The book is a research monograph which contains high-level research by leading experts in waqf and charitable endowment. The subject has international appeal in jurisdictions having Islamic financial institutions and this includes all countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in particular, and Africa at large, some leading countries in Southeast Asia such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia The book will be useful for all institutions across the world having charitable endowments, social finance, and Islamic finance curriculum Experts involved in charitable endowments and global Non-governmental organizations and humanitarian groups will also find the book very useful The editors were formally affiliated with the Harvard Law School at some time during their careers and some of the contributors are leading experts in Islamic social finance. One of the contributors is a recipient of the prestigious Islamic Development Bank Prize in Islamic Economics.

This book examines Islam's relationship to democratization in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives. It explores how and why an electoral democracy based in a constitution that has many liberal features but also Islam-based limitations, especially lack of religious freedom, emerged in the country by 2009. In doing so, the book interrogates a major approach to Muslim politics that assumes reformist interpretations of Islam are a positive, and even a necessary, force for liberalization and democratization in Muslim-majority contexts. This book shows reformist Islam did play certain positive roles in democratization in the Maldives. However, the book suggests reformist Islam may not be an invariably uncontroversial force in the space of politics. It argues that modern nation building in the Maldives shaped by political actors with reformist Islamic orientations, since around the 1930s, has also completely transformed Islam as a modern institutional and discursive political religion. These transformations of Islam as a modern political religion have existed as path-dependent constraints on the depth of democratization, ensuring religion-based limitations and intensifying controversy over religion vis-a-vis the state and individual rights. An original empirical contribution towards a better understanding of Islam and politics in the Maldives, this book will be of interest to academics and students working on democracy, and Islam in particular, and in the fields of political science and area studies, especially South Asian politics.

This book explores the changing role of Muslim women in the economy in the twenty-first century. Sociological developments such as secular education, female-focused policies, national and global commitments to gender equality as well as contemporary technological advances have all served to shift and redefine the domestic and public roles of Muslim women, leading in many places to increases in workplace participation ?and entrepreneurship. The volume investigates the contexts of these shifts and the experiences of women balancing faith and other commitments to actively engage in the economy in vastly different countries. The book looks at how family codes and the understandings of Muslim male and female roles sit alongside social and economic advances and the increases in women partaking in the economy. ?Within a globalised world, it also highlights the importance of the implementation of the current sustainable development priorities in the context of Muslim societies, including Sustainable Development Goal 5 that focuses on the vital role of women and their full participation in all areas of sustainable development. With cases ranging from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bangladesh, ?Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Kenya through to Spain, Bulgaria? and Australia, Muslim Women in the Economy will be of considerable interest to those studying, researching and interested in gender, development and religious studies.

This book explores the recent trend toward the transformation of religious symbols and practices into culture in Western democracies. Analyses of three legal cases involving religion in the public sphere are used to illuminate this trend: a municipal council chamber; a town hall; and town board meetings. Each case involves a different national context-Canada, France and the United States-and each illustrates something interesting about the shape-shifting nature of religion, specifically its flexibility and dexterity in the face of the secular, the religious and the plural. Despite the differences in national contexts, in each instance religion is transformed into culture or heritage by the courts to justify or excuse its presence and to distance the state from the possibility that it is violating legal norms of distance from religion. The cultural practice or symbol is represented as a shared national value or activity. Transforming the 'Other' into 'Us' through reconstitution is also possible. Finally, anxiety about the 'Other' becomes part of the story of rendering religion as culture, resulting in the impugning of anyone who dares to question the putative shared culture. The book will be essential reading for students, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of sociology of religion, religious studies, socio-legal studies, law and public policy, constitutional law, religion and politics, and cultural studies.

With a scope that bridges the gap between the study of classical Islam and the modern Middle East, this book uncovers a profound theological dimension in contemporary Islamic radicalism and explores the continued relevance of medieval theology to modern debates. Based on an examination of the thought of the medieval scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), the book demonstrates how long-standing fault lines within Sunni Islam have resurfaced in the past half-century to play a major role in such episodes as the Qutbist controversy within the Muslim Brotherhood, the split between radical salafis and politically quietist ones, the renunciation of militancy by Egyptian and Libyan jihadist groups, and the radicalization of the insurgency in the North Caucasus. This work combines classical Islamic scholarship with a deep familiarity with contemporary radicalism and offers compelling new insights into the structure of modern radical Islam.

