Al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-DIn al-ShIrzI (died 470/1087), was an outstanding, multi-talented Fatimid scholar of Persian origin. He excelled as a missionary-agent, statesman, poet, preacher and theologian. Based on his autobiography, this work provides an insight into the remarkable life and achievements of al-Mu'ayyad through the important stages of his career, describing his daring attempt to win over the Buyids of western Iraq to the Fatimid cause, his dangerous flight to Cairo and finally his expedition to Syria and Iraq to build up an alliance of local rulers against the invading Saljuk Turks. The author demonstrates that in addition to being an intriguing personal account, the life of al-Mu'ayyad is a rich source of Islamic history in the 5/llth century, which deals with crucial events in the struggle between the Fatimids, Abbasids, Buyids and Saljuks for supremacy in the Muslim world.

In China there are up to 25 million Muslims living in the country, representing over 1200 years of Chinese-Islamic relations. However, little is known about the historical and contemporary geopolitical relations between China and the Muslim world, or the situation for the diverse groups of Muslims living in China today. In this book, James Frankel studies the rich and dynamic history of Muslims in China from the Tang dynasty (618-907) to the present day. He shows that Muslims in China remain an internally diverse population separated geographically, ethnically, linguistically, economically, educationally, and along sectarian and kinship lines. But despite having its own local flavours and accents, Islam in China is recognisable as the same religious tradition practiced by approximately 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide and Muslims in China are inextricably part of society, living alongside other minorities and amongst the great Han Chinese majority. Tracing 1200 years of history, this book shows that Muslim communities in China have undergone tremendous change, touched by the forces of Chinese history, the development of Islamic traditions outside China, and geopolitics. In highlighting the paradoxical situation in which Chinese Muslims have found themselves - living as both insiders and outsiders to Chinese society and state - the book examines why after so many centuries of habitation and naturalisation, Muslims in China are still stigmatized by their perceived alien origins. The book follows the 'yin and yang' of compatibility and difference and the connections and ruptures between two great civilisations.

'...her short analysis of the Iranian armed forces in the 1980s is first-rate, so too is her much more substantial section on women and the state in Iran...As well as offering useful insights into the workings of the Islamic state in Iran, this readable book also provides a warning of the struggles ahead in many other Muslim societies.' - Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Times Higher Education Supplement ;Islam has been the driving force shaping the ideology and the power base of the Iranian revolution. This volume engages critically with the Islamic perspective and promises offered by the revolution. Looking at the rise of the religious institution as a revolutionary force, the author observes their post-revolutionary policies in the domains of politics, economics, education, the armed forces and women's status. In the event, the volume demonstrates that the Iranian government has failed to deliver on most, if not all, of its Islamic pledges.

The growth of Islam in Europe is reflected in the increasing numbers of Muslims in British and French prisons, but authorities have responded differently to the challenges presented by Muslim prisoners in each country. The findings of three years of intensive research in a variety of prisons show that British prisons facilitate and control the practice d of Islam, whereas French prisons discourage it and thereby sow the seeds of extremism. The policy implications of these ironic findings are examined in detail.

In case studies that include the Caribbean, South America, Mexico, and the United States, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume trace the establishment of Islam in the Americas over the past four centuries. They simultaneously explore Muslims' lived experiences and the ways Islam has been shaped in the New World - by "Muslim minority" societies such as the Shriners; through the Gilded Age's fascination with Orientalism; in the embrace of Islam by American black intellectuals like Malcolm X and the Black Power movement; and by the ways hip hop artists re-create and reimagine Muslim identities. Together the twelve essays challenge the typical view of Islam as timeless, predictable, and opposed to Western worldviews and value systems, showing how the religion continually engages with issues of culture, class, gender, and race.

'Another India' tells the story of the world's biggest religious minority. Weaving together vivid biographical portraits of a wide range of Indian Muslims--elite and subaltern, secular and clerical, activist and apolitical--it brings the experience of the country's Muslims under a single focus; and, by throwing light on the Indian Muslim condition during the first thirty years of independence, reflects on the true character of democratic India. What we have here is a rather different picture from received accounts of the 'world's largest democracy'. Challenging traditional histories of Nehru's India, Pratinav Anil shows that minority rights were neglected right from independence. Despite its best intentions, the Congress regime that ruled for three decades was often illiberal, intolerant and undemocratic. Muslims had to contend with discrimination, disadvantage, deindustrialisation, dispossession and disenfranchisement, as well as an unresponsive leadership. Anil demonstrates how the Muslim elite encouraged depoliticisation, taking up seemingly noble but largely inconsequential causes with little bearing on the lives of ordinary members of the community. There was no room for mass protests or collective solidarity in this version of Muslim politics. Another India explores this elite betrayal, whose consequences are still felt by India's 200 million Muslims today.

Understanding Political Islam retraces the human and intellectual development that led Francois Burgat to a very firm conviction: that the roots of the tensions that afflict the Western world's relationship with the Muslim world are political rather than ideological. In his compelling account of the interactions between personal life-history and professional research trajectories, Burgat examines how the rise of political Islam has been expressed: first in the Arab world, then in its interactions with European and Western societies. An essential continuation of his work on Islamism, Burgat's unique field research and 'political trespassing' marks an overdue challenge to the academic mainstream. -- .

"This book examines the possibility of reconciliation between liberalism and Shiite Islam. By examining two key liberal theories, this book shows that secular liberalism is not justifiable in the view of Shiite Islamic thought. Yet, since the liberal state is tolerant of Shiite Muslim citizens, at the practical level, there is no ground for conflict between liberal societies and Shiite Muslim minorities. Therefore, whilst Shiite Muslims at home should refrain from constructing the basic structure of their societies in accordance with liberal theory, Shiite Muslim minorities of liberal societies should accept the basic structure of these societies in return for receiving freedoms, protections, and opportunities." -- Book jacket.

Focusing on issues of interpretation, this book collects and translates a number of medieval mi'raj accounts. The narratives of Muhammad's heavenly journey offer a prism through which to view the medieval elite's communal, political and theological motives. These accounts reveal the historiographic process in which a single event becomes a focal point for those struggling to define the past and establish a communal, confessional and political identity by reporting the apparant facts about a particular moment in time. In other words, these tales have real stakes for both their authors and their audiences, and shed light on Muslim communal concerns from the late eighth through to the fourteenth century. Brooke Olson Vuckovic's groundbreaking study provides readers access to the documentation and translation of these lesser-known Arabic texts, and uncovers their role in building a meaningful, cohesive and coherent Muslim community in medieval times.

This three-volume interdisciplinary collection is of use not only in Middle East studies but also in various other disciplines, including women's studies, political science, religion, cultural studies, sociology of gender and anthropology.
The collection offers the most influential writings in the field by both renowned scholars as well as those by the new generation of scholars of Islam and gender and includes a wide variety of cases from Middle Eastern and Islamic societies. By including case-based articles, the collection highlights the clear links between concepts and theories and actual practices.
Titles also available in this series include, Shamanism (March 2004, 3 volumes, 395) and the forthcoming titles Childhood (2005, 4 volumes, c.495), Gender (2005, 4 volumes, c.495) and Knowledge (2005, 4 volumes, c.495).

In this volume the contributors use GIS (Geographical Information Systems) to reassess both historic and contemporary Asian countries and traditionally Islamic areas.
Subjects covered include:
- Local society in 18th century South India
- The use of GIS to locate abandoned villages
- Water supplies and public fountains in Istanbul
- The characterization of Turkish urban street networks
- Three-dimensional views
- The spatial structure of commercial areas
- How to construct spatial databases from historical documents and maps
- Estimating land use and the structure of the administrative system in Ponneri, India
This highly illustrated and comprehensive work highlights how GIS can be applied to the social sciences. With its description of how to process, construct and manage geographical data the book is ideal for the non-specialist looking for a new and refreshing way to approach Islamic area studies.

