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.

The book is a collection of chapters discussing the Sustainable Development Goals in the broader context of Islamic finance along with mapping the SDGs with Maqasid Al-Shariah. It provides a framework for both Muslim and non-Muslim countries to develop a sustainable economy which encompasses not only the concept of the welfare state but also supports development-related activities, ensures financial inclusion through equal distribution of wealth and alleviation of poverty, and protects the overall environmental and ecological system. More specifically, this book explores various aspects of Islamic finance in relation to parameters of SDGs; restructuring of Islamic finance and connecting its dots in the light of SDGs; Islamic perspective on ESG and ecological quality; interest-free tools and modernization of Islamic financial institutions for sustainable development and economic stability; and the role of Islamic finance in infrastructure-related development activities. Consistent with the view that SDGs are embedded within the theme of Islamic finance, this book is specifically designed to meet the needs of key regulatory institutions, academic scholars, and industry practitioners both in the field of Islamic finance and sustainable finance.

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 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.

Drawing from a variety of sources, this anthology encourages readers to explore the multiple dimensions of Islamic terrorism and seeks to promote a better understanding of one of the most complicated and urgent problems facing the world today. Divided into six parts, the book deals with the theological and ideological background of the concept of jihad, the policies and organization of Al Qaeda, various policy recommendations for combating terrorism, the motivations of suicide bombers, the dilemma jihadists pose in Western countries, and the adoption of classical European and anti-Semitic myths for political and religious gain in segments of the Muslim world. With excerpts ranging from works by Sayyid Qutb to Osama bin Laden to Nonie Darwish, this book is a must-have for anyone interested in or studying Islamic terrorism.

"The book traces the rise of Islamism in Lebanon and its attempt to Islamize society and state by the reverse integration of society and state into the project of Islamism. Against a background of weak and contested national identity and capricious interaction between religious affiliation and confessional politics, this book attempts to illustrate in detailed analysis this "comprehensive" project of Islamism according to its ideological and practical evolutionary change. The book demonstrates that, despite ideological, political and confessional incongruities and concerns, Islamism, in both its Sunni and Shi'a variants, has maintained a unity of purpose in pursuing its project: Jihad against Israel and abolishment of political sectarianism"--

More than a century ago, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville remarked that Islam was not compatible with democracy and that conflicts between Islamic nations and the West were therefore inevitable. Although this viewpoint is not shared by all, it has some influence among scholars. The 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center Tower in New York City intensified the debate. With the rapid economic developments in Asia in recent decades, another important topic of debate has increasingly attracted people's attention: the compatibility of the so-called "Asian values" (ones that value family ties and strong government) with democratic ideals that value individualism and weak government. The debate has become even more intense with the combination of Islamic and Asian values regarding democratization. Asia is home to many Muslims, including Indonesia, the most populous Islam country in the world. Is Islam compatible with democratization in the context of Asian cultures? This is the central question that this collection of essays seeks to answer. To address these important issues, a series of books have been published in the English language. Most of these books deal with the relationship between Islam, Muslims, and democratization with a sub-region in Asia, such as Islam and democracy in central Asia, Islam, and Muslims in south Asia, as well as Islam and democracy in Southeast Asia. Some deal with the same issue with a focus on the future. However, there has yet to be a book that deals with the relationship between Islam, Muslims, and democratization in the context of Asian cultures from the perspectives of theory and empirical country studies in South, Southeast, and Central Asia. This volume seeks to help fill the gap. Although most contributors in this collection are affiliated with scholarly institutions in North America and Europe, most of them have their ethnic origins in Asia. Contributors in this collection include not only scholars but also practitioners, such as diplomats. The voices of this diverse group thus represent a variety of viewpoints, spanning from those who believe that Islam is compatible with democracy to those who have doubts about it. The first three chapters by Muqtedar Khan, Moataz A. Fattah, and Laure Paquette discuss the theoretical issues of Islam in the context of Asian cultures. Issues addressed include the relationship between Islamic governance and democracy, the Muslim political culture, and the underdog strategy adopted by some Islamic countries in Asia. These theoretical studies are followed by three chapters by Touqir Hussain, Tariq Karim, and Omar Khalidi, who comment on South Asia. They discuss topics that include the relations between Islam and democracy in the context of Pakistan, the aspiring pluralist democracy and expanding political Islam in Bangladesh, and the Muslim experience of Indian democracy. This is then followed by a section on Southeast Asia where Felix Heiduk discusses the role of political Islam in post-Suharto Indonesia in one chapter and Naveed S. Sheikh comments on the ambiguities of Islamic(ate) politics in Malaysia in another chapter. The last two chapters are on Central Asia. Brian Glyn Williams provides unprecedented insight about the Taliban and Al Qaeda suicide bombers with an account of his field trip to Afghanistan, and Morris Rossabi discusses Muslim and democracy in the context of China and Central Asia. This volume, comprising the perspectives of scholars and practitioners, will be invaluable to those in political science, sociology, and religious studies.

