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.

NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) have emerged in both a development and aid capacity in Bangladesh, providing wide-reaching public services to the country's population living in extreme poverty. However, resistance to and limitations of NGO-led development - which in conjunction with Bangladesh's social transformation - led to a new religious-based NGO development practice. Looking at the role of Islamic NGOs in Bangladesh, the book investigates new forms of neoliberal governmentality supported by international donors. It discusses how this form of social regulation produces and reproduces subjectivities, particularly Muslim women subjectivity, and has combined religious and economic rationality, further complicating the boundaries and the relationship between Islam, modernity, and development. The book argues that both secular and Islamic NGOs target women in the name of empowerment but more importantly as the most reliable partners to meet their debt obligations of micro-financing schemes, including shari'a-based financing. The targeted women, in turn, experience Islamic NGOs as less coercive and more sensitive to their religious environment in the rural village community than are secular NGOs. Providing a comparative study of the role of religious and secular NGOs in the implementation of neoliberal policies and development strategies, this book will be a significant addition to research on South Asian Politics, Development Studies, Gender Studies, and Religion.

Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.

This unique book brings together some of the finest minds in comparative economic / financial history and modern Islamic finance to discuss the rise, the decline and the contemporary efforts to regenerate Islamic capitalism. The collection features articles on the contribution of classical Muslim scholars to the history of economic thought, the institutions that translated these ideas into everyday life and whether these thoughts and institutions constitute a clash or a symbiosis of civilizations. The efforts of contemporary Muslim thinkers to design a modern Islamic economy are also carefully scrutinized. These collected works are expertly summarised by the editor in an original introduction and will be welcomed by all those with an historical or contemporary interest in Islamic studies.

Relying on a thorough understanding of the role of ideology, discourse, and framing, this volume discusses ISIS as an Islamist ideological organization, and examines its philosophical scaffolding within the material conditions produced by neoliberal capital. As Raja asserts, it is this nexus of specifically retrieved Islamic history and the current global economic system that creates the kind of social identity ideally suited for ISIS. The combination of the historical narratives and the contemporary means of communication enables ISIS to frame and spread its message, recruit its adherents, and replicate itself. While many scholarly and journalistic works on ISIS provide a wealth of information, not many elaborate on the terms that are often invoked in these writings. For example, scholars often use the term "Salafi-Jihadi" but they do not provide a comprehensive explanation of such concept within the same text. This book not only provides an explanation of the instructive terms used to explain the ISIS phenomenon, but also asserts that only one school of thought in Islam [The Sunni Wahabis] is likely to be the ideal target for ISIS recruitment. This claim, of course, does not rely on an essentialized pathology of Wahabi Sunnis, but provides an explanation of the Wahabi Islam as a proverbial "slippery slope," as an absolutely necessary first step for an individual's transformation into an ISIS fighter. Written in a clear and direct style, this volume provides scholars and lay readers alike with a deeper understanding of ISIS and its strategies of recruitment and self sustenance.

Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria tells the story of Islamic reform from the perspective of dress, textile production, trade, and pilgrimage over the past 200 years. As Islamic reformers have sought to address societal problems such as poverty, inequality, ignorance, unemployment, extravagance, and corruption, they have used textiles as a means to express their religious positions on these concerns. Home first to the early indigo trade and later to a thriving textile industry, northern Nigeria has been a center for Islamic practice as well as a place where everything from women's hijabs to turbans, buttons, zippers, short pants, and military uniforms offers a statement on Islam. Elisha P. Renne argues that awareness of material distinctions, religious ideology, and the political and economic contexts from which successive Islamic reform groups have emerged is important for understanding how people in northern Nigeria continue to seek a proper Islamic way of being in the world and how they imagine their futures-spiritually, economically, politically, and environmentally.

In Muslim Integration: Pluralism and Multiculturalism in New Zealand and Australia, contributors from a range of backgrounds investigate the state of Muslim integration in New Zealand and Australia. The growing presence of a Muslim minority has invited these two Pacific settler states to closely consider the question of Muslim integration into Western society. This collection discusses the future of religio-cultural pluralism, multicultural policies, and the growing demands for greater emphasis on assimilation. Contributors examine issues such as parallel societies, Islamophobia, radicalization, tolerance, adaptation and mutual adjustment, legal pluralism, the role of mosque architecture, and media depictions of Muslims are examined. Recommended for scholars of anthropology, religious studies, sociology, and political science.

Waltzing with Bashir proposes a new paradigm for cinema trauma studies - the trauma of the perpetrator. Recognizing a current shift in interest from the trauma suffered by victims to that suffered by perpetrators, the book seeks to theorize this still under-studied field thus breaking the repression of this concept and phenomenon in psychoanalysis and in cinema literature. Taking as a point of departure the distinction between testimony given by the victim and confession made by the perpetrator, this pioneering work ventures to define and analyze perpetrator trauma in scholarly, representational, literary, and societal contexts. In contrast to the twentieth-century definition of the perpetrator based on modern wars and totalitarian regimes,Morag defines the perpetrator in the context of the twenty-first century's new wars and democratic regimes. The direct result of a drastic transformation in the very nature of war, made manifest by the lethal clash between soldier and civilian in a battlefield newly defined in bodily terms, the new trauma paradigm stages the trauma of the soldier turned perpetrator, thus offering a novel perspective on issues of responsibility and guilt. Such theoretical insights demonstrate that the epistemology of the post-witness era requires breaking deep-seated psychological and psychiatric, as well as cultural and political, repression. Driven by the emergence of a new wave of Israeli documentary cinema, Waltzing with Bashir analyzes the Israeli film and literature produced in the aftermath of the second Intifada. As Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir and other new wave films demonstrate, Israeli cinema, attached on one side to the legacy of the Holocaust and on the other to the Israeli Occupation, is a highly relevant case for probing the limits of both victim and perpetrator traumas, and for revisiting and recontextualizing the crucial moment in which the victim/perpetrator cultural symbiosis is dismantled.

The book charts the attempts of Islam's largest missionary movement, the Tablighi Jamaat, to build Europe's largest mosque in London. Key themes include how Islamic movements engage and adapt within liberal democracies and how local contexts are key in understanding how and why movements operate in a given way.

Tajikistan is a key state in Central Asia, and will become crucial to the regional power balance as it transitions away from Soviet government systems and responds to the rise of Chinese financial power alongside the continuing presence of Russian military might and instability in neighboring Afghanistan. This book demonstrates how the Soviet atheist legacy continues to influence current state structures, the regulation of religion, the formation of national identities, and the understanding of the place of religion in society. Helene Thibault focuses on the differences between secular nationhood in Tajikistan, and an increasingly popular and influential Muslim identity. Featuring extensive and original primary-source material, including 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, Thibault demonstrates the profound and lasting influence of Soviet power structures and attitudes, and how secular and religious identities clash in a context of tightening authoritarianism.

Young British Muslims continue to generate strong interest in public discourse. However, much of this interest is framed in negative terms that tends to associate them with criminality, religious extremism or terrorism. Focusing instead on other aspects of being young, Muslim and British, this volume takes a multidisciplinary approach that seeks to 'normalise' the subjects and focus on their everyday lived realities. Structured into three sections, the collection begins by contextualising the study of young British Muslims, before addressing the sensitive social issues highlighted in the media and finally focusing on a variety of case studies which investigate the previously unexplored lived experiences of these young people. With contributions from scholars of religion, media and criminology, as well as current and former practitioners within youth and social work contexts, Young British Muslims: Between Rhetoric and Realities will appeal to scholars who have an interest in the fastest growing, most profiled minority demographic in the UK.

From its birth in the 7th century through modern times, the Islamic religion has inspired glorious works of art. This stunning book includes more than four hundred reproductions of treasures of Islamic art that span the world: from southern Europe, along the entire Mediterranean basin to sub-Saharan Africa through the Middle East, India, and Central Asia. Arranged geographically, the objects include paintings, miniatures, ceramics, calligraphy, textiles, carpets, and metal works. Each region is given a thorough introduction that offers historical context and extensive descriptions of its artifacts. Accompanying essays offer guidance in interpreting the many themes that tie these works together, including typology, calligraphy, and religious beliefs. With its large format, exquisite reproductions, and extensive research, this book is a thorough introduction to the Islamic artistic tradition.

Calfano provides an examination of the pressures faced by Muslims, often considered political and social outsiders in western nations, especially in the United States. Identity is a complex concept, especially when considering the role that group attachments play in affecting how one sees her/his role in the political environment of their country of residence. Perhaps the greatest tension in this regard is felt by those who are often considered outsiders in their home country, despite significant ties to their nation. Though citizens and second generation residents in many cases, American Muslims face a combination of suspicion, government scrutiny, and social segregation in the United States, despite significant education and economic assimilation in America. The crux of the investigation advanced here centres on how group influence, emotions, and religious interpretation contribute to the political orientation and behaviour of a national sample of Muslims living in the American context. A compelling explanation as to how members of an ostracized political group marshal the motivation to push through suspicion to become fully engaged political actors, this book has wide relevance and will be of interest to scholars researching Muslims and political participation across the fields of political science, history, sociology, and religion.

How and to what extent have Islamic legal scholars and Middle Eastern lawmakers, as well as Middle Eastern Muslim physicians and patients, grappled with the complex bioethical, legal and social issues that are raised in the process of attempting to conceive life in the face of infertility? This path-breaking volume explores the influence of Islamic attitudes on assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and reveals the variations in both the Islamic jurisprudence and the cultural responses to ARTs.

First published in 1936, this book surveys the changing place of women across the contemporaneous Muslim world, focusing on several nations where they constitute a demographic majority - Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Turkey, Syria - and one where they do not, namely India. It begins by outlining some of the areas of change, for example regarding the veil, purdah and divorce. This is followed by in depth examinations of the progress of female education, their changing economic roles, improving health standards, their widening interests and the pressure for change on Islam in general. This title is would be of interest to students of the sociology of religion and the contemporary position of women in Muslim societies.

Uninformed and reactionary responses in the years following the events of 9/11 and the ongoing 'War on Terror' have greatly affected ideas of citizenship and national belonging. In Securitized Citizens, Baljit Nagra, develops a new critical analysis of the ideas dominant groups and institutions try to impose on young Canadian Muslims and how in turn they contest and reconceptualize these ideas. Nagra conducted fifty in-depth interviews with young Muslim adults in Vancouver and Toronto and her analysis reveals how this group experienced national belonging and exclusion in light of the Muslim 'other', how they reconsidered their cultural and religious identity, and what their experiences tell us about contemporary Canadian citizenship. The rich and lively interviews in Securitized Citizens successfully capture the experiences and feelings of well-educated, second-generation, and young Canadian Muslims. Nagra acutely explores how racial discourses in a post-9/11 world have affected questions of race relations, religious identity, nationalism, white privilege, and multiculturalism.

The book is based on original research on the entrepreneurial leaders in the Malay community and on the author's own participation in Malay business ventures. Sloane draws on her experience of working in Wall Street to analyse the ironies and contradictions in both the prevailing Western, Asian and Malay definitions of entrepreneurship and the 'heroes' of competing styles of capitalism.

First published in 1992, this book focuses on the Muslim community and how it has developed in North America. Divided into eight sections, it traces the history of the Muslim community in North America from the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth-century and examines different aspects of the community such as Sectarian Movements, Islam in the African American community and points of contact between Christian and Islamic communities. The text includes a number of bibliographies to aid further study and closes with a helpful directory of Muslim organizations and centers in North America. This book will be of particular interest to those studying Islam and Religion in North America.

The global spread of Islamic movements and the ascendance of a Chinese state that limits religious freedom have aroused anxieties about integrating Islam and protecting religious freedom around the world. Focusing on violent movements like the so-called Islamic State and Uygur separatists in China's Xinjiang Province threatens to drown out the alternatives presented by apolitical and inwardly focused manifestations of transnational Islamic revival popular among groups like the Hui, China's largest Muslim minority. This book explores how Muslim revivalists in China's Qinghai Province employ individual agency to reconcile transnational notions of religious orthodoxy with the materialist rationalism of atheist China. Based on a year immersed in one of China's most concentrated and conservative urban Muslim communities in Xining, the book puts individuals' struggles to navigate theological controversies in the contexts of global Islamic revival and Chinese modernization. By doing so, it reveals how attempts to revive the original essence of Islam can empower individuals to form peaceful and productive articulations with secular societies, and further suggests means of combatting radicalization and encouraging interfaith dialogue. As the first major research monograph on Islamic revival in modern China, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Anthropology, Islamic Studies, and Chinese Studies.

In the constant deluge of media coverage on Islam, Muslims are often portrayed as terrorists, refugees, radicals, or victims, depictions that erode human responses of concern, connection, or even a willingness to learn about Muslims. On Islam helps break this cycle with information and strategies to understand and report the modern Muslim experience. Journalists, activists, bloggers, and scholars offer insights into how Muslims are represented in the media today and offer tips for those covering Islam in the future. Interviews provide personal and often moving firsthand accounts of people confronting the challenges of modern life while maintaining their Muslim faith, and brief overviews provide a crash course on Muslim beliefs and practices. A concise and frank discussion of the Muslim experience, On Islam provides facts and perspective at a time when truth in journalism is more vital than ever.

An original and uncompromising study of the Qur'anic foundations of women's identity and agency, this book is a bold call to Muslim women and men to reread and reinterpret the Qur'an, Islam's most authoritative source, and to discover within its revelations an inherent affirmation of gender equality. Nimat Hafez Barazangi asserts that Muslim women have been generally excluded from equal agency, from full participation in Islamic society, and thus from full and equal Islamic identity, primarily because of patriarchal readings of the Qur'an and the entire range of early Qur'anic literature. Based on her pedagogical study of the sacred text, she argues that Islamic higher learning is a basic human right, that women have equal authority to participate in the interpretation of Islamic primary sources, and that women will realize their just role in society and their potential as human beings only when they are involved in the interpretation of the Qur'an. Consequently, a Muslim woman's relationship with God must not be dependent on her husband's or father's moral agency. Barazangi, an American Muslim of Syrian origin, is a scholar, an activist, and a concerned feminist. Her analysis of the complex interaction of gender, religion, and the power of knowledge for self-identity offers a paradigm shift in Islamic studies. She documents the historical development of Islamic thought and describes how Muslim males have arrived at the prevailing exclusionary positions. She considers the issues of dependent morality and of modesty, especially in attire - a polarizing subject for many Muslim women - and she concludes that the majority of Muslim women today are not educated even for a complementary role in society. The book offers a curricular framework for self-learning that could prepare Muslim women for an active role in citizenship and policy making in a pluralistic society and may serve as a guideline for moving toward a ""gender revolution."" Her main thesis, if carried out in the lives of Muslims in America or elsewhere, would be so radical and liberating that her discourse is more powerful than those of many Muslim feminists. She writes, ""I intend this book to affirm the self-identity of the Muslim woman as an autonomous spiritual and intellectual human being.

Making European Muslims provides an in-depth examination of what it means to be a young Muslim in Europe today, where the assumptions, values and behavior of the family and those of the majority society do not always coincide. Focusing on the religious socialization of Muslim children at home, in semi-private Islamic spaces such as mosques and Quran schools, and in public schools, the original contributions to this volume focus largely on countries in northern Europe, with a special emphasis on the Nordic region, primarily Denmark. Case studies demonstrate the ways that family life, public education, and government policy intersect in the lives of young Muslims and inform their developing religious beliefs and practices. Mark Sedgwick's introduction provides a framework for theorizing Muslimness in the European context, arguing that Muslim children must navigate different and sometimes contradictory expectations and demands on their way to negotiating a European Muslim identity.

This title, first published in 1983, is a significant study of one of the many revivalist movements which flowered in numerous Islamic societies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and attempts to provide one particular assessment of the place of revivalism in the evolution of Islamic societies. The subject of this title is the Padri movement, and the community involved is that of the Minangkabau of Central Sumatra, one of the major communities inhabiting the Indonesian archipelago. In the process of considering the reconstruction of a society in the throes of an agricultural transformation, the historical development of the Indonesian village became the object of attention, encompassing the economic and social histories of individual villages. This title will be of interest to students of history and Islamic Studies.

This title, first published in 1923, examines the historical development of the Islamic faith from its origins through to its position in the early twentieth century. It also examines the historical reactions of Islam to the West, including the Babist Movement in the nineteenth century. This title will be of interest to students of history and M

In both the social sciences and the humanities, current scholarship typically examines speech and social action as separate entities. But do they truly act in isolation? In Narrative Social Structure, Recep Senturk challenges the prevailing understandings of speech and social action, of actor and organization. Using the example of the hadith transmission network, Senturk demonstrates the synergy between speech and action in producing social reality. Hadith, a brief narrative about the Prophet Muhammad transmitted across generations by a chain of narrators, represents the longest recorded social network presently known to sociologists and historians. This book presents the first attempt by a sociologist to unearth the long hadith transmission network from ancient historical sources and analyze it using the most recent qualitative and quantitative analytical tools. It demonstrates how both synchronic and diachronic analyses uncover the structure of generational and inter-generational discourse networks used in the process of identity and authority formation. The author concludes that these networks of narrative are constantly at work in the world. Even if we are not aware of it, we are always part of them.