Iranian and Ottoman travelers to Japan in the late nineteenth century found a model to admire - a culture that was beginning to take its place in the modern world without sacrificing its traditional culture. Their admiration was bolstered when Japan sunk the Russian Baltic fleet in 1905. This victory was celebrated across the Middle East, and dispelled the traditional colonial discourse of European supremacy. No longer, Japan had proven, did modernization demand Westernization. The Japanese, in turn, were drawn to cross-cultural understanding as Islamic traders and merchants arrived in their ports, and became a part of their social and economic fabric. Later in the twentieth century, Japan found it expedient to develop its own model of Islamic studies, as Muslim populations in Manchuria, China and Southeast Asia fell under Japanese control. This collection provides fresh insight into the cross-cultural exchange between ""the Crescent and the Rising Sun"" in a rapidly changing world. The authors explore the encounters between these two separate, but fatefully linked cultures and the ensuing reciprocal influences in developing ""Eastern modernity"" against a looming backdrop of Western imperial domination.

A growing interest in political Islam, also called Islamism, has assumed significant ideological and intellectual dimensions especially in recent years. Rather than viewing it as Islam versus the rest, or tradition against modernity, this volume, without overlooking the tensions, also acknowledges the mutualities. It centres on issues such as the Rushdie affair, conflictive pluralism in South Asia and its linkages with the crucial regional themes like the Kashmir dispute, Iranian revolution, civil war in Afghanicstan and Western public diplomacy.

Described by the distinguished theatre director Peter Brook as "a very powerful form of theatre," the Ta'ziyeh is the Islamic drama of Iran. This work examines the evolution of the Ta'ziyeh, which involved elements drawn from Zoroastrianaism, Mithraism, mythology, folklore and traditional forms of Iranian entertainment.
In its final form, most of its elements - plot, character, thought, spectacle and song - derive from the Shi'a branch of Islam. Its main plot concerns the suffering and death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet of Islam. In 680 AD he and his family were massacred in the Karnala Plain near Baghdad by the soldiers of the Caliph, Yazid. The Ta'ziyeh's highest point came during the reign of Nasseredin Shah (1848-96), who built a magnificent playhouse, the Takieh Dowlat, in Tehran. In the 1930s it was banned by the Pahlavi regime, and Ta'ziyeh groups were forced to take refuge in remote rural areas. In the 20th century it was attacked by pro-Western and nationalistic movements whosaw performances as encouraging social stagnation. Despite the setbacks, today it is still possible to see performances of the Ta'ziyeh throughout Iran.

When Muslim rule in Kashmir ended in 1820, Sikh and later Hindu Dogra Rulers gained power, but the country was still largely influenced by Sunni religious orthodoxy. This book traces the impact of Sunni power on Shi'i society and how this changed during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book identifies a distinctive Kashmiri Shi'i Islam established during this period. Hakim Sameer Hamdani argues that the Shi'i community's religious and cultural identity was fostered through practices associated with the martyrdom of Imam Husayn and his family in Karbala, as well as other rituals of Islam, in particular, the construction and furore surrounding M'arak, the historic imambada (a Shi'i house for mourning of the Imam) of Kashmir's Shi'i. The book examines its destruction, the ensuing Shi'i -Sunni riot, and the reasons for the Shi'i community's internal divisions and rifts at a time when they actually saw the strong consolidation of their identity.

This collection of papers presented at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference explores the complex relations of religion and state in history, language and society of Altaic cultures, reflecting the unique interdisciplinary approach of the PIAC. It examines aspects of shamanism, religious belief, totemism and religious influences on contracts in historical literary monuments as well as in contemporary sources.

