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

Does the internet facilitate social and political change, or even democratization, in the Middle East? Despite existing research on this subject, there is still no consensus on the importance of social media and online platforms, or on how we are to understand their influence. This book provides empirical analysis of the day-to-day use of online platforms by activists in Egypt and Kuwait. The research evaluates the importance of online platforms for effecting change and establishes a specific framework for doing so. Egypt and Kuwait were chosen because, since the mid-2000s, they have been the most prominent Arab countries in terms of online and offline activism. In the context of Kuwait, Jon Nordenson examines the oppositional youth groups who fought for a constitutional, democratic monarchy in the emirate. In Egypt, focus surrounds the groups and organizations working against sexual violence and sexual harassment. Online Activism in the Middle East shows how and why online platforms are used by activists and identifies the crucial features of successful online campaigns. Egypt and Kuwait are revealed to be authoritarian contexts but where the challenges and possibilities faced by activists are quite different. The comparative nature of this research therefore exposes the context-specific usage of online platforms, separating this from the more general features of online activism. Nordenson demonstrates the power of online activism to create an essential 'counterpublic' that can challenge an authoritarian state and enable excluded groups to fight in ways that are far more difficult to suppress than a demonstration.

Based on hitherto untapped source materials, this book charts the history of Muslim missionary activity in London from 1912, when the first Indian Muslim missionaries arrived in London, until 1944. During this period a unique community was forged out of British converts and native Muslims from various parts of the world, which focused itself around a purpose built mosque in Woking and later the first mosque to open in London in 1924. Arguing that an understanding of Muslim mission in this period needs to place such activity in the context of colonial encounter, Islam and Britain provides a background narrative into why Muslim missionary activity in London was part of a variety of strategies to engage with European expansion and overzealous Christian missionary activity in India. Ron Geaves draws on research undertaken in India and Pakistan, where the Ahmadiya missionaries have kept extensive archives of this period which until now have been unavailable to scholars. Unique in providing an account of Islamic missionary work in Britain from the Islamic perspective, Islam and Britain adds to our knowledge and understanding of British Muslim history and makes an important contribution to the literature concerned with Islamic missiology.

Followers of Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Wahhab, often considered to be Islam's Martin Luther, shaped the political and religious identity of the Saudi state while also enabling the significant worldwide expansion of Salafist Islam. Studies of the movement he inspired, however, have often been limited by scholars' insufficient access to key sources within Saudi Arabia. Nabil Mouline was granted rare interviews and admittance to important Saudi archives in preparation for this groundbreaking book, the first in-depth study of the Wahhabi religious movement from its founding to the modern day. Gleaning information from both written and oral sources and employing a multidisciplinary approach that combines history, sociology, and Islamic studies, Mouline presents a new reading of this movement that transcends the usual resort to polemics.

Islamic finance distinguishes itself from conventional finance with its strong emphasis on the moral consequences of financial transactions; prohibiting interest, excessive uncertainty, and finance of harmful business. When it comes to risk mitigation, it is unique in its risk sharing approach. This authoritative book tracks the evolution of the takaful industry over the course of the last four decades and makes a major attempt to highlight the importance of risk sharing through a discussion of various models of cooperation and critical analysis of their performance, including illuminating case studies and a critical assessment of the Islamic insurance model and the role of alternate financing mechanisms. Its high level discourse on shari'ah compliance and its nuances places emphasis on the importance of solidarity, cooperation, mutuality and reciprocity. Scholars and practitioners working in Islamic Finance will appreciate the context and nuance of this important book, and it will be essential reading for anyone interested in alternative forms of shari'ah compliant cooperative finance. The book is equally vital for academics and researchers interested in understanding various takaful models and their shari'ah considerations. Contributors include: A. Abozaid, A.U.F. Ahmad, A. Akhtar, S.N. Ali, H. Allam, M. Ayub, M. Al Bashir Al Amine, A. Bhatty, J.W. Bradford, S.E.B. Carmody, M.A. El-Gamal, M. Faisal, M.F. Haq, I. Bin Mahbob, A. Nana, V. Nienhaus, S. Nisar, U.A. Oseni, M. Rahman, A. Rehman, M.A. Samad, B. Shafiq, H. Sultan, A.-R. Syed, T.A. Uddin