Tango and the Dancing Body in Istanbul explores the expansion of social Argentine tango dancing among Muslim actors in Turkey, pioneered in Istanbul despite the conservative rule of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) and Tayyip Erdogan. In this book, Melin Levent Yuna questions why a dance that appears to publicly represent an erotic relationship finds space to expand and increase dramatically in the number of contemporary Turkish Muslim tango dancers, particularly during a conservative rule. Even during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, tango dance classes, gatherings, and messages flourished on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Zoom. Urban Turkey and its tango dance performances provide one symbol and example of how neoliberal capitalism could go hand in hand with conservatism by becoming a bridge between Europe and the Middle East. This study largely focuses on the dancers' perspective while presenting the policies of Erdogan. It presents the social characteristics of the tango dancers, the meanings they attach to their bodies and their dance as well as what this dance reflects about them - besides the policies of the Justice and Development Party. The book approaches the tango dance and its dancing body in terms of layers of meaning systems in a neoliberal and conservative context. This study will be of great interest to students and scholars in dance, anthropology, cultural studies, and performance studies.

This comprehensive survey of contemporary Islam provides a philosophical and theological approach to the issues faced by Muslims and the question of global secularisation. Engaging with critics of modern Islam, Shabbir Akhtar sets out an agenda of what his religion is and could be as a political entity.

Exploring the views and arguments of philosophical, religious and political thinkers, the author covers a raft of issues faced by Muslims in an increasingly secular society. Chapters are devoted to the Qur an and Islamic literature; the history of Islam; Sharia law; political Islam; Islamic ethics; and political Islam 's evolving relationship with the West. Recommending changes which enable Muslims to move from their imperial past to a modest role in the power structures of today 's society, Akhtar offers a detailed assessment of the limitations and possibilities of Islam in the modern world.

Providing a vision for an empowered yet rational Islam that distances itself from both Islamist factions and Western secularism, this book is an essential read for students and scholars of Islamic studies, religion, philosophy and politics.

The book examines the growing tension between social movements that embrace egalitarian and inclusivist views of national and global politics, most notably classical liberalism, and those that advance social hierarchy and national exclusivism, such as neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and national populism. In exploring issues relating to tensions and conflicts around globalization, the book identifies historical patterns of convergence and divergence rooted in the monotheistic traditions, beginning with the ancient Israelites that dominated the Near East during the Axial age, through Islamic civilization, and finally by considering the idealism-realism tensions in modern times. One thing remained constant throughout the various historical stages that preceded our current moment of global convergence: a recurring tension between transcendental idealism and various forms of realism. Transcendental idealism, which prioritize egalitarian and universal values, pushed periodically against the forces of realism that privilege established law and power structure. Equipped with the idealism-realism framework, the book examines the consequences of European realism that justified the imperialistic venture into Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America in the name of liberation and liberalization. The ill-conceived strategy has, ironically, engendered the very dysfunctional societies that produce the waves of immigrants in constant motion from the South to the North, simultaneously as it fostered the social hierarchy that transfer external tensions into identity politics within the countries of the North. The book focuses particularly on the role played historically by Islamic rationalism in translating the monotheistic egalitarian outlook into the institutions of religious pluralism, legislative and legal autonomy, and scientific enterprise at the foundation of modern society. It concludes by shedding light on the significance of the Muslim presence in Western cultures as humanity draws slowly but consistently towards what we may come to recognize as the Global Age. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003203360, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir (1160-1233AD), entitled 'al-Kamil fi'l-Ta'rikh', is one of the outstanding sources for the history of the mediaeval world. It covers the whole sweep of Islamic history almost up to the death of its author and, with the sources available to him, he attempted to embrace the widest geographical spread; events in Iraq, Iran and further East run in counterpoint with those involving North Africa and Spain. From the time of the arrival of the Crusaders in the Levant, their activities and the Muslim response become the focus of the work. This part covers the establishment of the Crusader states and the initial weak and divided response of Muslim regimes in the area, the moribund Fatimid caliphate in Egypt and competing emirs in Syria and Mesopotamia. The strengthening of the Muslim reaction is typified by the career of Zanki, which also illustrates the important links with events in the orbit of the Abbasid caliphate and the Saljuq sultanate.

