Relating the Muslim understanding of Moses in the Qur'an to the Epic of Gilgamesh, Alexander Romances, Aramaic Targums, Rabbinic Bible exegesis, and folklore from the ancient and medieval Mediterranean, this book shows how Muslim scholars authorize and identify themselves through allusions to the Bible and Jewish tradition. Exegesis of Qur'an 18:60-82 shows how Muslim exegetes engage Biblical theology through interpretation of the ancient Israelites, their prophets, and their Torah. This Muslim use of a scripture shared with Jews and Christians suggests fresh perspectives for the history of religions, Biblical studies, cultural studies, and Jewish-Arabic studies.

In a well-known hadith, Muhammed advises Muslims that, "On the Day of Resurrection, you will be called by your names and the names of your fathers; so keep beautiful names." Inspired by the teachings of Islam, names fulfill the cherished ambitions of a true Muslim. In The Dictionary of Muslim Names, Salahuddin Ahmed provides a helpful and substantive guide to common and less-common Muslim names. This lively and informative dictionary lists the original Arabic, Persian, or Turkish spelling, as well as a precise English transliteration. The names' meaning and bearing on Islamic heritage or world history are referenced, along with historical figures who bore the name-an Imaam, a Sultan, a saint-and accompanying illustrations.

The Politicisation of Islam: A Case Study of Tunisia traces the emergence, rise, and recent eclipse of the modern Tunisian Islamic movement, al-Nahda, and provides a comprehensive analysis of its political, social, and intellectual discourse. The first two chapters concentrate on the factors behind the emergence of al-Nahda and its politicization. The three major confrontations between the movement and the Tunisian regime, which culminated in 1991 in the banning of all al-Nahda activities inside Tunisia, is explored in Chapter Three. The author discusses the basic concepts of political Islam in the movement's literature in Chapter Four, in particular the Islamists' rejection of secularism, and al-Nahda's proposal for a modern Islamic state in Chapter Five. In the concluding chapter, the author addresses the Islamists' cultural agenda and their insistence on an Islamic identity for Tunisia. A valuable contribution to the study of political Islam, this is the first complete analysis, in English, of the history of this modern Tunisian Islamic movement.

Somalis are one of the most chastised Muslim communities in Europe. Depicted in the news as victims of female genital mutilation, perpetrators of gang violence, or more recently, as radical Islamists, Somalis have been cast as a threat to social cohesion, national identity, and security in Britain and beyond. Somali, Muslim, British shifts attention away from these public representations to provide a detailed ethnographic study of Somali Muslim women's engagements with religion, political discourses, and public culture in the United Kingdom. The book chronicles the aspirations of different generations of Somali women as they respond to publicly charged questions of what it means to be Muslim, Somali, and British. By challenging and reconfiguring the dominant political frameworks in which they are immersed, these women imagine new ways of being in securitized Britain. Giulia Liberatore provides a nuanced account of Islamic piety, arguing that it needs to be understood as one among many forms of striving that individuals pursue throughout their lives. Bringing new perspectives to debates about Islam and multiculturalism in Europe, this book makes an important contribution to the anthropology of religion, subjectivity, and gender.

In recent years, Algeria has been rocked by social upheaval, protest, and spasmodic violence. Like many countries caught between the tides of fundamentalist religion and secular culture, the very fiber of the nation seems to be fraying.

Michael Willis here charts the meteoric rise of one of the largest and most powerful Islamist movements in the Muslim world. Tracing its origins to the French colonial domination in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Islamism has always played a defining role in both the national struggle against the French and in the newly independent Algerian state.

The primary focus of Willis's book is on Algeria since 1988, when unprecedented social unrest led to political changes that allowed Algeria's Islamists to form political parties and compete in multi- party elections. The largest Islamist party, the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), after rousing victories in local and national elections in 1990 and 1991, was subsequently crushed by the military regime.

Since then, despite the Rome Accord of January 1995, over 50,000 lives have been lost in an increasingly bloody conflict that threatens to spiral out of control. Banned by the army, the FIS splintered, with various factions arming themselves, leading to the current, ominous state of disarray.