This Reader brings together nearly 80 extracts from major works by Christians and Muslims that reflect their reciprocal knowledge and attitudes. It spans the period from the early 7th century, when Islam originated, to 1500. The general introduction provides a historical and geographical summary of Christian-Muslim encounters in the period and a short account of the religious, intellectual and social circumstances in which encounters took place and works were written. Topics from the Christian perspective include: condemnations of the Qur'an as a fake and Muhammad as a fraud, depictions of Islam as a sign of the final judgement, and proofs that it was a Christian heresy. On the Muslim side they include: demonstrations of the Bible as corrupt, proofs that Christian doctrines were illogical, comments on the inferior status of Christians, and accounts of Christian and Muslim scholars in collaboration together. Each of the six parts contains the following pedagogical features: -A short introduction -An introduction to each passage and author -Notes explaining terms that readers might not have previously encountered

A Times History Book of the Year 2022 A TLS Book of the Year 2022 'Exhilarating and whip-smart' THE SUNDAY TIMES From award-winning writer Edward Wilson-Lee, this is a thrilling true historical detective story set in sixteenth-century Portugal. A History of Water follows the interconnected lives of two men across the Renaissance globe. One of them - an aficionado of mermen and Ethiopian culture, an art collector, historian and expert on water-music - returns home from witnessing the birth of the modern age to die in a mysterious incident, apparently the victim of a grisly and curious murder. The other - a ruffian, vagabond and braggart, chased across the globe from Mozambique to Japan - ends up as the national poet of Portugal. The stories of Damiao de Gois and Luis de Camoes capture the extraordinary wonders that awaited Europeans on their arrival in India and China, the challenges these marvels presented to longstanding beliefs, and the vast conspiracy to silence the questions these posed about the nature of history and of human life. Like all good mysteries, everyone has their own version of events.

Ethnographers have observed Muslims nearly everywhere Islam is practiced. This study analyzes four seminal texts that have been read widely outside anthropology. Two are by distinguished anthropologists on either side of the Atlantic, Islam Observed (by Clifford Geertz in 1968) and Muslim Society (by Ernest Gellner in 1981). Two other texts are by Muslim scholars, Beyond the Veil (Fatima Mernissi in 1975) and Discovering Islam (by Akbar Ahmed in 1988). Varisco argues that each of these four authors approaches Islam as an essentialized organic unity rather than letting 'Islams' found in the field speak to the diversity of practice. The textual truths engendered, and far too often engineered, in these idealized representations of Islam have found their way unscrutinized into an endless stream of scholarly works and textbooks. Varisco's analysis goes beyond the rhetoric over what Islam is to the information from ethnographic research about what Muslims say they do and actually are observed to do. The issues covered include Islam as a cultural phenomenon, representation of 'the other', Muslim gender roles, politics of ethnographic authority, and Orientalist discourse.

In the wake of radical Islamist terrorist attacks described as jihad worldwide and in South Asia, it is imperative that there should be a book-length study of this idea in this part of the world. The focus of the study is the idea of jihad with its changing interpretations mostly those available in exegetical literature of key figures in South Asia. The hermeneutic devices used to understand the meaning of the Quranic verses and the Prophetic traditions relating to jihad will be the focus of this study. The main thrust of the study is to understand how interpretations of jihad vary. It is seen as being both defensive and aggressive by traditionalists; only defensive and mainly about moral improvement by progressive Muslims; and being insurrectionist, aggressive, eternal and justifying violence against civilians by radical Islamists. One purpose of the book is to understand how the radical interpretation came to South Asia. The book also explains how theories about jihad are influenced by the political and social circumstances of the period and how these insights feed into practice legitimizing militant movements called jihad for that period.