Considers the three main conceptions of Quran Comprehensive in scope Brings both established scholars and newer voices to the discussion

Biographies of significant personalities in history are important for one's self learning and character building. People can learn from the mistakes in history and also can connect to their past and their roots. These inspiring stories not only introduce but also pass down Islamic values and accounts to our future generations in order to build their character on the footsteps of the noble, virtuous and exemplary characters of these great Muslim personalities in the history of Islamic civilization. They remain the best role models for us and while bringing up children in the west, it is hard to find such information in the curriculum of schools. These stories are spread over the eight hundred years of the Golden Age of Islam and Muslim civilization. They are chosen for their contribution to either their own people or their significant role in stabilizing their empire hence providing periods of prosperity, growth and development for Muslim society. The articles are not meant to be a full account of the biographies of these great Muslim leaders. They simply highlight good and inspiring aspects of their personalities.

Islamic State's Online Activity and Responses provides a unique examination of Islamic State's online activity at the peak of its "golden age" between 2014 and 2017 and evaluates some of the principal responses to this phenomenon. Featuring contributions from experts across a range of disciplines, the volume examines a variety of aspects of IS's online activity, including their strategic objectives, the content and nature of their magazines and videos, and their online targeting of females and depiction of children. It also details and analyses responses to IS's online activity - from content moderation and account suspensions to informal counter-messaging and disrupting terrorist financing - and explores the possible impact of technological developments, such as decentralised and peer-to-peer networks, going forward. Platforms discussed include dedicated jihadi forums, major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and newer services, including Twister. Islamic State's Online Activity and Responses is essential reading for researchers, students, policymakers, and all those interested in the contemporary challenges posed by online terrorist propaganda and radicalisation. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.

Studying the history of the notion of the 'Perfect Human' (al-insan al-kamil), this book investigates a key idea in the history of Sufism. First discussed by Ibn 'Arabi and later treated in greater depth by al-Jili, the idea left its mark on later Islamic mystical, metaphysical, and political thought, from North Africa to Southeast Asia, up until modern times. The research tells the story of the development of that idea from Ibn 'Arabi to al-Jili and beyond. It does so through a thematic study, based on close reading of primary sources in Arabic and Persian, of the key elements of the idea, including the idea that the Perfect Human is a locus of divine manifestation (mazhar), the concept of the 'Pole' (qutb) and the 'Muhammadan Reality' (al-haqiqah al-Muhammadiyyah), and the identity of the Perfect Human. By setting the work of al-Jili against the background of earlier Ibn 'Arabian treatments of the idea, it demonstrates that al-Jili took the idea of the Perfect Human in several new directions, with major consequences for how the Prophet Muhammad - the archetypal Perfect Human - was viewed in later Islamic thought. Introducing readers to the key Sufi idea of the Perfect Human (al-insan al-kamil), this volume will be of interest to scholars and students interested in Sufism, Islam, religion and philosophy.

This book places context at the core of the Islamic mechanism of ifta' to better understand the process of issuing fatwas in Muslim and non-Muslim countries, thus highlighting the connection between context and contemporaneity, on one hand, and the adaptable perception of Islamic law, on the other. The practice of ifta' is one of the most important mechanisms of Islamic law that keeps Islamic thought about ethical and legal issues in harmony with the demands, exigencies and developments of time. This book builds upon the existing body of work related to the practice of ifta', but takes the discussion beyond the current debates with the intent of unveiling the interaction between Islamic legal methodologies and different environmental contexts. The book specifically addresses the three institutions (Saudi Arabia's Dar al-Ifta', Turkey's Diyanet and America's FCNA) and their Islamic legal opinions (fatwas) in a comparative framework. This demonstrates the existence of complex and diverse ideas around similar issues within contemporary Islamic legal opinions that is further complicated by the influence of international, social, political, cultural and ideological contexts. The book thus unveils a more complicated range of interactive constituents in the process of the practice of ifta' and its outputs, fatwas. The work will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Islamic law, Middle Eastern studies, religion and politics.

