Note to Contributors: "Muqamas" will consider for publication articles on all aspects of Islamic visual culture, historical and contemporary. Articles submitted for publication are subject to review by the editors and/or outside readers. Manuscripts should be no more than 40 double-spaced typed pages of text (not including endnotes) and have no more than 15-20 illustrations (both graphics and black-and-white glossy photographs; colour prints or slides are not acceptable). Exceptions can be made for articles dealing with unpublished visual or textual primary sources, but if they are particularly long, they may be divided into two or more parts for publication in successive volumes. . Both text and endnotes must be double-spaced; endnotes should conform to the usage of the Chicago Manual of Style. Illustrations should be labelled and accompanied by a double-spaced caption list. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted illustrations and for supplying the proper credit-line information. For the transliteration of Arabic and Persian, Muqamas uses the Encyclopaedia of Islam system, but with the omission of subscript bars and the substitution of q for and j for dj; for Ottoman Turkish, authors are given the choice of the EI system or modern Turkish orthography. All transliterated words and phrases in the text and transliterated author's names and titles in the endnotes must follow this system. Exceptions are proper nouns (names of persons, dynasties, and places) and Arabic words that have entered the English language and have generally recognised English forms (e.g., madrasa, iwan, mihrab, Abbasid, Muhammad); these should be anglicised and not italicised;place names and names of historical personages with no English equivalent should be transliterated but, aside from 'ayn and hamza, diacritical marks should be omitted (e.g., Maqrizi, Fustat, San 'a) .A detailed style sheet and further information can be obtained from the editorial office. Write to the Managing Editor, Aga Khan Program, Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 02138. E-mail: [email protected]; fax: 617-496-8389.

This is the first book to examine the Arab Shi'a, a community whose identity and problematic relationship with the rest of the Middle East cuts to the heart of the crisis of Arab politics and society. The Shi'a represent a majority of the population along the Arab coast of the Persian Gulf and are the largest religious group in Lebanon. This book, based on extensive field interviews, examines the nature of Shi'ite belief and community life, contemporary political and social problems, key grievances, and the nature of their relationship with the dominant Sunni state today as they seek a major voice in a new political order.

Since the Mediterranean connects cultures, Mediterranean studies have by definition an intercultural focus. Throughout the modern era, the Ottoman Empire has had a lasting impact on the cultures and societies of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. However, the modern Balkans are usually studied within the context of European history, the southern Mediterranean within the context of Islam. Although it makes sense to connect both regions, this is a vast field and requires a command of different languages not necessarily related to each other. Investigating both Greek and Arabic sources, this book will shed some light on the significance of ideas in the political transitions of their time and how the proponents of these transitions often became so overwhelmed by the events that they helped trigger adjustments to their own ideas. Also, the discourses in Greek and Arabic reflect the provinces of the Ottoman Empire and it is instructive to see their differences and commonalities which helps explain contemporary politics.

This book provides a new study of the international and local politics surrounding the Muslim minority of Western Thrace (Greece) in the 1940s, based on previously unseen archival material. It addresses the minority's complex identity, its relations with other communities in the area, the international diplomacy of WWII and strategic considerations of the Cold War.

This book consists of a series of interrelated chapters analyzing why Iran, among all countries, has seen so many revolutionary movements in the past century; the degree to which its religion, Shi'ism, is revolutionary; and the history of revolutionary and resistance movements in the modern Muslim world. The author stresses historical change, such as the change of Twelver Shi'ism from political quietism to revolutionary opposition, and also previously unnoticed factors in revolution, such as the multi-urban character of all Iran's modern revolutions.

The victory of the young religious politicians of the Justice and Development Party in 2002 and their new pro-European Union stance was proceded by the emergence of new Islamic intellectual, autobiographical, and literary accounts in the 90s. This book explores the changing understandings of Islam by focusing on the Islamist movement's production of literary fiction since the early 1980s. It contextualizes a close reading of exemplary novels within broader developments in Turkish society. The study sheds light on how the politics of gender, collective identity, idealism, and individual aspirations in a modern context are expressed, generated, and revised through literature.