In "Allah's Torch", National Geographic's Tracy Dahlby takes readers into the sprawling, porous, virtually lawless domain of Indonesia, where overlapping lines of radical Islamic rage are now converging in Asia, posing new threats to Westerners at home and abroad. From the moment the adventure begins, the night the author blunders on board an Indonesian passenger ship with 600 Islamic warriors on an anti-Christian jihad, readers glimpse the passions, politics and personalities fuelling radical Islam's relentless march. We listen as Koran-thumping preachers, hardened holy warriors and fresh-faced recruits, police investigators, military commandos, and spies try to make sense of the epidemic chaos that threatens to the region - and now the world beyond. Based on reporting both before and after September 11, "Allah's Torch" an action-packed and thought-provoking narrative that enables readers to see the face of Islamic terror more clearly and assess the threat for themselves.

What does Islam really say about women? This work is a collection of major references to women in the Quran and Hadiths, the two central "Pillars of Islam" on which Islamic legislation and social practice are based. The Hadiths are taken from the collections of Bukhari and Muslim, the Sahihain or two sound collections generally regarded as the most reliable. Topics covered include hygiene, divorce, marriage, sex and chastity, inheritance, and status and rights.

This book discusses recent trends and issues in the scholarly study of the Qur'an and its exegesis. The last few years have witnessed an unprecedented development in qur'anic studies in terms of both the number of volumes that have been produced and the wide range of issues covered. It is not an exaggeration to say that the field of qur'anic studies today has become the 'crown' of Islamic studies. In this book, scholars of diverse approaches critically engage with the Qur'an and its exegesis, including questions about the milieu in which the Qur'an emerged, the Qur'an's relation to the biblical tradition, its chronology, textual integrity, and its literary features. In addition, this volume addresses recent scholarship on tafsir (qur'anic exegesis), including thematic interpretation, diacronic and syncronic readings of the Qur'an. Various approaches to understanding the Muslim scripture with or without tafsir are also discussed.

"A dozen experts provide a coherent picture of the Taliban and the Great Game. . . . They discuss the emergence of the Taliban, their military development, the civil war, and their relations with foreign powers. Several of the authors conclusively demonstrate that the Taliban(and their organized opposition) are the creatures of external powers.... Richard Mackenzie provides a devastating summary of the ineptitute with which U.S. policies have been conducted . . . the volume makes it all too clear that outside powers will determine Afghanistan's fate."
--Middle East Quarterly

"A useful analysis of the Taliban and politics and society in Afghanistan today. The four chapters on the intensive foreign involvement--by Pakistan, the United States, Russian, the Central Asian republics, Saudi Arabia, and Iran--show that the venerable "great game" once played between Britain and czarist Russia now has multiple players."
--Foreign Affairs

"A fascinating and thorough analysis of the very complex political/military situation that evolved in Afghanistan follwing the demise of the Soviet puppet regime in 1992. This volume also provides an insightful study of the rise of a new form of puritanical Islamic fundamentalism that overran Kabul in September 1996--namely, the Taliban, and its impact on Afghan society. . . . Highly recommended."
--Choice

"[It] is an important collection of essays by leading experts on Afghanistan and the Taliban...an invaluable academic resource for anyone seeking to understand how the Taliban came to rule and "ruin" Afghanistan."
--"Washington Times"

In 1996, the world watched with varying degrees of interest, surprise, and unease as armed, ultra-fundamentalist insurgents overthrew the Afghan government. Within days of their victory, the Taliban, a militant Islamic sect, were issuing draconian religious decrees, restricting women's employment and movement, rounding up Afghans at gunpoint to pray five times a day, and publicly executing political opponents and criminals.

Composed of essays commissioned from the foremost experts on the Taliban, this anthology traces the movement's origins, its ascendance, the reasons for its success, and its role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Crucial to the Taliban's staying power as a governing force will be its relations with neighboring countries and with the West. Interestingly, given their intense hatred of Iran, the Taliban were enthusiastically supported by the U.S. government up to the very moment of their triumphant arrival in Kabul.

Examining yet another country on the brink of ethnic disintegration, Fundamentalism Reborn? is a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the history, rise to power, and future of the most dramatic manifestation of Islamic fundamentalism since the Iranian revolution.