The book investigates modern Qur'an commentaries in South Asia and engages with how Muslim scholars have imagined and assessed their past intellectual heritage. The research is focused on British India from the time of the Mutiny of 1857 to the moment of the Partition of united India in 1947. Offering critical scrutiny of Muslim exegesis of the Qur'an in North India, the study especially focuses on the Qur'anic thought of Sayyid Ahmed Khan (d. 1989), Ashraf Ali Thanawi (d. 1943), and Hamid al-Din Farahi (d. 1930). The volume challenges widespread assumptions of an all-pervasive reform and revivalism underlying the academic study of Islam. Instead of looking for Muslim revivalism and reform as epistemological foundations, it stresses the study of modern Qur'an commentaries, in particular local and cosmopolitan contexts. Departing from the oft-repeated explanations of Muslim scholarship and modern Islam through the lens of traditionalism and modernism, it discovers how Muslim scholars viewed themselves in relation to the Islamic tradition, and how they imagined and assessed their past intellectual heritage. Studying the history of the interpretation of the Qur'an in the multiple contexts of nineteenth and early twentieth-century British India, the book will be of interest to readers of Qur'anic studies, modern Islam and South Asian studies.

This book breaks new ground by bringing together a variety of regional perspectives and linguistic backgrounds. The book opens up new perspectives on Muharram as a social practice widely shared by South Asians in South Asia and the diaspora. A key resource to scholars and students of South Asian Studies, Asian religion, in particular rituals and religious practices, and Islamic Studies.

Using an assemblage approach to study how Muslim women in Norrebro, Denmark use their phones, Karen Waltorp examines how social media complicates the divide between public and private in relation to a group of people who find this distinction of utmost significance. Building on years of ethnographic fieldwork, Waltorp's ethnography reflects the trust and creativity of her relationships with these women which in turn open up nuanced discussions about both the subject at hand and best practice in conducting anthropological research. Combining rich ethnography with theoretical contextualization, Waltorp's book alternates between ethnography and analysis to illuminate a thoroughly modern community, and reveals the capacity of image-making technology to function as an infrastructure for seeing, thinking and engaging in fieldwork as an anthropologists. Waltorp identifies a series of important issues around anthropological approaches to new media, contributing to new debates around the anthropology of automation, data and self-tracking.

Presents a highly valuable approach to a severely under-researched area;

This book addresses this gap by offering a philosophical and contextual study of this aspect of al-Ghazali's ethics and of the conception of moral beauty that emerges from it. It will be of interest to scholars and students in Islamic ethics, Islamic intellectual history and the history of ethics.

This book sets out how contemporary Iranian scholars have approached the Qur'an during recent decades. It particularly aims to explore the contributions of scholars that have emerged in the post 1979-revolution era, outlining their primary interpretive methods and foundational theories regarding the reading of the Qur'an. Examining issues such as the status of women, democracy, freedom of religion and human rights, this book analyses the theoretical contributions of several Iranian scholars, some of which are new to the English-speaking academy. The hermeneutical approaches of figures such Abdolkarim Soroush, Muhammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Mohsen Kadivar, Hasan Yousefi-Eshkevari, Abolqasem Fanaie and Mostafa Malekian are presented and then analysed to demonstrate how a contextualist approach to the Qu'ran has been formed in response to the influence of Western Orientalism. The effect of this approach to the Qu'ran is then shown to have wide-ranging effects on Iranian society. This study reveals Qu'ranic thought that has been largely overlooked by the West. It will, therefore. Be of great use to academics in Religious, Islamic and Qur'anic studies as well as those studying the culture of Iran and the Middle East more generally.

This volume examines several theoretical concerns of embodiment in the context of Asian religious practice. Looking at both subtle and spatial bodies, it explores how both types of embodiment are engaged as sites for transformation, transaction and transgression. Collectively bridging ancient and modern conceptualizations of embodiment in religious practice, the book offers a complex mapping of how body is defined. It revisits more traditional, mystical religious systems, including Hindu Tantra and Yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Bon, Chinese Daoism and Persian Sufism and distinctively juxtaposes these inquiries alongside analyses of racial, gendered, and colonized bodies. Such a multifaceted subject requires a diverse approach, and so perspectives from phenomenology and neuroscience as well as critical race theory and feminist theology are utilised to create more precise analytical tools for the scholarly engagement of embodied religious epistemologies. This a nuanced and interdisciplinary exploration of the myriad issues around bodies within religion. As such it will be a key resource for any scholar of Religious Studies, Asian Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, and Gender Studies.

