'Timely and important' THE TIMES 'Considered and nuanced ... A must-read' The Rt Hon. Sajid Javid MP 'Compelling and moving' Tom Holland, author of Dominion __________________ Islam is the fastest-growing faith community in Britain. Domes and minarets are redefining the skylines of towns and cities as mosques become an increasingly prominent feature. Yet while Britain has prided itself on being a global home of cosmopolitanism and modern civilisation, its deep-rooted relationship with Islam - unique in history - is complex, threatened by rising hostility and hatred, intolerance and ignorance. There is much media debate about embracing diversity in our communities, but what does integration look like on the ground, in places like Dewsbury, Glasgow, Belfast and London? How are Muslims, young and old, reconciling progressive values - of gender equality, individualism, the rule of law and free speech - with literalist interpretations of their faith? And how is this tension, away from the public gaze, unfolding inside mosques today? Ed Husain takes his search for answers into the heart of Britain's Muslim communities. Travelling the length and breadth of the country, Husain joins men and women in their prayers, conversations, meals, plans, pains, joys, triumphs and adversities. He tells their stories here in an open and honest account that brings the daily reality of British Muslim life sharply into focus - a struggle of identity and belonging, caught between tradition and modernity, East and West, revelation and reason.

How is science fiction from the Arab and Muslim world different than mainstream science fiction from the West? What distinctive and original contributions can it make? Why is it so often neglected in critical considerations of the genre? While other books have explored these questions, all have been from foreign academic voices. Instead, this book uses an own-voices approach to examine the nature, genesis, and history of Arabic and Muslim science fiction, as well as the challenges its authors face. Through personal narratives, these authors share their stories and their struggles with the censors, recalcitrant publishers, critics, the book market, and the literary establishment. Their uphill efforts, with critical contributions from academics, translators, and literary activists, will enlighten the sci-fi enthusiast and fill a gap in the history of science fiction. Topics covered range from culture shock to conflicts between tradition and modernity, proactive roles for female heroines, blind imitation of storytelling techniques, and language games.

Music was one of the first casualties of the Iranian Revolution. It was banned in 1979, but it quickly crept back into Iranian culture and politics. The state made use of music for its propaganda during the Iran-Iraq war. Over time music provided an important political space where artists and audiences could engage in social and political debate. Now, more than thirty-five years on, both the children of the revolution and their music have come of age. Soundtrack of the Revolution offers a striking account of Iranian culture, politics, and social change to provide an alternative history of the Islamic Republic. Drawing on over five years of research in Iran, including during the 2009 protests, Nahid Siamdoust introduces a full cast of characters, from musicians and audience members to state officials, and takes readers into concert halls and underground performances, as well as the state licensing and censorship offices. She closely follows the work of four musicians-a giant of Persian classical music, a government-supported pop star, a rebel rock-and-roller, and an underground rapper-each with markedly different political views and relations with the Iranian government. Taken together, these examinations of musicians and their music shed light on issues at the heart of debates in Iran-about its future and identity, changing notions of religious belief, and the quest for political freedom. Siamdoust shows that even as state authorities resolve, for now, to allow greater freedoms to Iran's majority young population, they retain control and can punish those who stray too far. But music will continue to offer an opening for debate and defiance. As the 2009 Green Uprising and the 1979 Revolution before it have proven, the invocation of a potent melody or musical verse can unite strangers into a powerful public.

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 book explores the political integration of Muslims and Islam across contemporary democracies. The author focuses on France, a country in which the integration of Muslims is usually seen as being problematic and controversial, and which is struggling with both Islamic radicalisation on the one hand, and the new wave of extreme-right populism on the other. Whereas conventional approaches to the topic of the integration of Muslims in France have tended to focus on single methods and sources, such as demographic characteristics or cultural and economic resources, the 'field mixed-method approach' offered in this book allows for a more nuanced analysis. It sheds new light on the interactive dynamics between policy processes, the role of key meso-level actors such as movements and associations, and the political entrepreneurship of Muslims themselves within the overarching frame of French citizenship. The book thus assesses the extent to which a broad set of interactions link Muslim French to the broader community of French citizens. It will be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in Political Sociology, Islamic Studies, Citizenship and European Politics.

This trilogy includes: The Treasure of God's Path, a clear and comprehensive presentation of the basics of Sufism; The Secret Word, a rapturous song of the enlightened heart; and The Approaching Promise, a poetic exposition of the soul's journey portrayed through the symbols of fire, air, water, and earth. Fragrance of Sufism will provide thoughtful reading for students and scholars of Religion and Eastern Studies as well as anyone interested in learning more about Sufism.

