"Islam in the Balance: Ideational Threats in Arab Politics" is an analysis of how ideas, or political ideology, can threaten states and how states react to ideational threats. It examines the threat perception and policies of two Arab, Muslim majority states, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in response to the rise and activities of two revolutionary "Islamic states," established in Iran (1979) and Sudan (1989).
Using these comparative case studies the book provides important insight about the role of religious ideology for the international and domestic politics of the Middle East and, in doing so, advances our understanding of how, why, and when ideology affects threat perception and state policy.
Rubin makes clear that transnational ideologies may present a greater and more immediate national security threat than shifts in the military balance of power: first because ideology, or ideational power, triggers threat perception and affects state policy; second because states engage in ideational balancing in response to an ideological threat.
The book has significant implications for international relations theory and engages important debates in comparative politics about authoritarianism and Islamic activism. Its findings about how an Islamist regime or state behaves will provide vital insight for policy creation by the US and its Middle East allies should another such regime or state emerge.

Orientalism, Zionism and Academic Practice explores the field of Israeli Middle East and Islamic Studies (MEIS) sociologically and politically, as a window onto the relationship between Orientalism, Zionism and academia. The book draws special attention to neoliberal discourse and praxis in everyday higher education, the interests of scholars, and the political form that commercialisation takes in specific disciplinary and geopolitical conditions by deconstructing structural and historical presuppositions and effective ideologies that overdetermine this junction of academia, orientalism and Zionism. The multi-layered study draws on various scholarly traditions and offers new evidence for, and insights in, historical and cultural-discursive discussions. It highlights paradigmatic gaps in reading Saidian orientalism, re-evaluates the origins and evolution of the local field, contributes to the study of everyday academic culture in the social sciences and humanities (SSH), and unveils the presupposed and the unsaid of the general and the specific field, exploring the intersection of an orientalist expertise, in a settler-colonial society, and everyday academic capitalism. The expertise of this sociological and discursive study make it an invaluable resource for academics and students interested in Israel and Middle East studies, Higher Education and the Sociology of Academia.

This new volume showcases the latest research into Muslim political participation both in terms of electoral politics and civil society initiatives. Muslims play a prominent role in British political life yet what do we actually know about the involvement of British Muslims beyond the existence of a handful of Muslim MPs? What is unique about political participation in Muslim communities? All the major parties actively seek to court a 'Muslim electorate' but does such a phenomenon exist? Despite the impact that Muslims have had on election campaigns and their roles in various political institutions, research on this topic remains scant. Indeed, much of the existing work was couched within the broader areas of the participation of ethnic minorities or the impact of race on electoral politics. The chapters in this volume address this lacuna by highlighting different aspects of Muslim participation in British politics. They investigate voting patterns and election campaigns, civil society and grassroots political movements, the engagement of young people and the participation of Muslims in formal political institutions. Written in an accessible style, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of political participation and religious studies.

This volume explores the dominant types of relationships between Muslim minorities and states in different parts of the world, the challenges each side faces, and the cases and reasons for exemplary integration, religious tolerance, and freedom of expression. By bringing together diverse case studies from Europe, Africa, and Asia, this book offers insight into the nature of state engagement with Muslim communities and Muslim community responses towards the state, in turn. This collection offers readers the opportunity to learn more about what drives government policy on Muslim minority communities, Muslim community policies and responses in turn, and where common ground lies in building religious tolerance, greater community cohesion and enhancing Muslim community-state relations.

This volume explores the extraordinary variety of Islamic organizations in Europe and the United States. It focuses on the question of how local, national and transnational environments and changing public discourses on Muslims and Islam affect Islamic organizations and their members. The contributions all employ a bottom-up research approach and uncover diverse reactions of Islamic organizations in their forms of organization, strategies and practices. Compiling twelve studies from researchers of a variety of disciplines, this volume provides theoretical and empirical findings on Islamic organizations from the Baltic States, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US.

When Guinean Muslims leave their homeland, they encounter radically new versions of Islam and new approaches to religion more generally. In Remaking Islam in African Portugal, Michelle C. Johnson explores the religious lives of these migrants in the context of diaspora. Since Islam arrived in West Africa centuries ago, Muslims in this region have long conflated ethnicity and Islam, such that to be Mandinga or Fula is also to be Muslim. But as they increasingly encounter Muslims not from Africa, as well as other ways of being Muslim, they must question and revise their understanding of "proper" Muslim belief and practice. Many men, in particular, begin to separate African custom from global Islam. Johnson maintains that this cultural intersection is highly gendered as she shows how Guinean Muslim men in Lisbon-especially those who can read Arabic, have made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and attend Friday prayer at Lisbon's central mosque-aspire to be cosmopolitan Muslims. By contrast, Guinean women-many of whom never studied the Qur'an, do not read Arabic, and feel excluded from the mosque-remain more comfortably rooted in African custom. In response, these women have created a "culture club" as an alternative Muslim space where they can celebrate life course rituals and Muslim holidays on their own terms. Remaking Islam in African Portugal highlights what being Muslim means in urban Europe and how Guinean migrants' relationships to their ritual practices must change as they remake themselves and their religion.

This book presents an innovative analysis of the solidarity/social economy among low-income religious women in Iran. For years, the role of low-income women in community care and poverty reduction has been underestimated and under-researched in the broader academic community, due to the "invisible" nature of these informal and predominantly religious networks. As economic hardship in Iran increases, women in the community have mobilized to bring assistance to those struggling to make ends meet. The culmination of years of fieldwork in different parts of the country, this book sheds light on how religious women form the backbone of Iran's social safety net as the welfare state fails and social protection policies dwindle.

In a world of increasingly mixed identities, what does it mean to belong? As western democracies increasingly curtail their support for multiculturalism, how can migrants establish belonging as citizens? A Muslim Diaspora in Australia explores how a particular migrant group has faced the challenges of belonging. The author illustrates how Bosnian migrants in Australia have sought to find places for themselves as migrants, as refugees, and as Muslims, in Australia and Australian society. Challenging the methodological nationalism that tends to dominate discussions of migrant identities, the author exposes the ways in which dignity emerges as a dominant concern for people as they relate to varied local, national and translational contexts. Very little is known about how migrants themselves read and react to the multiple challenges of belonging and this pioneering work offers a timely and much needed critical insight into what it means to belong.

This multidisciplinary collective volume advances the scholarly discussion on the origins of Islam. It simultaneously focuses on three domains: texts, social contexts, and ideological developments relevant for the study of Islam's beginnings -- taking the latter expression in its broadest possible sense. The intersections of these domains need to be examined afresh in order to obtain a clear picture of the concurrent phenomena that collectively enabled both the gradual emergence of a new religious identity and the progressive delimitation of its initially fuzzy boundaries.

The main purpose of this study is to contribute to the familiarization of the reader with the production of Islamist writers in contemporary Turkey, by focusing on the ideas and writings of Necip Fazil Kisakurek, Ali Bulac, and Abdurrahman Dilipak. The reader is given the opportunity to read a number of representative writings of the above-mentioned writers; in addition, there is an introductory chapter with the purpose of placing the discussion of the emergence, role, and typology of Islamist intellectuals in Turkey in social theory terms and context.

During the last two decades, the (re-)discovery of thousands of manuscripts in different regions of sub-Saharan Africa has questioned the long-standing approach of Africa as a continent only characterized by orality and legitimately assigned to the continent the status of a civilization of written literacy. However, most of the existing studies mainly aim at serving literary and historical purposes, and focus only on the textual dimension of the manuscripts. This book advances on the contrary a holistic approach to the study of these manuscripts and gather contributions on the different dimensions of the manuscript, i.e. the materials, the technologies, the practices and the communities involved in the production, commercialization, circulation, preservation and consumption. The originality of this book is found in its methodological approach as well as its comparative geographic focus, presenting studies on a continental scale, including regions formerly neglected by existing scholarship, provides a unique opportunity to expand our still scanty knowledge of the different manuscript cultures that the African continent has developed and that often can still be considered as living traditions.