During the 20th century many countries embarked on a process of constitutional secularization by which the role of religion gradually became limited. Yet, by the late 20th century, and increasingly following the end of the Cold War, this development began to be challenged. This book examines the return of religion in constitutions through the concept of constitutional de-secularization. It places this phenomenon in the context of the constitutional memory of the countries in which it has taken place and critically examines it against the development and standards of constitutionalism, as the prevailing constitutional legal and political theory. Central to this analysis is the impact of constitutional de-secularization on the regulation of equality in liberty, that is, both the regulation of constitutional rights and the scope for equality of those who are granted such rights. The book argues that equal liberty forms an essential part of constitutionalism as a theory, and that constitutionalism therefore entails a continuous development towards expanding it. The first and second part of the book presents a conceptual framework for the study of constitutional de-secularization. The third part presents and analyses three cases of constitutional de-secularization in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. The book will be of interest to researchers and policy-makers interested in constitutional history and theory, and the role of religion in law and its compatibility with human rights.

The book evaluates on-going ethical conversations to learn how emotional communication is received, teachings are internalized, and a religious world-view is brought to life. Exploring how religious values saturate people's consciousness to induce subtle shifts in moral and ethical sensibilities, this book is about people's practices that illuminate how Islam is lived. Based on fieldwork conducted in Ankara between 2010 and 2016, the study enquires into people's ethical, religious, and moral motivations through the use of the ethnographic method and "thick description". Conversations and interviews with officials, community leaders, students, entrepreneurs, professionals, and blue-collar workers were subjected to close scrutiny to foreground societal change and churning. To capture perspectives absent or deliberately overlooked in mainstream public discourse and scholarship, fieldwork was conducted in locations ranging from homes, offices, and university dorms to the shrines of saints. In listening closely to how people talk about their religious practices, the book addresses the question of how Islamic subjectivities are being forged in Turkey. The study unveils how people are pushed to re-think old practices and attitudes in the process of reinterpreting Islam in light of contemporary concerns. Filling a gap in the literature where micro-level, grounded analyses of culture and society are relatively rare, this book is a key resource for readers interested in the anthropology of religion and gender, ethnography, Turkey, and the Middle East.

Islam, Populism and Regime Change in Turkey explores the role of religion (Sunni, Hanefi Islam) in the transformation of Turkey under the reign of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP). The chapters argue that the Turkish understanding of secularism was also one of the building blocks and the constitutive elements of Turkey's modernization until the rise of the AKP. Currently, however, it seems that religion has become a new or re-born element of the new Turkey and has been transforming many areas such as: the media, the Kurdish issue, implementation of the rule of law, foreign policy and gender issues. This book therefore aims to scrutinize the question: how does a religion-based transformation in Turkey influence the raison d'etat of the state, and effect in various ways different areas such as gender, foreign policy, economy and socio-political relations of various power groups within the society? Islam, Populism and Regime Change in Turkey will be of great interest to scholars of Religion and Politics, and governance in Turkey. It was originally published as a special issue of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

This book focuses on the ritualized forms of mobility that constitute phenomena of pilgrimage in South Asia and establishes a new analytical framework for the study of ritual journeys. The book advances the conceptual scope of 'classical' Pilgrimage Studies and provides empirical depth through individual case studies. A key concern is the strategies of ritualization through which actors create, assemble and (re-)articulate certain modes of displacement to differentiate themselves from everyday forms of locomotion. Ritual journeys are understood as being both productive of and produced by South Asia's socio-economically uneven, politically charged and culturally variegated landscapes. From various disciplinary angles, each chapter explores how spaces and movements in space are continually created, contested and transformed through ritual journeys. By focusing on this co-production of space and mobility, the book delivers a conceptually driven and empirically grounded engagement with the diverse and changing traditions of ritual journeying in South Asia. Interdisciplinary in its approach, the book is a must-have reference work for academics interested in South Asian Studies, Religious Studies, Anthropology and Human Geography with a focus on pilgrimage and the socio-spatial ideas and practices of ritualized movements in South Asia.