This book focuses on the ways in which a particular Islamic brotherhood, or 'tariqa', the tariqa Alawiyya, spread, maintained and propagated their particular brand of the Islamic faith. Originating in the South-Yemeni region of Hadramawt, the Alawi tariqa mainly spread along the coast of the Indian Ocean. The Alawis are here portrayed as one of many cultural mediators in the multi-ethnic, multi-religious Indian Ocean world in the era of European colonialism.

With a discography of over 1000 songs, 20 musicals and three motion pictures, the Lebanese singer and performer, Fairouz, is an artist of pan-Arab appeal, who has connected with listeners from diverse backgrounds and geographies for over four often tumultuous decades. In this book, Dima Issa explores the role of Fairouz's music in creating a sense of Arab identity amidst changing political, economic context. Based on two years of research including 60 interviews, it takes an ethnographic approach, focussing on audience reception of Fairouz's music among the Arab diasporas of London and Doha. It shows that for discussants, talking about Fairouz meant discussing diasporic life, bringing to the surface notions of Arabness and authenticity, presence and absence, naturalization and citizenship, and the issue of gender. Conversations with the research respondents shed light on the idea of iltizam (commitment), or how members of the Arab diaspora hold on to attributes that they feel define and differentiate them from others.

This book is a collection of papers on the origins of economic thought discovered in the writings of some prominent Islamic scholars, during the five centuries prior to the Latin Scholastics, who include St. Thomas Aquinas. This period of time was labelled by Joseph Schumpeter as representing the 'great gap' in economic history. Unfortunately, this 'gap' is well embedded in most relevant literature. However, during this period the Islamic civilisation was one of the most fertile grounds for intellectual developments in various disciplines, including economics, and this book attempts to fill that blind-spot in the history of economic thought.

Foreword by:
A. J. Stockwell

The role of women in Islamic societies, not to mention in the religion itself, is a defining issue. It is also one that remains resistant to universal dogma, with a wide range of responses to women's social roles across the Islamic world. Reflecting this heterogeneity, the editor of this volume has assembled the latest research on the issue, which combines contemporary with historical data.

The material comes from around the world as well as from Muslim and non-Muslim researchers. It takes in work from majority Muslim nations such as Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Tunisia and Turkey, as well as countries with troubled interfaith relations such as India and Israel. Nations with minority Muslim populations such as France, the UK, Canada and Australia, are also represented. The work also features varying Islamic sub-groups such as the two main ones, Sunni and Shi'a, as well as less well known populations such as the Ismaili Muslims. In each case, the work is underpinned by the very latest socio-theological insights and empirical data."

The aim of the book is to energize the ongoing debate in academia and among practitioners on the meaning and understanding of Islamic architecture. It contains seventeen essays by architects and academicians from different parts of the world, representing an effort to clarify how the various disciplines of the design profession can be employed to build in the spirit of Islam.

This book examines the methodological development of the principles of Islamic political economy in its theoretical and applied aspects. This is carried out in a general equilibrium framework using the theory of social choice. Thus a comparative study is also undertaken here in these areas while developing the theory of Islamic political economy. In these respects this book appears to be the first one of its kind.

In The Mosque Conflict in Catalonia: Space, Culture, and Capitalism, Martin Lundsteen examines two paradigms around mosque conflicts-one of an analytical nature and the other of a political-technical nature. Lundsteen argues that both paradigms interpret conflicts culturally, as originating primarily in the symbolic realm. Though racism and xenophobia are certainly at the core of the issue, Lundsteen shows through the study of the conflict surrounding the mosque project in Premia de Mar (Barcelona) that other dimensions of utmost importance lurk behind these interpretations. This book constitutes an anthropological approach to the intersection of local-global processes of contemporary capitalism and emphasizes the understudied socio-spatial dimension of these conflicts.

After decades of prohibition, Mevlana ceremonies of whirling dervishes attract renewed interest as forms of sacral music, both in formal and popular genres. This trend runs parallel to an increasing concern for cultural, ethnic and religious identities, where the rising tide of religious revivalism sets the tone.