The influence of classical antiquity on the religious disciplines, theology, mysticism and law of Islam cannot be overestimated. This work demonstrates the significance of the classical heritage by drawing together a great range of literary renderings, paraphrases, commentaries and imitations, as well as independent Islamic elaborations. Professor Rosenthal's collection includes the work of early authors, authors of the Golden Age and later writers who imitated their works. The Classical Heritage in Islam reveals that the Muslim adoption of and dependence on classical texts was not blind imitation or a casual compounding of traditions, but rather an original synthesis and therefore a unique achievement.

Years of Upheaval discusses 'Axial periods' in history; years that witnessed such fundamental reversals in history as to make the world turn upside down and inaugurate a new era. Raphael Israeli sees the post-1989 period as such a period in Islam. He explores events in the Islamic world since the end of the 1980s, and during the 1990s and their aftermath, particularly following the Iranian Islamic Revolution, the Rushdie Affair, and the death of Khumeini. Israeli posits these events signalled a new age of Islamic violence and fundamentalism. The period has seen the dissipation of state borders and the rise of transnational and trans-territorial movements, such as ISIS, that have been extraordinarily attractive to young people in the Islamic world. The hopeful Arab Spring (2010-2013) has been replaced by a threatening Islamic winter. A number of major events shook the Muslim world on both the Asian and the African continents as well as peripheral Islamic minorities in Australia, Canada, and Latin America. Among them were the Islamic Bomb and the rise of radical Islamic movements (notably Hamas and Hezbollah) and the rift between Sunnites and Shiites. These and other momentous events in the Islamic world occasioned the 'Arab Spring' and produced unrest in a wide swath of the Muslim world. Even more importantly, these were forming trends that are characterizing the decades thereafter.

This book is the fruit of twenty years' reflection on Islamic charities, both practically and as a key to understand the crisis in contemporary Islam. On the one hand Islam is undervalued as a moral and political force whose admirable qualities are epitomised in its strong tradition of charitable giving. On the other hand, it suffers from a crisis of authority that cannot be blamed entirely on the history of colonialism and stigmatisation to which Muslims have undoubtedly been subjected - most recently, as a result of the "War on Terror". The book consists of seventeen previously published chapters, with a general introduction and new prefatory material for each chapter. Part one reviews the current situation of Islamic charities from many different viewpoints. Part two expands the coverage to explore the potential for a twenty-first century global "Islamic humanism" devised by Muslims. This means addressing contentious topics such as religious toleration. -- .

The surge in divisive and far-right politics and growing Islamophobia in Britain pose new challenges for Muslim advocacy organisations. British Muslim activism has taken centre stage in the public sphere as a result. Yet for over fifty years Muslim advocacy groups have worked to preserve religious identity, lobby the state and provide concerted responses to the political establishment. This is the first book to chart critically the national and global factors influencing the political mobilisation of British Muslim activists as Muslims. Khadijah Elshayyal traces the changes of thought, direction and method within Muslim identity politics after 1960, noting key organisations and turning points such as the Rushdie Affair, the 9/11 attacks, the 7/7 bombings and the current conflict in Syria. The book argues that the Rushdie Affair prompted new debate around the subject of freedom of expression, which has continued to be a point of contention ever since. Providing a history of the interaction between Muslim advocacy groups and the state, and the impact of state policy on Muslim communities, Muslims Identity Politics shows that that Muslim citizens continue to experience an `equality gap' and recommends where transformation and progress can be made. Based on primary sources and in-depth interviews, this book is a vital resource for government officials, policy-makers and researchers interested in multiculturalism, Islamophobia and security issues in Britain.

This innovative book stresses the distinction of the human race from other species by using what the author calls Human Symbols (HS): language, thought, religion, knowledge/science, and cultural values and norms. Mahmoud Dhaouadi emphasizes the central position of HS in the creation of the identity of both the individual and society. That is, humans are Homo Culturus, a notion hardly found in social sciences like Marxism, behaviourism, structuralism, and psychoanalysis. This book explores the strong link between HS and the slow growth and development of the human body and claims that human duality is composed of the body and HS, not the body and the soul. HS explain some distinct human traits, such as why human babies learn to walk later than animal babies, the long human lifespan when compared with that of most animals' lifespan, the human mind, and the potential for the eternal survival of human thought. As such, HS constitute a cultural theory. Dhaouadi also asserts that HS have neither weight nor volume in the material sense of the words, as they are transcendental and spiritual. This new conceptualization of HS helps us understand the quick transmission of spoken and written words as well as how we can put enormous written material onto a few memory sticks. This innovative vision of the nature of HS is endorsed by a fresh interpretation of the verses of the Quran. Cultural Sociology within Innovative Treatise will be a significant contribution to the field of sociology, particularly to the sociological study of culture in both the Islamic and Western worlds.

