In popular and academic literature, jihad is predominantly assumed to refer to armed combat, and Muslim martyrdom is understood to be invariably of the military kind. This perspective, derived mainly from legal texts, has led to discussions of jihad and martyrdom primarily as concepts with fixed, universal meanings divorced from the socio-political circumstances in which they have been deployed through time. This book, however, studies in a more holistic manner the range of significations that can be ascribed to the term jihad from the earliest period to the contemporary period against the backdrop of specific historical and political circumstances that frequently mediated the meanings of this critical term. Instead of privileging the juridical literature, the book canvasses a more diverse array of texts - Qur'an, tafsir, hadath, edifying and hortatory literature - to recuperate a more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of both jihad and martyrdom through time. As a result, many conventional and monochromatic assumptions about the military jihad and martyrdom are challenged and undermined. Asma Afsaruddin argues that the notion of jihad as primarily referring to armed combat is in fact relatively late. A comprehensive interrogation of varied sources, she shows, reveals early and multiple competing definitions of a word that translates literally to "striving on the path of God."

Iconoclastic and fiercely rational, the European Enlightenment witnessed the birth of modern Western society and thought. Reason was sacrosanct and for the first time, religious belief and institutions were open to widespread criticism. In this groundbreaking book, Ziad Elmarsafy challenges this accepted wisdom to argue that religion was still hugely influential in the era. But the religion in question wasn't Christianity - it was Islam. Charting the history of Qur'anic translations in Europe during the 18th and early 19th Centuries, Elmarsafy shows that a number of key enlightenment figures - including Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe, and Napoleon - drew both inspiration and ideas from the Qur'an. Controversially placing Islam at the heart of the European Enlightenment, this lucid and well argued work is a valuable window into the interaction of East and West during this pivotal epoch in human history.

In Possessed by the Right Hand, the first comprehensive legal history of slavery in Islam ever offered to readers, Bernard K. Freamon, an African-American Muslim law professor, provides a penetrating analysis of the problems of slavery and slave-trading in Islamic history. After examining the issues from pre-Islamic times through to the nineteenth century, Professor Freamon considers the impact of Western abolitionism, arguing that such efforts have been a failure, with the notion of abolition becoming nothing more than a cruel illusion. He closes this ground-breaking account with an examination of the slaving ideologies and actions of ISIS and Boko Haram, asserting that Muslims now have an important and urgent responsibility to achieve true abolition under the aegis of Islamic law. See Bernard Freamon live at Rutgers Law School (October 8, 2019). Listen to Possessed by the Right Hand: An Interview with Prof. Bernard Freamon from Network ReOrient on Anchor

The Third Edition of Brill s Encyclopaedia of Islam appears in four substantial segments each year, both online and in print. The new scope includes comprehensive coverage of Islam in the twentieth century and of Muslim minorities all over the world. This Part 2009-1 of the Third Edition of Brill s Encyclopaedia of Islam contains 82 new articles, reflecting the great diversity of current scholarship in the fields of Islamic Studies.

The Third Edition of Brill s Encyclopaedia of Islam appears in four substantial segments each year, both online and in print. The new scope includes comprehensive coverage of Islam in the twentieth century and of Muslim minorities all over the world. This Part 2012-3 of the Third Edition of Brill s Encyclopaedia of Islam will contain 49 new articles, reflecting the great diversity of current scholarship in the fields of Islamic Studies.

Irshad Manji's message of moral courage, with stories about contemporary reformers such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and Islam's own Gandhi, inspire and show the way to practicing faith without fear. Irshad addresses all people, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, in this universal message about the importance of independent thought and internal strength, of love, liberty, free speech, and the pursuit of happiness. Allah, Liberty, and Love is about creating choices beyond conforming or leaving the faith, which is what Manji hears from young Muslims who write to her in frustration, whose emails, letters, and conversations are included in this book. Manji writes, "I'll show struggling Muslims how to embrace a third option: reforming ourselves." And she recounts many affecting stories from young people who have contacted her for advice on how to step out of limiting views of Islam and the restrictions they put on life, love, family, and careers.

David Tittensor offers a groundbreaking new perspective on the Gulen movement, a Turkish Muslim educational activist network that emerged in the 1960s and has grown into a global empire with an estimated worth of $25 billion. Named after its leader Fethullah Gulen, the movement has established more than 1,000 secular educational institutions in over 140 countries, aiming to provide holistic education that incorporates both spirituality and the secular sciences. Despite the movement's success, little is known about how its schools are run, or how Islam is operationalized. Drawing on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey, Tittensor explores the movement's ideo-theology and how it is practiced in the schools. His interviews with both teachers and graduates from Africa, Indonesia, Central Asia, and Turkey show that the movement is a missionary organization, but of a singular kind: its goal is not simply widespread religious conversion, but a quest to recoup those Muslims who have apparently lost their way through proselytism and to show non-Muslims that Muslims can embrace modernity and integrate into the wider community. Tittensor also examines the movement's operational side and shows how the schools represent an example of Mohammad Yunus's social business model: a business with a social cause at its heart. The House of Service is an insightful exploration of one of the largest transnational Muslim associations in the world today, and will be invaluable for those seeking to understand how Islam will be perceived and practiced in the future.

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.

We have an obligation to learn the truth about Islam and resist the many attempts to sanitize it. A poison becomes deadlier when it is falsely labeled as a nutrient.

Media Framing of the Muslim World examines and explains how news about Islam and the Muslim world is produced and consumed, and how it impacts on relations between Islam and the West. The authors cover key issues in this relationship including the reporting on war and conflict, terrorism, asylum seekers and the Arab Spring.

Umar Ibn al-Farid (1181 1235), author of two classic works, the Wine Ode and the Poem of the Sufi Way, is considered the greatest Sufi poet to write in Arabic. In this study, these and other poems by Ibn al-Farid are considered within the context of Islamic mysticism, Arabic literature, and Sufi poetry. Th. Emil Homerin uncovers the literary and religious intent of these poems and their aesthetic and mystical content, showing them to be a type of meditative poetry. Indeed, Ibn al-Farid often alludes to the Sufi practice of recollection, or meditation on God, to evoke a view of existence in which the seeker may be transformed by an epiphany of love revealing an intimate relationship to the divine beloved. Homerin provides elegant translations and close readings of Ibn al-Farid s poetry, highlighting the beauty of his verse, its moods, meanings, and significance within Islamic mysticism and Arabic poetry, where Ibn al-Farid is still known as the Sultan of the Lovers. "

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.

Narrating the pilgrimage to Mecca discusses a wide variety of historical and contemporary personal accounts of the pilgrimage to Mecca, most of which presented in English for the first time. The book addresses how being situated in a specific cultural context and moment in history informs the meanings attributed to the pilgrimage experience. The various contributions reflect on how, in their stories, pilgrims draw on multiple cultural discourses and practices that shape their daily lifeworlds to convey the ways in which the pilgrimage to Mecca speaks to their senses and moves them emotionally. Together, the written memoirs and oral accounts discussed in the book offer unique insights in Islam's rich and evolving tradition of hajj and 'umra storytelling. Contributors Kholoud Al-Ajarma, Piotr Bachtin, Vladimir Bobrovnikov, Marjo Buitelaar, Nadia Caidi, Simon Coleman, Thomas Ecker, Zahir Janmohamed, Khadija Kadrouch-Outmany, Ammeke Kateman, Yahya Nurgat, Jihan Safar, Neda Saghaee, Leila Seurat, Richard van Leeuwen and Miguel Angel Vazquez.

This book contains selected papers which were presented at the 3rd International Halal Conference (INHAC 2016), organized by the Academy of Contemporary Islamic Studies (ACIS), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam, Malaysia. It addresses halal-related issues that are applicable to various industries and explores a variety of contemporary and emerging issues. Highlighting findings from both scientific and social research studies, it enhances the discussion on the halal industry (both in Malaysia and at the international level), and serves as an invitation to engage in more advanced research on the global halal industry.