The book provides theoretical insight and analysis of the power relations between women's activism, Islamist thought and praxis, and the Egyptian state (1970s to 1990s)' Contemporary feminist debates among women's NGOs are examined, and the different perceptions of gender roles among Islamist men and women are presented and contrasted. Three feminist streams are identified as both shaping and being shaped by, the dynamics of interaction between political Islam and state regimes.

Presents oral histories and interviews of women who belong to Nation of Islam With vocal public figures such as Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, and Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam often appears to be a male-centric religious movement, and over 60 years of scholarship have perpetuated that notion. Yet, women have been pivotal in the NOI's development, playing a major role in creating the public image that made it appealing and captivating. Women of the Nation draws on oral histories and interviews with approximately 100 women across several cities to provide an overview of women's historical contributions and their varied experiences of the NOI, including both its continuing community under Farrakhan and its offshoot into Sunni Islam under Imam W.D. Mohammed. The authors examine how women have interpreted and navigated the NOI's gender ideologies and practices, illuminating the experiences of African-American, Latina, and Native American women within the NOI and their changing roles within this patriarchal movement. The book argues that the Nation of Islam experience for women has been characterized by an expression of Islam sensitive to American cultural messages about race and gender, but also by gender and race ideals in the Islamic tradition. It offers the first exhaustive study of women's experiences in both the NOI and the W.D. Mohammed community.

Addressing the contested nature of Ottoman Sunnism from the 14th to the early 20th century, this book draws on diverse perspectives across the empire. Closely reading intellectual, social and mystical traditions within the empire, it clarifies the possibilities that existed within Ottoman Sunnism, presenting it as a complex, nuanced and evolving concept. The authors in this volume rescue Ottoman Sunnism from an increasingly bipolar definition that seeks to present the Ottomans as enshrining a clearly defined orthodoxy, suppressing its contrasting heterodoxy. Challenging established notions that have marked the existing literature, the chapters contribute significantly not only to the ongoing debate on the Ottoman age of confessionalisation but also to the study of religion in the Ottoman context.

In spite of Islam's long history in Europe and the growing number of Muslims resident in Europe, little research exists on Muslim pilgrimage in Europe. This collection of eleven chapters is the first systematic attempt to fill this lacuna in an emerging research field. Placing the pilgrims' practices and experiences centre stage, scholars from history, anthropology, religious studies, sociology, and art history examine historical and contemporary hajj and non-hajj pilgrimage to sites outside and within Europe. Sources include online travelogues, ethnographic data, biographic information, and material and performative culture. The interlocutors are European-born Muslims, converts to Islam, and Muslim migrants to Europe, in addition to people who identify themselves with other faiths. Most interlocutors reside in Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Norway. This book identifies four courses of developments: Muslims resident in Europe continue to travel to Mecca and Medina, and to visit shrine sites located elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa. Secondly, there is a revival of pilgrimage to old pilgrimage sites in South-eastern Europe. Thirdly, new Muslim pilgrimage sites and practices are being established in Western Europe. Fourthly, Muslims visit long-established Christian pilgrimage sites in Europe. These practices point to processes of continuity, revitalization, and innovation in the practice of Muslim pilgrimage in Europe. Linked to changing sectarian, political, and economic circumstances, pilgrimage sites are dynamic places of intra-religious as well as inter-religious conflict and collaboration, while pilgrimage experiences in multiple ways also transform the individual and affect the home-community.

In an age when Western feminism is continuously undergoing redifinition, the struggles of women in Muslim countries are often overlooked. This volume illustrates how women in Islamic societies have become more actively involved not only in learning their rights under the sharia (Islamic law) but in rereading this law to improve their status and gain increased equality and freedom. Surveying Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and Arab societies in general, the essays in feminism and Islam focus on such subjects as crimes of honor and the construction of gender in Arab societies; law and the desire for social control; women ad entrepreneurship; family legislation; and the political srategies of feminists inb the Islam world. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first Saudi Arabian woman to ean a docorate from Oxford, Mai Yamani is Research associate at the Center of Ixlamic and Middle Eastern law at the School of oriental and African Studies of the University of London.