The Convergence of Neoliberalism and Islam in Turkey critically analyses the travel of neoliberal ideas, policies, experts and institutions from the West to Turkey and how they are being adopted and transformed in their new Islamic settings through an ethnographic investigation of the newly established tobacco market. The February 2001 crisis, the most severe economic downturn in the history of Turkey, generated an emergency situation in which a series of sweeping neoliberal policies were implemented to prop up the collapsed economy.To receive the necessary loans from the international financial institutions, the Turkish government hastily enacted a number of neoliberal laws, including the notorious tobacco law. The book not only explores the repercussions of the new tobacco law, such as the emergence of a new regulatory institution, there making of a liberalized market, and the tobacco workers' resistance to neoliberal reforms but also the smoking ban governing the bodies and spaces of the Muslim citizens.Although the enacted law and smoking ban aimed to comply with requirements set out by the European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, the strict and fast implementation of the law also united with the Islamic-rooted government's distaste for tobacco and alcohol consumption. This analysis of the governance of healthy/good/obedient Muslim citizens though the smoking-ban in Turkey provides an innovative contribution to Middle-Eastern studies, filling the gap for anthropological research in Muslim countries on local economic relations and their connections with the global econom

After 9/11, there was an increase in both the incidence of hate crimes and government policies that targeted Arabs and Muslims and the proliferation of sympathetic portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. media. Arabs and Muslims in the Media examines this paradox and investigates the increase of sympathetic images of "the enemy" during the War on Terror. Evelyn Alsultany explains that a new standard in racial and cultural representations emerged out of the multicultural movement of the 1990s that involves balancing a negative representation with a positive one, what she refers to as "simplified complex representations." This has meant that if the storyline of a TV drama or film represents an Arab or Muslim as a terrorist, then the storyline also includes a "positive" representation of an Arab, Muslim, Arab American, or Muslim American to offset the potential stereotype. Analyzing how TV dramas such as West Wing, The Practice, 24, Threat Matrix, The Agency, Navy NCIS, and Sleeper Cell, news-reporting, and non-profit advertising have represented Arabs, Muslims, Arab Americans, and Muslim Americans during the War on Terror, this book demonstrates how more diverse representations do not in themselves solve the problem of racial stereotyping and how even seemingly positive images can produce meanings that can justify exclusion and inequality.

This book examines the role of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792) and his successors in reconsolidating the religious principles of Wahhabism. It explains the role of the Saudi princes in crystallizing the core of the SaudiWahhabi political entity within their tribal society. Key to this explanation is the interrelation between sedentary and nomadic populations and the consequent impact on the development of Saudi political entities prior to the emergence of the Saudi Kingdom. Texts of Wahhabi scholars are compared with those of the early Hanbali scholars, pinpointing the new religious elements introduced to foster the Wahhabi creed. Discussion focuses on the first and second generations of Wahhabi scholars who maintained the Wahhabi creed with great success, keeping its hegemony as the main doctrine in Saudi Arabia, and developing a takfiri discourse (accusing people of being infidels) which by the nineteenth century had become the main religious and political weapon by which the Wahhabis mobilized supporters against their political and religious adversaries. To better understand this development, the meaning of kufr (heresy) in Islam and its implications in various Islamic doctrines is examined closely. The focus on the role of Wahhabi scholars in the nineteenth century sheds new lights on the principles of continuity and discontinuity in the historical development of Saudi political entities and explains the origin of the modern Saudi State. Although major socio-economic and cultural change is now taking place under the leadership of Prince Muhammad ibn Salman, the main religious structures of the state remain firmly in place. It remains to be seen how two diametric societal viewpoints will integrate or clash. This work is essential reading for all scholars and students of religious, cultural, social and political history of Saudi Arabia and Islam in the Middle East.

This book is a study of the UK-based Ahmadiyya Muslim community in the context of the twentieth-century South Asian diaspora. Originating in late nineteenth-century Punjab, the Ahmadis are today a vibrant international religious movement; they are also a group that has been declared heretic by other Muslims and one that continues to face persecution in Pakistan, the country the Ahmadis made their home after the partition of India in 1947. Structured as a series of case studies, the book focuses on the ways in which the Ahmadis balance the demands of faith, community and modern life in the diaspora. Following an overview of the history and beliefs of the Ahmadis, the chapters examine in turn the use of ceremonial occasions to consolidate a diverse international community; the paradoxical survival of the enchantments of dreams and charisma within the structures of an institutional bureaucracy; asylum claims and the ways in which the plight of asylum seekers has been strategically deployed to position the Ahmadis on the UK political stage; and how the planning and building of mosques serves to establish a home within the diaspora. Based on fieldwork conducted over several years in a range of formal and informal contexts, this timely book will be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience from social and cultural anthropology, South Asian studies, the study of Islam and of Muslims in Europe, refugee, asylum and diaspora studies, as well as more generally religious studies and history.