Writing boards and blackboards are emblematic of two radically different styles of education in Islam. The essays in this lively volume address various aspects of the expanding and evolving range of educational choices available to Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa. Contributors from the United States, Europe, and Africa evaluate classical Islamic education in Africa from colonial times to the present, including changes in pedagogical methods-from sitting to standing, from individual to collective learning, from recitation to analysis. Also discussed are the differences between British, French, Belgian, and Portuguese education in Africa and between mission schools and Qur'anic schools; changes to the classical Islamic curriculum; the changing intent of Islamic education; the modernization of pedagogical styles and tools; hybrid forms of religious and secular education; the inclusion of women in Qur'anic schools; and the changing notion of what it means to be an educated person in Africa. A new view of the role of Islamic education, especially its politics and controversies in today's age of terrorism, emerges from this broadly comparative volume.

A.Kadir Yildirim and other scholars have used the term "Muslim Democrat" to describe moderate Islamist political parties, suggesting a parallel with Christian Democratic parties in Europe. These parties (MDPs) are marked by their adherence to a secular political regime, normative commitment to the rules of a democratic political system, and the democratic political representation of a religious identity. In this book, Yildirim draws on extensive field research in Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco to examine this phenomenon and assess the interaction of economic and political factors in the development of MDPs. Distinguishing between "competitive [economic] liberalization" and "crony liberalization," he argues that MDPs are more likely to emerge and succeed in the context of the former. He summarizes that the broader implication is that the economic liberalization models adopted by governments in the region in the wake of the Arab Spring have significant implications for the future direction of party systems and democratic reform.

Kidnapping constitutes a central component in the attack repertoire of terror organisations. It is a means of promoting the goals of their organisations and their patrons. Since the 1960s, Israel has been extorted by terrorist organisations holding Israeli soldiers and civilians hostage, only to be returned in a deal securing the release of imprisoned members of these terror organisations. Since the 1980s, in the wake of the Islamic revolution in Iran and the ascent of a terror-supporting regime in that country, Islamic terror entities such as the Lebanese Hezbollah organisation and the Palestinian Hamas movement have become preeminent in the Middle East in all matters connected to terror in general, and kidnappings in particular. This study analyses the challenges that radical Islamic groups pose and the response of Israel relating to abductions in Lebanon via the Hezbollah organisation (1983-2016), and abductions in Israel via the Hamas movement (1989-2016). The main debates about prisoner exchange within Israeli society revolve around the following questions: (1) Does conceding to terrorists lead to further kidnappings? and (2) Do the terrorists that are released return to terrorist activity? The challenge issued by terror organisations to Israel whose citizens have been kidnapped, and the way Israel has risen to that challenge, is the prime focus of this study. It follows two earlier books by the author published by Sussex Academic on the regional and global aspects of terror abductions.

The life and teachings of Islam's most dramatic and controversial mystic, Husayn ibn Mansur, better known as Al-Hallaj (the reader of hearts).

This book is an attempt to explain how, in the face of increasing religious authoritarianism in medieval Islamic civilization, some Muslim thinkers continued to pursue essentially humanistic, rational, and scientific discourses in the quest for knowledge, meaning, and values. Drawing on a wide range of Islamic writings, from love poetry to history to philosophical theology, Goodman shows that medieval Islam was open to individualism, occasional secularism, skepticism, even liberalism.

In a world where the term Islam is ever-increasingly an inaccurate and insensitive synonym for terrorism, it is unsurprising that many Muslim youth in the West struggle for a viable sense of identity. This book takes up the hotly-debated issue of Muslim youth identity in western countries from the standpoint of popular culture. It proposes that in the context of Islamophobia and pervasive moral panic, young Muslims frame up their identity in relation to external conditions that only see 'good' and 'bad' Muslims, on both sides of the ideological fence between Islam and the West. Indeed, by attempting to break down the 'good' versus 'bad' Muslim dichotomy that largely derives from western media reports, as well as political commentary, Muslim Youth in the Diaspora: Challenging Extremism through Popular Culture will enlighten the reader. It illuminates the way in which diasporic Muslim youth engage with, and are affected by, the radical Islamist meta-narrative. It examines their popular culture and online activity, their gendered sense of self, and much more. This original book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the fields of sociology, cultural studies and social anthropology. It offers a particular focus on Islam for research in youth studies, youth culture, political radicalisation and religious identity. It will also be relevant to the sector of youth and social work, where practitioners seek to build cultural bridges with a new generation.

