This book explores contemporary empirical issues in Islamic economics. It begins by outlining current trends in Islamic economics and before identifying gaps in the empirical research. It then goes on to discuss the role of institutions in economic growth for Islamic countries, and the fiscal aspects of Islamic economics. It explores issues in debt and growth, as well as the instruments of monetary management in Islamic economics. It analyses the trade-off between growth and stability and concludes with discussion of Zakat and Waqf in driving growth.

The Rushdie affair, September 11 2001 and 7/7 pushed British Muslims into the forefront of increasingly fraught debate about multiculturalism. Stereotyping images have proliferated, reducing a heterogeneous minority group to a series of media soundbites. This book examines contemporary literary representations of Muslims by British writers of South Asian Muslim descent - including Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali and Nadeem Aslam - to explore the contribution they make to urgent questions about multicultural politics and the place of Muslims within Britain. By focusing on class, and its intersection with faith, 'race' and gender in identity- and community-formation, it challenges the dichotomy of secular freedom versus religious oppression that constrains thinking about British Muslims, and offers a more nuanced perspective on multicultural debates and controversies. Writing British Muslims will appeal to academics and postgraduate and final-year undergraduate students in the fields of postcolonial studies, English studies and cultural studies. -- .

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.

In the southern German city of Stuttgart lives a pious Muslim population that has merged with the local population to create a meaningful shared existence. In this ethnographic account, the author introduces and examines the lives of ordinary residents, neighborhoods, and mosque communities to analyze moments and spaces where Muslims and non-Muslims engage with each other and accommodate their respective needs. These accounts show that even in the face of resentment and discrimination, this pious population has indeed become an integral part of the urban community.

Scholars from various disciplines worked together to present the first interdisciplinary book to address the issue of Islam, secularism and globalization. The book has a clear structure which represents its interdisciplinary approach: the first section addresses the philosophical and historical discussion about Islam and secularism; the second section discusses the topic from an ethnographical and social anthropological viewpoint; and the final section addresses Islam, secularism and globalization from a political viewpoint. This unique collection not only offers innovative research and new material, it also provides empirical examples and theoretical debates, and could therefore also be used as a textbook for courses on Islam, globalization, anthropology, politics, sociology and law.

Roshan Iqbal traces the intellectual legacy of the exegesis of Qur'an 4:24, which is used as the proof text for the permissibility of mut'a (temporary marriage) and asks if the use of verse 4.24 for the permissibility of mut'a marriage is justified within the rules and regulations of Qur'anic hermeneutics. Iqbal examines seventeen Qur'an commentaries, the chronological span of which extends from the first extant commentary to the present day in three major Islamicate languages. Iqbal concludes that doctrinal self-identity, rather than strictly philological analyses, shaped the interpretation of this verse. As Western academia's first comprehensive work concerning the intellectual history of mut'a marriage and sexual ethics, this work illustrates the power of sectarian influences on how scholars have interpreted verse 4:24. This book is the only work in English that includes a plurality of voices from minor schools (Ibadi, Ashari, Zaidi, and Ismaili) largely neglected by Western scholars, alongside major schools, and draws from all available sub-genres of exegesis. Further, by revealing ambiguities in the interpretation of mut'a, this work challenges accepted sexual ethics in Islamic thought-as presented by most classical and many modern Muslim scholars-and thus opens up space to theorize Islamic sexual ethics anew and contribute to this crucial conversation from the perspective of Muslim feminism.

Why did so many of the September 11th hijackers spend time in Germany? How did terrorist sleeper cells plant themselves in cities such as London, Paris, Rome, and Hamburg? This is the first book to uncover the secret history of how Europe was systematically infiltrated by the ranks of the most dangerous terrorist organization on earth. Terrorist analyst Evan F. Kohlmann argues that the key to understanding Al-Qaida's European cells lies in the Bosnian war of the 1990s. Using the Bosnian war as their cover, Afghan-trained Islamic militants loyal to Usama Bin Laden convened in the Balkans in 1992 to establish a European domestic terrorist infrastructure in order to plot their violent strikes against the United States. As the West and the United Nations looked on with disapproval, the fanatic foreign mujahideen, or holy warriors, wreaked havoc across southern Europe, taking particular aim at UN peacekeepers and even openly fighting with Bosnian Muslims at times. Within a few months of the war's end, home-grown terrorist sleeper cells appeared on the streets of Europe's cities. Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe unveils a new angle to the deadly international terrorist organization and includes recently declassified American and European intelligence reports, secret Al-Qaida records and internal documents, and interviews with notorious figures such as London-based Bin Laden sympathizer Abu Hamza Al-Masri.