For every gallon of ink that has been spilt on the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its consequences, only one very small drop has been spent on the study of the forced migration of black Africans into the Mediterranean world of Islam. From the ninth to the early twentieth century, probably as many black Africans were forcibly taken across the Sahara, up the Nile valley, and across the Red Sea, as were transported across the Atlantic in a much shorter period. Yet their story has not yet been told. This book provides an introduction to this ""other"" slave trade, and to the Islamic cultural context within which it took place, as well as the effect this context had on those who were its victims. After an introductory essay, there are sections on Basic Texts (Qur'an and Hadith), Some Muslim Views on Slavery, Slavery and the Law, Perceptions of Africans in Some Arabic and Turkish Writings, Slave Capture, the Middle Passage, Slave Markets, Eunuchs and Concubines, Domestic Service, Military Service, Religion and Community, Freedom and Post-Slavery, and the Abolition of Slavery. A concluding segment provides a first-person account of the capture, transportation, and service in a Saharan oasis by a West African male, as related to a French official in the 1930s.

The story of Anglo-American relations in Saudi Arabia during the Second World War has generally been viewed as one of discord and hegemonic rivalry, a perspective reinforced by a tendency to consider Britain's decline and the ascent of US power as inevitable. In this engaging and timely study, Matthew Hinds calls into question such assumptions and reveals a relationship that, though hard-nosed, functioned through interdependence and strategic parity. Drawing upon an array of archives from both sides of the Atlantic, Hinds traces the flow of key events and policies as well as the leading figures who shaped events to show why, how and to what extent the allies and Saudi Arabia became 'mixed up together', in the words of Winston Churchill. Perhaps most fundamentally, Britain and the United States were enthralled by the promise of Saudi Arabia serving as an auxiliary to Allied strategy. Obtaining King Ibn Saud's tacit support or more specifically, his 'benevolent neutrality', meant having vital access, not only to the country's prospective oil reserves, but to its prized geographic location, its centrality within Islam and, as international politics increasingly followed an anti-colonial path, to its credentials as a sovereign and independent Arab state. Given what was at stake, London and Washington saw their engagement in Saudi Arabia as seminal; a genuine blueprint for how to forge a lasting 'Special Relationship' throughout the Middle East. Hinds' bold new interpretation is a vital work that enlarges our understanding of the Anglo-American wartime alliance.

This title offers an insight into key contemporary global issues relating to the lives and experiences of young Muslims. Many Muslim societies, regardless of location, are displaying a 'youth bulge', where more than half their populations are under the age of 25. An increasingly globalized western culture is rapidly eroding 'traditional' ideas about society, from the family to the state. At the same time, there is a view that rampant materialism is creating a culture of spiritual emptiness in which demoralization and pessimism easily find root. For young Muslims these challenges may be compounded by a growing sense of alienation as they face competing ideologies and divergent lifestyles. Muslim youth are often idealized as the 'future of Islam' or stigmatized as rebelling against their parental values and suffering 'identity crises'. These experiences can produce both positive and negative reactions, from intellectual engagement and increasing spiritual maturity to emotional rejectionism, narrow identity politics and violent extremism. This book addresses many of the central issues currently facing young Muslims in both localized and globalized contexts through engaging with the work of academics, youth work practitioners and those working in non-governmental organizations and civic institutions.

Yezidis in Syria: Identity Building among a Double Minority traces the development of Yezidi identity on the margins of Syria's minority context. This little known group is connected to the community's main living area in northern Iraq, but evolved as a separate identity group in the context of Syria's colonial, national, and revolutionary history. Always on the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy, the two sub-groups located in the Kurdagh and the Jezira experience a period of sociological and theological renewal in their quest for a recognized and protected status in the new Syria. In this book, Sebastian Maisel transmits and analyzes the Yezidi perspective on Syria's policies towards ethnic and religious minorities.

Islam in Performance brings together six contemporary plays from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan that highlight the political performance of Islam in South Asia, especially since the 1947 partition of the subcontinent. The plays invite comparison with one another, engaging with the issue from perspectives of the three countries concerned: Hindutva politics in India othering the Muslim population for electoral gains, radical Islamization of Pakistan paralyzing political governance and encouraging jihadi violence, and the ever-increasing Islamist threat to Bangladesh's founding secular ethos. Finally, this anthology focuses on the suffering such exclusionary politics of religious nationalism has piled upon minorities across the region. Widely performed but largely unpublished, the plays with their geographic and stylistic range provide a good spectrum of some of the best writing in contemporary South Asian drama. The editor's scholarly introduction offers a framework for studying the plays as both texts and performance pieces.

In Islam Is a Foreign Country, Zareena Grewal explores some of the most pressing debates about and among American Muslims: what does it mean to be Muslim and American? Who has the authority to speak for Islam and to lead the stunningly diverse population of American Muslims? Do their ties to the larger Muslim world undermine their efforts to make Islam an American religion? Offering rich insights into these questions and more, Grewal follows the journeys of American Muslim youth who travel in global, underground Islamic networks. Devoutly religious and often politically disaffected, these young men and women are in search of a home for themselves and their tradition. Through their stories, Grewal captures the multiple directions of the global flows of people, practices, and ideas that connect U.S. mosques to the Muslim world. By examining the tension between American Muslims' ambivalence toward the American mainstream and their desire to enter it, Grewal puts contemporary debates about Islam in the context of a long history of American racial and religious exclusions. Probing the competing obligations of American Muslims to the nation and to the umma (the global community of Muslim believers), Islam is a Foreign Country investigates the meaning of American citizenship and the place of Islam in a global age. Zareena Grewal is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Religious Studies at Yale University and Director for the Center for the Study of American Muslims at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

The leaders of the oil-rich rentier states of the Middle East, and in particular in the Gulf, have hitherto often predicated their legitimacy on a tacit social contract with their (much poorer) populations. This social contract consists of little or no direct taxation, with some sort of subsidized living. But the casualty of this tacit agreement is often political participation, an issue which has come to the forefront in the Middle East following the 'Arab Spring' of 2011. Here, Sulaiman Al-Farsi looks at the impact the rentier nature of the Gulf States has on political participation, focusing on the nexus between tribe, religion and a new generation of young, highly educated citizens that is present in Oman. Specifically exploring the concept of shura (consultation), and how nascent concepts of democracy in the practice of shura have impacted and shaped the process of democratization, Al-Farsi's book is vital in the examination of the political discourse surrounding democratization across one of the most strategically important, but little understood states in the Middle East.

Privacy and Fame: How We Expose Ourselves across Media Platforms uses Israel as a case study to examine the changes in perceptions, expectations, and actual behavior concerning privacy and privacy exposure to better understand the various ways individuals negotiate the boundaries between private and public self across different media platforms. Yuval Karniel and Amit Lavie-Dinur examine the relationship between social norms concerning privacy and the development of new media technologies, so as to examine how traditional conceptions of privacy have altered. It is through an analysis of new media technologies and the application of a unique privacy typology that this book aims to trace the evolution of the concept of privacy and to examine the different ways individuals engage in privacy exposure. This book treats privacy-loss as a feature of modern society that needs to be better understood, examined, and analyzed.

Islamic religious teachers (asatizah) and scholars (ulama) play a significant role in providing spiritual leadership for the Singapore Malay/Muslim community. Lately, the group has been cast under the spotlight over a range of issues, from underperformance in the national examination, their ability to integrate into the broader society, exposure to radical and conservative ideas such as Salafism from the Middle East, and unemployment. Reaching for the Crescent examines a growing segment within the group, namely Islamic studies graduates, who obtained their degrees from universities in the Middle East and neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia. It identifies factors that condition the proliferation of Islamic studies graduates in Singapore, examine the dominant religious institutions they attend, the nature of Islamic education they received, and their challenges. It tackles the impact of their religious education on the spiritual life and well-being of the community. Based on qualitative and quantitative data collected, the book calls for a rethinking of a prevailing discourse of Arabization of Singapore Muslims and academic approaches that focus on madrasah education and Islam through the security lens.

