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.

Political leaders of the 1930s may be accused of blindness to danger in their failed attempts to appease totalitarian aggression, but no one doubts they believed they were doing so to preserve their way of life. In contrast, Raphael Israeli suggests that twenty-first century appeasement of Islamists, wherever it occurs, is different. Appeasement in the advanced modern states of this century--in Europe, Australia, Canada, and even in parts of Asia--is characterized by what amounts to a self-inflicted humiliation, in misguided efforts to slow the advance of a rising Islamist tide. Such appeasement surrenders core aspects of sovereignty, turning non-Muslim populations into second- and third-class citizens in their own countries.

Disturbing warning signs first emerged in Europe, but were either not noticed or denied. They extended to the periphery of the Muslim world, but their development in Western countries were unnoticed or denied, until they hit also the peripheral areas of the Muslim world. Canada and Australia, and to some extent the countries of Asia, fell into a syndrome of denial, which persisted until they were forced to listen, often at a price in human lives and carnage. In Europe, the core of the Muslim presence developed in countries like Britain, France and Germany, which lacked law-enforcement against terrorists because the executive and judiciary emphasized human rights and apparent safety over defensive measures to protect their citizens and way of life.

Both the United States and Great Britain needed a traumatic jolt before they moved to act. In the United States, it would be the watershed event of September 11, 2001; in London, the July 7, 2005 bombings. And there were events in other countries: in Spain, the March 2004 Madrid train bombings; in France, the violent riots of 2005; in Amsterdam, the van Gogh murder; in Asia, the Bali horror; and finally in Scandinavia, the Cartoon Affair. These jolts shattered the tranquility of populations who had believed in peaceful coexistence with Muslim immigrants and in the feasibility of their integration into national societies. This study fills a large void in the examination of the consequences of new migrations of Muslim populations into advanced and modern societies throughout the world.

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.

In recent years, interest in Sufism a " often regarded as the mystical dimension of Islam a " has blossomed. Taught in European and American universities for many years, Sufism is an increasingly popular area of research in disciplines such as Islamic studies, comparative religion, area studies, anthropology, history, and politics.

In this new Routledge Major Work, the editor, a leading scholar in the field, has gathered in four volumes the canonical and the very best cutting-edge literature on Sufism to create an indispensable reference resource. The collection focuses on: origins and development; hermeneutics and doctrines; ritual, authority, and word; and modern Sufism.

"From Muhammad to Bin Laden" analyzes the ideological, religious, and cultural foundations of one of the most inconceivable phenomena in contemporary world politics. Bukay analyzes the homicide bombings and atrocities perpetuated by worldwide jihad. He also uses information from primary sources to suggest how to cope with this lethal phenomenon.

The book explores the meaning and interpretation of the seemingly benign concept of "da'wah," the expansion of the Islamic community. "Da'wah" provides the religious and ideological justification for the lethal phenomenon of worldwide jihad; it describes the incentive and motivational drive that support the emergence and the operation of the fundamentalist Islamic movement. Bukay locates the dimensions of the phenomenon of jihad as well as the reasons, motivations, and aspects of the behavior of fundamentalist groups. The importance of this work lies in its skillful combination of historical perspectives and contemporary dynamics, religious and anthropological aspects of the phenomena, and its use of research tools of both the humanities and social sciences.

By exploring the religious and cultural foundations of homicide bombers' activities, Bukay explains the essence of jihad, how it is connected to the "da'wah," and together, how "da'wah" and jihad serve as the platform of the current worldwide terrorist activities. Bukay quotes religious edicts and declarations of classical and modern Islamic texts, as well as contemporary Islamic fanatic movements from Ibn Hanbal in the eighth century to Sayyid Qutb in the mid-twentieth century. He also aims to bring to the world's consciousness the aims and objectives of fundamentalist Islam. The volume concludes by challenging the free world to wake up before the bells of another world war start to ring. "From Muhammad to Bin Laden" will interest scholars, policymakers, and lay readers. Its importance is transparent, particularly in light of the current developments in the Middle East.

In recent years, geographies of identities, including those of ethnicity, religion, 'race' and gender, have formed an increasing focus of contemporary human geography. The events of September 11th, 2001 particularly illustrated the ways in which identities can be transformed across time and space by both global and local events of a social, cultural, political and economic nature. Such transformations have also demonstrated the temporal and spatial construction of hate and fear, and of increasing incidences of 'Islamophobia' through the construction of Muslims as 'the Other'. As the social scientific study of religion continues to be marginalized within mainstream scholarship, there remains an important gap in the literature. This timely book addresses this gap by collecting a range of cutting-edge contributions from the social, cultural, political, historical and economic sub-disciplines of geography, together with writings from gender studies, cultural studies and leisure studies where research has revealed a strong spatial dimension to the construction, representation, contestation and reworking of Muslim identities. The contributors illustrate the ways in which such identities are constructed, represented, negotiated and contested in everyday life in a wide variety of international contexts, focusing upon issues connected with diaspora, gender and belonging.

This volume presents a selection of the key studies in which leading scholars since the beginning of the 20th century attempt to explain the phenomenally rapid expansion of the early Islamic state during the 7th century CE. The articles debate the causes for the conquest movement or expansion, the reasons for its success, the nature of the movement itself, the impact the expansion had on the countries affected by it, and the complex questions surrounding the sources on which historians have constructed their views of the expansion, and the reliability (or lack of it) of those sources. No articles devoted to the actual conquest of a given locality are included-hundreds exist-but a fairly extensive bibliography lists many of the more important contributions in this genre. The editor's introduction addresses the phenomenon of the expansion and how scholars have approached and grappled with it.

Featuring Immanuel Wallerstein, Joseph Massad, Marnia Lazreg, and other well-known and emerging new authors, this book seeks a more accurate understanding of Islam and Islamic societies role and relations to global cultural and economic realities. The book confronts a trend today of analyzing Islam as a cultural system that stands outside of, and even predates, modernity. The authors see this trend as part of a racist discourse unaware of the realities of contemporary Islam. Islamic societies today are products of the world capitalist system and cannot be understood as being separate from its forces. The authors offer a more carefully constructed and richer portrait of Islamic societies today while forcefully challenging the belief that Islam is not part of, nor much affected by, the modern world-system.

This 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.

How do violent jihadists use language to try to persuade people to carry out violent acts? This book analyses over two million words of texts produced by violent jihadists to identify and examine the linguistic strategies employed. Taking a mixed methods approach, the authors combine quantitative methods from corpus linguistics, which allows the identification of frequent words and phrases, alongside close reading of texts via discourse analysis. The analysis compares language use across three sets of texts: those which advocate violence, those which take a hostile but non-violent standpoint, and those which take a moderate perspective, identifying the different uses of language associated with different stages of radicalization. The book also discusses how strategies including use of Arabic, romanisation, formal English, quotation, metaphor, dehumanisation and collectivisation are used to create in- and out-groups and justify violence.

Muslim Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in France is the first comprehensive study of cinematic representations of first-generation Muslim women from the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) in France. Women of this generation migrated to France during the decades preceding and following the end of French colonial rule, and they are generally - though not always accurately - regarded as belonging to a generation of migrants silenced under the weight of poverty, illiteracy, Islamic tradition, and majority ethnic Islamophobia. Situated at the intersection of post-colonial studies, gender studies, and film studies, this book brings together a diverse corpus of over 60 documentaries, short films, telefilms (made-for-television films), and feature films released in France between 1979 and 2014, and it devotes one chapter to each kind of film. In examining the ways in which the voices, experiences, and points of view of Maghrebi migrant women in France are represented and communicated through a selection of key films, this study offers new perspectives on Maghrebi migrant women in France. It shows that women of this generation, as they are represented in these films, are far more diverse and often more empowered than has generally been thought. The films examined in this book contribute to larger contemporary debates and discussions relating to immigration, integration, and identity in France.

This volume brings together a set of key articles, along with a new introduction to contextualize them, on the role of Turkish peoples in the Western Asiatic world up to the 11th century. Such topics as the geographical and environmental original milieux of these peoples in the forest zone and steppelands of Inner Asia, the formation and breakup of tribal confederations within the steppes, and the evolution of tribal structures, are examined as the background for the appearance of Turks within the Islamic caliphate from the 9th century onwards. These came first as military slaves, then as movements of peoples, such as the tribal migrations of the Oghuz, leading to the establishment of the Seljuq sultanate, whilst from within Islamic society, individual Turkish commanders were able at the same time to build up their own military empires such as that of the Ghaznavids. In this way was put in place a Turkish dominance of the northern tier of the Middle East, with attendant changes in demography and land utilisation, which was to last for centuries.

The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s ended the Yugoslavian Federation, which for nearly fifty years had succeeded in preserving a delicate coexistence among the ethnic, religious, and national components contained within it. Following this, the Balkans became a violent arena of confrontation due to these warring factions. Islamic Terror and the Balkans describes and analyzes the growth of radical Islam in the Balkans from its inception during the years of World War II to the present.

Shay's account shows how the Bosnian War between the Muslims and the Serbs provided the historical opportunity for radical Islam to penetrate the Balkans, at a time when the Muslim world, headed by Iran and the various Islamic terror organizations, including Al-Qaida, came to the aid of the Muslims in Bosnia. In the framework of the mobilization of these entities in aiding the Muslim side in the conflict, the operational and organizational infrastructure of Iranian intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards was established, as well as those operated by other Islamic terror organizations.

