The Ahmadiyya Muslim community represents the followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908), a charismatic leader whose claims of spiritual authority brought him into conflict with most other Muslim leaders of the time. The controversial movement originated in rural India in the latter part of the 19th century and is best known for challenging current conceptions of Islamic orthodoxy. Despite missionary success and expansion throughout the world, particularly in Western Europe, North America, and parts of Africa, Ahmadis have effectively been banned from Pakistan. Adil Hussain Khan traces the origins of Ahmadi Islam from a small Sufi-style brotherhood to a major transnational organization, which many Muslims believe to be beyond the pale of Islam.

Abu'l-Barakat is often considered one of the most comprehensive philosophers of the Arabic-Jewish milieu in the medieval age. His extensive and unique philosophical theories, especially his theories in the particular sciences, were seen as a major challenge for the traditional conceptions of the Aristotelian school of thought during and after this period. 'Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdadi's Scientific Philosophy' explores the core material of Abu'l-Barakat's scientific studies, found in his magnum opus the Kitab al-Mu'tabar. The book then locates these scientific theories within Abu'l-Barakat's philosophy more widely. Whilst providing a comprehensive critique of ancient philosophy, including the work of Aristotle, certain affinities between Abu'l-Barakat's work and that of more modern scientific conceptions are also examined. Containing vast amounts of previously untranslated text, 'Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdadi's Scientific Philosophy' sheds new light on the philosopher's scientific theories, particularly with regards to his logical conceptions. For this reason, the book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Jewish and Islamic Philosophy, whilst the scientific material will appeal to those studying the history of science.

First published in 1980, this book looks at the factors which influenced the position held by women in the United Arab Emirates in the second half of the 20th century. It argues that Islamic Law has granted women rights and privileges in the spheres of family life, marriage, education and economic pursuits, which aim at improving their status in society. However, due to the interpretations of various religious scholars, influenced by local traditions and social trends, women have often not been given these rights, particularly in family life and marriage. In contrast, the book also explores how the wealth brought about by the discovery of oil has served to further strengthen the position of UAE women, principally in the fields of education, social affairs and economic activity. This book will be of interest to those studying women in Islamic society and modernisation in the Middle East.

Scholars of religion and policy makers may be surprised at the changes occurring on the second largest island of the world that straddles one of the most Christianised and least Christianised areas of the world. This book provides an accurate and deeper understanding of the nature of Islam in Papua New Guinea, and determines the causes and processes of recent growth in the country's Muslim population. Combining ethnographic, sociological and historical approaches to understanding Islam's growth in Papua New Guinea, the book uses extensive fieldwork, interviews and archival records to look at the establishment, institutionalization and growth of Islam in a country that is predominantly Christian. It analyses the causes and processes of conversion, and presents a new analytical approach that could be used as a basis for analysing Islamic conversions in other parts of the world. Presenting an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Islamic conversion thorough the examination of the causes and process of Islamic conversion in Papua New Guinea, the book is of interest to students and scholars of Asian Religion, Islamic Studies and Cultural Studies.

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.

Family Therapy with Muslims is the first guide for mental health professionals who work with Muslims in the family therapy setting. The book opens with a section defining the similarities across Muslim cultures, the effects of postcolonialism on Muslims, and typical Muslim family dynamics. The author then devotes a chapter to different models of family therapy and how they can specifically be applied to working with Muslim families. Case studies throughout the book involve families of many different backgrounds living in the West-including both immigrant and second generation families-that will give professionals concrete tools to work with clients of their own.

Singapore Malays subscribe to mostly traditional rather than modern interpretations of Islam. Singapore state officials, however, wish to curb the challenges such interpretations bring to the country's political, social, educational and economic domains. Thus, these officials launched a programme to socially engineer modern Muslim identities amongst Singapore Malays in 2003, which is ongoing. Negotiating Muslim Identities documents a variety of ethnographic encounters that point to the power struggles surrounding two basic and very different ways of living. While the Singapore state has gained some successes for its project, it has also faced significant and multiple setbacks. Amongst them, state officials have had to contend with traditional Islamic authority that Malay elders carry and who cannot be ignored because these elders are time-entrenched authority figures in their community. One of the book's significant contributions is that it documents how Singapore, an avowedly secular state, has now turned to Islam as a tool for governance. Just as significant are the insights the study provides on another aspect of Singapore state governance, one usually described as authoritarian'. The book demonstrates that even authoritarian' states can face serious obstacles in the face of religion's influence over its followers. The academic literature on Singapore Malays is sparse: this work not only fills gaps in the existing academic literature but provides new and original research data. Its data-rich ethnographic and anthropological approach show the complexities of Malay and Muslim social contexts, and complements other works that examine Southeast Asian states ' management of Islam, which has attracted much scholarship given the global interest in Islam-based politics and social organisation.

Both a dictionary and a glossary of terms that attempts to cover the entire field of Islam. Also included are brief biographies of eminent Muslims and Islamic scholars throughout the ages, providing a ready reference to authorities normally cited.

It is often thought that the development of capitalism and the modernization of culture have brought about a profound decline of religious belief and commitment. The history of Christianity in the last two decades appears to be a good illustration of this general process of secularization with the undermining of belief and commitment as Western cultures became industrial and urban. However, in the twentieth century we have seen that Islam continues to be a dominant force in politics and culture not only in the Orient but in Western society. In this challenging study of contemporary social theory, Bryan Turner examines the recent debate about orientalism in relation to postmodernism and the process of globalization. He provides a profound critique of many of the leading fissures in classical orientalism. His book also considers the impact of the notion of the world in sociological theory. These cultural changes and social debates also reflect important change in the status and position of intellecuals in modern culture who are threatened, not only by the levelling of mass culture, but also by the new opportunities posed by postmodernism. He takes a critical view of the role of sociology in these developments and raises important questions about the global role of English intellectuals as a social stratum. Bryan Turner's ability to combine these discussions about religion, politics, culture and intellectuals represents a remarkable integration of cultural analysis in cultural studies.

International Conflict Analysis in South Asia: A Study of Sectarian Violence in Pakistan analyzes the ideological relationship of the Muslim identity to its perceived practice of Islam among the Shia and Deobandi sects. A Muslim identity, defined as the parameters of who is and who isn't a Muslim has led to the political conundrum of Pakistan to an anticipated single interpretation of Islam causing severe sectarian violence across the country. Sectarianism has been rooted in Pakistan's affairs since 1953, but most recently the country has been victimized by political and sectarian Islamic movements. The collective mobilization and propaganda campaigns of these movements have led exclusion of certain religious minorities and their practices. The study takes root in Punjab Pakistan among twenty seven interviews where the Deobandi sect and the Shia sect face severe fatalities and undefined conflict.

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.

How and why have women come to play a central role in the political project of Islamic revivalism and in the power struggles between Islamic and secular forces in Turkey? In this innovative book Ayse Saktanber rejects approaches to this issue that ask what Islam means for the position of women, or see Muslim women as the "reverse" or the "dark" side of modernity. Taking as her subject matter families who have come together to "live Islam" as "conscious Muslims" in a suburb of Ankara, she attempts instead to "render thinkable" the experiences of women who are not situated within the discourse of modernity, and to look at the ways in which they have become crucial agents in the effort to make Islam a living social practice in a secular order.

Why wasn't Islam the rallying point and battle cry of the anti-colonial movement in the Sudan? Why did the mainstream political parties and the first military regime maintain the 'secular' political structures of the colonial state? Why did the influential parties opt for an 'Islamic constitution' in the 1960s? Why did Nimeiry's regime change is course? This work attempts to answer these and related questions. Three key issues are addressed within the framework of the relationship between Islam, society and politics : the manifestation of Islam in the particular context of Sudanese society; the politicisation / repoliticisation of Islam and the Islamicisation of politics; and the mechanisms that influence the rise of a specific Islamicist force or enhance calls for Islamicisation.

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.

In Gender and Succession in Medieval and Early Modern Islam: Bilateral Descent and the Legacy of Fatima, Alyssa Gabbay examines episodes in pre-modern Islamic history in which individuals or societies recognized descent from both men and women. Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, features prominently in this study, for her example constituted a striking precedent for acknowledging bilateral descent in both Sunni and Shi'i societies, with all of its ramifications for female inheritance, succession and identity. Covering a broad geographical and chronological swath, Gender and Succession in Medieval and Early Modern Islam presents alternative perspectives to patriarchal narratives, and breaks new ground in its focus upon how people conceived of family structures and bloodlines. In so doing, it builds upon a tradition of studies seeking to dispel monolithic understandings of Islam and Gender.