To the layman who wishes to understand modern Islamic financial transactions, this book will prove friendly and helpful. It provides the underlying principles of Shariah financial instruments and presented them in actual and practical form. Since 1983, Malaysia has been making significant inroads into the Islamic financials landscape. Today Islamic financial transactions have made their presence felt in almost all financial institutions including banks, unit trusts, insurance, discount houses, fund management, factoring, pawn broking and project financing. And with more than USD200 billion Islamic funds available in global finance today, it is logical that the business of Islamic banking, insurance and fund management is fast expanding and encroaching into non-traditional financing. As the Holy Quran enjoins profit creation via trading and commercial transactions (al-bay') while forbidding profit earned from loans (riba), increasing Islamic consciousness among the Muslims today has opened up new business opportunities in Islamic finance, financial planning and wealth management. The Shariah not only condone interest as riba, but prohibits elements of gambling (maisir) in financial transactions. Ambiguities (gharar) in contractual agreements must be avoided at all cost while companies seeking Islamic capital must not engage with prohibited goods such as alcoholic beverages, pork and pornographic material. But current practices although unintentionally seem to out focus the real Quranic agenda for wealth creation and management. The Quranic alternative to riba is trade and commerce (al-bay'). The essence of trade and commerce is profit creation that implicates risk-taking (ghorm) and value-addition (kasb). Doing so promotes fairness and equitable transactions ('adl) and thus putting ethics and morality (akhlak) into the limelight of corporate business today. This book has attempted to venture into several issues of Islamic finance that incorporates the Quranic conception of trading and commerce (al-bay'). Profit created from financial instruments devoid of risk-taking (ghorm) and value addition (kasb) does not fit into the Quran's outlook of al-bay'. It critically examines current Islamic financial products offered by banks, mutual funds and insurance companies and help guide prospective customers to understand the underlying Shariah principles on which these products are structured. Products ranging from bank deposits/assets and capital market instruments are discussed based on prevailing practical experience in Malaysia as well as other Muslim countries. Divergent Shariah opinions on sale-buyback (bay' al-'inah) and debt trading (bay'al-dayn) are discussed with good intentions to harmonize global Islamic financial transactions. Of most significant is the push for equity financing (musyarakah/mudarabah) in the banking business with proper application of salam and istisna' contract as well. Widespread use of murabahah and al-bai-bithaman ajil (credit sale) contracts in Islamic finance is a worrying trend. This book tries to explore the place of Islamic financial contracts in modern financial markets, whether Islamic financial instruments actually reflect true label. Implication of trading (al-bay') is expected to invite venture capital application in Islamic banking and rationalizes universal banking model for Islamic banks. This book serves to guide banking customers, practitioners and investors over the range of Shariah products available in Malaysia's financial market and help impress how these products can impact their earnings and business.

This book chronicles individual perspectives and specific iterations of Muslim community, practice, and experience in the Himalayan region to bring into scholarly conversation the presence of varying Muslim cultures in the Himalaya. The Himalaya provide a site of both geographic and cultural crossroads, where Muslim community is simultaneously constituted at multiple social levels, and to that end the essays in this book document a wide range of local, national, and global interests while maintaining a focus on individual perspectives, moments in time, and localized experiences. It presents research that contributes to a broadly conceived notion of the Himalaya that enriches readers' understandings of both the region and concepts of Muslim community and highlights the interconnections between multiple experiences of Muslim community at local levels. Drawing attention to the cultural, social, artistic, and political diversity of the Himalaya beyond the better understood and frequently documented religio-cultural expressions of the region, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Anthropology, Geography, History, Religious Atudies, Asian Studies, and Islamic Studies.

The Third Choice provides a compelling introduction to Islam on the basis of its primary sources, the Quran and the life of Muhammad. Topics covered include the sharia; interpretation of the Quran; abrogation; women's rights (including female genital mutilation); lawful deception (taqiyya); Muhammad's responses to opposition; Islamic antisemitism; religious freedom; and prospects for reforming Islam. After this critical introduction of Islam, there follows an explanation and critique of Islam's policy for non-Muslims living under Islamic conditions. The doctrine of the three choices (conversion, the sword, or the dhimma pact of surrender to Islam) is explained, including an analysis of the meaning of tribute payments (jizya) made by non-Muslims (dhimmis) to their Muslim conquerors. Durie describes the impact of dhimmitude on the human rights of non-Muslims in Islamic contexts around the world today, in the light of global Islamic resurgence and advancing Islamization, including pressure being exerted through the United Nations for states to conform to sharia restrictions on freedom of speech. The worldview of dhimmitude, Durie argues, offers indispensable keys for understanding current trends in global politics, including the widening impact of sharia revival, deterioration of human rights in Islamic societies, jihad terrorism, recurring patterns of Western appeasement, interfaith dialogue initiatives, and the increasingly fraught relationship between migrant Muslim communities in the West and their host societies.

Holy war ideas appear among Muslims during the earliest manifestations of the religion. This work locates the origin of Jihad and traces its evolution as an idea with the intellectual history of the concept of Jihad in Islam as well as how it has been misapplied by modern Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers.