"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.

In "Organizing Muslims and Integrating Islam in Germany," Kerstin Rosenow-Williams analyzes the challenges faced by Islamic organizations in Germany since the beginning of the 21st century. Outlining the expectations German political actors have of Islamic organizations and the internal interests of these organizations, the author illustrates that organizational response strategies involve patterns not only of adaptation, but also of decoupling and protest. The study introduces an innovative research framework based on organizational sociology and provides empirical insights into three major Islamic umbrella organizations (DITIB, IGMG, ZMD) and their relationships with other actors. The comprehensive analysis of the German institutional environment and related developments in Islamic organizations makes this study highly relevant to scholars and politicians, as well as the general public.

The volume comprises a collection of 20 of the 43 papers presented at the Third International Round Table on Safavid Persia, held at the University of Edinburgh in August, 1998 and edited by the Round Table's organiser. The Third Round Table, the largest of the series to date, continued the emphasis of its predecessors on understanding and appreciating the legacy of the Safavid period by means of exchanges between both established and 'newer' scholars drawn from a variety of fields to facilitate an exchange of ideas, information, and methodologies across a broad range of academic disciplines between scholars from diverse disciplines and research backgrounds with a common interest in the history and culture of this period of Iran's history.

The debates on Islam and modernity clearly include in their analysis notions of the State. Abdelillah Belkeziz here charts the development of the concept of 'the state' (al-dawlah) in Islamic discourse over the last two centuries. The result is a tour de force survey of the most influential Muslim thinkers of the modern era, which encompasses three successive waves: the modernist trends of the early and later reformers like Sayyed Jamal Eddin Al-Afghani; the dogmatism of ideologues like Hasan Al-Bana; and the rhetoric of revivalists like the Ayatollah Khomeini. Through this analysis, Belkeziz argues that modern Islamic political thought succeeded in producing ideologies, but ultimately failed to produce a unified theory of state. This work is an essential encyclopedic resource for all scholars and researchers of Political Islam and will become a standard work in the field.

Central to the current debates on the nature and direction of Islam Highly topical and relevant to the 'Islam and Modernity issue Contributors include blue-chip academics In all the current alienating discourse on Islam, so often depicted as a source of extremism and fanatic violence, this book takes a timely and refreshing look at the traditions of Islamic mysticism, philosophy and intellectual debate in a series of diverse and stimulating approaches. It tackles the major figures of Islamic thought, such as Ibn Arabi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali, as well as shedding light on hitherto unconsidered aspects of Islam and utilising new source material. The contributors are an impressive list of scholars and experts. They include amongst others: S. Alvi, M.A. Amir-Moezzi, L. Clarke, F. Daftary, D. DeWeese, B. Fragner, S. Kamada, W. Madelung, E. Ormsby, N. Pourjavady and J. Morris.

The traditional approach to business and public management assumes that management decisions and outcomes will remain the same, irrespective of the environment in which they are applied. However, the value systems operating within a society can also influence the principles that govern modern management within organizations. Principles and Fundamentals of Islamic Management examines the concept of business and public management from the viewpoint of Islam, with close reference to the Quran and other illuminating Islamic sources. Seyed Mohammad Moghimi provides key insights from an Islamic perspective across a comprehensive range of management topics, including planning, decision making and policy making, organizing, human resources management, directing and organizational control. The book concludes by analyzing the role of a company director within an Islamic context. Through this in-depth exploration of Islamic management principles and fundamentals, the author creates a modern and practical framework suitable for use by international business managers. Providing a much-needed insight into the practicalities of management operations in an Islamic context, this book is essential reading for researchers, managers, and for students of Islamic management at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

During the two World Wars that marked the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of non-European combatants fought in the ranks of various European armies. The majority of these soldiers were Muslims from North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, or the Indian Subcontinent. How are these combatants considered in existing historiography? Over the past few decades, research on war has experienced a wide-reaching renewal, with increased emphasis on the social and cultural dimensions of war, and a desire to reconstruct the experience and viewpoint of the combatants themselves. This volume reintroduces the question of religious belonging and practice into the study of Muslim combatants in European armies in the 20th century, focusing on the combatants' viewpoint alongside that of the administrations and military hierarchy.

Adonis' influence on Arabic literature has been likened to that of T. S. Eliot in the English-speaking world. Yet alongside this spearheading of a modernist literary revolution, the secular Syrian-born poet is also renowned for his persistent and staunch attacks on despotism across the Arab world. In these conversations with the psychoanalyst Houria Abdelouahed, Adonis brings into sharp relief the latest wave of violence and war to engulf Arabic countries, tracing the cause of ongoing tensions back to the beginnings of Islam itself. Since the death of the prophet Muhammad, Islam has been used as a political and economic weapon, exploiting and reinforcing tribal divisions to aid the pursuit of power. Adonis argues that recent events in the Middle East from the failures of the Arab Spring to the rise of ISIS and the bloody war in his native Syria attest to the destructive effects of an Islamic worldview that prohibits any notion of plurality and breeds violence. If there is to be any hope of peace or progress in the Arab world, it is therefore imperative that these mentalities are overcome. In their place, Adonis urges a new spirit of enquiry, embodied in the freedoms to interrogate the past and to question cultural norms. Adonis' penetrating analysis comes at a critical time, offering an alternative path to the cycle of violence that plagues the Arab world today.

The immigration of Muslims to Europe and the integration of later generations presents many challenges to European societies. Unwanted builds on five years of ethnographic research with a group of fifty-five second-generation Muslim immigrant drug dealers in Frankfurt, Germany to examine the relationship between immigration, social exclusion, and the informal economy. Having spent countless hours with these young men, hanging out in the streets, in cafes or bars and at the local community center, Sandra Bucerius explores the intimate aspects of their, one of the most discriminated and excluded populations in Germany. Bucerius looks at how the young men negotiate their participation in the drug market while still trying to adhere to their cultural and religious obligations and how they struggle to find a place within German society. The young men considered their involvement in the drug trade a response to their exclusion at the same time that it provides a means of forging an identity and a place within German society. The insights into the lives, hopes, and dreams of these young men, who serve as an example for many Muslim and otherwise marginalized immigrant youth groups in Western countries, provides the context necessary to understand their actions while never obscuring the many contradictory facets of their lives.

In Pakistan, myriad constituencies are grappling with reinterpreting women's rights. This book analyzes the Government of Pakistan's construction of an understanding of what constitutes women's rights, moves on to address traditional views and contemporary popular opinion on women's rights, and then focuses on three very different groups' perceptions of women's rights: progressive women's organizations as represented by the Aurat Foundation and Shirkat Gah; orthodox Islamist views as represented by the Jama'at-i-Islami, the MMA government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2002-08) and al-Huda; and the Swat Taliban. Author Anita M. Weiss analyzes the resultant "culture wars" that are visibly ripping the country apart, as groups talk past one another - each confidant that they are the proprietors of culture and interpreters of religion while others are misrepresenting it.

The headscarf issue draws a great deal of public and academic attention in Turkey, yet the debate largely unfolds within the contours of the discussions over modernization, Westernization, and the Islamic / secular divide. Rarely is there a discussion about how the connotations of the headscarf shift across cleavages of class and status among women wearing it. Instead, the headscarf is typically portrayed as a symbol of Islamic identity, a 'cover' that brackets social inequalities other than those based on a supposed 'clash of identities.' This study looks beyond these contours by contextualizing the headscarf discussion in an insecure and low-status private sector labor market - namely, retail sales. Based on in-depth interviews, focus groups with lower-middle-class saleswomen with headscarves, and ethnographic study in five cities of Turkey, this book argues that the meanings of the headscarf are continuously negotiated within the quest for social and economic security.

