There are 49 Muslim majority countries in the world and Islam, the religion which Muslims follow, is the second largest religion in the world. Despite the significant world presence of a Muslim populace, many in the West are misinformed about Islam and about Muslim worldviews. Issues related to gender and gendered practices are especially subject to misconceptions as to the role of Islam and as to Muslim practices. Given challenges in understandings of the constructions of gender in Muslim dominant countries, the medium of film is uniquely positioned to provide a conduit into gender issues that characterize diverse Muslim cultures. This filmography provides analyses of gender issues featured in 57 contemporary feature films indigenous to the majority Muslim countries of Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Turkey. Gender issues include such practices as female genital mutilation/cutting, gender inequality in divorce and custody laws, child marriage, virginity testing, eve teasing, and honor killings. Given these practices, a common question concerns their legitimization by the Islamic religion or by a country's laws. This filmography is distinctive in its provision of commentaries that detail the ongoing debates among scholars as to current legal, cultural, and religious sanctioning of these practices within a given country. Films featured in the filmography are available to viewers in the United States.

Why is there a need to rethink madrasah education? What is the positioning of Muslims in contemporary society, and how are they prepared? What is the role of the ulama in the reform process? This book explores these questions from the perspective of madrasah education and analyses curricular and pedagogic innovations in Islamic faith-based education in response to the changing place of Islam in a globalised world. It argues for the need for madrasahs to reconceptualise education for Muslim children. Specifically, it explores the problems and challenges that come with new knowledge, biotechnological advancement and societal transformation facing Muslims, and to identify the processes towards reformation that impinge on the philosophies (both Western and Islamic), religious traditions and spirituality, learning principles, curriculum, and pedagogy. This book offers glimpses into the reform process at work through contemporary examples in selected countries.

Indian Muslims form the largest ethnic minority within Singapore's otherwise largely Malay Muslim community. Despite its size and historic importance, however, Singaporean Indian Muslims have received little attention by scholarship and have also felt side-lined by Singapore's Malay-dominated Muslim institutions. Since the 1980s, demands for a better representation of Indian Muslims and access to religious services have intensified, while there has been a concomitant debate over who has the right to speak for Indian Muslims. This book traces the negotiations and contestations over Indian Muslim difference in Singapore and examines the conditions that have given rise to these debates. Despite considerable differences existing within the putative Indian Muslim community, the way this community is imagined is surprisingly uniform. Through discussions of the importance of ethnic difference for social and religious divisions among Singaporean Indian Muslims, the role of 'culture' and 'race' in debates about popular religion, the invocation of language and history in negotiations with the wider Malay-Muslim context, and the institutional setting in which contestations of Indian Muslim difference take place, this book argues that these debates emerge from the structural tensions resulting from the intersection of race and religion in the public organization of Islam in Singapore.

Americans' awareness of Islam and Muslims rose to seemingly unprecedented heights in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, but this is not the first time they have dominated American public life. Once before, during the period of the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981, Americans found themselves targeted as a consequence of a militant interpretation of Islam. Daniel Pipes wrote In the Path of God in response to those events, and the heightened interest in Islam they generated. His objective was to present an overview of the connection between in Islam and political power through history in a way that would explain the origins of hostility to Americans and the West. Its relevance to our understanding of contemporary events is self evident. Muslim antagonism toward the West is deeply rooted in historical experience. In premodern times, the Islamic world enjoyed great success, being on the whole more powerful and wealthier than their neighbors. About two hundred years ago, a crisis developed, as Muslims became aware of the West's overwhelming force and economic might. While they might have found these elements attractive, Muslims found European culture largely alien and distasteful. The resulting resistance to Westernization by Muslims has deep roots, has been more persistent than that of other peoples, and goes far to explain the deep Muslim reluctance to accept modern ways. In short, Muslims saw what the West had and wanted it too, but they rejected the methods necessary to achieve this. This, the Muslim trauma, has only worsened over the years.

This timely book examines the authorization of Shari?ah-compliant intermediaries as either credit institutions or as investment companies in the European Union.The contributing authors explore the key topics of this area through differing yet parallel perspectives ? for example, comparing economic and legal standpoints, looking at both European and national levels and considering both academic and technical approaches. The book discusses the common origin of Islamic and Western traditions in commercial and banking transactions, reviewing a period in which the Italian merchants and their organizations drove the rebirth of post-medieval society in trade and law. The editors investigate whether the Islamic banking and financial model complies with the European framework, spelling out the different experiences in single Member States (Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom). Notwithstanding the obstacles to being authorized as domestic credit institutions, they conclude that the access of Islamic intermediaries is suitable and may have positive effects on European integration, as well as increasing the competition among the stand-still operators and evoking the ethical dimension of banking and finance. The book also highlights how Islamic banking would make the industry more inclusive.This multidisciplinary book will appeal greatly to economics and legal scholars with an interest in European and international banking and financial law, as well as postgraduate students in international law and banking law. Practitioners and regulators will also find this book an invaluable resource.

This book explores and analyses economic development within Islamic Moral Economy (IME), which is proposed as an alternative economic and social system to capitalism and socialism. It presents a new model of Islamic development based on the substantive morality of Islam via micro dynamics expressed through an Islamic framework of spiritual development. Shafiullah Jan and Mehmet Asutay argue that the observed development failures of Muslim countries to provide basic necessities and an environment free of oppression and injustice can be overcome with an authentic Islamic development framework and its corresponding value system explored in the book, rather than the existing Eurocentric theory and policy making. In addition, it identifies the theological, political, social and economic boundaries for changing society to produce IME oriented development. Utilising a novel approach to development in Islam, through its substantive ethical and moral framework, the authors critically examine and evaluate the progress of Islamic banking and finance institutions in relation to its aspirations as identified by IME. Advanced Islamic economics and finance scholars will find this a useful source as it explores the intersection between Islamic development and the moral economy. The book will also be a valuable reference for those seeking to align public policies with ethical and moral Islamic frameworks.

This volume collects Yasser Tabbaa's investigative and interpretive articles on medieval Islamic architecture, ornament and gardens in Syria and Iraq, with comparative expansions into Anatolia, Egypt, North Africa and Spain. The monuments in question, many of which have vanished in recent years, are examined within the context of the political divisions and theological ruptures that characterised the Islamic world between the 11th and 13th centuries. The writings cover such significant forms as muqarnas vaulting, proportioned Qur'anic scripts and cursive public inscriptions, and monument types such as the madrasa, the hospital, the tribunal (dar al-'adl) and the citadel palace. Collectively, they present medieval Islamic architecture as a transformative process that echoes Abbasid glory and signals future developments in later Islamic architecture.

Islamic Bioethics presents a wide variety of perspectives and debates on how Islamic societies deal with the ethical dilemmas raised by biomedicine and new technologies. The book is a 'constructive dialogue' between contributors selected from a multidisciplinary group of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars from different Islamic countries. The 11 chapters illuminate the diversity and complexity of the issues discussed in Islamic bioethics and pave the way to a better understanding of Islamic bioethics and dialogue in the global bioethics community. The chapters take both theoretical and practical approaches to the topic, and each covers an emerging issue in Islamic bioethics.This book will be useful for academics and professional institutions in both Islamic and non-Islamic countries, and will be instrumental in providing researchers, scholars, students, policymakers and medical professionals with access to the latest issues and debates related to Islamic bioethics.Contributors include: Tariq Ramadan, Abdallah Daar, Ali Albar, Mohsin Ebrahim, Baharouddin Azizan Alastair Campbel, Bagher Larijani, Carol Taylor, Gamal Serour, James Rusthoven, Ilhan Ilkilic, Ingrid Mattson, Hassan Chamsi-Pasha, Jonathan Crane, Hakan Ertin, Mehunisha Suleman.

This engaging introduction to Islam examines its lived reality, its worldwide presence, and the variety of beliefs and practices encompassed by the religion. The global perspective uniquely captures the diversity of Islam expressed throughout different countries in the present day. * A comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, and global introduction to Islam, covering its history as well as current issues, experiences, and challenges * Incorporates key new research on Muslims from a variety of countries across Europe, Latin America, Indonesia, and Malaysia Central Asia * Directly addresses controversial issues, including political violence and terrorism , anti-western sentiments, and Islamophobia * Explores different responses from various Islamic communities to globalizing trends * Highlights key patterns within Islamic history that shed light upon the origins and evolution of current movements and thought

" A] very important contribution to various debates on current Danish identity politics and more generally, on the developments of contemporary right-wing politics prevailing in Europe and the West." . Gunvor Jonsson, International Migration Institute (IMI), University of Oxford

"The book offers an insightful background to the increased resistance towards ethnic minorities and the growing Islamophobia in Denmark. This development escalated with the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis that broke out in 2005 and later reverberated in different parts of the world." . Anders Hellstrom, Malmo University

The Muhammad cartoon crisis of 2005 2006 in Denmark caught the world by surprise as the growing hostilities toward Muslims had not been widely noticed. Through the methodologies of media anthropology, cultural studies, and communication studies, this book brings together more than thirteen years of research on three significant historical media events in order to show the drastic changes and emerging fissures in Danish society and to expose the politicization of Danish news journalism, which has consequences for the political representation and everyday lives of ethnic minorities in Denmark.

The representation of Islam is unquestionably a critical test for comparing journalistic reporting across countries and cultures. The Islamic religion has weight in international reporting (defining what we termed "foreign Islam"), but it is also the religion of numerically important minority groups residing in Europe ("national Islam"). The first part of the book is "setting the scene." Three chapters provide insights in dominant patterns of the representation of Islam as detected by various authors and studies involved with Islam representation in Europe. Part two, the core section of the book, contributes to the development of the field of comparative journalism studies by comparing several countries and six media systems in Western Europe: the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (Flanders), the French-speaking part of Belgium (Wallonia), the Netherlands, France, Germany, and the U.K. Part three of this book presents two reception studies, one qualitative and the other quantitative. Equally important, as the bulk of attention goes to Western Europe, is the extension towards the representation of Muslims and Islam outside Western Europe. Part four of the book is devoted to the representation of Islam in some of the so-called BRICs-countries: Russia, China, and India.

Bringing together feminist analyses of economic processes and outcomes with feminist critiques of Orientalism, this book examines the diverse economic realities facing women in a range of Muslim communities. This approach pays special attention to the role of Islam in economic analyses of gender equality and women's well-being in Muslim communities, while at the same time challenging biased and inaccurate accounts that essentialize Islam. Nuanced case studies conducted in Bangladesh, Iran, Israel, Nigeria, and Turkey illustrate the historical and institutional diversity of Muslim communities and draw vivid pictures of the everyday economic lives of Muslim women in these communities. These studies are complemented by quantitative analyses that extend beyond inserting Islam as a dummy variable. The contributions represent a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, economics, gender studies, political science, psychology, and sociology. By placing critiques of Orientalist scholarship in direct dialogue with scholarship on economic development in Muslim contexts, this diverse collection illustrates how different methods and frameworks can work together to provide a better understanding of gender equality and women's well-being in Muslim contexts. In doing so, the authors aim to facilitate conversations among feminist scholars across disciplines in order to provide a more nuanced picture of the situation facing women in Muslim communities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Feminist Economics.

The Dark Side of the Crescent Moon constitutes a historical and political analysis of the growth of radical Islam throughout the world. It shows how the spread of radical Islam in Europe drove the United States and Russia to become allies of necessity, in order to confront a shared danger. Georgy Gounev provides readers with a detailed assessment of the people, countries, and global movements that factor into Islam's mounting threat. From the evolution and history of radical Islam to the role of the United States and Russia in the rise of Islam, the author lays out the factors contributing to this global phenomenon. Taking the reader from Chechnya and Kosovo, to Sudan and Somalia, to Afghanistan and Iraq, Gounev explores the motivations that lurk beneath the surface of active conflict, and extend the threat to the shores of Britain, Russia, and even the United States. He illuminates the vast network that is actively transmitting the political and religious dogma of radical Islam. Casting a cold eye on the theocratic fundamentalism emanating from Iran and Saudi Arabia, Gounev sounds an alarm about a growing threat both outside and inside our borders.

it challenges common assumptions and enriches our understanding of modern Islam.

Islam and Peacebuilding in the Asia-Pacific provides a unique backdrop of how native or migrant Muslims interact with communities of other faiths have led to the contemporary treatment of Islam and the Muslim communities in these nations. This book is based on the theme of Islam's presence and development in the Asia-Pacific region, and the concerns faced by Muslims in the region. Section 1 details the current status of peace or conflict between Muslims and practitioners of other faiths in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and the Philippines, and the role of Muslim institutions in promoting peace in each nation. Section 2 features how Muslims living in cosmopolitan areas such as Australia, Indonesia and Japan engage with people of other faiths. Lastly, Section 3 explores the concerns with the interaction of the religion, state and society in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. A unique collection of the history of Islam in the region, Islam and Peacebuilding in the Asia-Pacific seeks to provide valuable insight for the global policy community by offering a comprehensive treatment of the issues highlighted.

Clarke engages in a thorough and captivating assessment of the numerous fatwas issued in the context of global Islamic legal scholarship concerning medical ethics, in particular, medically assisted conception . . . This book will be of considerable interest to scholars in the areas of gender and health, reproduction and reproductive technologies, Islamicists, and those engaged in comparative kinship studies. Cont Islam

The book is theoretically sophisticated, beautifully written, and brilliantly cohesive . . . Most admirable is the endeavour to analyse the perspectives revealed "on their own terms" within the societies that produce them. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

A] fascinating and well-written book . . . By thinking through anthropological and Islamic debates of assisted conception in a Middle Eastern setting, Islam and New Kinship is highly valuable for students and scholars interested in medical anthropology, kinship studies, Middle Eastern studies, as well as science and technology studies. Social Anthropology

In this very detailed examination . . . Clarke presents a nuanced look at how both individuals and institutions interpret or manipulate Islamic teachings and concepts . . . the book represents an outstanding piece of scholarship for anyone interested in Islam, kinship, medical anthropology, or gender studies. Highly recommended. Choice

This book is a mine of information, carefully researched and lucidly argued. It opens up a fascinating problematic (that is, a can of worms) that only Muslims (all Muslims, male and female) need seriously to address over the coming decades. The shape of future Muslim attitudes depends on the outcomes of this. Journal of Beliefs and Values

An accomplished piece of work on several levels. Islam and New Kinship not only provides a detailed and nuanced account of how Islamic legal scholars and medical practitioners in Lebanon respond to new reproductive and genetic technologies, but also reveals what is missing from 'new' kinship studies. It is a compelling read and a must, not only for scholars of kinship and religion but for anybody with an interest in the rich complexity of contemporary Lebanese society. Jeannette Edwards, University of Manchester

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.

Books on aspects of Islamophobia have been proliferating in the past decade but so are the instances of this phenomenon worldwide. The diverse aspects of the issue; the complicated sociopolitical nature of concerns in this regard; and the increasing number of geographical settings where the issue is relevant, cause numerous problems and questions that remain far from exhausted even in the case of multiple treatments of similar topics and contexts. Therefore, faces and facets of Islamophobia in different countries around the world need to be extensively explored, and awareness should be raised on the part of Muslim communities, Western populations, and non-Western non-Muslims. Chapters of this volume, written by authorities on Islamophobia from around the world, examine various instances of the topic and explore different discursive contexts such as media coverage and manipulation; political debates and discourses; and general attitudes and attitude-building in the public sphere. The book aims to further extend and expand discussions on the issue and to highlight some hitherto less discussed concerns.

Can we understand a religion without believing and practicing it? Can we have knowledge about faith? Can people understand those different from themselves? Can outsiders ever understand the world of insiders? Examining insider and outsider positions of knowledge Bryan S. Turner explores what understanding Islam entails. He argues that understanding Islam has in recent years been dominated by political events - the Iran Hostage crisis, the fall of the Iranian Shah, 9/11, Afghanistan and the foreign policy of Donald Trump - leading to western intellectuals and public figures, many of whom know nothing about Islam, suddenly becoming experts. Turner asks how they, or how anyone, can have the authority to speak on this subject. He brilliantly elucidates the questions and problems involved in the challenge of understanding religion.

This book provides a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the various schools of Qur'anic exegesis, from the earliest periods through to the present day. Employing a comparative-contrastive methodology, the author examines traditional and rational schools of thought - such as the Mu'tazili, Shi'i, Ibadi, Sufi, metaphysical, modern, and scientific approaches to the interpretation of the Qur'an - to give a detailed analysis of the similarities and differences in their theological views. The study spans a broad period, covering exegetical techniques adopted in Qur'anic exegesis from its infancy during the 1st/7th century up to the beginning of the 15th/21st century. Furnished with copious micro- and macro-level examples which explicate the Qur'anic notions and the points of view relevant to each school and exegetical approach, the book provides a rounded empirical study of Islamic thought. This thorough and holistic historical investigation is an important contribution to the study of Qur'anic exegesis and Islamic theology, and as such will be of enormous interest to scholars of religion, philosophy and Islamic studies.

Can democracy flourish in Muslim society? What does the Qur'an say about women, minorities, human rights? Are Islam and the West on a collision course? After 9/11, much has been written about the inevitability of a clash between Islam and the West, as their worldviews compete for global supremacy. Recent developments have done little to challenge this thesis, or the West's negative image of Islam. The author compares and contrasts contributions from "traditional" and progressive" Muslims. Voicing at least two Muslim opinions in each area of debate, this hook challenges the idea that all Muslims think identically. While Muslim and Modernity is designed primarily for use a n undergraduate textbook, reference to accessible Internet material, to literature and to popular as well as scholarly sources will broaden its appeal to a general readership. This book's discussion draws on post-colonial theory, feminist analyses, anthropology, cultural and religious studies, politics and philosophy.

In this fascinating study examining one of the poorest urban slums in Iran, Masoumeh Velayati explores the cultural, social, and economic factors that contribute to the migration of women from rural to urban locations in Iran and the consequences of their entry into the labor market. Much of the existing literature on women and Iran focuses on Tehran and reflects the situation of educated women of the middle class. This important, highly readable book analyzes the economic and social conditions of working-class Iranian women who have migrated from rural parts of the East Azerbaijan province to Tabriz, the capital of the province and fourth largest city in Iran. Velayati shows how migrant women navigate within and between the formal and informal economies. In the slums of Tabriz, migrant women work around the cultural taboo of working outside the home by involving themselves in domestic industry that can be conducted from home, the largest of these industries being carpet-making. The rise in migrant women involved in income-generating activities has created much greater gender consciousness and there exists a considerable tension between traditional gender norms and economic necessity of women to work. Because of the existing struggle for women to work within the boundaries of traditional gender roles, Velayati argues that employment and migration will only prove to be liberating forces for women when they are allowed to enter the more regulated, visible economic sectors outside the home. Readers interested in Islam, gender studies, migration, and urbanization will gravitate toward this engaging portrait of working-class migrant women in Iran.

It is a widely held view that, since the end of the Cold War, attention has focused on Islam as a central force of disruption within a New World Order. Nothing has heightened this more than the assault on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and the reporting of these events. Reporting Islam is a timely contribution to this debate which looks at the ways in which Muslims are represented in the British news media. Elizabeth Poole examines the claim that Muslims are universally demonized in the British press and comes to some illuminating conclusions. Reporting Islam is of great value to students of media, cultural studies, Islamic studies and politics.

This book explores the role of halal production, trade, and standards based on ethnographic material from Malaysia, Singapore, and Europe. It explains how the global markets for halal comprise divergent zones in which Islam, markets, regulatory institutions, and technoscience interact and diverge.

During the nineteenth century British officials in India decided that the education system should be exclusively secular. Drawing on sources from public and private archives, Ivermee presents a study of British/Muslim negotiations over the secularization of colonial Indian education and on the changing nature of secularism across space and time.