Drawing on original sources found in the first century of Islam and guided by contemporary developments in the field of business ethics, this book offers Islamic perspectives on ethical conduct in the marketplace: what organizations and other market actors do to deal with monumental challenges in today s market. The book outlines a framework for business ethics and offers a theory for understanding market ethics. Throughout the book, subjects covered underscore the necessity of ethical conduct and shed light on the interplay of several forces that shape ethical perspectives and morality in the workplace. The book creatively addresses the history and theory of ethics in the marketplace. It also discusses Islamic ethical perspectives in the context of Judaism and Christianity. Likewise, it outlines what companies working in the Muslim environment have to undertake to sustain their competitive advantage. The book, therefore, is of interest to business managers, researchers, policymakers, and students of organization and religion. Contents: 1. The Meaning and Scope of Business Ethics in Islam 2. Sources of Ethical Problems in Business 3. Islamic Ethics and Free Market Economy 4. Ethics and Profit Making 5. Leadership 6. The Ethics of Banking and Financial Services 7. Organization and Work 8. Marketing Ethics and Consumerism 9. Ethics and Human Resource Management in Modern Organizations 10. Social Responsibility and Sustainability Bibliography Index

This book puts together grounded research on the discourses that counter Islamophobic tropes in North America. Dealing with an important and urgent issue of human rights, it explores how public policies, new conceptualizations, and social movements can transform Islamophobia into a positive and healthy discourse. Surprisingly, and apart from selected media studies, empirical investigations about countering xenophobia and hate are rare. The book proposes effective means and mechanisms to help generate debate, dialogue, and discussion concerning policy issues to mitigate Islamophobia. Written in uncomplicated language, this topical book will attract specialist and non-specialist readers interested in the topic of Islamophobia, understanding the roots of Islamophobic hate rhetoric, and how to counter it.

According to many Islamic jurists, the world is divided between dar al-Islam (the abode of Islam) and dar al-harb (the abode of war). This dual division of the world has led to a great amount of juridical discussion concerning what makes a territory part of dar al-Islam, what the status of Muslims living outside of this is, and whether they are obliged to obey Islamic jurisprudence. Susanne Olsson examines the differing understandings of dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, as well as related concepts, such as jihad and takfir. She thereby is able to explore how these concepts have been utilised, transformed and negotiated throughout history. As the subject of Muslims living in Europe is such a topical and sometimes controversial one, this book will appeal to researchers of modern Islam as integral to the Western experience.

To what extent can Islam be localized in an increasingly interconnected world? The contributions to this volume investigate different facets of Muslim lives in the context of increasingly dense transregional connections, highlighting how the circulation of ideas about 'Muslimness' contributed to the shaping of specific ideas about what constitutes Islam and its role in society and politics. Infrastructural changes have prompted the intensification of scholarly and trade networks, prompted the circulation of new literary genres or shaped stereotypical images of Muslims. This, in turn, had consequences in widely differing fields such as self-representation and governance of Muslims. The contributions in this volume explore this issue in geographical contexts ranging from South Asia to Europe and the US. Coming from the disciplines of history, anthropology, religious studies, literary studies and political science, the authors collectively demonstrate the need to combine a translocal perspective with very specific local and historical constellations. The book complicates conventional academic divisions and invites to think in historically specific translocal contexts.

Shared Margins tells of writers, writing, and literary milieus in Alexandria, Egypt's second city. It de-centres cosmopolitan avant-gardes and secular-revolutionary aesthetics that have been intensively documented and studied since 2011. Instead, it offers a fieldwork-based account of various milieus and styles, and their common grounds and lines of division. Structured in two parts, Shared Margins gives an account of literature as a social practice embedded in milieus that at once enable and limit literary imagination, and of a life-worldly experience of plurality in absence of pluralism that marks literary engagements with the intimate and social realities of Alexandria after 2011. Literary writing, this book argues, has marginality as an at once enabling and limiting condition. It provides shared spaces of imaginary excess that may go beyond the taken-for-granted of a societal milieu, and yet are never unlimited. Literary imagination is part and parcel of such social conflicts and transformations, its role being neither one of resistance against power nor of guidance towards norms, but rather one of open-ended complicity.

