Americans have learned in elementary school that their country was founded by a group of brave, white, largely British Christians. Modern reinterpretations recognize the contributions of African and indigenous Americans, but the basic premise has persisted. This groundbreaking study fundamentally challenges the traditional national storyline by postulating that many of the initial colonists were actually of Sephardic Jewish and Muslin Moorish ancestry. Supporting references include historical writings, ship manifests, wills, land grants, DNA test results, genealogies, and settler lists that provide for the first time the Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, and Jewish origins of more than 5,000 surnames, the majority widely assumed to be British. By documenting the widespread presence of Jews and Muslims in prominent economic, political, financial and social positions in all of the original colonies, this innovative work offers a fresh perspective on the early American experience.

Osama bin Laden is dead but al-Qa'ida remains the CIA's 'number one threat'. With branches in strategic hotspots from Yemen and Somalia to North Africa and an increasing influence among 'home grown jihadis' in the West, journalist and al-Qa'ida expert Abdel Bari Atwan investigates how the organisation has survived all attempts to destroy it. Al-Qa'ida after bin Laden has expanded its reach by cementing new alliances and exploiting the opportunities regional turmoil affords. The Arab Spring has opened new battlegrounds for jihadists, particularly in Libya, the Sahel, Syria and Egypt. As the extremist zeal for a global caliphate shows no sign of abating, Atwan profiles the next generation of foot soldiers and leaders and explores the new methods they embrace in the pursuit of jihad in a digital age.

Music was one of the first casualties of the Iranian Revolution. It was banned in 1979, but it quickly crept back into Iranian culture and politics. The state made use of music for its propaganda during the Iran-Iraq war. Over time music provided an important political space where artists and audiences could engage in social and political debate. Now, more than thirty-five years on, both the children of the revolution and their music have come of age. Soundtrack of the Revolution offers a striking account of Iranian culture, politics, and social change to provide an alternative history of the Islamic Republic. Drawing on over five years of research in Iran, including during the 2009 protests, Nahid Siamdoust introduces a full cast of characters, from musicians and audience members to state officials, and takes readers into concert halls and underground performances, as well as the state licensing and censorship offices. She closely follows the work of four musicians-a giant of Persian classical music, a government-supported pop star, a rebel rock-and-roller, and an underground rapper-each with markedly different political views and relations with the Iranian government. Taken together, these examinations of musicians and their music shed light on issues at the heart of debates in Iran-about its future and identity, changing notions of religious belief, and the quest for political freedom. Siamdoust shows that even as state authorities resolve, for now, to allow greater freedoms to Iran's majority young population, they retain control and can punish those who stray too far. But music will continue to offer an opening for debate and defiance. As the 2009 Green Uprising and the 1979 Revolution before it have proven, the invocation of a potent melody or musical verse can unite strangers into a powerful public.

In Iran, folksongs are part of folklore and offer an intimate portrait of a vanishing era. They are also 'the voice' of ordinary people, providing a medium to express emotions, opinions and concerns. This book is based on folksongs collected over a 50-year period among the Boir Ahmad tribal people in the Zagros Mountains of West Iran. Erika Friedl has recorded, transcribed and translated more than 600 lyrics from a Lur community, and her analysis of the folksongs provides an intimate portrait of local people's attitudes, attachments, fears and desires. From songs of love, sex and mourning, to lyrics discussing beauty, infatuation and the community's violent tribal history, Friedl's solid understanding of the cultural background, lifestyle and worldview of these people lets her add ethnographic details that illuminate the deep meaning of the texts. In this way, Friedl goes far beyond a translation of words: she sheds light on a culture where beliefs, critical evaluation of circumstances and philosophical tenets are shown to be integral to each song's message. Based on fieldwork that began in 1965, Erika Friedl's research on the folklore in Boir Ahmad represents the best-documented modern folklore compendium on an Iranian tribe. This new book will be important for future generations of scholars, including ethnographers, Iranists, linguists, ethnomusicologists and those researching Persian literature and cultures of the Middle East.

A young girl's imagination takes flight and carries her on a magical journey. From the great mosques to wondrous palaces and ornamental gardens, she journeys through the rich artistic heritage of the Islamic civilization. The richness and beauty of Islamic art is brought to life.

Despite a proliferation of special education literature on racial minorities over the past three decades, research and writing on Arab American children with disabilities remain remarkably sparse. This book fills that gap by promoting culturally appropriate services for Arab American children with disabilities. Special education and service providers in the U.S.-including school psychologists, rehabilitation counselors, and social workers-are increasingly likely to work with Arab Americans with disabilities. By focusing on this marginalized minority population, Al Khatib provides much-needed context and direction for service providers and researchers working with the Arab American community. Offering an overview of special education and the rights guaranteed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), this book also helps Arab American families understand the special education process and advocate for their children.

Gary R. Bunt is a twenty-year pioneer in the study of cyber-Islamic environments (CIEs). In this new book, he explores the diverse and surprising ways digital technology is shaping how Muslims across vast territories relate to religious authorities in fulfilling spiritual, mystical, and legalistic agendas. From social networks to websites, essential elements of religious practices and authority now have representation online. Muslims, embracing the immediacy and general accessibility of the internet, are increasingly turning to cyberspace for advice and answers to important religious questions. Online environments often challenge traditional models of authority, however. One result is the rise of digitally literate religious scholars and authorities whose influence and impact go beyond traditional boundaries of imams, mullahs, and shaikhs. Bunt shows how online rhetoric and social media are being used to articulate religious faith by many different kinds of Muslim organizations and individuals, from Muslim comedians and women's rights advocates to jihad-oriented groups, such as the ""Islamic State"" and al-Qaeda, which now clearly rely on strategic digital media policies to augment and justify their authority and draw recruits. This book makes clear that understanding CIEs is crucial for the holistic interpretation of authority in contemporary Islam.

This book sketches the discourse about a new constitution in Libya since 2011. Applying a discourse analytical approach, the author identifies societal cleavages that have come to the fore in Libya's transitional period. The debate has focused on democracy, federalism, decentralisation and localisation, the role of religion, women in politics as well as ethnic minorities. The strategies followed to ensure representation in the constitutional process have included civil disobedience, affirmative action and force. The effects of raising demands in these ways have been changes in the constitutional process and institutional design of Libya's interim political institutions rather than promises that particular demands as to the content of the constitution would be met. The general prevention of a public discourse and competition along societal cleavages under Gaddafi's totalitarian ideology has resulted in an all-out resurgence of splits along ethnic, regional and other lines.The work was awarded the Christoph Schumann Memorial Prize of the University of Erlangen.

Architecture, Islam, and Identity in West Africa shows you the relationship between architecture and Islamic identity in West Africa. The book looks broadly across Muslim West Africa and takes an in-depth study of the village of Larabanga, a small Muslim community in Northern Ghana, to help you see how the built environment encodes cultural history through form, material, and space, creating an architectural narrative that outlines the contours of this distinctive Muslim identity. Apotsos explores how modern technology, heritage, and tourism have increasingly affected the contemporary architectural character of this community, revealing the village's current state of social, cultural, and spiritual flux. More than 60 black and white images illustrate how architectural components within this setting express the distinctive narratives, value systems, and realities that make up the unique composition of this Afro-Islamic community.