Muhsin is one of the organizers of Al-Fitra Foundation, a South African support group for lesbian, transgender, and gay Muslims. Islam and homosexuality are seen by many as deeply incompatible. This, according to Muhsin, is why he had to act. "I realized that I'm not alone-these people are going through the very same things that I'm going through. But I've managed, because of my in-depth relationship with God, to reconcile the two. I was completely comfortable saying to the world that I'm gay and I'm Muslim. I wanted to help other people to get there. So that's how I became an activist."Living Out Islamdocuments the rarely-heard voices of Muslims who live in secular democratic countries and who are gay, lesbian, and transgender. It weaves original interviews with Muslim activists into a compelling composite picture which showcases the importance of the solidarity of support groups in the effort to change social relationships and achieve justice. This nascent movement is not about being "out" as opposed to being "in the closet." Rather, as the voices of these activists demonstrate, it is about finding ways to live out Islam with dignity and integrity, reconciling their sexuality and gender with their faith and reclaiming Islam as their own.Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugleis Associate Professor in the Department of Middle East and South Asian Studies at Emory University. His previous books includeRebel between Spirit and Law: Ahmad Zarruq, Juridical Sainthood and Authority in Islam;Sufis and Saints' Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality and Sacred Power in Islamic Culture; andHomosexuality in Islam: Critical Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims.

In an age when Western feminism is continuously undergoing redefinition, 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 strategies of feminists in the Islam world.

Using a wealth of primary sources and covering the entire Ottoman period, Ottoman Women in Public Space challenges the traditional view that sees Ottoman women as a largely silent element of society, restricted to the home and not seen beyond the walls of the house or the public bath. Instead, taking women in a variety of roles, as economic and political actors, prostitutes, flirts and slaves, the book argues that women were active participants in the public space, visible, present and an essential element in the everyday, public life of the empire. Ottoman Women in Public Space thus offers a vibrant and dynamic understanding of Ottoman history. Contributors are: Edith Gulcin Ambros, Ebru Boyar, Palmira Brummett, Kate Fleet and Svetla Ianeva.

Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series American Arabesque examines representations of Arabs, Islam and the Near East in nineteenth-century American culture, arguing that these representations play a significant role in the development of American national identity over the century, revealing largely unexplored exchanges between these two cultural traditions that will alter how we understand them today. Moving from the period of America's engagement in the Barbary Wars through the Holy Land travel mania in the years of Jacksonian expansion and into the writings of romantics such as Edgar Allen Poe, the book argues that not only were Arabs and Muslims prominently featured in nineteenth-century literature, but that the differences writers established between figures such as Moors, Bedouins, Turks and Orientals provide proof of the transnational scope of domestic racial politics. Drawing on both English and Arabic language sources, Berman contends that the fluidity and instability of the term Arab as it appears in captivity narratives, travel narratives, imaginative literature, and ethnic literature simultaneously instantiate and undermine definitions of the American nation and American citizenship.

Ahmad Alkhamees defines Creative Shari'ah compliance as compliance with the letter but not the objectives of Shari'ah. In recent years, Islamic finance industry practises have come under scrutiny, with strong critiques levelled against many institutions that claim to provide Shari'ah-compliant products and services, which in fact undermine the spirit and the objectives of Shari'ah. This book significantly contributes to the sphere of Islamic finance in three main ways. First, it critically appraises justifications of creative Shari'ah compliance practises. Second, it examines how Shari'ah supervisory board (SSB) governance practises, and the inconsistent fatwas issued by SSBs, contribute to the issue of creative Shari'ah compliance. Most importantly, it suggests regulatory mechanisms which regulators can employ in Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and in secular countries such as the United Kingdom to deal with the issue of creative Shari'ah compliance.

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.

Drawing upon insights from the natural and social sciences, this book puts forth a provocative new argument that the violent Islamist threat in Indonesia today derives its stubborn resilience from being in essence a complex, adaptive and self-organizing system - or what some specialists might even call a super-organism. The book challenges the popular assumption that ideology is the root cause that explains why Indonesian Islamists radicalize into violent extremism. In addition it addresses why despite years of intense security force pressure, seemingly disparate militant cells keep 'popping up' like the proverbial hydra - and in the apparent absence of a centralized coordinating body, nevertheless appear to display an organic interconnectivity with one another. Going beyond standard ideological mantras the book argues that fresh inter-disciplinary thinking is needed to cope with the constantly mutating violent Islamist challenge in Indonesia, and puts forth a comprehensive strategy for doing so. It will be of interest to academics and students of terrorism, religion and violence in the Southeast Asian region.

