With a focus on the areas of theory, literature, culture, society and film, this collection of essays examines, questions and broadens the applicability of Postcolonialism and Islam from a multifaceted and cross-disciplinary perspective. Topics covered include the relationship between Postcolonialism and Orientalism, theoretical perspectives on Postcolonialism and Islam, the position of Islam within postcolonial literature, Muslim identity in British and European contexts, and the role of Islam in colonial and postcolonial cinema in Egypt and India. At a time at which Islam continues to be at the centre of increasingly heated and frenzied political and academic deliberations, Postcolonialism and Islam offers a framework around which the debate on Muslims in the modern world can be centred. Transgressing geographical, disciplinary and theoretical boundaries, this book is an invaluable resource for students of Islamic Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociolgy and Literature.

While issues surrounding Muslim women are common in the international media, the voices of Muslim women themselves are largely absent from media coverage and despite the rapidly increasing presence of Muslim women in online groups and discussions, it is still a relatively unexplored topic.This book examines Muslim women in transnational online groups, and their views on education, culture, marriage, sexuality, work, dress-code, race, class and sisterhood. Looking at both egalitarian and traditionalist Muslim women's views, the author considers their interpretations of Islam and identifies a new category of holists who focus on developing the Islamic sisterhood. Drawing on detailed analysis of online transcripts, she highlights women's rhetorical techniques and the thorough knowledge of Islamic sources which they use to justify their points in online discussions. She details how in the online context, as opposed to offline interactions, Muslim women are much more willing to cross boundaries between traditionalist and egalitarian interpretations of Islam and women's Islamic rights and responsibilities and to develop collaborative interpretations with supporters of different views. Shedding light on a candid and forthright global community, this book is an important contribution to the debate on women in Islam, and as such will be of interest to scholars and students of Islamic studies, gender studies, media studies and the Middle East.

This thought-provoking collection offers a multi-disciplinary approach on the subject of humour, Muslims, and Islam. Beginning with theoretical perspectives and scriptural guidance on permissible and restricted humour, the volume presents a variety of case studies about Muslim comedic practices in various cultural, political, and religious contexts. This unprecedented scholarship sheds new light on common misconceptions about humour and laughter in Islam and deftly tackles sensitive themes from blasphemy to freedom of speech. Chapter 9 is available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

This book studies the relationship between Islam, family processes, and gender inequality among Uyghur Muslims in UErumchi, China. Empirically, it shows in quantitative terms the extent of gender inequalities among Uyghur Muslims in UErumchi and tests whether the gender inequalities are a difference in kind or in degree. It examines five aspects of gender inequality: employment, income, household task accomplishment, home management, and spousal power. Theoretically, it investigates how Islamic affiliation and family life affect Uyghur women's status. Zang's research involved rare and privileged access to a setting which is difficult for foreign scholars to study due to political restrictions. The data are drawn from fieldwork in UErumchi between 2005 and 2008, which include a survey of 577 families, field observations, and 200 in-depth interviews with local Uyghurs. The book combines qualitative and quantitative data and methods to study gendered behavior and outcomes. The author's study reinterprets family power and offers a more nuanced analysis of gender and domestic power in China and makes a pioneering effort to study spousal power, gender inequality in labor market outcomes, and gender inequality in household chores among members of ethnic minorities in China. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of ethnic studies, Chinese studies, Asian anthropology and cultural sociology.

An enduring educational concern that has plagued researchers and policy makers in a number of affluent countries is the endemic nature of educational inequalities. These inequalities highlight distinct differences in the educational skills, knowledge, capabilities and credentials between learners' demographic characteristics. They also point to issues of educational disadvantage that emanate from a combination of factors including family life, communities, the geographies of space and place, gender and ethnicity. This book examines some of the causes and responses to educational inequalities, and focuses upon poor urban contexts where educational disadvantage is at its most concentrated, and where educational policy and practice has, over time, proliferated. It questions how wider inequities experienced by young people in urban contexts generate educational inequalities and disadvantage, detailing explicitly what an equitable approach to education might look like. Included in the book is an innovative educational equity framework and toolkit with illustrative policy and practice case studies, bringing together unique scholarship and analysis to examine future educational policy in a holistic, comprehensive and equitable way. It will be valuable reading for postgraduate students, researchers and policy makers with an interest in education and educational equity.