Writing boards and blackboards are emblematic of two radically different styles of education in Islam. The essays in this lively volume address various aspects of the expanding and evolving range of educational choices available to Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa. Contributors from the United States, Europe, and Africa evaluate classical Islamic education in Africa from colonial times to the present, including changes in pedagogical methods-from sitting to standing, from individual to collective learning, from recitation to analysis. Also discussed are the differences between British, French, Belgian, and Portuguese education in Africa and between mission schools and Qur'anic schools; changes to the classical Islamic curriculum; the changing intent of Islamic education; the modernization of pedagogical styles and tools; hybrid forms of religious and secular education; the inclusion of women in Qur'anic schools; and the changing notion of what it means to be an educated person in Africa. A new view of the role of Islamic education, especially its politics and controversies in today's age of terrorism, emerges from this broadly comparative volume.

A.Kadir Yildirim and other scholars have used the term "Muslim Democrat" to describe moderate Islamist political parties, suggesting a parallel with Christian Democratic parties in Europe. These parties (MDPs) are marked by their adherence to a secular political regime, normative commitment to the rules of a democratic political system, and the democratic political representation of a religious identity. In this book, Yildirim draws on extensive field research in Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco to examine this phenomenon and assess the interaction of economic and political factors in the development of MDPs. Distinguishing between "competitive [economic] liberalization" and "crony liberalization," he argues that MDPs are more likely to emerge and succeed in the context of the former. He summarizes that the broader implication is that the economic liberalization models adopted by governments in the region in the wake of the Arab Spring have significant implications for the future direction of party systems and democratic reform.

First published in 1979, this first of three volumes examines the many means and figures through which Islam was cultivated in West Africa over a prolonged period. It combines the work from eminent scholars in the field, most of which have travelled widely in the historic region of Western Sudan. This book will be of interest to those studying Islamic and West African history.

In 'The War on Error', historian and political analyst Martin Kramer presents a series of case studies, some based on pathfinding research and others on provocative analysis, that correct misinformation clouding the public's understanding of the Middle East. He also offers a forensic exploration of how misinformation arises and becomes "fact." The book is divided into five themes: Orientalism and Middle Eastern studies, a prime casualty of the culture wars; Islamism, massively misrepresented by apologists; Arab politics, a generator of disappointing surprises; Israeli history, manipulated by reckless revisionists; and American Jews and Israel, the subject of irrational fantasies. Kramer shows how error permeates the debate over each of these themes, creating distorted images that cause policy failures. Kramer approaches questions in the spirit of a relentless fact-checker. Did Israeli troops massacre Palestinian Arabs in Lydda in July 1948? Was the bestseller 'Exodus' hatched by an advertising executive? Did Martin Luther King, Jr., describe anti-Zionism as antisemitism? Did a major post-9/11 documentary film deliberately distort the history of Islam? Did Israel push the United States into the Iraq War? Kramer also questions paradigms-the "Arab Spring," the map of the Middle East, and linkage. Along the way, he amasses new evidence, exposes carelessness, and provides definitive answers.

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.

Following a long historical legacy, Muslim women's lives continue to be represented and circulate widely as a vehicle of intercultural understanding within a context of the "war on terror." Following Edward Said's thesis that these cultural forms reflect and participate in the power plays of empire, this volume examines the popular and widespread production and reception of Muslim women's lives and narratives in literature, poetry, cinema, television and popular culture within the politics of a post-9/11 world. This edited collection provides a timely exploration into the pedagogical and ethical possibilities opened up by transnational, feminist, and anti-colonial readings that can work against sensationalized and stereotypical representations of Muslim women. It addresses the gap in contemporary theoretical discourse amongst educators teaching literary and cultural texts by and about Muslim Women, and brings scholars from the fields of education, literary and cultural studies, and Muslim women's studies to examine the politics and ethics of transnational anti-colonial reading practices and pedagogy. The book features interviews with Muslim women artists and cultural producers who provide engaging reflections on the transformative role of the arts as a form of critical public pedagogy.

In 1989 three Muslim schoolgirls from a Paris suburb refused to remove their Islamic headscarves in class. The headscarf crisis signaled an Islamic revival among the children of North African immigrants; it also ignited an ongoing debate about the place of Muslims within the secular nation-state. Based on ten years of ethnographic research, The Republic Unsettled alternates between an analysis of Muslim French religiosity and the contradictions of French secularism that this emergent religiosity precipitated. Mayanthi L. Fernando explores how Muslim French draw on both Islamic and secular-republican traditions to create novel modes of ethical and political life, reconfiguring those traditions to imagine a new future for France. She also examines how the political discourses, institutions, and laws that constitute French secularism regulate Islam, transforming the Islamic tradition and what it means to be Muslim. Fernando traces how long-standing tensions within secularism and republican citizenship are displaced onto France's Muslims, who, as a result, are rendered illegitimate as political citizens and moral subjects. She argues, ultimately, that the Muslim question is as much about secularism as it is about Islam.