As the forces of globalisation and modernisation buffet Islam and other world religions, Indonesia's 200 million Muslims are expressing their faith in ever more complex ways. Celebrity television preachers, internet fatwa services, mass religious rallies in soccer stadiums, glossy jihadist magazines, Islamic medical treatments, alms giving via mobile phone and electronic sharia banking services are just some of the manifestations of a more consumer-oriented approach to Islam which interact with and sometimes replace other, more traditional expressions of the faith. This book examines some of the myriad ways in which Islam is being expressed in contemporary Indonesian life and politics. Authored by leading authorities on Indonesian Islam, it gives fascinating insights into such topics as the marketisation of Islam, contemporary pilgrimage, the rise of mass preachers, gender and Islamic politics, online fatwa, current trends among Islamist vigilante and criminal groups, and recent developments in Islamic banking and microfinance.

The Third Edition of Brill s Encyclopaedia of Islam appears in four substantial segments each year, both online and in print. The new scope includes comprehensive coverage of Islam in the twentieth century and of Muslim minorities all over the world. This Part 2012-2 of the Third Edition of Brill s Encyclopaedia of Islam contains 53 new articles, reflecting the great diversity of current scholarship in the fields of Islamic Studies.

The advent of the holy prophet Muhammad (PBH) was foretold in so many pages of all the previous scriptures. He was finally unveiled by the Almighty God, with a message to all the world (the holy Quran). The holy Quran (as prophesied in the previous scriptures) is the actual word of the Almighty God - Allah. It was revealed for the benefit of all mankind: "Blessed is He who sent down the criterion to His servant, that it may be an admonition to all creatures." (Q.25: 1). It is complete and comprehensive and in conformity with the prophecy in the previous scriptures. The Almighty Allah says: ."Nothing have we omitted from the Book." (Q.6: 38) The message given to the holy prophet Muhammad (PBH) by the Almighty Allah for mankind thus contains a complete code which provides for all areas of life, whether spiritual, intellectual, political, social or economic. It is a code which has no boundaries of time, place or nation. Before Islam, religion was on the authority of its own leaders, and was thus the avowed enemy of reason resulting in making theology to be based on intricate subtleties and credulous admiration of miracles. The holy Quran came and took religion by a new road untrodden by the previous scriptures in fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy. It spoke to the rational mind and alerted the intelligence. It sets out the order in the Universe, the principles and certitudes within it, and required a lively scrutiny of them that the mind might thus be sure of the validity of its claim and message. Even in relation to the narratives of the past, it proceeded on the conviction that the created order follows invariable laws, as the holy Quran says: "Such was the way of God in days gone by and youwill find (that) it does not change (Q.48: 23). And again, "God does not change people's case until they change their own disposition (Q.13: 11). Even in matters of morality, the holy Quran relies on evidence: "Requite evil with good and your worst enemy will become your dearest friend (Q.41: 34). Thus for the first time in a revealed scripture, reason finds its brotherly place; and toleration made a corner stone of religion as the holy Quran says: "There is no compulsion in religion."(Q2: 256) But warned t tyranny and injustice are the two enemies of social solidarity and inter- social amity.

Sunni-Shi'i relations have undergone significant transformations in recent decades. The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran had a major spill-over effect on the entire Middle East, and the 2003 war in Iraq transformed the Shi'is into the dominant force in Iraq. The emergence of Iran as a regional power following Saddam Husayn's removal, along with the weakness of the Arab state system, raised the specter of the "Shi'i Crescent" threatening Sunni-Arab domination in the region. The present volume demonstrates the complexity of Sunni-Shi'i relations by analyzing political, ideological, and social encounters between the two communities from early Islamic history to the present. While analyzing specific case studies in various Middle Eastern regions, the book provides a panoramic picture ranging from hostility to efforts of cooperation and ecumenism.