This book considers positions refugees take relative to the state, humanitarian actors and faith-based organisations in the humanitarian field. Attention is drawn to refugee agency as they negotiate circumstances of considerable constraint demonstrating relational dimensions of religious practice and experience.

This book reinterprets the Muslim architecture and urban planning of South India, looking beyond the Deccan to the regions of Tamil Nadu and Kerala - the historic coasts of Coromandel and Malabar. For the first time a detailed survey of the Muslim monuments of the historic ports and towns demonstrates a rich and diverse architectural tradition entirely independent from the better known architecture of North India and the Deccan sultanates. The book, extensively illustrated with photographs and architectural drawings, widens the horizons of our understanding of Muslim India and will no doubt pave new paths for future studies in the field.

The concept of jihad holds a prominent place in Islamic thought and history. Beyond its spiritual meanings, the term has historically been associated with the sweeping Arab-Believers conquests of the 7-8th century BCE. But given advances in our understanding of the historicity and chronology of the Qur'an and early Islamic texts, is it correct to identify jihad and Islam with violent conquest? In this book, Marco Demichelis explores the history of the concept of jihad in the early proto-Islamic centuries (7-8th). Deploying an interdisciplinary approach which combines the hermeneutical study of the famous 'Verses of the Sword' within the Qur'an itself, with historical writing by Islamic chroniclers as well as non-Islamic sources, numismatics, epigraphical and architectural evidence, the book questions the relationship between the religious concept of jihad and the conquests. The book argues that Christian Byzantine Foederati forices who previously fought against the Persians may have had a formative effect on the later emergence of more bellicose rhetoric. In so doing, it calls into question assumptions about warlike attitudes inherent within Islamic doctrine, and reveals a more nuanced and complicated history of religious violence in the pre, proto and early Islamic period.

This volume locates the contemporary study of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia squarely within the fields of race and racism. As such, it challenges the extent to which discussion of the racialization of these minorities remains unrelated to each other, or is explored in distinct silos as a series of internal debates. By harnessing the explanatory power of long-established organizing concepts within the study of race and racism, this collection of articles makes a historically informed, theoretical and empirical contribution to aligning these analytical pursuits. The collection brings together a range of perspectives on this subject, including a comparison between Islamophobia in early modern Spain and twenty-first century Europe, an examination of the 'new anti-Semitism', and an analysis of online anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic jokes. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

This book examines the Islamist radicalisation process in Europe, developing a new theoretical model based on an empirical study of the evolution of Islamist radicals in their social environment. The approach of this book is to examine how, and under what conditions, people choose to radicalise. It focuses on the experience of radicalisation from the perspective of those who have undergone it. The study is based on trial and court material, along with an extensive number of interviews collected from many different European countries, and this biographical approach is used to address individuals and the details of their social environment. Overall, the explanatory framework departs from the existing deterministic paradigm (with grievances as causes), also present in some psychological models, and argues that radicalisation is a process much like occupational choice - a rational choice made with social and ideational significance. It addresses critically the assumption that, because the result of the radicalisation process could be seen as 'abnormal', the cause of it might be of a similar nature. Parallels are drawn with other forms of extremism and European counter-radicalisation policies are considered critically. This book will be of great interest to students of terrorism studies and political violence, political Islam, social movements, European politics and IR/security studies in general.

First published in 1991, this title explores the myths and misperceptions that have underpinned Muslim-Christian relations throughout history, and which endure to the current day. William Montgomery Watt describes how the myths originated and developed, and argues that both Muslims and Christians need to have a more accurate knowledge and positive appreciation of the other religion. Chapters discuss the Qur'anic perception of Christianity, attitudes to Greek philosophy and the relationship between Islam and Christianity in medieval Europe. Written by one of the leading authorities on Islam in the West, Muslim-Christian Encounters remains a relevant and vivid study and will be of particular value to students of Islam, religious history and sociology.