The Muslim shrine is at the crossroad of many processes involving society and culture. It is the place where a saint - often a Sufi - is buried, and it works as a main social factor, with the power of integrating or rejecting people and groups, and as a mirror reflecting the intricacies of a society. The book discusses the role of popular Islam in structuring individual and collective identities in contemporary South Asia. It identifies similarities and differences between the worship of saints and the pattern of religious attendance to tombs and mausoleums in South Asian Sufism and Shi`ism. Inspired by new advances in the field of ritual and pilgrimage studies, the book demonstrates that religious gatherings are spaces of negotiation and redefinitions of religious identity and of the notion of sainthood. Drawing from a large corpus of vernacular and colonial sources, as well as the register of popular literature and ethnographic observation, the authors describe how religious identities are co-constructed through the management of rituals, and are constantly renegotiated through discourses and religious practices. By enabling students, researchers and academics to critically understand the complexity of religious places within the world of popular and devotional Islam, this geographical re-mapping of Muslim religious gatherings in contemporary South Asia contributes to a new understanding of South Asian and Islamic Studies.

This book collates a comprehensive range of fascinating essays by leading authors on film from across the Muslim world. Responding to political and theoretical misconceptions about Islam and Muslim culture, it covers North African, Arab and Asian cinemas in a rich series of industry histories, single film studies and detailed analyses of celebrated directors. Cinema in Muslim Societies is innovative and timely in its explicit engagement with vexing questions of Islamic aesthetics, political activism, socialism and the role of women in Muslim contexts. The authors explore a wide variety of topics, from cinematic art and poetry to religious identity and pornography. Debated extensively at a programme of public talks and screenings at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 2011, this volume remains supremely relevant in a world of polarising identities and political violence engulfing Muslim societies and the West. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third Text.

This book discusses Islam, its relationship with the world, and how Muslims perceive the world and their role within it. Using Islamic scriptures and the works of important Muslim clerics, the author explores the Islamic notion that Muslims represent the best of humanity, and as such, have the duty and the right to propagate their faith throughout the world by any means, including violence. Islam and the Infidels warns of the dangers Muslim immigration poses to free societies. Using a diplomacy of deceit, Islamists immigrate to Western societies. Having done so, they establish closed ethnic communities that are estranged from their host countries, and are breeding grounds for native-born malcontents who may attack and destroy Western nations from within. The author is especially critical of Western apologists who not only pretend that Islam is not inherently aggressive and dangerous, but also denigrate those who point out the threat to liberal values posed by fundamentalist Islamic ideology. Bukay argues that to meet the Islamic threat, the West must understand Islam's true nature, and the best way of doing so is by analysing its scriptures and history. Bukay argues that Western societies should embrace the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is the root of their cultural heritage. In light of the mounting Muslim threat to liberalism in Western societies, citizens should resist oppressive Islamic practices and doctrines rather than accept them.

The attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015 once again brought to the fore the place of Islam in Western secular democracies, and the questioning of Muslim citizenship. The hyper-mediatisation of jihadist terrorism and its subsequent conflation with Muslim communities in general, has led to both an increase in widespread popular fear of Islam and its followers, and the further marginalization and stigmatization of Muslim communities living in Western societies. This book brings together a range of studies and reflections pertinent to the contemporary issues surrounding religious citizenship and Islamophobia. Sentiments of insecurity and uncertainty, which far-right populist movements focus on, are increasingly finding resonance among ordinary citizens. Some traditional political parties are now flirting with demagogic discourse with respect to matters Islamic to the point where there is a hardening within Western democracies, manifested in the adoption of illiberal policies, the narrowing of the conception of secularity, and the alienation of a younger generation of Muslims. Yet there can still be found both glimmers of hope and slivers of sanity. This book was originally published as a special issue of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.