Bringing together ten research based contributions, Muslims, Migration and Citizenship addresses questions about the changing experiences of Muslim communities, or specific groups within them, in various national and localised environments. Although not an exhaustive survey of the broad range of scholarly research in this evolving field, this book covers issues that are likely to be of some importance in the coming period. In particular, the contributors highlight the complexity of the experiences of Muslim communities in different national and cultural environments, and the evolution of both policy discourses and debates in civil society. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Indonesia's Islamic organizations sustain the country's thriving civil society, democracy, and reputation for tolerance amid diversity. Yet scholars poorly understand how these organizations envision the accommodation of religious difference. What does tolerance mean to the world's largest Islamic organizations? What are the implications for democracy in Indonesia and the broader Muslim world? Jeremy Menchik argues that answering these questions requires decoupling tolerance from liberalism and investigating the historical and political conditions that engender democratic values. Drawing on archival documents, ethnographic observation, comparative political theory, and an original survey, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia demonstrates that Indonesia's Muslim leaders favor a democracy in which individual rights and group-differentiated rights converge within a system of legal pluralism, a vision at odds with American-style secular government but common in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

This important work on American Black Islam, previously published in cloth, is now available in trade paperback. With the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, the Nation of Islam and its often controversial leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan, have reemphasized their importance as a major voice of the African-American community. Marsh examines the rise, fall, and rebirth of the oldest, most powerful, and significant Black nationalist organization in the United States. New chapters focus on the ideological splits in the Nation of Islam during the 1970s, the growth of the Nation in the 1980s, and the expanding influence and power of the organization in the 1990s. A key chapter examines the continuing legacy of African nationalist thought from 1815 to 1994, places Farrakhan in historical context, and examines his addition to the African nationalist legacy of Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois. The appendixes include interviews with important members of the Nation of Islam, Imam, Wallace D. Muhammad (son of Elijah Muhammad) and Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad, the national spokesman for minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam; and a directory of Masjids in the United States and abroad. With bibliography and index.

The Promise of Reconciliation? explores the relationship between violence, nonviolence, and reconciliation in societal conflicts with questions such as: In what ways does violence impact the reconciliation process that necessarily follows a cessation of deadly conflict? Would an understanding of how conflict has been engaged, with violence or nonviolence, be conducive to how it could be prevented from sliding further into violence? The contributors examine international influences on the peace/reconciliation process in Indonesia's Aceh conflict, as well as the role of Muslim religious scholars in promoting peace. They also examine the effect of violence in southern Thailand, where insurgent violence has provided "leverage" during the fighting, but negatively affects post-conflict objectives. The chapter on Sri Lanka shows that "successful" violence does not necessarily end conflict-Sri Lankan society today is more polarized than it was before its civil war. The Vietnam chapter argues that the rise of nonviolent protest in Vietnam reflects a profound loss of state legitimacy, which cannot be resolved with force, while another chapter on Thailand examines "Red Sunday," a Thai political movement engaged in nonviolent protest in the face of violent government suppression. The book ends with a look at Indonesian cities, sites of ethnic conflicts, as potential abodes of peace if violence can be curtailed.

Sunni-Shi'i relations have undergone significant transformations in recent decades. In order to understand these developments, the contributors to the present volume demonstrate 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.

This collection of arresting and innovative chapters applies the techniques of anthropology in analyzing the role played by Islam in the social lives of the world's Muslims. The volume begins with an introduction that sets out a powerful case for a fresh approach to this kind of research, exhorting anthropologists to pause and reflect on when Islam is, and is not, a central feature of their informants' life-worlds and identities. The chapters that follow are written by scholars with long-term, specialist research experience in Muslim societies ranging from Kenya to Pakistan and from Yemen to China: thus they explore and compare Islam's social significance in a variety of settings that are not confined to the Middle East or South Asia alone. The authors assess how helpful current anthropological research is in shedding light on Islam's relationship to contemporary societies. Collectively, the contributors deploy both theoretical and ethnographic analysis of key developments in the anthropology of Islam over the last 30 years, even as they extrapolate their findings to address wider debates over the anthropology of world religions more generally. Crucially, they also tackle the thorny question of how, in the current political context, anthropologists might continue conducting sensitive and nuanced work with Muslim communities. Finally, an afterword by a scholar of Christianity explores the conceptual parallels between the book's key themes and the anthropology of world religions in a broader context. This volume has key contemporary relevance: for example, its conclusions on the fluidity of people's relations with Islam will provide an important counterpoint to many commonly held assumptions about the incontestability of Islam in the public sphere.