Women presented the first effective challenge to the Islamic regime and the clerical authority in post-revolutionary Iran. Women's activism in support of their legal rights and personal freedom, however, did not develop into a strong movement against the rising fundamentalism. The Iranian socialists did not support women's autonomous organizations. The convergence of the Left's populism with Islamic populism, and the influence of the Iranian/Shiite political culture that promotes male authority and female submission, could not reconcile with women's claims to individual rights, choice, and personal freedom and their struggle for autonomy and self-determination in private or public life.

Serious interest in the politics of radical Islam dates from precisely Christmas 1978, when the pro-American Pahlavi dynasty in Iran came tumbling down. The academic form of that fascination consists in this book of 13 insightful case-studies of Muslim minorities and majorities worldwide. How do Muslims cope with political weakness in India, Israel, and the West? And in their own lands, have Muslims found their political identity?' - Shabbir Akhtar, The Times Higher Education Supplement;This is the most recent and up-to-date study on the state of affairs in the Muslim world at a time when Muslims, like others, are confronted with the challenges posed by a rapidly changing new world order. Some 15 countries and regions are covered in this scholarly collection. The contributors are well-informed academics and experts from 10 leading universities and institutes.

"It is difficult to imagine a more thoughtful, balanced, orcomprehensive treatment of this extremely elusive and difficult subject." --Digest of Middle East Studies

This second edition of a widelyacclaimed collection of essays reports on how new media -- fax machines, satellitetelevision, and the Internet -- and the new uses of older media -- cassettes, pulpfiction, the cinema, the telephone, and the press -- shape belief, authority, andcommunity in the Muslim world. The chapters in this work, including new chaptersdealing specifically with events after September 11, 2001, concern Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, the Arabian Peninsula, and Muslim communities inthe United States and elsewhere. The extent to which today's new media havetranscended local and state frontiers and have reshaped understandings of gender, authority, social justice, identities, and politics in Muslim societies emerges fromthis timely and provocative book.

The current Islamic revival is frequently associated with fundamentalism and radical politics. This reinforces Western perceptions of Islamic women as victims of a sexist and reactionary rule. What many outsiders fail to realize is that quite a number of Muslim women are ardently embracing their religion as a means through which they can express gender identity, power and creativity.
In overturning ingrained notions of Muslim women's subjugation, this timely book situates Islam as a religion undergoing reinterpretation and change -- especially in relation to gender identities -- rather than as a monolithic movement reacting against westernization and modernization. Through their political, educational, and recreational activities, more and more Muslim women are setting agendas of their own and are actively redefining the role of women in Muslim society.

The current Islamic revival is frequently associated with fundamentalism and radical politics. This reinforces Western perceptions of Islamic women as victims of a sexist and reactionary rule. What many outsiders fail to realize is that quite a number of Muslim women are ardently embracing their religion as a means through which they can express gender identity, power and creativity.
In overturning ingrained notions of Muslim women's subjugation, this timely book situates Islam as a religion undergoing reinterpretation and change -- especially in relation to gender identities -- rather than as a monolithic movement reacting against westernization and modernization. Through their political, educational, and recreational activities, more and more Muslim women are setting agendas of their own and are actively redefining the role of women in Muslim society.

Focusing on the relationship between gender and the state in the construction of national identity politics in twentieth-century northern Sudan, the author investigates the mechanisms that the state and political and religious interest groups employ for achieving political and cultural hegemony. Hale argues that such a process involves the transformation of culture through the involvement of women in both left-wing and Islamist revolutionary movements. In drawing parallels between the gender ideology of secular and religious organizations in Sudan, Hale analyzes male positioning of women within the culture to serve the movement. Using data from fieldwork conducted between 1961 and 1988, she investigates the conditions under which women's culture can be active, generating positive expressions of resistance and transformation. Hale argues that in northern Sudan women may be using Islam to construct their own identity and improve their situation. Nevertheless, she raises questions about the barriers that women may face, now that the Islamic state is achieving hegemony, and discusses the limits of identity politics.