Few ideas have excited such passions over the years as Pan-Islam, and few have been the subject of so many contradictory interpretations. Based on a shared religious sentiment, the politics of Muslim unity and solidarity have had to contend with the impact of both secularism and nationalism. Professor Landau's study, first published in 1990, is the first comprehensive examination of the politics of Pan-Islam, its ideologies and movements, over the last 120 years. Starting with the plans and activities of Abdulhamid II and his agents, he covers the fortunes of Pan-Islam up to and including the marked increase in Pan-Islamic sentiment and organization in the 1970s and 1980s. The study is based on a scholarly analysis of archival and other sources in many languages. It covers an area from Morocco in the west to India and Pakistan in the east and from Russia and Turkey to the Arabian Peninsula. It will provide a unique reference point for anyone wishing to understand the impact of Pan-Islam on international politics today.

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.

Winner of Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA)'s inaugural PESA Book Awards in 2015, and The University of Hong Kong Research Output Prize for Education 2014-15. Muslims and Islam in U.S. Education explores the complex interface that exists between U.S. school curriculum, teaching practice about religion in public schools, societal and teacher attitudes toward Islam and Muslims, and multiculturalism as a framework for meeting the needs of minority group students. It presents multiculturalism as a concept that needs to be rethought and reformulated in the interest of creating a more democratic, inclusive, and informed society.Islam is an under-considered religion in American education, due in part to the fact that Muslims represent a very small minority of the population today (less than 1%). However, this group faces a crucial challenge of representation in United States society as a whole, as well as in its schools. Muslims in the United States are impacted by ignorance that news and opinion polls have demonstrated is widespread among the public in the last few decades. U.S. citizens who do not have a balanced, fair and accurate view of Islam can make a variety of decisions in the voting booth, in job hiring, and within their small-scale but important personal networks and spheres of influence, that make a very negative impact on Muslims in the United States. This book presents new information that has implications for curricula, religious education, and multicultural education today, examining the unique case of Islam in U.S. education over the last 20 years. Chapters include: Perspectives on Multicultural Education 9/11, the Media, and the New Need to Know Islam and Muslims in Public Schools Blazing a Path for Intercultural Education This book is an essential resource for professors, researchers, and teachers of social studies, particularly those involved with multicultural issues, critical and sociocultural analysis of education and schools; as well as interdisciplinary scholars and students in anthropology and education.

Part of the 'Religion and Citizenship' series, this book is an ethnographic study of marginality of Muslims in urban India. It explores the realities and consequences of socio-spatial segregation faced by Muslim communities and the various ways in which they negotiate it in the course of their everyday lives. By narrating lived experiences of ordinary Muslims, the author attempts to construct their identities as citizens and subjects. What emerges is a highly variegated picture of a group (otherwise viewed as monolithic) that resides in very close quarters, more as a result of compulsion than choice, despite wide differences across language, ethnicity, sect and social class. The book also looks into the potential outcomes that socio-spatial segregation spelt on communal lines hold for the future of the urban landscape in South Asia. Rich in ethnographic data and accessible in its approach, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of sociology, social anthropology, human geography, political sociology, urban studies, and political science.

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

The book is a case study in the literary, psychoanalytic, and theological encounters between diasporic Muslim intellectuals and secular western modernity. It centres on the simultaneous search for the possibility of both a reformation of Islamic fundamentalism and a transformation of the exclusionary limitations of western public institutions. With roots in original research in the fields of comparative religion and cultural studies, and drawing on sources in English, French, and Arabic, the author introduces and elaborates the concept of Western-Islamic public sphere. This concept defines what is at stake in the formative play of public representations where traditionalist foundations and modernist adaptations meet, clash, and produce discourse around their common disequilibrium. The Western-Islamic public sphere (which is secular but not secularist and which is Islamic but not Islamist), within which a critical Islamic intellectual universe can unfold, deals hermeneutically with texts and politically with lived practices. It emerges from within the arc of two alternative, conflicting, yet equally dismissive suspicions defined by a view that critical Islam is the new imperial rhetoric of hegemonic orientalism and the opposite view that critical Islam is just fundamentalism camouflaged in liberal rhetoric. This innovative and original scholarly apparatus offers a third view -- one that arises in its practice from ethical commitment to intellectual engagement, creativity, and imagination as a portal to the open horizons of conflictual history.