This is the first biography of Lord Headley, who made international headlines in 1913 when he defied convention by publicly converting to Islam. Drawing on previously unpublished archival sources, this book focuses on Headley's religious beliefs, conversion to Islam, and work as a Muslim leader during and after the First World War. Lord Headley slipped into obscurity following his death in 1935, but there is growing recognition globally that he is a pivotal figure in the history of Western Islam and Muslim-Christian relations; this book evaluates the strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures of the man and his work, and considers his significance for contemporary understandings of Islam in the Global West.

In the Middle East, and in Egypt in particular, there has always been a tendency to accord complete supremacy to the authority and might of the state, and to see "society" as a separate, powerless entity. However, after the uprising of 2011, this assumption was turned on its head. And it is the wide range of political activity beyond the remit of the official state where Wanda Krause locates a dynamic potential for political change from the bottom up. She looks in particular at the influential role of women's private voluntary organizations in Egypt in shaping concepts of civil society and democracy. Exploring both secular and "Islamist" organizations, she offers a steadfast critique of the view that Islamic women activists are insignificant,"'backward," or "uncivil." Krause's examination of women activists in Egypt today is vital for those interested in Middle East and Gender Studies, as well as those researching the wider issues of civil society and democratization.

Folklore has been a phenomenon based on nostalgic and autochthonous nuances conveyed with a story-telling technique with a penchant for over-playing and nationalistic pomp and circumstance, often with significant consequences for societal, poetic, and cultural areas. These papers highlight challenges that have an outreaching relationship to the regional, rhetorical, and trans-rhetorical devices and manners in Kurdish folklore, which subscribes to an ironic sense of hope all the while issuing an appeal for a largely unaccomplished nationhood, simultaneously insisting on a linguistic solidarity. In a folkloric literature that has an overarching theory of poetics - perhaps even trans-figurative cognitive poetics due to the multi-faceted nature of its application and the complexity of its linguistic structure - the relationship of man (and less frequently woman) with others takes center stage in many of the folkloric creations. Arts are not figurative representations of the real in the Kurdish world; they are the real.

The 2006 elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, the first in which both Fatah and Hamas fielded candidates, resulted in a resounding victory for Hamas. Winning 74 out of the 132 seats (compared to Fatah s 45), Hamas election strategy had proved effective against Fatah s ineffectual campaign and failure to properly consider public opinion. Erika Schwarze offers here an in-depth examination of these two separate campaigns, and how Fatah s lack of responsiveness to the popular mood in the run-up to elections following Arafat s death and beyond, led to its defeat in spite of its considerable experience of electioneering. She analyses the conduct of Palestinian leadership during this critical period, exploring the reasons for Fatah s inability to prioritise responsiveness to public opinion, and providing insights into the movement s electoral prospects in the future and its chances of survival and revival."

Despite the current negative image of Islam in Europe there has been a steady growth of converts to Islam over the past few decades. British converts are a highly diverse group, with different social, economic and educational backgrounds. Recently this group has grown in confidence and become increasingly active in influencing positive Islamic discourse in Britain. The book sheds light on the intellectual and spiritual contributions of some of the prominent figures of this group of 'new Muslims', and assesses their efforts in shaping Islam in British society; including: Martin Lings, Gai Eaton, Tim Winter and Hamza Yusuf. The research investigates the potential benefit 'new Muslims' can bring to bridge the gap between Muslim communities and wider British society, thus helping in the process of building mutual trust, greater cooperation and positive understanding among all parties in Britain. The work will help readers to become aware of the evolution of a "British Islam" that is more open, rooted in British values and spiritual traditions, and forms a part of the continually changing British religious landscape.