The editors of this new collection write: Western economists define economics as the branch of knowledge or science which investigates how scarce resources are best allocated into competing claims upon them. These claims are socially and culturally determined. Islamic economics and its principles have also developed from a specific set of social and cultural circumstances, but the key to the whole subject is the guidance given in the Prophetic scriptures. The tenets laid down in the Qur'an provided the basis for a comprehensive, and continuous, system of social and cultural, and hence also economic, behaviour, for which there is no Western equivalent. This collection analyses the rationale of Islamic values and Islamic laws in economic activities. It examines how Islam has contributed several alternative values to business and economic policies in Muslim countries. Consideration is also given to how Islam can be considered as a universal system that can be applied to various economic policies, business strategies and government regulations.

This is a study of the structure and composition of the official learning current in medieval Arabic culture. This comprises natural sciences both exoteric and esoteric (medicine, alchemy, astrology and others), traditional and religious sciences (such as theology, exegesis and grammar), philosophical sciences such as metaphysics and ethics, in addition to technical disciplines like political theory and medicine, and other fields of intellectual endeavour. The book identifies and develops a number of conceptual elements common to the various areas of official Arabic scientific discourse, and shows how these elements integrate these disparate sciences into an historical epistemic unity. The specific profile of each of these different sciences is described, in terms of its conceptual content, but especially with reference to its historical circumstances. These are seen to be embodied in a number of institutional supports, both intellectual and social: paradigms, schools of thought, institutions of learning, pedagogic techniques, and a body of professionals, all of which combine to form definite, albeit ever renewed, traditions of learning. Finally, an attempt is made to relate Arabic scientific knowledge in the Middle Ages to patterns of scientific and political authority. First published in 1986.

An examination of the place of religion, especially Islam, in political and cultural life took on a special urgency after the events of 9/11. The essays in this volume concentrate on the way that Islam impacts on the everyday lives of people who reside in societies where Islam plays a large part. The relationship between Islam and women has always been seen as problematic, and by highlighting women's negotiations with this religion, this volume seeks to understand the many and various strategies and connections that are made, and their political and cultural ramifications. By keeping an Asian focus, the authors also seek to understand the wide panorama that Islamic societies inhabit, and the manifold political and cultural expressions that ensue from this. The effort is not only to break the image of a monolithic structure and set of beliefs, but also to highlight on-the-ground negotiations, and the ways that women in particular find spaces within Islamic structures and discourses. This book was originally published as a special issue of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies.

The past 18 months have seen a radical increase in incidents of jihadist terrorism within the United Kingdom - from the Manchester Arena attack, to the Houses of Parliament, to London Bridge. As a result, there are renewed calls for a high-level national conversation about the causes of, and the responses to, this particular terrorist problem. This book identifies policy and research gaps from an evidence-based perspective - it analyses what we know, what we don't know and what we need to know in relation to understanding and countering the jihadist terrorist threat. It provides readers with a synthesis of the knowledge and evidence that exists on each of the key topic areas, representing a distinctive and valuable resource for policymakers, academics and students. The contributors to the volume are leading international and national experts, from both the scholarly and policy-making communities, who are ideally placed to comment on the question of jihadist terrorism and the future of the threat in the UK.

Inside the Muslim Brotherhood provides a comprehensive analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt since 1981. The book unpacks the principal factors that shape the Brotherhood's identity, organization, and activism, investigating the processes of socialization, indoctrination, recruitment, identification, networking, and mobilization utilized by the movement. Khalil al-Anani argues that the Brotherhood is not merely a political actor seeks power but also an identity maker that aims to change societal values, norms, and morals to line up with its ideology and worldview. As a socio-political movement, he finds, the Brotherhood is involved in an intensive process of meaning construction and symbolic production that shape individuals' identity and gives sense to their lives. The result is Brotherhood a distinctive code of identity that governs the norms, values, and regulations that bind members together, maintains their activism, and guides their behavior in everyday life. The book also explains the Brotherhood's durability and how it endured regime repression and exclusion over the past three decades, which al-Anani attributes to the organization's structure and coherence. A tight-knit structure coupled with complex membership system has allowed the Brotherhood to resist regime penetration. Lastly, the book explores the balance of power within the Brotherhood. It investigates the divisions and differences within the movement and how this affects its strategy and decisions.