The Third Edition of Brill s Encyclopaedia of Islam appears in four substantial segments each year, both online and in print. The new scope includes comprehensive coverage of Islam in the twentieth century and of Muslim minorities all over the world. This Part 2009-3 of the Third Edition of Brill s Encyclopaedia of Islam contains 100 new articles, reflecting the great diversity of current scholarship in the fields of Islamic Studies. .

Burning the veil draws upon sources from newly-opened archives, exploring the 'emancipation' of Muslim women from the veil, seclusion and perceived male oppression during the Algerian War of decolonisation. The claimed French liberation was contradicted by the violence inflicted on women through rape, torture and destruction of villages. This book examines the roots of this contradiction in the theory of 'revolutionary warfare', and the attempt to defeat the National Liberation Front by penetrating the Muslim family, seen as a bastion of resistance. Striking parallels with contemporary Afghanistan and Iraq, French 'emancipation' produced a backlash that led to deterioration in the social and political position of Muslim women. This analysis of how and why attempts to Westernise Muslim women ended in catastrophe has contemporary relevance and will be important to students and academics engaged in the study of French and colonial history, feminism and contemporary Islam. -- .

One of the world's leading authorities on the Islamic world answers the many troubling questions raised in the wake of the September 11 attack

How safe is Turkey's liberal democracy? The rise to power in 2002 of the right-leaning Islamic Justice and Development Party ignited fears in the West that Turkey could no longer be relied upon to provide a buffer against the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. Once hailed by the West as a model of secularism and moderation in the Muslim world, Turkey is now seen to be under the influence of the 'creeping Islamisation' of the JDP (or AKP as it is known in Turkey). Yet to what extent has this affected the lives of Turkish citizens? Evangelia Axiarlis here explores the contribution of the JDP to civil liberties and basic freedoms, long suppressed by secular and statist Kemalist ideology, and how this has remained unexamined despite more than a decade in government. In this - the first detailed study of the policies and ideology of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's government - the author examines the extent to which the JDP has worked to improve civil life in Turkey and critically addresses whether a government built on Islamic principles can champion political reform. Exploring how Islam and democracy are neither monoliths nor mutually exclusive, this is a timely contribution to the wider understanding of political Islam.

The Islamic labor market rests on the principles of the free market exchange of Islamic economics. Regrettably, the latter has failed to keep pace with the rapidly growing academic and professional developments of the former. Much of the published work within Islamic economics is idealistic if not radically ideological with little relevance to the Islamic labor market, leaving students of Islamic economics without a coherent body of economic theory to understand the practical objectives of Shariah that gives a sense of direction to the developments in this field. Drawing upon received sources of goals of Shariah, the authors present an independent academic work which: Emphasizes the common conceptual grounds of labor market behavior shared by the objectives of Shariah approach as well as the conventional approach to economics. Adopts standard tools of contemporary economics to explain the industrial relations. Extends the conventional scope of the labor market and forces of the labor market under the umbrella of Shariah. Enables readers and practitioners of Islamic economics to make economic sense of Shariah compliance and human resource development. Explains how the economics of Shariah is liable to offer moral guidance and a sense of direction to regulators and practitioners of the Islamic labor market. Labor in an Islamic Setting will be of interest to postgraduate students, academics, middle and senior management in both the western and the Islamic business communities, researchers and policy makers.

How did the Victorians perceive Muslims in the British Empire and beyond? How were these perceptions propagated by historians and scholars, poets, dramatists and fiction writers of the period? For the first time, Shahin Kuli Khan Khattak brings to life Victorian Britain's conceptions and misconceptions of the Muslim World using a thorough investigation of varied cultural sources of the period. She discovers the prevailing representation of Muslims and Islam in the two major spheres of British influence - India and the Ottoman Empire - was reinforced by reoccurring themes: through literature and entertainment the public saw 'the Mahomedan' as the 'noble savage', a perception reinforced through travel writing and fiction of the 'exotic east' and the 'Arabian Nights'. "Islam and the Victorians" will be an important contribution to understanding the apprehensions and misapprehensions about Islam in the nineteenth century, providing a fascinating historical backdrop to many of today's concerns.

The primary objective of this book is to understand the nature of the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram's goal of an Islamic Caliphate, starting in the Borno State in the North East that will eventually cover the areas of the former Kanem-Borno Empire, is a rejection of the modern state system forced on it by the West. The central theme of this volume examines the relationship between the failure of the state-building project in Nigeria and the outbreak and nature of insurgency. At the heart of the Boko Haram phenomenon is a country racked with cleavages, making it hard for Nigeria to cohere as a modern state. Part I introduces this theme and places the Boko Haram insurgency in a historical context. There are, however, multiple cleavages in Nigeria ethnic, regional, cultural, and religious and Part II examines the different state-society dynamics fuelling the conflict. Political grievances are common to every society; however, what gives Boko Haram the space to express such grievances through violence? Importantly, this volume demonstrates that the insurgency is, in fact, a reflection of the hollowness within Nigeria's overall security. Part III looks at the responses to Boko Haram by Nigeria, neighbouring states, and external actors. For Western actors, Boko Haram is seen as part of the "global war on terror" and the fact that it has pledged allegiance to ISIS encourages this framing. However, as the chapters here discuss, this is an over-simplification of Boko Haram and the West needs to address the multiple dimension of Boko Haram. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, insurgencies, African politics, war and conflict studies, and IR in general.

The war in the Middle East is marked by a lack of cultural knowledge on the part of the western forces, and this book deals with another, widely ignored element of Islam-the role of dreams in everyday life. The practice of using night dreams to make important life decisions can be traced to Middle Eastern dream traditions and practices that preceded the emergence of Islam. In this study, the author explores some key aspects of Islamic dream theory and interpretation as well as the role and significance of night dreams for contemporary Muslims. In his analysis of the Islamic debates surrounding the role of "true" dreams in historical and contemporary Islamic prophecy, the author specifically addresses the significance of Al-Qaeda and Taliban dream practices and ideology. Dreams of "heaven," for example, are often instrumental in determining Jihadist suicidal action, and "heavenly" dreams are also evidenced within other contemporary human conflicts such as Israel-Palestine and Kosovo-Serbia. By exploring patterns of dreams within this context, a cross-cultural, psychological, and experiential understanding of the role and significance of such contemporary critical political and personal imagery can be achieved.

Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Muqarnas articles are published on all aspects of Islamic visual culture, historical and contemporary, as well as articles dealing with unpublished textual primary sources.

"This volume broadens the perspective of recent work on the discourse of the Muslim Other in medieval Christendom by investigating pertinent texts, art, and artifacts in Armenian, Old Irish and Breton, Old Norse, Serbo-Croatian, Middle English, Old French, Middle High German, and Spanish culture, situating these local discourses of the Muslim Other in the larger cultural context of proto-Eurocentric discourse"--

Based on extensive ethnographic research, this book examines how the Islamic community in Java, Indonesia, is actively negotiating both modernity and tradition in the contexts of nation-building, globalisation, and a supposed clash of civilizations. The pesantren community, so-called because it is centered around an educational institution called the pesantren, uses education as a central arena for dealing with globalization and the construction and maintenance of an Indonesian Islamic identity. However, the community's efforts to wrestle with these issues extend beyond education into the public sphere in general and specifically in the area of leadership and politics. The case material is used to understand Muslim strategies and responses to civilizational contact and conflict. Scholars, educated readers, and advanced undergraduates interested in Islam, religious education, the construction of religious identity in the context of national politics and globalization will find this work useful.

The Syrian state's rhetoric of Arab nationalism left little room for the official recognition of minority identities in pre-war Syria. Yet in practice, the state continually engaged with the Druze and other minorities to reinforce its legitimacy, often through cultural policy. Uncovering this neglected aspect of pre-war Syrian politics, Kastrinou explores the cultural politics of marriage in Syria, primarily among the Druze, to reveal how practical rituals of marriage inform sectarian and national identity formation.Challenging the assumed inherence of sectarianism and Druze endogamy, the book provides an historical and ethnographic account of political power and its relation to social control in Syria. It demonstrates the centrality of the body to Druze cosmology and how ritual performances of birth, marriage and death maintain and negotiate sectarian cohesion. Connecting these struggles to national and international politics, Kastrinou examines how both the Syrian government and the European Union have sponsored marriage-themed dance performances in Syria, each leveraging its cultural importance to legitimise their own policy goals. The book establishes marriage as a pervasive idiom for the construction of collective identity in Syria, which is appropriated by individuals, sects, states and intergovernmental organizations alike. Its conclusions are relevant to scholars of Middle East studies, sectarianism, anthropology and politics.

Militant Islamic fundamentalists blame the ills of their societies on the West and call for the overthrow of local governments and the resumption of Jihad against the Infidels. Ambassador Hoveyda explores the historical and contemporary causes of the current wave of militant Islamic fundamentalism. Despite their terrorist attacks in the West, he also shows why fundamentalists are even more dangerous for Muslim countries that are desperately trying to catch up with the incipient global economy and alleviate their accumulated social and economic problems. If Western colonization and economic domination of the 19th and 20th centuries are to be blamed for the predicament of Muslim countries, Hoveyda points out that Muslims also bear a great responsibility for their situation. He shows how the triumph of fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran in the 12th century triggered the gradual decline of Islamic civilization. He also chronicles the history of militant Islamic movements of the past and present from the Assassins of the late 11th century to Ayatollah Khomeini. Having met his first militant Islamic fundamentalist at the age of four in Syria, where his father was serving as Persian Consul-general, Hoveyda draws upon a lifetime of personal experience as well as scholarship and experiences of others to provide an important insider/outsider examination of a worldwide concern.

Conflict or concord? Histories of Islam from its early seventh century beginnings in Arabia often portray its explosive growth into the wider Middle East as a story of struggle and conquest of the Christian people of Greater Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Alternatively these histories suggest that as often as not the conquerors were welcomed by the conquered and their existing monotheistic faiths of Christianity and Judaism tolerated and even allowed to flourish. In this short but in depth survey of the almost nine centuries that passed from the beginning of the spread of Islam up to the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Syria and Egypt beginning in 1516, Constantin Panchenko offers a more complex portrayal that opens up fresh vistas of understanding of these centuries focusing on the impact that the coming of Islam had on the Orthodox Christian communities of the Middle East and in particular the interplay of their Greek cultural heritage and experience of increasing Arabization. This work is drawn from the author's much larger work, Arab Orthodox Christians Under the Ottomans, being an updated and expanded version of the first chapter of that book which set the historical context for the period after 1516. It will deepen the readers understanding both of the history of the Middle East in these centuries and of how the faith of Orthodox Christians in these lands is lived today.

Early Childhood Education for Muslim Children foregrounds the marginalised perspective of Muslim children aged three to five and examines how they are cared for and educated in centre-based provision in two provinces in post-apartheid South Africa. Both theological and social science perspectives are carefully interwoven to make sense of the construction of service provision for Muslims as a minority group in a secular democracy.

This book uses a qualitative, reflexive approach to amplify the voices of mothers, managers and teachers as the community of agents who shape priorities for young children in the context of a rapidly transforming society. The research demonstrates that the quest to establish an appropriate care network and a sound educative environment for Muslim children is riddled with complexities, struggles and tensions. In the light of changes in the home-based network for early education, centre-based provision has become an important infrastructure for Muslim communities seeking one-stop academic and Islamic education. The internal struggles encountered in this form of provision include inequities in access, struggles to package an appropriate curriculum, and dealing with nurturance specific to the faith and for cultural formations supportive of citizenship.