Hamed El-Said investigates Counter-de-Rad programmes in Muslim majority and Muslim minority states. This multifaceted book provides a new approach to evaluate Counter-de-Rad Programmes and develops a holistic framework which will allow policy-makers and practitioners to design and effectively implement and assess such programmes in the future.

Muslim Belonging in Secular India surveys the experience of some of India's most prominent Muslim communities in the early postcolonial period. Muslims who remained in India after the Partition of 1947 faced distrust and discrimination, and were consequently compelled to seek new ways of defining their relationship with fellow citizens of India and its governments. Using the forcible integration of the princely state of Hyderabad in 1948 as a case study, Taylor C. Sherman reveals the fragile and contested nature of Muslim belonging in the decade that followed independence. In this context, she demonstrates how Muslim claims to citizenship in Hyderabad contributed to intense debates over the nature of democracy and secularism in independent India. Drawing on detailed new archival research, Dr Sherman provides a thorough and compelling examination of the early governmental policies and popular strategies that have helped to shape the history of Muslims in India since 1947.

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.

Engaging with a Legacy shows how Nehemia Levtzion shaped our understanding of Islam in Africa and influenced successive scholarly generations in their approach to Islamization, conversion and fundamentalism. The book illuminates his work, career and family life - including his own 'life vision' on the occasion of his 60th birthday. It speaks to his relationship with researchers at home and abroad as mentor, colleague and provocateur; in one section, several authors reflect on those dynamics in terms of personal and professional development. Levtzion's contemporaries also speak of interactions with him (and his life-long companion, wife Tirza) in the 1950s and 1960s; we see in these writings the birth of West African historical studies. Levtzion's arrival as Israeli graduate-student in Nkrumah's Egyptian-leaning Ghana, and the debate over what 'African Studies' should mean in an environment that included the personal intervention of W.E.B. Du Bois, are stories told for the first time. Most poignant is the account of Levtzion's commitment to building African Studies, complete with emphasis on Islam, in the heart of the Jewish state at The Hebrew University. His never-ending defence of the program reflected his determination to be both 'engaged historian' and 'engaged Israeli' - a legacy he chose for himself. Finally, an 'Epilogue' to the original publication shows how one aspect this legacy, Levtzion's growing preoccupation with the 'public sphere in Muslim societies', has become even more relevant in 'post-Arab Spring' Africa and the Middle East. This book was published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of African Studies.

This book explores the tensions between the religious and legal principles of Islamic finance and Islamic banking in practice. It does not limit itself to a legal discussion and presents a truly interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue between lawyers, theologians, and economists with roots in academia and practice. There is considerable divergence in their evaluation of the status quo and future of Islamic finance.Contributions cover aspects of Islamic finance in theory and practice. It provides insights into the interplay of religion, ethics and finance covering both the Islamic and Christian traditions that sets the scene for Islamic finance in practice: economic technicalities of Islamic banking services, its regulatory aspects, and the complex legal arrangements of Islamic finance in non-Muslim-majority countries. Islamic Finance is a truly international collaboration of outstanding scholars and practitioners in their field that reveals the complexities involved in applying religious principles and legal theory to the daily practice of business and finance.