Education and Muslim Identity During a Time of Tension explores life inside an Islamic Center and school in present-day America. Melanie Brooks' work draws on in-depth discussions with community and school leaders, teachers, parents and students to present thoughtful and contemporary perspectives on many issues central to American-Muslim identities. Particularly poignant are the children's voices, as they discuss their developing identities and how they navigate the choice of being American, Muslim, or both. The book covers topics ranging from establishing the community and the considerations involved, the management of diversity within the community, and approaches to modern opinions on and experiences of gender and extremism in the western world. Based on focus groups, interviews and observations collected over a two-year period, this book serves as a fascinating and informative insight into the culture and experiences of modern American Muslims. This is essential reading for students and researchers interested in education, religion, politics, sociology, and most particularly in contemporary Islamic studies.

Surface decoration has always played a fundamental role in Islamic architecture. As human representation is forbidden in Islamic religious monuments, designers employed mosaics, stucco, brickwork and ceramics, and the vigorous use of brilliant colour to reach unparalleled heights of expression. It is this ornamental dimension of Islamic architecture that is explored in this magnificent volume. Rather than limiting itself to an exclusively historical or chronological perspective, Ornament and Decoration in Islamic Architecture presents four successive approaches to its subject. The first part offers an overview of Islamic architecture, discussing the great diversity it contains. Dealing exclusively with techniques, the second part considers the materials most often used as well as the expertise of the builders and Muslim decorative artists, and the third part explores themes in Islamic ornamentation. Section four discusses aesthetics, and studies the relationship between the buildings - the structures or their architectonic components - and their ornamental coverings. Each of these topics is presented through a number of outstanding examples and then through comparable monuments from all over the Islamic world. For anyone in thrall to such great wonders as the Taj Mahal and the Alhambra, and for everyone interested in the world of Islam, this lavish publication will be indispensable.

This book is a social critique of the cultural taboo of the female virginity in the Middle East. It highlights the unobtainability of this cultural myth and its multilevel destructive influences on various aspects of social life.

Zionism in Arab discourses presents a ground-breaking study of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Through analyses of hundreds of texts written by Arab Islamists and liberals from the late-nineteenth century to the 'Arab Spring', the book demonstrates that the Zionist enterprise has played a dual function of an enemy and a mentor. Islamists and liberals alike discovered, respectively, in Zionism and in Israeli society qualities they sought to implement in their sown homelands. Focusing on Palestinian, Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian political discourses, this study uncovers fascinating and unexpected Arab points of views on different aspects of Zionism; from the first Zionist Congress to the First Lebanon War; from gardening in the early years of Tel Aviv to women's service in the Israeli Defence Forces; from the role of religion in the creation of the state to the role of democracy in its preservation. -- .

This book theorizes a philosophical framework for educational policy and practice in the southern Philippines where decades of religious and political conflict between a minority Muslim community and the Philippine state has plagued the educational and economic development of the region. It offers a critical historical and ethnographic analysis of a century of failed attempts under successive U.S. colonial and independent Philippine governments to deploy education as a tool to mitigate the conflict and assimilate the Muslim minority into the mainstream of Philippine society and examines recent efforts to integrate state and Islamic education before proposing a philosophy of prophetic pragmatism as a more promising framework for educational policy and practice that respects the religious identity and fosters the educational development of Muslim Filipinos. It represents a timely contribution to the search for educational policies and practices more responsive to the needs and religious identities of Muslim communities emerging from conflict, not only in the southern Philippines, but in other international contexts as well.

Islamization and Activism in Malaysia examines aspects of the increasing political and social profile of Islam in Malaysia and describes how different kinds of activists in Malaysia have sought to protect fundamental liberties and to improve the state of democracy in Malaysia. In particular, focus is paid to activists who engage with electoral process, the law and the public sphere, and in particular, to movements that cut across or combine these realms of action. Spanning the period of the Prime Ministership of Abdullah Badawi, Julian C. H. Lee's grounded analysis examines the most important issues of that period including the freedom of religion case of Lina Joy, the Islamic state debate, and events surrounding the 8 March 2008 general elections.