This book calls for critical engagement with issues of religious education in early childhood, social cohesion, formal systematic teacher education for Muslim teachers, curriculum development and parental support. It will contribute not only to the development of early education from an Islamic perspective, but will also demonstrate how to expand discourses and practices to deal with diversity and faith development in early years. As such, it will appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of early childhood education, religious studies, race and ethnic studies, and childhood studies

Table of Contents

1. Contextualising early childhood education in South Africa 2. An Islamic perspective of (early childhood) education 3. Contemporary models of early childhood education for Muslim children 4. Qualitative research in centre-based early childhood education for Muslim children 5. Muslim mothers framing early childhood education 6.The social construction of centre-based early childhood education 7. The making of Muslim children in early childhood centres 8. Conclusion

The Arab revolutions of 2011 were a transformative moment in the modern history of the Middle East, as people rose up against long-standing autocrats throughout the region to call for 'bread, freedom and dignity'. With the passage of time, results have been decidedly mixed, with initial success stories like Tunisia contrasting with the emergence of even more repressive dictatorships in places like Egypt, with the backing of several Gulf states. Focusing primarily on Egypt, this book considers a relatively understudied dimension of these revolutions: the role of prominent religious scholars. While pro-revolutionary ulama have justified activism against authoritarian regimes, counter-revolutionary scholars have provided religious backing for repression, and in some cases the mass murder of unarmed protestors. Usaama al-Azami traces the public engagements and religious pronouncements of several prominent ulama in the region, including Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ali Gomaa and Abdullah bin Bayyah, to explore their role in either championing the Arab revolutions or supporting their repression. He concludes that while a minority of noted scholars have enthusiastically endorsed the counter-revolutions, their approach is attributable less to premodern theology and more to their distinctly modern commitment to the authoritarian state.

The Iranian Connection is the network of embassies and diplomatic staffs spread throughout the world that support Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism, controlled by 'Dept 15', in Tehran, the Iranian government denying all implication. When he came to power in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini used terrorism to consolidate his position, realised its potential, and exploited it to further his dream to 'March to Jerusalem', by assassinating his enemies, supporting like-minded national terrorist groups, causing huge explosions at Israeli embassies, organising aircraft hijacking and hostage-taking. The Iranian Connection is supporting insurrection in Algeria and the Israeli Occupied Territories, the object being to install governments that will rule according to the Koran and Muslim custom.

How did Tunisia succeed in eliminating the threat of militant Islamic fundamentalism? Borowiec examines the actions, which begin with the removal of the senile President Habib Bourguiba in 1987, known in Tunisia as the change. Today, while its next door neighbor, Algeria, is in the midst of an upheaval threatening modernization and a secular government, Tunisia is the only Muslim country to ban polygamy and to introduce state-funded contraception. Borowiec begins by sketching Tunisia's history from the Phoenician era onward. He provides a detailed analysis of the country's Islamic movement, and then examines the efforts of Bourguiba's successor, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to liberalize the economy, foster a Western orientation, and make education accessible to all. Interviews with leading government officials as well as educators, writers, and average Tunisians puts a human face on a process that may allow Tunisia to make the transition to become a young developed nation at the beginning of the next millennium. This book is important to scholars, researchers, and the general public concerned with events in North Africa and the Arab world.

FEW BRITISH EXPLORERS IN ARABIA have produced books whose importance as travelogues is trans-cended by their literary quality. One such is The Holy Cities of Arabia, published to critical acclaim in 1928, with its author hailed as a worthy successor to Burckhardt, Burton and Doughty. Unrivalled among works by Western travellers to Islam's holy cities, this account of a pilgrimage to Makkah in 1925-26 is made all the more remark-able by its author's timing. In 1925 `Abd al-`Aziz Ibn Saud brought to an end centuries of rule over the Hijaz by the Hashimite sharifs and their Ottoman overlords. Rutter, living as a learned Muslim Arab in a Makkan household, had a ringside seat as Riyadh imposed its writ on Islam's holy cities. As striking as his account of life in Makkah before modernization are his interviews with Ibn Saud, and his journeys to al-Ta'if and to the City of the Prophet, al-Madinah. The Holy Cities of Arabia proved to be its author's only full-length work. After a brief career as a Middle East traveller, Rutter lapsed into obscurity. This new edition aims to revive a neglected masterpiece and to establish Rutter's reputation. Little was known about him until now and the introduction tells the story of his life for the first time, assessing his talents as a travel writer and analysing his significance as a British convert.