When war in Bosnia ended, terrorist infrastructures remained in the Balkans and served as a basis for these entities' intervention in the confrontation that developed in the Balkans in the late-1990s, specifically in Kosovo and Macedonia. Today, the Balkans serve as a forefront on European soil for Islamic terror organizations, which exploits this area to promote their activities in Western Europe, Russia, and other focal points worldwide. Shay's analysis of terror activity in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and exposure of terror cells throughout the world, and particularly in Europe, attest to the increasing involvement of the "Balkan alumni" and of the terrorist infrastructure from this area in creating global terror activity.

The Mongols had a profound effect on the regions that they ruled in the eastern Muslim world, from the first Mongol invasion in 1219 through the breakup of the Ilkhanate in 1335 and the various, short-lived successor states. The influence of their rule - positive as well as negative - on the peoples of Iran and the neighboring countries can be seen in such diverse areas as demography, economics, art and other types of material culture, intellectual and religious life, military affairs, government, etc. This book brings together a series of studies that deal with some of these aspects in the state established around 1260 by HA1/4legA1/4, grandson of Chinggis Khan: the development of the land-tenure system; the title ilkhan; the use of Arabic sources for the history of the Ilkhanate; the eventual conversion of the Mongols to Islam; and - most prominently - the ongoing war with the Mamluk Sultanate to the west.

Egyptology: The Missing Millennium brings together for the first time the disciplines of Egyptology and Islamic Studies, seeking to overturn the conventional opinion of Western scholars that Moslims/Arabs had no interest in pre-Islamic cultures. This book examines a neglected period of a thousand years in the history of Egyptology, from the Moslem annexation of Egypt in the seventh century CE until the Ottoman conquest in the 16th century. Concentrating on Moslem writers, as it is usually Islam which incurs blame for cutting Egyptians off from their ancient heritage, the author shows not only the existence of a large body of Arabic sources on Ancient Egypt, but also their usefulness to Egyptology today. Using sources as diverse as the accounts of travelers and treasure hunters to books on alchemy, the author shows that the interest in ancient Egyptian scripts continued beyond classical writers, and describes attempts by medieval Arab scholars, mainly alchemists, to decipher the hieroglyph script. He further explores medieval Arab interest in Ancient Egypt, discussing the interpretations of the intact temples, as well as the Arab concept of Egyptian kingship and state administration-including a case study of Queen Cleopatra that shows how the Arabic romance of this queen differs significantly from Western views. This book will be of great interest to academics and students of archaeology, Islamic studies and Egyptology, as well as anyone with a general interest in Egyptian history.

The Arab revolutions of 2011 were a transformative moment in the modern history of the Middle East, as people rose up against long-standing autocrats throughout the region to call for 'bread, freedom and dignity'. With the passage of time, results have been decidedly mixed, with initial success stories like Tunisia contrasting with the emergence of even more repressive dictatorships in places like Egypt, with the backing of several Gulf states. Focusing primarily on Egypt, this book considers a relatively understudied dimension of these revolutions: the role of prominent religious scholars. While pro-revolutionary ulama have justified activism against authoritarian regimes, counter-revolutionary scholars have provided religious backing for repression, and in some cases the mass murder of unarmed protestors. Usaama al-Azami traces the public engagements and religious pronouncements of several prominent ulama in the region, including Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ali Gomaa and Abdullah bin Bayyah, to explore their role in either championing the Arab revolutions or supporting their repression. He concludes that while a minority of noted scholars have enthusiastically endorsed the counter-revolutions, their approach is attributable less to premodern theology and more to their distinctly modern commitment to the authoritarian state.

Despite political upheavals under Muslim domination in the Middle Ages, Palestine was a center of great artistic activity recognized for its incredible dynamism. Its unique contribution to the Islamic "macrocosm," however, never became the subject of extensive study. Numerous archeological excavations on this relatively small geographic area reveal the existence of extremely well preserved monuments of high architectural quality and exceptional religious value. This is what Myriam Rosen-Ayalon exposes in this thorough introduction to Palestinian Islamic art and archeology. In chronological order she presents here for the first time the multifaceted and long-lasting achievements of Islamic art in Palestine, filling the gap of years of neglect on the subject.

Despite political upheavals under Muslim domination in the Middle Ages, Palestine was a center of great artistic activity recognized for its incredible dynamism. Its unique contribution to the Islamic "macrocosm," however, never became the subject of extensive study. Numerous archeological excavations on this relatively small geographic area reveal the existence of extremely well preserved monuments of high architectural quality and exceptional religious value. This is what Myriam Rosen-Ayalon exposes in this thorough introduction to Palestinian Islamic art and archeology. In chronological order she presents here for the first time the multifaceted and long-lasting achievements of Islamic art in Palestine, filling the gap of years of neglect on the subject.

Antisemitic stereotypes of Jews as capitalists have hindered research into the economic dimension of the Jewish past. The figure of the Jew as trader and financier dominated the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But the economy has been central to Jewish life and the Jewish image in the world; Jews not only made money but spent money. This book is the first to investigate the intersection between consumption, identity, and Jewish history in Europe. It aims to examine the role and place of consumption within Jewish society and the ways consumerism generated and reinforced Jewish notions of belonging from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the new millennium. It shows how the advances of modernization and secularization in the modern period increased the importance of consumption in Jewish life, making it a significant factor in the process of redefining Jewish identity.

Suicide terror has become a fundamental strategic weapon in the confrontation between Fundamentalist Islam and its adversaries and now constitutes a threat to world welfare and security. "The Shahids" proposes that the nature of this terror changed after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11. In this first book to be published on the subject, the author offers both an interpretation and an overall picture of a worldwide phenomenon that is not yet fully recognized, even in Israel, which remains a central arena for the perpetration of suicide attacks by terror organizations. "The Shahids" analyzes the general phenomenon of Islamic suicide attacks, and provides the reader with tools, comparative analyses, and comprehensive information enabling enlightened examination about suicide attacks worldwide. After a review of the historical development of the religious and ideological values legitimating suicide attacks, the volume explores the ways in which all terror organizations are both alike and different. It focuses on the countries that support terror--Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia--discusses suicide attacks perpetrated by women and the suicide attackers' mothers, and shows how various countries have put an end to suicide attacks. It scrutinizes testimony drawn from confiscated documents regarding the approach of terror leaders and the administrative support of various organizations for suicide attacks, while offering descriptions and direction on ways to contend with this challenge. It explores the possibilities and recommendations for an international struggle against suicide attacks through the implementation of recently published, innovative ideas proposed by UN Organizations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. "The Shahids" maps out the overall phenomenon of suicide attacks, as well as identifies various organizations and central key figures through comparative cross-sections.

A comprehensive history of one of the world's deadliest jihadist groups Boko Haram is one of the world's deadliest jihadist groups. It has killed more than twenty thousand people and displaced more than two million in a campaign of terror that began in Nigeria but has since spread to Chad, Niger, and Cameroon as well. This is the first book to tell the full story of this West African affiliate of the Islamic State, from its beginnings in the early 2000s to its most infamous violence, including the 2014 kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls. Drawing on sources in Arabic and Hausa, rare documents, propaganda videos, press reports, and interviews with experts in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger, Alexander Thurston sheds new light on Boko Haram's development. He shows that the group, far from being a simple or static terrorist organization, has evolved in its worldview and ideology in reaction to events. Chief among these has been Boko Haram's escalating war with the Nigerian state and civilian vigilantes. The book closely examines both the behavior and beliefs that are the keys to understanding Boko Haram. Putting the group's violence in the context of the complex religious and political environment of Nigeria and the Lake Chad region, the book examines how Boko Haram relates to states, politicians, Salafis, Sufis, Muslim civilians, and Christians. It also probes Boko Haram's international connections, including its loose former ties to al-Qaida and its 2015 pledge of allegiance to ISIS. An in-depth account of a group that is menacing Africa's most populous and richest country, the book also illuminates the dynamics of civil war in Africa and jihadist movements in other parts of the world.

In contrast to the gradual formation of the high cultures of most of the world, the process by which Islamic civilisation emerged and took on its classical form between the 7th and 9th centuries was unusually sudden. The studies collected here are concerned with aspects of this remarkable development. Their topics are varied, including the emergence of dialectical theology, the origins of accounts of Pharaonic history current in medieval Egypt, the sources of Muslim dietary law, the Islamic background of Karaism, and Max Weber's views on Islamic sects. Other articles look at early Syrian eschatology and its connections with late antiquity and Byzantium, at the relevance of eschatology to debates about the dating of traditions, and at the attitudes of the early traditionists to the writing down of tradition. The final items examine reports about the textual affiliations of a long-lost Koranic codex and discussions of adultery among the baboons of Yemen. A recurring theme is the relationship between Early Muslim ideas and those of non-Muslim cultures, sometimes very ancient ones.

This volume brings together seventeen articles reflecting the wide range of scholarly interest in early Shi`ism over the past half century. All major branches of Shi`ism are covered. Some studies are historical in nature, whether dealing with specific events or offering a broad historical perspective. Others focus on literary issues, on the development of doctrine or on the relations between the Shi`a and the non-Shi`i world. The studies have been selected because they represent the best of current scholarship, or are classic works with continuing significance; six appear for the first time in English translation. The editor's introduction reviews the historiography of the field and highlights directions and trends in research and is followed by a bibliography of key further reading.