This is a unique book, groundbreaking in the field of Islamic studies. It is, on its surface, a personal story of a South African couple making their first pilgrimage to Makkah (Hajj) together. The authors are highly intelligent, well educated, slightly sarcastic, but very devout in a way that resonates with the faith of other young people throughout the world. But this book is more than the musings of young professionals on the meaning of a traditional ritual. The authors are South African activists struggling against apartheid and its aftermath. At the same time, they grapple with gender and authority issues within Islam, especially as these issues question their social activism. Their book is therefore a focused story of Muslims committed to social reform and seeking to reconcile their activism with their deeply traditional faith. The story is all the more poignant knowing that the trip is both the vehicle of spiritual discovery and the couple’s last trip together. Shamima died a few months later, leaving Na’eem to bring up their two sons and make sense of their journey together. Several books have been published on the Islamic pilgrimage. None, however, has the accessibility and personal appeal of Journey of Discovery. More importantly, none has incorporated the meaning of the pilgrimage into the spiritual and social landscape of Muslim life in the contemporary world, as this has. This book is easy to read, yet highly charged intellectually and emotionally.

Beyond the affluent centre of Paris and other French cities, in the deprived banlieues, a war is going on. This is the French Intifada, a guerrilla war between the French state and the former subjects of its Empire, for whom the mantra of 'liberty, equality, fraternity' conceals a bitter history of domination, oppression, and brutality. This war began in the early 1800s, with Napoleon's lust for martial adventure, strategic power and imperial preeminence, and led to the armed colonization of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, and decades of bloody conflict, all in the name of 'civilization'. Here, against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, Andrew Hussey walks the front lines of this war - from the Gare du Nord in Paris to the souks of Marrakesh and the mosques of Tangier - to tell the strange and complex story of the relationship between secular, republican France and the Muslim world of North Africa. The result is a completely new portrait of an old nation. Combining a fascinating and compulsively readable mix of history, politics and literature with Hussey's years of personal experience travelling across the Arab World, The French Intifada reveals the role played by the countries of the Maghreb in shaping French history, and explores the challenge being mounted by today's dispossessed heirs to the colonial project: a challenge that is angrily and violently staking a claim on France's future.

From its birth in the 7th century through modern times, the Islamic religion has inspired glorious works of art. This stunning book includes more than four hundred reproductions of treasures of Islamic art that span the world: from southern Europe, along the entire Mediterranean basin to sub-Saharan Africa through the Middle East, India, and Central Asia. Arranged geographically, the objects include paintings, miniatures, ceramics, calligraphy, textiles, carpets, and metal works. Each region is given a thorough introduction that offers historical context and extensive descriptions of its artifacts. Accompanying essays offer guidance in interpreting the many themes that tie these works together, including typology, calligraphy, and religious beliefs. With its large format, exquisite reproductions, and extensive research, this book is a thorough introduction to the Islamic artistic tradition.

The first eleven essays in this collection treat the application of Islamic law in qadi courts in the Maghrib in the period between 1100 and 1500 CE. Based on preserved legal documents and the expert opinions of Muslim jurists (Muftis), the essays examine family law cases involving legal minority, guardianship, divorce, inheritance, bequests, and endowments. Cumulatively, the cases bear witness to the effectiveness and efficiency of the Islamic judicial system in this period. Contrary to popular perceptions, the cases demonstrate that Muslim jurists placed a high value on reasoned thought and were sensitive to the manner in which law, society, and culture interacted with, and shaped, each other. The final essay shows how the treatment of family endowments by colonial regimes in Algeria and India at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries shaped, or misshaped the modern western scholarly understanding of Islamic law.

The decade since 9/11 has seen a decline in liberal tolerance in the West as Muslims have endured increasing levels of repression. This book presents a series of case studies from Western Europe, Australia and North America demonstrating the transnational character of Islamophobia. The authors explore contemporary intercultural conflicts using the concept of moral panic, revitalised for the era of globalisation. Exploring various sites of conflict, Global Islamophobia considers the role played by 'moral entrepreneurs' in orchestrating popular xenophobia and in agitating for greater surveillance, policing and cultural regulation of those deemed a threat to the nation's security or imagined community. This timely collection examines the interpenetration of the global and the local in the West's cultural politics towards Islam, highlighting parallels in the responses of governments and in the worrying reversion to a politics of coercion and assimilation. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of sociology and politics with interests in race and ethnicity; citizenship and assimilation; political communication, securitisation and The War on Terror; and moral panics.

Until currently there have been no specific publications, particularly in English, on women in traditional Islamic educational institutions in Indonesia, known as pesantren, which played a significant role in shaping the gender issues in the Indonesian Muslim community. This informative and insightful book contributes to two booming fields in Indonesian studies: the study of Islam and the study of Muslim women. It also adds a new perspective to the English-language literature on Muslim women outside the Middle-Eastern or Sub-Indian continent communities context, which used to dominate the scholarly discussion or publication in this field.

2018 Outstanding Academic Title, given by Choice Magazine An exploration of twentieth and twenty-first century U.S. Muslim womanhood that centers the lived experience of women of color For Sylvia Chan-Malik, Muslim womanhood is constructed through everyday and embodied acts of resistance, what she calls affective insurgency. In negotiating the histories of anti-Blackness, U.S. imperialism, and women's rights of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Being Muslim explores how U.S. Muslim women's identities are expressions of Islam as both Black protest religion and universal faith tradition. Through archival images, cultural texts, popular media, and interviews, the author maps how communities of American Islam became sites of safety, support, spirituality, and social activism, and how women of color were central to their formation. By accounting for American Islam's rich histories of mobilization and community, Being Muslim brings insight to the resistance that all Muslim women must engage in the post-9/11 United States. From the stories that she gathers, Chan-Malik demonstrates the diversity and similarities of Black, Arab, South Asian, Latina, and multiracial Muslim women, and how American understandings of Islam have shifted against the evolution of U.S. white nationalism over the past century. In borrowing from the lineages of Black and women-of-color feminism, Chan-Malik offers us a new vocabulary for U.S. Muslim feminism, one that is as conscious of race, gender, sexuality, and nation, as it is region and religion.

Islamophobia is the name given to the virulent anti-Islamic prejudice that has been hyped by the news media and seized upon by cynical politicians. Five essays by six specialists on Islam in America provide important insights into Islamophobia as a conflict over American identity during a time of crisis. The authors clarify the way that differences of religion, race, and gender have been used to portray Muslims as threatening "out-groups," just as other minorities (Catholics, Jews, blacks) have been attacked in the past. The result is a valuable and thought-provoking analysis of the tactics for denying full citizenship to a minority religious group.

In a world where almost all societies are multi-religious and multi-ethnic, we need to study how social cohesion can be achieved in different contexts. In some geographical areas, as in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, people of different religious belonging have, through the ages, lived side by side, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in dissonance. In other geographical regions, as in Scandinavia, societies have been quite religiously homogeneous but only recently challenged by immigration. In both locations the relations between religious minority and majority are very much on the agenda. In order to discuss the situation for non-Muslims in Muslim majority societies, a consultation was convened with both Muslim and Christian participants from Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Sweden. Some of the participants work in academic settings, others in faith-based organisations, some in jurisprudence and others with theological issues. Non-Muslims in Muslim Majority Societies is the result of that consultation. The intention of the book is to trigger reflection and further thinking, through papers that discuss issues such as freedom of religion, minority rights, secular and religious legislation, and inter-religious dialogue in Muslim majority societies. Although the articles are presented as 'works in progress' and remain tentative in many of their conclusions, this book is an important contribution to the global debate over religious tolerance and religious pluralism.