Islamic finance has emerged as an alternative to century-old conventional financial instruments to cater to cater to the needs of Muslims as well as non-Muslims. The industry has seen significant growth over the last two decades and has been facing omnidirectional challenges with respect to regulation, competition, and compatibility. These challenges have presented worthy debate on the principles, practices, and performance in Islamic finance globally. In this issue, we have presented issues relevant to the most recent debate on the performance, practices, and principles of the Islamic finance industry as a whole, covering eleven distinct issues. Authors have contributed to the existing body of knowledge on risk management in Islamic banks, diversification in Islamic equity markets, performance and acceptance of Islamic microcredit and Islamic banking services, long-term corporate finance using sukuk, and the social development agenda via the development of financial intuitions, SME financing, and financial inclusion. Selected topics cover the principles in relevant areas, focus on recent practices, and highlight performance on certain influential areas. The issue is aimed at academicians, researchers, and policymakers who are working in the Islamic finance industry and who would like to explore more.

This book explores the diversity and dynamism of Islam in Southeast Asia through the concept of adab, or beautiful behavior. Amid the complexity of Islamic civilization, adab provides Muslims with a shared sense of sacred history, identity, and morality. In the context of Islamic ethics, adab defines the rules of personal and public etiquette: good manners, proper conduct, civility and humaneness. Featuring the interdisciplinary research of nine prominent scholars of Islam, the book offers new perspectives on adab's multiple meanings and myriad applications for Muslim communities in Malaysia and Indonesia. The chapters examine a wide range of texts, spotlighting the writings of prominent Muslim thinkers, and contexts, focusing on the everyday experiences of lay Muslims. Drawing on a variety of theoretical and methodological lenses, the essays reveal how beautiful behavior impacts local institutions, cultural practices, and religious imaginations via politics and law, spirituality and piety, ethics and experience. With its careful textual analysis, detailed case studies, and attention to historical continuities and disjunctures, Piety, Politics and Everyday Ethics in Southeast Asian Islam is essential reading for students and scholars interested in global Islam and the lived, local dynamics of Muslim Southeast Asia.

The present English translation reproduces the original German of Carl Brockelmann's Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (GAL) as accurately as possible. In the interest of user-friendliness the following emendations have been made in the translation: Personal names are written out in full, except b. for ibn; Brockelmann's transliteration of Arabic has been adapted to comply with modern standards for English-language publications; modern English equivalents are given for place names, e.g. Damascus, Cairo, Jerusalem, etc.; several erroneous dates have been corrected, and the page references to the two German editions have been retained in the margin, except in the Supplement volumes, where new references to the first two English volumes have been inserted.

Questions over the compatibility of Islam and Human Rights have become a key area of debate in the perceived tensions between 'Islam and the West'. In many ways, discussion over the stance of Islam in relation to such factors as gender rights, religious freedom, social and political freedoms, and other related issues represents a microcosm of the broader experience of how Muslim and 'Western' communities interact and relate. This volume seeks to engage with the various debates surrounding Islam and Human Rights, in particular, challenging assumptions of a 'standard' or 'essential' Muslim perspective on Human Rights. Through a survey of the experiences of Muslim communities across the globe (the ummah), this volume highlights the dynamic way Muslims understand and incorporate Human Rights into their personal, social and political experiences. From conceptual discussions on the issues of gender rights and religious freedom, to examining Muslim communities from South East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, leading global experts bring forth key insights into the way in which Muslim communities live and experience Human Rights. The potential for deeper engagement with this issue is critical, as it opens possibilities for more profound understanding and tolerance.

The Arab-Israeli conflict provides the world with one of its most intractable and dangerous problems. This documentary analysis of the period, first published in 1970, from the First World War to 1968 will be welcomed by all those who seek an impartial understanding of the problem. The editors have gathered together documents ranging from official papers, original maps and a Palestine/Israel population graph to quotations from contemporary historians and observers. So far as possible the documents themselves are made to tell the dramatic story of Arab-Israel relations. But the editors also place them in the broader context of Middle Eastern history and indicate major points of interest. The conclusion analyses fundamental issues and an appendix contains questions which may be answered from a study of the documents, thus providing a useful basis for discussion.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the greatest threats to world peace today. Yet for all the importance and passion of this conflict very little is actually known about the story behind the headlines. Behind each confrontation and each act of terrorism is a long and deep story. This primer on the Arab-Israeli conflict, first published in 1989, examines the real stories behind the conflict and separates fact from fable. By carefully documenting, each claim and counter-claim, many widely-held beliefs are unmasked as myths.

Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia offers a comparative approach to understanding the spread of Islam and Muslim culture in medieval Anatolia. It aims to reassess work in the field since the 1971 classic by Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization which treats the process of transformation from a Byzantinist perspective. Since then, research has offered insights into individual aspects of Christian-Muslim relations, but no overview has appeared. Moreover, very few scholars of Islamic studies have examined the problem, meaning evidence in Arabic, Persian and Turkish has been somewhat neglected at the expense of Christian sources, and too little attention has been given to material culture. The essays in this volume examine the interaction between Christianity and Islam in medieval Anatolia through three distinct angles, opening with a substantial introduction by the editors to explain both the research background and the historical problem, making the work accessible to scholars from other fields. The first group of essays examines the Christian experience of living under Muslim rule, comparing their experiences in several of the major Islamic states of Anatolia between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, especially the Seljuks and the Ottomans. The second set of essays examines encounters between Christianity and Islam in art and intellectual life. They highlight the ways in which some traditions were shared across confessional divides, suggesting the existence of a common artistic and hence cultural vocabulary. The final section focusses on the process of Islamisation, above all as seen from the Arabic, Persian and Turkish textual evidence with special attention to the role of Sufism.

Islam in Transition focuses on the ways in which Islamic religion still engenders powerful loyalties within what is now a predominantly secular society and how, in their continual adherence to their religion, many young British Pakistanis find a welcome sense of stability and permanence. By presenting material collected in field-work study and by using extensive quotations from interviews, the author argues that in a world where concepts of identity are always being challenged traditional sources of authority and allegiance still survive.

Within western political, media and academic discourses, Muslim communities are predominantly seen through the prism of their Islamic religiosities, yet there exist within diasporic communities unique and complex secularisms. Drawing on detailed interview and ethnographic material gathered in the UK, this book examines the ways in which a form of secularism - 'non-Islamiosity' - amongst members of the Iranian diaspora shapes ideas and practices of diasporic community and identity, as well as wider social relations. In addition to developing a novel theoretical paradigm to make sense of the manner in which diasporic communities construct and live diasporic identity and consciousness in a way that marginalises, stigmatises or eradicates only 'Islam', Secularism and Identity shows how this approach is used to overcome religiously inculcated ideas and fashion a desirable self, thus creating a new space in which to live and thereby attaining 'freedom'. Calling into question notions of anti-Islamism and Islamophobia, whilst examining secularism as a means or mechanism rather than an end, this volume offers a new understanding of religion as a marker of migrant identity. As such it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology and political science with interests in migration and ethnicity, diasporic communities, the sociology of religion and emerging forms of secularism.

Can we understand a religion without believing and practicing it? Can we have knowledge about faith? Can people understand those different from themselves? Can outsiders ever understand the world of insiders? Examining insider and outsider positions of knowledge Bryan S. Turner explores what understanding Islam entails. He argues that understanding Islam has in recent years been dominated by political events - the Iran Hostage crisis, the fall of the Iranian Shah, 9/11, Afghanistan and the foreign policy of Donald Trump - leading to western intellectuals and public figures, many of whom know nothing about Islam, suddenly becoming experts. Turner asks how they, or how anyone, can have the authority to speak on this subject. He brilliantly elucidates the questions and problems involved in the challenge of understanding religion.

This is the first in-depth study of the relationship between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its own members. Drawing on years of participant observation, extensive interviews, previously inaccessible organizational documents, and dozens of memoirs and writings, the book provides an intimate portrayal of the recruitment and socialization of Brothers, the evolution of their intricate social networks, and the construction of the peculiar ideology that shapes their everyday practices. Kandil shows why attempts to compare the Brotherhood to secular social movements or typical forms of religious activism obscure its unique nature, and he seeks instead to unlock the organization's unique logic. Building on his original research, Kandil reinterprets the Brotherhood's slow rise and rapid downfall from power in Egypt, and compares it to the Islamist subsidiaries it created and the varieties it inspired around the world.This timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the politics of the Middle East and to anyone who wants to understand the dramatic events unfolding in Egypt and elsewhere in the wake of the Arab uprisings.

This book collects 15 papers on the greatest philosopher of late antiquity and founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (d.270), and the founding figure of philosophy in the Islamic world: al-KindAE" (d. ca. 873). A number of the contributions focus on the text that joins the two: the so-called Theology of Aristotle, in fact an Arabic version of Plotinus' Enneads produced in al- KindAE"'s translation circle. Across several papers, Adamson argues that this translation is best understood as a reinterpretation of Plotinus designed to appeal to contemporary readers in the culture of the 'AbbAE sid era. Two contributions also analyze the notes on the Theology written by the great Avicenna. Other papers look at aspects of al-KindAE"'s own thought, exploring his ideas concerning metaphysics, free will astrology, and optics. The traditions of Plotinus and al-KindAE" are also treated, with papers on Plotinus' student Porphyry and his Arabic reception, and on followers of al-KindAE". Adamson argues that we can identify what he calls a 'Kindian tradition' in the 9th-10th centuries. He discusses the philosophical presuppositions of this movement, and the use of al-KindAE"'s ideas made by one particular representative of the Kindian tradition, the Persian thinker Miskawayh.

Employing a theoretical framework based on the concept of identity loss, this book seeks to understand why increased integration has stimulated greater radicalization among the Muslim populations in Western Europe.

Through extensive field research in four European countries the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and France the authors investigate three key questions: 1) Why are 2nd and 3rd generations of Muslims in Europe more radical than their parents?; 2) Why does Europe experience more "home-grown terrorism" today than thirty or forty years ago?; 3) Why do some European countries feature more radical Muslim communities than others? The book reveals that these three puzzling questions can be solved when analyzing the loss of individuality if the face of integration and identification with European society.

While Individualist and structural approaches fail to explain radicalization of Muslims in Europe, this study, by framing radicalization through coupling the public discourse with identity loss, provides a much needed insight into the process of radicalization. Explaining radicalization and gaining an understanding of the drivers of radicalization is crucial to prevent and mitigate intercultural alienation, to further develop immigration policies, redress integration failures as well as to avoid dangerous oversimplifications. This book contributes not only to understanding why greater integration is matched by increasing radicalization, but its insights also contribute to developing ideas about how radicalization can be prevented or overcome and integration policies can be enhanced.

This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and counter-terrorism, radical Islam, war and conflict studies, European politics, IR and security studies."

Because of recent changes in the explicitly declared goals of Arabs in the Palestinian conflict, this book is of singular importance, and no scholar or expert on Middle East affairs can afford to ignore it.

This work, by a scholar described as "the doyen of Israeli Arabists," is the result of vast research into the attitude of the Arabs toward Israel, manifested both in their declared, explicit aims and in ideological exegeses on the roots of the Palestinian problem. Approximately one hundred twenty books written by Arabs and the Arab press and radio are herein analyzed. Harkabi's searching examination is objective. His detection of consistent patterns in what at first seems amorphous is convincing. If there is such a thing as a science of political psychology, Harkabi is its master.

In the past decade Muslims in Europe have been the subject of heated debates on the place and role of religion in the public space. Research into the issues involved has often used visible and formalised expressions of Muslim religiosity as its empirical point of departure. This book instead examines the microlevel workings of Muslim minority religiosity to offer a new perspective on these debates.

Contributors to this volume examine the forms of Muslim religiosity which are not dependent on the official or semi-official settings of organised religion. These ethnographic studies investigate a range of examples of non-organised Islam, ranging from salafi-jihadism, to converts to Islam, to everyday spiritualities of Muslim in Europe. By exploring these neglected forms of Muslim religiosity, this book is able to build up a more nuanced picture of the role of Muslims in Europe. It will be of interest to academics, researchers and graduate students of Religion, Ethnic Studies, Migration Studies, Sociology and Political Science.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

The Grandchildren is a collection of intimate, harrowing testimonies by grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Turkey's "forgotten Armenians"--the orphans adopted and Islamized by Muslims after the Armenian genocide. Through them we learn of the tortuous routes by which they came to terms with the painful stories of their grandparents and their own identity. The postscript offers a historical overview of the silence about Islamized Armenians in most histories of the genocide.

When Fethiye cetin first published her groundbreaking memoir in Turkey, My Grandmother, she spoke of her grandmother's hidden Armenian identity. The book sparked a conversation among Turks about the fate of the Ottoman Armenians in Anatolia in 1915. This resulted in an explosion of debate on Islamized Armenians and their legacy in contemporary Muslim families.

The Grandchildren (translated from Turkish) is a follow-up to My Grandmother, and is an important contribution to understanding survival during atrocity. As witnesses to a dark chapter of history, the grandchildren of these survivors cast new light on the workings of memory in coming to terms with difficult pasts.