Turkey's contemporary struggles with Islam are often interpreted as a conflict between religion and secularism played out most obviously in the split between rural and urban populations. The reality, of course, is more complicated than the assumptions. Exploring religious expression in two villages, this book considers rural spiritual practices and describes a living, evolving Sunni Islam, influenced and transformed by local and national sources of religious orthodoxy.
Drawing on a decade of research, Kimberly Hart shows how religion is not an abstract set of principles, but a complex set of practices. Sunni Islam structures individual lives through ritualsOCobirth, circumcision, marriage, military service, deathOCoand the expression of these traditions varies between villages. Hart delves into the question of why some choose to keep alive the past, while others want to face a future unburdened by local cultural practices. Her answer speaks to global transformations in Islam, to the push and pull between those who maintain a link to the past, even when these practices challenge orthodoxy, and those who want a purified global religion.

Turkey's contemporary struggles with Islam are often interpreted as a conflict between religion and secularism played out most obviously in the split between rural and urban populations. The reality, of course, is more complicated than the assumptions. Exploring religious expression in two villages, this book considers rural spiritual practices and describes a living, evolving Sunni Islam, influenced and transformed by local and national sources of religious orthodoxy.
Drawing on a decade of research, Kimberly Hart shows how religion is not an abstract set of principles, but a complex set of practices. Sunni Islam structures individual lives through rituals--birth, circumcision, marriage, military service, death--and the expression of these traditions varies between villages. Hart delves into the question of why some choose to keep alive the past, while others want to face a future unburdened by local cultural practices. Her answer speaks to global transformations in Islam, to the push and pull between those who maintain a link to the past, even when these practices challenge orthodoxy, and those who want a purified global religion.

This book examines matters of religious freedom in Europe, considers the work of the European Court of Human Rights in this area, explores issues of multiculturalism and secularism in France, of women in Islam, and of Muslims in the West. The work presents legal analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on concepts such as laicite, submission, equality and the role of the state in public education, amongst others. Through this book, the reader can visit inside a French public school located in a low-income neighborhood just south of Paris and learn about the complex dynamics that led up to the passing of the 2004 law banning Muslim headscarves. The chapters bring to light the actors and cultures within the school that set the stage for the passing of the law and the political philosophy that supports it. School culture and philosophy are compared and contrasted to the thoughts and opinions of the teachers, administrators and students to gage how religious freedom and identity are understood. The book goes on to explore the issue of religious freedom at the European Court of Human Rights. The author argues that the right to religious freedom has been too narrowly understood and is being fenced in by static visions of Islam. This jeopardizes the idea of religious freedom more broadly. By becoming entangled with regional and domestic politics, the Court is neglecting important nuances and is jeopardizing secularism, pluralism and democracy. This is a highly readable and accessible book that will appeal to students and scholars of law, anthropology, religious studies and philosophy of religion. 2004

Islam in "Liberal" Europe provides the first comprehensive overview of the political and social status of Islam and of Muslim migrants in Europe. Kai Hafez shows that although legal and political systems have made progress toward recognizing Muslims on equal terms and eliminating discriminatory practices that are in contradiction to neutral secularism, "liberal societies" often lag behind. The author argues that Islamophobic murders in Norway and Germany are only the tip of the iceberg of a deep-seated inability of many Europeans to accept cultural globalization when it hits close to home. Although there have always been anti-racist elites and networks in Europe, Hafez contends that the dominant tradition even among seemingly liberal intellectual milieus and their media is Islamophobic. This fact finds expression not only in the growing anti-Islam sentiment among right-wing populists but sometimes also in so-called enlightened forms of contemporary media, public opinion, school curricula, and Christian interfaith dialogues. In addition to offering a critical assessment of positive and negative trends in Islamic-Western relations, Hafez also engages in a theoretical debate revolving around integration, tolerance, multicultural liberalism, and modern liberal democracy. He combines political philosophy and political and social theory with current analysis on communication and the role of both religious and secular institutions in community-building in modern societies. In essence, the author debates the question of whether liberal society in Europe, in order to avoid a growing gap between integrative politics and discriminatory societies, needs a complete renewal not only of political ideologies but also of cultures and institutions.