No one can doubt that Muslim cultures and Muslim populations are under intense scrutiny in the west and worldwide. Moreover, queer politics has been increasingly drawn into this contemporary Islamophobia. This book presents a detailed interdisciplinary study of the issues surrounding homosexuality and Muslim cultures, drawing on sociological theories of modernity and modernization, evidence of Muslim homo-eroticism in historical and contemporary context, and contemporary political ideas of queer politics, multiculturalism and international development. The book presents an original theoretical framework that describes the ways in which both queer and Muslim politics are caught up in a process of triangulation that asserts the superiority of western civilization. Using an intersectional framework, it also begins to map a way out of this oppositional understanding of homosexuality and Islam, both by drawing on the evidence of the complexity of lived experience for Queer Muslims and by challenging the euro-centric conceits of queer political and social theory.

This text revisits the main arguments and explanatory frameworks that have been used since the 1970s to understand Islamic activism, moderate as well as militant and violent, and proposes a rethinking of Islamist politics. Linking macro-level explanations to micro-level analysis, it analyzes Islamist activism and militancy in terms of the interplay of social formation and political structures on the one hand, and network processes within the other.

A concise exploration into the ways Islam in western Europe has developed from early immigration and settlement to the point where a native generation is developing ways of being European and Muslim. England is given special attention as a case study, but as the discussion moves into the present and the future, reference is made to all of western Europe. Factors in this process not only arise from the Muslim communities themselves but also from the inherited structures of European society and state. Although the issues are complex and tense, the author is generally optimistic about the outcome.

'Islam in Europe' and 'Islamophobia' are subjects of vital global importance which currently preoccupy policy-makers and academics alike. Through the examination of various European Muslim groups and institutions that have branched off from Islamic movements - including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir and Jama'at-i Islami - this book outlines the configuration of social, political and religious processes that have given rise to new kinds of European Muslim organisations. The authors offer a new perspective on these Muslim groups and seek to reclaim them from the often highly-charged public debates by placing them within the context of their origins as politicised religious movements on the one hand and their ongoing incorporation into European societal structures on the other. They also consider the relationship of these organisations to their 'parent' movements and examine the presence of Islam in European education and higher education institutions. Taking into account the connection between Islamic movements and the perceived surge of 'Islamophobia' in Europe, this book does not debate the question of whether these groups fit into normative or cultural structures of European nation-states, but rather examines how these structures have changed through their interaction with these groups and the growing Muslim population within Europe. It does not consider political Islam as the antithesis to a refined notion of secularism, but as a form of public religion which contributes to the ever-changing structure of Europe's secular regimes. Featuring the work of more than 40 scholars from around the world, this is the comprehensive guide to Islamic movements in Europe, offering original, definitive perspectives on Muslims and Islam in Europe today. It will be essential reading for policy-makers, political commentators and scholars alike.

The aim of this volume is to explore entrepreneurship and business from the perspective of Islamic principles, which are usually based on collaboration, teamwork, generosity and altruism. The contributions deal with the confluence of Islamic Principles with entrepreneurial and business ownership characteristics; resource use by entrepreneurs; means of entrepreneurial success, and ethics and social responsibility.

In 'They Love Us Because We Give Them' Zakat, Dauda Abubakar describes the practice of Zakat in northern Nigeria. Those who practice this pillar of Islam annually deduct Zakat from their wealth and distribute it to the poor and needy people within their vicinity, mostly their friends, relatives and neighbours. The practice of giving and receiving Zakat in northern Nigeria often leads to the establishment of social relations between the rich and needy. Dauda Abubakar provides details of the social relationship in the people's interpersonal dealings with one another that often lead to power relations, high table relations etc. The needy reciprocate the Zakat they collect in many ways, respecting and given high positions to the rich in society.