is likely to play in any future Muslim democracy.

Ismaili Studies represents one of the most recent fields of Islamic Studies. Much new research has taken place in this field as a result of the recovery of a large number of Ismaili texts. Ismaili Literature contains a complete listing of the sources and secondary studies, including theses, written by Ismailis or about them in all major Islamic and European languages. It also contains chapters surveying Ismaili history and developments in modern Ismaili Studies.

International Society and the Middle East brings together a distinguished cast of theorists and Middle East experts to provide a comprehensive overview of the region's history and how its own traditions have mixed, often uncomfortably, with the political structures imposed by the expansion of Western international society.

This book is a valuable and methodologically consistent learning and teaching academic resource for universities worldwide in this intriguing new discipline.

Against the backdrop of the turbulent social and political landscape of today's Pakistan, Robert Rozehnal traces the ritual practices and identity politics of a contemporary Sufi order: the Chishti Sabiris. He does so from multiple perspectives: from the rich Urdu writings of twentieth century Sufi masters, to the complex spiritual life of contemporary disciples and the order's growing transnational networks. Drawing on new textual and ethnographic research, this multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary study of the Sufi tradition challenges the prevailing models of academic scholarship.

Islamic law is the epitome of Islamic thought, the most typical manifestation of the Islamic way of life, the core and kernel of Islam itself, asserts Joseph Schacht the internationally renowed Islamic law scholar. Indeed, the primary place of law in Islam as well as the preponderance of the legal over the theological in Muslim thinking has long been recognized by both Muslim jurisprudents and by Western legal scholars. At a time when Islamic fundamentalism is flourishing, the relation of religion in and to law-related behavior needs to be scrutinized. In its eight chapters, contributed by various experts in the field and with a cogent introduction by editor Daisy Hilse Dwyer that focuses on the sources of law, the reasons for its centrality in the Middle East, and personal status law, this volume considers Middle Eastern law as practiced by Muslims in a diversity of Middle Eastern nations. The dynamics of dispute settlement, the interaction of court personnel with litigants, the content of legislation, and the promulgation of public policies about law are detailed here as well as the power dynamics of laW's interpersonal, intergroup, and international sides. Focusing on the specifics of contemporary politics and social life, the volume provides a baseline for understanding how, and the degree to which, the legal principles and the legal ethos elaborated in Islam centuries ago continue to provide a vital dynamic in legal behavior and thinking today.

The first five chapters deal with the on-the-ground intricacies of personal status law. They detail the complex blend of options and constraints that Middle Easterners experience in confronting personal status issues and examine the different approaches to these issues by contrasting regional evironments and differentially empowered social groups. The last three chapters assess law in the public domain-an area in which the most striking recent applications of Islamic law have occurred. Law and Islam in the Middle East will be of particular value to international law experts, students of Islam, comparative law, and the Middle East, as well as practicing social scientists and others who seek a practical and philosophical understanding of how the spirit and letter of Islamic law constitute and reconstitute themselves with a fine-tuned responsiveness to a continuously changing nation and world.

This volume deals with the so-called new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and their interrelationship with Muslims and the interpretation of Islam. This volume taps into what has been labelled Media Studies 2.0, which has been characterized by an intensified focus on everyday meanings and 'lay' users - in contrast to earlier emphases on experts or self-acclaimed experts. This lay adoption of ICT and the subsequent digital 'literacy' is not least noticeable among Muslim communities. According to some global estimates, one in ten internet users is a Muslim. This volume offers an ethnography of ICT in Muslim communities. The contributors to this volume also demonstrate a new kind of moderation with regard to more sweeping and avant-gardistic claims, which have characterized the study of ICT previously. This moderation has been combined with a keen attention to the empirical material but also deliberations on new quantitative and qualitative approaches to ICT, Muslims and Islam, for instance the digital challenges and changes wrought on the Qur'an, Islam's sacred scripture. As such this volume will also be relevant for people interested in the study of ICT and the blooming field of digital humanities. Scholars of Islam and the Islamic world have always be engaged and entangled in their object of study. The developments within ICT have also affected how scholars take part in and influence public Islamic and academic discussions. This complicated issue provides basis for a number of meta-reflexive studies in this volume. It will be essential for students and scholars within Islamic studies but will also be of interest for anthropologists, sociologists and others with a humanistic interest in ICT, religion and Islam.

Islamic powers in secular countries have presented a challenge for states around the world, including Indonesia, home to the largest Muslim population as well as the third largest democracy in the world. This book explores the history of the relationships between Islam, state, and society in Indonesia with a focus on local politics in Madura. It identifies and explains factors that have shaped and characterized the development of contemporary Islam and politics in Madura and recognizes and elucidates forms and aspects of the relationships between Islam and politics; between state and society; between conflicts and accommodations; between piety, tradition and violence in that area, and the forms and characters of democratization and decentralization processes in local politics. This book shows how the area's experience in dealing with Islam and politics may illuminate the socio-political trajectory of other developing Muslim countries at present living through comparable democratic transformations. Madura was chosen because it has one of the most complex relationships between Islam and politics during the last years of the New Order and the first years of the post-New Order in Indonesia, and because it is a strong Muslim area with a history of a very strong religious as well as cultural tradition than is commonly understood and is largely ignored in literature on Islam and politics. Based on extensive sets of anthropological fieldwork and historical research, this book makes an important contribution to the analysis of Islam and politics in Indonesia and future socio-political trajectory of other developing Muslim countries experiencing comparable democratic transformations. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Religion and Politics and Southeast Asian Studies, in particular Southeast Asian politics, anthropology and history.

Since 2011, with the British Government's counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, non-violent Islamist groups have been considered a security risk for spreading a divisive ideology that can lead to radicalisation and violence. More recently, the Government has expressed concerns about their impact on social cohesion, entryism, and women's rights. The key protagonists of non-violent Islamist 'extremism' allegedly include groups and individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Jama'at-i-Islami. They have been described as part of the 'global Muslim Brotherhood', but do they constitute a singular phenomenon, a social movement? This book shows that such groups and individuals do indeed comprise a movement in Britain, one dedicated to an Islamic 'revival'. It shows how they are networked organisationally, bonded through ideological and cultural kinship, and united in a conflict of values with the British society and state. Using original interviews with prominent revivalist leaders, as well as primary sources, the book also shows how the movement is not so much 'Islamist' in aspiring for an Islamic state, but concerned with institutionalising an Islamic worldview and moral framework throughout society. The conflict between the Government and the global Muslim Brotherhood is apparent in a number of different fields, including education, governance, law, and counterterrorism. But this does not simply concern the direction of Government policy or the control of state institutions. It most fundamentally concerns the symbolic authority to legitimise a way of seeing, thinking and living. By assessing this multifaceted conflict, the book presents an exhaustive and up-to-date analysis of the political and cultural fault lines between Islamic revivalists and the British authorities. It will be useful for anyone studying Islam in the West, government counter-terrorism and counter-extremism policy, multiculturalism and social cohesion.