This fascinating study explores the "clash of civilizations" between the secular government and Muslim traditions in West Africa, appraising the challenge of separating the administration of the state from the deeply held beliefs of the Islamic peoples of the region. Lamin Sanneh, awarded Senegal's highest national honor for his scholarly work, places Islam within the context of Africa's receptive and pluralist environment, explores the religious and historical background of present-day conflicts, and shows that achieving solutions will depend equally upon Christian and Muslim theological resources. As Sanneh explains, Muslims took advantage of Africa's religious tolerance to begin a process of change that culminated in a unified Islamic view of religion, state, and society. European colonialism and missionary efforts both bolstered and complicated the development of this faith as a result of the pressures secularism brought to bear on Islamic tradition. Sanneh points out that perhaps ironically, due to the same tolerance of differences, Christianity was able to flourish in parts of Africa, and its followers more readily supported the Western secular idea of the separation of church and state. Offering a comprehensive evaluation of the key points of colonial and interreligious friction, Sanneh explores the effects of conflict of belief on religious, educational, and political institutions in the region. The book will be essential reading for students of comparative religion, African studies, missions, and Islam.

Yemen is a country that is critical to U.S. security and our political interests, yet most Americans know virtually nothing about it. This book unlocks its secrets and explains its complexities in simple yet compelling language. A nation with a rich civilization that has spanned 3,000 years, Yemen is the only democratic republic in the Arabian Peninsula. While events in modern-day Yemen are often in international news, most Americans know nothing about this country-nor are there easy-to-read, up-to-date resources for lay audiences. This book fills the gap in the literature. It describes Yemen's geography, economy, politics and government, history, culture, society and contemporary events, presenting a comprehensive but accessible overview of the country from many different angles-coverage that is long overdue. Editor Steven C. Caton has taken care to create a resource that is readily comprehensible to non-specialists such as high school and college students and general readers as well as highly informative for those with previous knowledge about Yemen. His thorough treatment provides synthetic overviews of key topics, discusses and dismisses certain misconceptions about Yemen, offers surprising perspectives on the relatively unknown country, and underscores Yemen's importance to the region and the wider world-both in ancient times and today. Supplies a deep examination of a country that most policy experts only possess a superficial knowledge of Provides insights into why tribes have been crucial throughout Yemen's history and even to the modern day Reveals why characterizations of Yemen as "a weak state," "lawless," or "lacking a rule of law" are inaccurate and simplistic

In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in anti-Muslim attacks. What is driving the proliferation of these hate crimes? Why are Muslims being demonised? Building on current research and drawing upon real-life examples and case studies, this book provides an accessible introduction to Islamophobia and Islamophobic hate crimes along with the various responses to this form of victimisation. Chapters cover a range of topics including: * Definitions of hate crime and Islamophobia * Islamophobic hate crime online * Gender and Islamophobia * Media representations of Islamophobia * Institutional Islamophobia As one of the first student resources dedicated to the subject of Islamophobia, this book will be instructive and important reading for those engaged in a range of topics in criminology, including hate crime, victimology and victimisation, crime and media, and gender and crime.

Although their plight now dominates television news worldwide, the Bosnian Muslims were until recently virtually unknown outside of Yugoslavia. Who are these people? Why are they the focus of their former neighbors' rage? What role did they play in Yugoslavia before they became the victims of ethnic cleansing? Why has Bosnia-Hercegovina, once a model of ethnic tolerance and multicultural harmony, suddenly exploded into ethnic violence?Focusing on these questions, Friedman provides a comprehensive study of this national group whose plight has riveted governments, the press, and the public alike. With a name reflecting both their religious and their national identity, the Bosnian Muslims are unique in Europe as indigenous Slavic Muslims. Descendants of schismatic Christians from the Middle Ages, they converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia.The book follows them as they went from victims of crusades during the Middle Ages to members of the ruling elite within the Ottoman Empire; from rulers back to subjects under Austria-Hungary; and later subjects again, this time under the Serbs in the interwar Yugoslav Kingdom and the Communists after World War II. The Bosnian Muslims have survived through it all, even thriving during certain periods, most notably when they were recognized by Tito as a nation.Meticulously tracing their turbulent history and assessing the issues surrounding Bosnian Muslim nationhood in Yugoslavia, Friedman shows us how the mixed secular and religious identity of the Bosnian Muslims has shaped the conflict in which they are now so tragically embroiled.