Abdullah An-na'im offers a pioneering exploration of American Muslim citizenship and identity, arguing against the prevalent emphasis on majority-minority politics and instead promoting a shared citizenship that both accommodates and transcends religious identity. Many scholars and community leaders have called on American Muslims to engage with or integrate into mainstream American culture. Such calls tend to assume that there is a distinctive, monolithic, minority religious identity for American Muslims. Rejecting the closed categories that determine the minority status of a particular group and that, in turn, impede active, engaged citizenship, An-na'im draws attention to the relational nature of identity, emphasizing a common base of national membership and advancing a legal approach to a public recognition of a person's status as citizen. Rather than perceive themselves or accept being perceived by others as a monolithic minority, he argues, American Muslims should view themselves as American citizens who happen to be Muslims. As American citizens, they share a vast array of identities with other American citizens, whether ethnic, political, or socio-economic. But none of these identities qualify or limit their citizenship. An-na'im urges members of the American Muslim community to take a proactive, affirmative view of their citizenship in order to realize their rights fully and fulfill their obligations in social and cultural as well as political and legal terms. He shows that the freedom to associate with others in order to engage in civic action to advance rights and interests is integral to the underlying rationale of citizenship and not something that must be relinquished to become an American citizen. What Is an American Muslim? provides acute insight into the nature of citizenship and identity, the place of religious affiliation in American society, and what it means to share in a collective identity.

Numerous factors underlie the dynamic shaping of present-day Muslim-Christian Arab relations as well as the formulation of Arab national identity. In Muslim-Christian Relations in Late-Ottoman Palestine, Erik Freas argues that paramount among these were three developments that transpired in the late-Ottoman period, of which Palestine provides a microcosm. One is that non-Arabic speaking Christian communities began to define identity in nationalistic terms on the basis of faith. Also, with their transformation into politically equal Ottoman citizens, Christians were more intent on taking advantage of their new rights rather than fulfilling civil obligations. Finally, for most Muslim Arabs, the transition from identifying primarily as 'Muslim' to 'Arab' in terms of their broader communal affiliation often entailed little change in how they experienced communal identity in the day-to-day. Taken together, the analysis of these developments provides an in-depth examination of Muslim-Christian Arab relations in Palestine during the nineteenth century as well as the long-term implications of these changes on the manner of Arab national identity's formulation.

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

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

While jihad has been the subject of countless studies in the wake of recent terrorist attacks, scholarship on the topic has so far paid little attention to South Asian Islam and, more specifically, its place in South Asian history. Seeking to fill some gaps in the historiography, Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst examines the effects of the 1857 Rebellion (long taught in Britain as the 'Indian Mutiny') on debates about the issue of jihad during the British Raj. Morgenstein Fuerst shows that the Rebellion had lasting, pronounced effects on the understanding by their Indian subjects (whether Muslim, Hindu or Sikh) of imperial rule by distant outsiders. For India's Muslims their interpretation of the Rebellion as jihad shaped subsequent discourses, definitions and codifications of Islam in the region. Morgenstein Fuerst concludes by demonstrating how these perceptions of jihad, contextualised within the framework of the 19th century Rebellion, continue to influence contemporary rhetoric about Islam and Muslims in the Indian subcontinent.Drawing on extensive primary source analysis, this unique take on Islamic identities in South Asia will be invaluable to scholars working on British colonial history, India and the Raj, as well as to those studying Islam in the region and beyond.

In contrast to many books on Islam that focus on political rhetoric and activism, this book explores Islam's extraordinarily rich cultural and artistic diversity, showing how sound, music and bodily performance offer a window onto the subtleties and humanity of Islamic religious experience. Through a wide range of case studies from West Asia, South Asia and North Africa and their diasporas - including studies of Sufi chanting in Egypt and Morocco, dance in Afghanistan, and "Muslim punk" on-line - the book demonstrates how Islam should not be conceived of as being monolithic or monocultural, how there is a large disagreement within Islam as to how music and performance should be approached, such disagreements being closely related to debates about orthodoxy, secularism, and moderate and fundamental Islam, and how important cultural activities have been, and continue to be, for the formation of Muslim identity.

From the labeling of jihad as a 'holy war' to the generalization of all black Muslims as 'converts' to the religion of Islam, myths and deficiencies in today's rhetoric and scholarship foster stereotyped images of black Muslims. Black Muslims in the US provides historical and contemporary analyses of political Islam among mainstream black Sunni Muslims in the US who-despite being the least-examined group by scholars- represent the largest, oldest, and fastest growing Muslim group in the US. Rashid seeks to correct deficiencies in scholarship by identifying alternative ways to recognize black and other indigenous Muslims in early America, offering more authoritative descriptions of the black American Muslim experience, and citing new evidence of a strong black Islamic presence in contemporary American society. Using both new and re-examined research from historical records, field study data, ethnographic reports, and oral accounts, Rashid examines the status of black Muslims in the US from their arrival to the influential role that they continue to play in contemporary US society.

Salma Nageeb's book provides case studies and analysis of the lives of four Muslim women living in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Nageeb examines how these women negotiate their social space, locating their daily struggles within the increasingly rigid Islamic practice in Sudan. The women express resistance and cultural accommodation in different ways: while some choose to instrumentalize state and religious rules and rhetoric for their own aims, others stretch the boundaries with gentle persistence. These case studies provide a unique dimension to Nageeb's important sociological and social anthropological analysis of everyday life in the context of globalization and 'Islamization.'

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Middle East and North Africa were perceived as being exceptionally successful, but now the region is viewed as a resounding economic and social failure. Islam is not only a religion, but also a political and social project. A major pretext of this work is to demonstrate how the tensions within Islamic movements feed directly into the economic, social, political, historical and religious arena of the region, and vice versa. An introductory chapter sets the context of the book. The core chapters of the book comprise an in-depth examination of the varied forms of oil revenue abuse. For examples, the past mismanagement of the tremendous wealth provided by oil. Following Islamic beliefs, revenue from oil should not finance wasteful consumption, but used instead for public welfare. Abstaining from interest calculations, there should be a case for keeping more oil in the ground. Indeed, oil has also stifled industrial development, and with declining oil revenues, the conflict between civilian and military priorities intensifies. While western interests have promoted arms spending, high population-growth expenditure reinforces the reality of the count-down to the post-oil era upon the Middle Eastern and North African oil exporters. So far the governments seem unwilling or unable to adapt and react. Furthermore, in the past oil has been used as a substitute for democracy. While the large oil revenues of the 1970s and early 1980s strengthened the position of autocratic rulers and weakened the private sector,repressive regimes have made Islam a source of criticism and opposition for the Western world. Following on from this, the book then looks forward to the problem of uniting the divergent interests in the spheres of oil and Islam into a cohesive whole. The book proposes that ideally Islamic governments would synchronise the depletion of oil reserves with investment in new productive assets. Islamic governments could also find ways to combine private, domestic and foreign interests in the oil industry. The main readership for this book will be policy-makers and professionals involved in development issues for Middle Eastern and North African affairs, and those with an interest in oil politics and Islamic studies.

In the past two decades, Muslim countries across the globe have been faced with a crisis in governance. Starting with a summary of Islamic Law (Sharia) and its implications for law enforcement, this book will highlight the unique needs and challenges of law enforcement, and particularly policing, in these communities. It will provide a scholarly exposition of Sharia law and how it is compatible (or not) with policing in a modern context. The role and contribution of Sharia Law towards conceptualizing law enforcement in a modern context is certainly worth looking forward to, especially understanding its co-existence with civil law in countries with minority Muslim communities. Featuring case studies from throughout the Muslim world, this volume will highlight key qualities of Sharia law and Muslim culture that play a role in law enforcement, including: case processing, community policing, police administration, human rights, and the influence of globalization. Taking a comprehensive approach, this work provides a historical context for colonization events in Muslim countries and their influence on current law enforcement systems, as well as providing key insights into the particular norms that make up the bases for Muslim societies, and their unique needs. Looking into the future, it provides guidelines for how community policing can play a proactive role in law enforcement and crime prevention.

The theatrical world in Israel and Palestine reflects the profound divisions in the ongoing political conflict between the two sides. But it also offers a way of understanding, challenging, and resisting those divisions. Examining a wide range of plays by Israeli, Palestinian, and western writers, this book is the first comprehensive exploration of how the conflict has been represented on stage. Drawing on postcolonial theory, Azza Harras examines the ways both sides portray contested events such as the establishment of the state of Israel and the events of 1948 (or 'Nakba' - 'catastrophe' in Palestinian terminology); and the Intifada as resistance or terrorism all the while making comparisons between Palestinian and Jewish diaspora and exile, within the paradigm of theatrical performance. She reveals both the power of language as a means of constructing and resisting historical narratives, and how drama also serves as a forum for self-criticism. The first sustained study of its kind, this book will be essential reading for scholars of Postcolonial Studies, Middle East Studies and the performing arts.

The book offers an examination of issues, institutions and actors that have become central to Muslim life in the region. Focusing on leadership, authority, law, gender, media, aesthetics, radicalization and cooperation, it offers insights into processes that reshape power structures and the experience of being Muslim. It makes room for perspectives from the region in an academic world shaped by scholarship mostly from Europe and America.

Shajar al-Durr-known as "Tree of Pearls"-began her remarkable career as a child slave, given as property to the Ayyubid Sultan Salih of Egypt. She became his favorite concubine, was manumitted, became the sultan's wife, served as governing regent, and ultimately rose to become the legitimately appointed sultan of Egypt in 1250 after her husband's death. Shajar al-Durr used her wealth and power to add a tomb to his urban madrasa; with this innovation, madrasas and many other charitably endowed architectural complexes became commemorative monuments, a practice that remains widespread today. A highly unusual case of a Muslim woman authorized to rule in her own name, her reign ended after only three months when she was forced to share her governance with an army general from the ranks of the Mamluks (elite slave soldiers) and for political expediency to marry him. Despite the fact that Shajar al-Durr's story ends tragically with her assassination and hasty burial, her deeds in her lifetime offer a stark alternative to the continued belief that women in the medieval period were unseen, anonymous, and inconsequential in a world that belonged to men. This biography-the first ever in English-will place the rise and fall of the sultan-queen in the wider context of the cultural and architectural development of Cairo, the city that still holds one of the largest and most important collections of Islamic monuments in the world. D. Fairchild Ruggles also situates the queen's extraordinary architectural patronage in relation to other women of her own time, such as Aleppo's Ayyubid regent. Tree of Pearls concludes with a lively discussion of what we can know about the material impact of women of both high and lesser social rank in this period, and why their impact matters in the writing of history.

The study of slavery and coerced labour is increasingly conducted from a global perspective, and yet a dual Eurocentric bias remains: slavery primarily brings to mind the images of Atlantic chattel slavery, and most studies continue to be based - either outright or implicitly - on a model of northern European wage labour. This book constitutes an attempt to re-centre that story to Asia. With studies spanning the western Indian Ocean and the steppes of Central Asia to the islands of South East Asia and Japan, and ranging from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, this book tracks coercion in diverse forms, tracing both similarities and differences - as well as connections - between systems of coercion, from early sales regulations to post-abolition labour contracts. Deep empirical case studies, as well as comparisons between the chapters, all show that while coercion was entrenched in a number of societies, it was so in different and shifting ways. This book thus not only shows the history of slavery and coercion in Asia as a connected story, but also lays the groundwork for global studies of a phenomenon as varying, manifold and contested as coercion.

Islam in Africa South of the Sahara: Essays in Gender Relations and Political Reform draws together contributions from scholars that focus on changes taking place in the practice of the religion and their effects on the political terrain and civil society. Contributors explore the dramatic changes in gender relations within Islam on the continent, occasioned in part by the events of 9/11 and the response of various Islamic states to growing negative media coverage. These explorations of the dynamics of religious change, reconfigured gender relations, and political reform consider not only the role of state authorities but the impact of ordinary Muslim women who have taken to challenging the subordinate role assigned to them in Islam. Essays are far-ranging in their scope as the future of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa falls under the microscope, with contributors addressing such topics as the Islamic view of the historic Arab enslavement of Africans and colonialist ventures; studies of gender politics in Gambia, northern Nigeria, and Ghana; surveys of the impact of Sharia law in Nigeria and Sudan; the political role of Islam in Somalia, South Africa, and African diaspora communities. Islam in Africa South of the Sahara is an ideal reader for students and scholars of international politics, comparative theology, race and ethnicity, comparative sociology, African and Islamic studies.

International Relations tends to rely on concepts that developed on the European continent, obscuring the fact that its history is far less 'international' than one might expect. But in today's global world, who does this ignore and marginalize? And what impact does that have on the discipline's potential to assess world politics? This book explores an Islamic approach to the 'international', showing that Islam can contribute keen insights into how we 'do' IR, and how we might change that practice to be more inclusive, while also highlighting the limits of an 'Islamic International Relations'. Exploring conceptualizations of community and difference in Islamic traditions, the book relates these notions to concepts that are considered universal in IR, such as state-based politics and the necessity for secularism. In this way, the book shows how the study of political Islam might help to interrogate and redefine key concepts within international politics. In a world of continuing polarization between 'Islam' and 'the West', this book offers IR a chance to engage in a constructive dialogue with Islamic traditions, in order to better understand global politics.

The Kurds constitute the largest stateless nation in the world. Their position in Turkey attracts attention both within the country and internationally, particularly focusing on the demand for Kurdish independence. Yet since the 1990s, new Kurdish parties have formed within Turkey who have a variety of ideologies and demands that go beyond, and differ in opinion on, the question of independence. Much of the present literature on the topic looks at the Kurds of Turkey as a homogenous group with unified political demands, which over-simplifies their position within the political backdrop of Turkey. This book seeks to provide nuance and depth to the current debate on Kurdish political agency and presence in Turkey. Presently, the Kurds' political demands can be classified into four categories; democratic autonomy, their cultural rights to be granted, federalism (territorial autonomies) and independence (creation of a Kurdish nation-state). In a broad sense, these models can also be ordered into two categories; territorial political models (federalism and independence) and non-territorial political models (democratic autonomy and cultural rights). Considering the diversity within the Kurdish community - intertwinement of tribal, ethnic and national identity - and differences in their language, religion and ideology, there are several contributing factors for the emergence of the current varied political demands of Kurds. By explaining variation among the Kurds' political demands through close analysis of existing at emerging parties, this study challenges a deterministic approach to the Kurds which currently dominates the discourse.

This book focuses on the recent educational policy debates surrounding Muslims, schooling and the question of security in light of the Counter Terrorism Security Act - which has made 'Prevent' a legal duty for schools, colleges and universities. The book examines the infamous 'Trojan Horse' affair in Birmingham, and critically evaluates the security discourses in light of theoretical insights from the study of racial politics. The sociology of race and schooling in the UK has long been associated with a number of diverse areas of study, including racial inequality, multiculturalism, citizenship and identity; however, until very recently, very little attention has been given to securitization and race within the context of education and even less focus has been given to the links between the question of security and racial politics. This book makes a much-needed and timely contribution to debates on the complex relationship between racial politics and schooling, and will make compelling reading for students and researchers in the fields of education and sociology, as well as education policy makers.