Through empirical analysis and theoretical reflection, this book shows that the aesthetics and politics of the Islamic State is "futurist." ISIS overcomes postmodern pessimism and joins the modern, techno-oriented, and optimistic attitude propagated by Italian Futurism in the early twentieth century. The Islamic State does not only excel through the extensive use of high-tech weapons, social media, commercial bot, and automated text systems. By putting forward the presence of speeding cars and tanks, mobile phones, and computers, ISIS presents jihad life as connected to modern urban culture. Futurism praised violence as a means of leaving behind imitations of the past in order to project itself most efficiently into the future. A profound sense of crisis produces in both Futurism and jihadism a nihilistic attitude toward the present state of society that will be overcome through an exaltation of technology. Futurists were opposed to parliamentary democracy and sympathized with nationalism and colonialism. ISIS jihadism suggests a similarly curious combination of modernism and conservative values. The most obvious modern characteristic of this new image of fundamentalism is the highly aestheticized recruiting material.

This book provides an in depth analysis of the challenging relationship between Europe and Islam. The general chapters on secularism, security, identity and solidarity show the challenge of promoting a stable multi-cultural society. In depth analysis of France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, and Italy reveal the extent to which this challenge of stable multiculturalism differs from one country to the next. The argument that emerges is not that Europe and Islam are incompatible. Rather it is that reconciling the tensions that arise from the mixing of different cultures will require enormous patience, understanding, and investment. The contributors represent some of the leading voices in debates about European politics - and not just those focusing narrowly on the question of Islam. Hence this volume offers both a gateway to understanding the special relationship between Europe and the Muslim world and a means of tying that understanding to the future of European integration. This book was previously published as a special issue of The International Spectator.

The most comprehensive glossary to date of Hui Muslim terms and the first to fully match the Chinese term (stated in Chinese script and pinyin) to its Arabic or Persian counterpart (stated in Arabic script with Latin transcription).

The largely Arabo-centric approach to the academic study of tafsir has resulted in a lack of literature exploring the diversity of Qur'anic interpretation in other areas of the Muslim-majority world. The essays in The Qur'an in the Malay-Indonesian World resolve this, aiming to expand our knowledge of tafsir and its history in the Malay-Indonesian world. Highlighting the scope of Qur'anic interpretation in the Malay world in its various vernaculars, it also contextualizes this work to reveal its place as part of the wider Islamic world, especially through its connections to the Arab world, and demonstrates the strength of these connections. The volume is divided into three parts written primarily by scholars from Malaysia and Indonesia. Beginning with a historical overview, it then moves into chapters with a more specifically regional focus to conclude with a thematic approach by looking at topics of some controversy in the broader world. Presenting new examinations of an under-researched topic, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Islamic studies and Southeast Asian studies.

"In Islam in a Globalizing World, Ambassador Simons has drawn on his unique experiences in the Muslim world and Eastern Europe to create a brilliant study of Islam's centuries-old efforts to adapt to modernization. Today, in an era in which the world of Islam is suddenly in the forefront of public concern, this impressive application of history should help readers to an intelligent understanding of the dynamic and, at times, conflicting forces at work in that world."
--David D. Newsom, University of Virginia, and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He was also Ambassador to Libya, Indonesia and the Philippines
"In four fascinating essays, Mr. Simons gives us a provocative and accessible account of the challenges which the Islamic world has faced and those it has presented to western societies. In an elegantly woven narrative following Islam from its first century to the impact of today's IT-led globalization, the author persuasively builds his explanation of why radical Islam remains a marginal phenomenon in the faith now guiding one-sixth of the world's population. He also provides an excellent bibliography for the reader seeking a better understanding of today's most hotly debated issues concerning
Islam."
--Richard W. Murphy, Senior Fellow in Middle East Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; former U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania, Syria, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia; former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs

"In Islam in a Globalizing World, Ambassador Simons has drawn on his unique experiences in the Muslim world and Eastern Europe to create a brilliant study of Islam's centuries-old efforts to adapt to modernization. Today, in an era in which the world of Islam is suddenly in the forefront of public concern, this impressive application of history should help readers to an intelligent understanding of the dynamic and, at times, conflicting forces at work in that world."
--David D. Newsom, University of Virginia, and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He was also Ambassador to Libya, Indonesia and the Philippines
"In four fascinating essays, Mr. Simons gives us a provocative and accessible account of the challenges which the Islamic world has faced and those it has presented to western societies. In an elegantly woven narrative following Islam from its first century to the impact of today's IT-led globalization, the author persuasively builds his explanation of why radical Islam remains a marginal phenomenon in the faith now guiding one-sixth of the world's population. He also provides an excellent bibliography for the reader seeking a better understanding of today's most hotly debated issues concerning
Islam."
--Richard W. Murphy, Senior Fellow in Middle East Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; former U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania, Syria, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia; former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs

Muslim beliefs have inspired charitable giving for over fourteen centuries, yet Islamic history has rarely been examined from this perspective. In Charity in Islamic Societies, Amy Singer explains the basic concepts and institutions of Muslim charity, including the obligation to give on an annual basis. Charitable endowments shaped Muslim societies and cultures in every era. This book demonstrates how historical circumstances, social status, gender, age and other factors interacted with religious ideals to create a rich variety of charitable practices, from the beginnings of Islam to the present day. Using written texts, buildings, images and objects to anchor the discussions in each chapter, the author explores the motivations for charity, its impact on the rich and the poor, and the politicisation of charity. This lucidly written book will capture the attention of anyone who is interested in the nature of Islamic society and the role of philanthropy throughout history.

The study of Islamic education has hitherto remained a tangential inquiry in the broader focus of Islamic Studies. In the wake of this neglect, a renaissance of sorts has occurred in recent years, reconfiguring the importance of Islam's attitudes to knowledge, learning and education as paramount in the study and appreciation of Islamic civilization. Philosophies of Islamic Education, stands in tandem to this call and takes a pioneering step in establishing the importance of its study for the educationalist, academic and student alike. Broken into four sections, it deals with theological, pedagogic, institutional and contemporary issues reflecting the diverse and often competing notions and practices of Islamic education. As a unique international collaboration bringing into conversation theologians, historians, philosophers, teachers and sociologists of education Philosophies of Islamic Education intends to provide fresh means for conversing with contemporary debates in ethics, secularization theory, child psychology, multiculturalism, interfaith dialogue and moral education. In doing so, it hopes to offer an important and timely contribution to educational studies as well as give new insight for academia in terms of conceiving learning and education.

Despite the recent history of violence and destruction, Bosnia-Herzegovina holds a positive place in history, marked by a continuous interweaving of different religious cultures. The most expansive period in that regard is the Ottoman rule that lasted here nearly five centuries. As many Bosnians accepted Islam, the process of Islamization took on different directions and meanings, only some of which are recorded in the official documents. This book underscores the importance of material culture, specifically gravestones, funerary inscriptions and images, in tracing and understanding more subtle changes in Bosnia's religious landscape and the complex cultural shifts and exchange between Christianity and Islam in this area. Gravestones are seen as cultural spaces that inscribe memory, history, and heritage in addition to being texts that display, in image and word, first-hand information about the deceased. In tackling these topics and ideas, the study is situated within several contextual, theoretical, and methodological frameworks. Raising questions about religious identity, history, and memory, the study unpacks the cultural and historical value of gravestones and other funerary markers and bolsters their importance in understanding the region's complexity and improving its visibility in global discussions around multiculturalism and religious pluralism. Drawing upon several disciplinary methods, the book has much to offer anyone looking for a better understanding of the intersection of Christianity and Islam, as well as those with an interest in death studies.

In recent years bitter controversies have erupted across Europe and the Middle East about women's veiling, and especially their wearing of the face-veil or niqab. Yet the deeper issues contained within these controversies - secularism versus religious belief, individual freedom versus social or family coercion, identity versus integration - are not new but are strikingly prefigured by earlier conflicts. This book examines the state-sponsored anti-veiling campaigns which swept across wide swathes of the Muslim world in the interwar period, especially in Turkey and the Balkans, Iran, Afghanistan and the Soviet republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It shows how veiling was officially discouraged and ridiculed as backward and, although it was rarely banned, veiling was politicized and turned into a rallying-point for a wider opposition. Asking a number of questions about this earlier anti-veiling discourse and the policies flowing from it, and the reactions which it provoked, the book illuminates and contextualizes contemporary debates about gender, Islam and modernism.