Educational institutions are undergoing complex and sensitive changes in the context of immigration, international mobility, globalisation, and shifting economic scenarios, making highly challenging demands on educational leaders. Leadership is increasingly being perceived and theorised as pivotal to students' achievement and institutional performance. In this book, Saeeda Shah considers educational leadership from an Islamic perspective to debate theoretical positions underpinned by Islamic texts and teachings, and the resulting conceptualisations and interpretations. While educational leadership literature and research have flourished in recent years, this is predominantly informed by Western ideologies, concepts, theories and practices. Education, Leadership and Islam focuses on contemporary educational settings and practices, drawing on research and empirical evidence from multicultural contexts in order to enrich theory and inform policy and practice in relevant frameworks, particularly in relation to the growing Muslim population in the West. Chapters also discuss gender in Islam, educational expectations and Islamic faith schools to comprehensively explore education in relation to Islamism. Situating Muslims within contemporary societies, this book extends debates regarding educational philosophy and leadership, endorsing diversity and plurality through an appreciation of difference. Education, Leadership and Islam will appeal to education researchers as well as social and political scientists attempting to understand Muslim educational issues in contemporary life, both in the east and in the west. This book offers critical insight into educational theory and practice, and as such will be key reading for policy makers and educational leaders.

The integration of Muslim into European societies is often seen as a major challenge that is yet to be confronted. This book, by contrast, starts from the observation that on legal, political and organizational levels integration has already taken place. Structured in two parts, it showcases the variety of theoretical approaches that scholars have developed to conceptualize Muslim life in Europe, and provides detailed empirical analysis of ten European countries. Demonstrating how Muslim life unfolds between conviviality and contentious politics, the contributors describe demographic developments, analyze legal controversies around Islamic headscarves, dietary prescriptions, slaughtering and circumcision, and explore the action of government and state, Muslim communities and other civil society actors. Factors for organizational change such as state-religion relationship, citizenship and colonial regimes, supra-national institutions and national legal systems, party politics, public debates, critical events and state concerns of control as well as Muslim mobilization are discussed in detail and compared across countries.

The book offers cutting-edge theoretical approaches and up-to-date insights into a wide range of issues that are extremely valuable for scholars in sociology, political science, anthropology, migration studies, religious studies and policy analysis.

Lone Star Muslims offers an engaging and insightful look at contemporary Muslim American life in Texas. It illuminates the dynamics of the Pakistani Muslim community in Houston, a city with one of the largest Muslim populations in the south and southwestern United States. Drawing on interviews and participant observation at radio stations, festivals, and ethnic businesses, the volume explores everyday Muslim lives at the intersection of race, class, profession, gender, sexuality, and religious sectarian affiliation to demonstrate the complexity of the South Asian experience. Importantly, the volume incorporates narratives of gay Muslim American men of Pakistani descent, countering the presumed heteronormativity evident in most of the social science scholarship on Muslim Americans and revealing deeply felt affiliations to Islam through ritual and practice. It also includes narratives of members of the highly skilled Shia Ismaili Muslim labor force employed in corporate America, of Pakistani ethnic entrepreneurs, the working class and the working poor employed in Pakistani ethnic businesses, of community activists, and of radio program hosts. Decentering dominant framings that flatten understandings of transnational Islam and Muslim Americans, such as "terrorist" on the one hand, and "model minority" on the other, Lone Star Muslims offers a glimpse into a variety of lived experiences. It shows how specificities of class, Islamic sectarian affiliation, citizenship status, gender, and sexuality shape transnational identities and mediate racism, marginalities, and abjection.

The Hizmet (Service) Movement of Fethullah Gulen is Turkey's most influential Islamic identity community. Widely praised throughout the early 2000s as a mild and moderate variation on Islamic political identity, the Gulen Movement has long been a topic of both adulation and conspiracy in Turkey, and has become more controversial as it spreads across the world. In Gulen, Joshua D. Hendrick suggests that when analyzed in accordance with its political and economic impact, the Gulen Movement, despite both praise and criticism, should be given credit for playing a significant role in Turkey's rise to global prominence. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey and the U.S., Hendrick examines the Gulen Movement's role in Turkey's recent rise, as well as its strategic relationship with Turkey's Justice and Development Party-led government. He argues that the movement's growth and impact both inside and outside Turkey position both its leader and its followers as indicative of a post political turn in twenty-first century Islamic political identity in general, and as illustrative of Turkey's political, economic, and cultural transformation in particular. Joshua D. Hendrick is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Global Studies at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore.