Turkey is ninty-nine per cent Muslim, its ruling party, Justice and Development Party (JDP), comes from but denies its Islamist pedigree and has a very secular feel. However, the deeply secular regime distrusts the JDP with regard to its 'true' colours. This book makes sense of these paradoxical perceptions which have characterized Turkey's politics since the JDP has come to power in 2002. The key momentum for shaping the nature and trajectories of the ruling party of Turkey since 2002, the JDP, has been the 'identity' question. The JDP's commitment to transform Turkey's politics was part of its engagement to remake its own identity. The JDP's adoption of a conservative-democrat identity has rested on a new understanding of Westernization, secularism, democracy and the role and relevance of Islam in politics. The book's central problematic is to explain both the politics of change the JDP initiated and sustained in the first three years in office and the politics of retreat it has made from its reformist discourse since 2005. The book analyzes not just the catalysts for its reformist discourse of the first 3 years but tries to explain its reversal to an inward-looking conservative nationalist course. By approaching this topical debate from the conceptual stance rather than a party-centered approach, UEmit Cizre identifies that the change the JDP has initiated within Turkey's political Islam and in Turkish politics is the product of an interactive process between many levels, actors, forces and historical periods. The forces and actors covered include: global forces of Islam the secular establishment and its popular extensions the past and present Islamic actors in political and non-political spheres the changing balance of forces in the region which frame the EU and the US policies toward the JDP. Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey is a valuable contribution to the study of globalization and 'change' in contemporary political Islam, the relationship between religion and politics, and secularism and political Islam. As such, it will be of interest to students and researchers alike in the area of Islamic politics, democratization, European Union and political Islam, and globalization.

The Islamic World is an outstanding guide to Islamic faith and culture in all its geographical and historical diversity. Written by a distinguished international team of scholars, it elucidates the history, philosophy and practice of one of the world's great religious traditions. Its grounding in contemporary scholarship makes it an ideal reference source for students and scholars alike.

Edited by Andrew Rippin, a leading scholar of Islam, the volume covers the political, geographical, religious, intellectual, cultural and social worlds of Islam, and offers insight into all aspects of Muslim life including the Qura (TM)an and law, philosophy, science and technology, art, literature, and film and much else. It explores the concept of an a ~Islamica (TM) world: what makes it distinctive and how uniform is that distinctiveness across Muslim geographical regions and through history?

There are two main trends distinguishable amongst Muslim reformists - revivalists and modernists. This book charts and analyses the main trends of Muslim reformist political thought in Bukhara. It is the first to utilize original sources preserved in Soviet archives that were previously inaccessible to western scholars. The author has translated numerous original documents from Tajiki and Russian into English. This book thus serves as a useful resource for students of Islam, Central Asia, the former Soviet Union, and of law, politics and philosophy.

Muslims in 21st Century Europe explores the interaction between native majorities and Muslim minorities in various European countries with a view to highlighting different paths of integration of immigrant and native Muslims.

Starting with a critical overview of the institutionalisation of Islam in Europe and a discussion on the nature of Muslimophobia as a social phenomenon, this book shows how socio-economic, institutional and political parameters set the frame for Muslim integration in Europe. Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden are selected as case studies among the 'old' migration hosts. Italy, Spain and Greece are included to highlight the issues arising and the policies adopted in southern Europe to accommodate Muslim claims and needs.

The book highlights the internal diversity of both minority and majority populations, and analyses critically the political and institutional responses to the presence of Muslims.

Indonesia provides particularly interesting examples of gender diversity. Same-sex relations, transvestism and cross-gender behaviour have long been noted amongst a wide range of Indonesian peoples. This book explores the nature of gender diversity in Indonesia, and with the world's largest Muslim population, it examines Islam in this context. Based on extensive ethnographic research, it discusses in particular calalai - female-born individuals who identify as neither woman nor man; calabai - male-born individuals who also identify as neither man nor woman; and bissu - an order of shamans who embody female and male elements. The book examines the lives and roles of these variously gendered subjectivities in everyday life, including in low-status and high-status ritual such as wedding ceremonies, fashion parades, cultural festivals, Islamic recitations and shamanistic rituals. The book analyses the place of such subjectivities in relation to theories of gender, gender diversity and sexuality.

Dedicated to increasing our knowledge and awareness of the ever-growing diversity and pluralism of global society, Forum A. & A. Leysen has initiated a debate/lecture series, with a focus on Islam in today's world and in Europe in particular. Well-known influential authorities each an active participant in the public debate on the global role of Islam past, present, and future presented papers at the several Intercultural Relations meetings sponsored by Forum A. & A. Leysen. These important contributions are collected in Islam and Europe: Crises Are Challenges.

A common message emerges from the contributors and all their different points of view: only dialogue on the one hand between the West (countries that manifest themselves as Western Democratic constitutional states) and Islam, and on the other hand within and among societies historically identified with Islam will overcome entrenched confrontation and negative animosity. Such dialogue will engender new possibilities and understandings, and, by encouraging free and critical thinking, pave the way to social equity and the scientific innovation that may lead to more prosperity. In the course of the meetings all talks led to fascinating debates. This book includes the papers presented during the period January 2008 to January 2009. Although the question of how to actually construct the dialogue remains unsettled, this pioneering book takes a giant step toward an answer.

Contributors: Ahmed Aboutaleb; Durre S. Ahmed; A.S.A. Al-Saify; Mohamed Benzakour; Helge Daniels; Nadia Fadil; Silvio Ferrari; Marie-Claire Foblets; Fouad Laroui; Paul Lemmens; Rashida Manjoo; Ziba Mir-Hosseini; Bhikhu Parekh; Mathias Rohe; Cedric Ryngaert; Shaheen Sardar Ali; Prakash Shah; Paul Scheffer; Amina Wadud; Sami Zemni"

This book is the first to provide a complete overview of Islamic extremism in Kuwait. It traces the development of Islamist fundamentalist groups in Kuwait, both Shiite and Sunni, from the beginning of the twentieth century. It outlines the nature and origins of the many different groups, considers their ideology and organization, shows how their activities are intertwined with the wider economy, society and politics to the extent that they are now a strong part of society, and discusses their armed activities, including terrorist activities. Although focusing on Kuwait, it includes overage of the activities of Islamist groups in other Gulf States. It also discusses the relation between Ruling Families with Islamist political groups, thereby demonstrating that the intertwining of Islamic ideology and armed activities with politics is not a new development in the region.

Wahhabism is often understood as a radical version of Islam responsible for inspiring and motivating Islamic terrorism. Western Imaginings: The Intellectual Contest to Define Wahhabism is an inquiry into how Wahhabism has been understood and represented by Western intellectuals, particularly those belonging to the neo-conservative and liberal traditions. In contrast to the existing literature that treats Wahhabism as a historical phenomenon or a monolithic theological ideology, a literature often written by authors keen to promote geopolitical interests or with ideological axes to grind, Davis's work considers Wahhabism as a discursive construct crafted and popularized by a Western intellectual elite. This comprehensive study speaks to how and why Western intellectuals have chosen to represent Wahhabism in specific ways, ranging from an analysis of the particular rhetorical techniques employed by these intellectuals to a consideration of the religious and political beliefs that inspire and motivate their decisions. Western Imaginings is aimed at students of political philosophy, intellectual traditions, and sociology; media and policy professionals; and anyone interested in how Islamic doctrines like Wahhabism have been represented in an international context framed by a heightened anxiety about radical Islam.

Al Qaeda is the most dangerous terrorist movement in history. Yet most people in the West know very little about it, or their view is clouded by misperceptions and half truths. This widely acclaimed book fills this gap with a comprehensive analysis of al Qaeda -the origins, leadership, ideology, and strategy of the terrorist network that brought down the Twin Towers and continues to threaten us today. Bruce Riedel draws on decades of insider experience -he was actually in the White House during the September 11 attacks -in profiling the four most important figures in the al Qaeda movement: Usama bin Laden, ideologue and spokesman Ayman Zawahiri, former leader of al Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musaib al Zarqawi (killed in 2006), and Mullah Omar, its Taliban host. These profiles provide the base from which Riedel delivers a much clearer understanding of al Qaeda and its goals, as well as what must be done to counter and defeat this most dangerous menace.

Relating the Muslim understanding of Moses in the Qur'an to the Epic of Gilgamesh, Alexander Romances, Aramaic Targums, Rabbinic Bible exegesis, and folklore from the ancient and medieval Mediterranean, this book shows how Muslim scholars authorize and identify themselves through allusions to the Bible and Jewish tradition. Exegesis of Qur'an 18:60-82 shows how Muslim exegetes engage Biblical theology through interpretation of the ancient Israelites, their prophets, and their Torah. This Muslim use of a scripture shared with Jews and Christians suggests fresh perspectives for the history of religions, Biblical studies, cultural studies, and Jewish-Arabic studies.

This book deals with two different pragmatic approaches to textual communication: (i) the mainstream approach followed by the 'Ash'ari s, Hanafi s and Mu'tazili s, (ii) the salafite approach followed mainly by the Hanbali s, defended and elaborated by Ibn Taymiyyah. One of the primary aims of the book is to explore and formulate several Muslim legal theorists' pragmatic theories, communicative principles and linguistic views, construct them in the form of models and set them within a general uniform framework. Another aim is to reveal a corpus of information and data which, though highly relevant to modern pragmatics, is still unknown. This study, which can be seen as an extensive introduction to 'medieval Islamic pragmatics', is the first attempt to examine the approaches followed by the Salafi s or the mainstream from a pragmatic viewpoint. There has been no attempt to explain the principles and the strategies utilised by the medieval Sunni Muslim legal theorists in their account of how communication works and how successful interpretation is achieved. Of course, a lot of work has been done on different Islamic sects and their different positions over the interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah, but these studies fall short of delving into the underlying communicative principles that motivate their differences over interpretation. The author's formulation of the Muslim legal theorists' views is enhanced by setting up a reliable theoretical foundation and by delving into their underlying philosophical principles. This involves relating the legal theorists' insights into interpretation and communication to their relevant ontological, epistemological and theological outlooks, and comparing these insights with their modern pragmatic counterparts.

This book draws on the research of some of the leading scholars in the fields of Jewish-Islamic relations, the Israeli-Arab conflict and political Islam. These highly topical essays examine the relationship between Israel and the Islamic world from both a thematic and geo-strategic perspective.

Divided into two distinct sections, the first section of the book deals with issues relating to contemporary Jewish-Muslim relations and, in particular, looks at the attitude towards the Jewish state amongst opinion-makers, religious institutions and leaders in the Muslim world. Key issues such as the Islamic attitude to Palestinian suicide-bombing, and Arab anti-Semitism are addressed here. The second section examines the attitude of key Muslim nations Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan to the Jewish state, and charts the evolving, bilateral relationship between these nations and Israel from the birth of the Jewish State in 1948 up to the present day.

This book was previously published as a special issue of the journal Israel Affairs.

The past few decades have seen a burgeoning interest in the manuscript cultures of the Muslim world. The study of manuscripts has brought to light new perspectives on the transmission of texts and larger questions of cultural practices passed down within the learned circles of premodern Muslim societies. The intellectual and literary heritage of Ismaili communities, who form a branch of Shi'i Islam, has until recently been preserved in private and largely inaccessible libraries. This open access volume brings together studies offering insights on different aspects of the manuscript cultures nurtured by Ismaili communities until well after the widespread dissemination of printed books. The range of materials transmitted via these manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Indic languages also reflects the doctrinal and literary preoccupations of Muslims at large and of other groups from the societies in which Ismailis lived. Hence, the manuscripts bear the imprint of their respective cultural contexts, namely a number of regions from the Near East to Central and South Asia. In addition to engaging with multifaceted problems surrounding the processes of textual transmission, the chapters in this book deal with other connected aspects like codicology, scribal and reading practices, educational and social history, authorship, communal script, religious identity and interactions of ideas across ideological denominations. With contributions from specialists and early-career scholars, the volume will be of interest to those working on textual scholarship, manuscript and literary cultures and Islamic studies. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Islamic Publications Ltd.

Southeast Asia manifests some of the most interesting, non-violent as well as conflictual elements of Islamic social and political life in the world. This book examines the ways in which Muslim politics in Southeast Asia has greatly impacted democratic practice and contributed to its practical and discursive development. It addresses the majority and minority situations of Muslims within both democratic and authoritarian politics. It shows, for example, how in Muslim majority Indonesia and Malaysia, political Islam directly engages with procedural democracy; in Muslim minority Thailand and the Philippines, it has taken a violent route; and in Muslim minority Singapore, it has been successfully managed through civil and electoral politics. By exploring such nuances, variations, comparisons and linkages among Muslim majority and minority countries, this book deepens our understanding of the phenomenon of Muslim politics in the region as a whole.

This book is the first systematic attempt to study the situation of European and American Muslims after 9/11, and to present a comprehensive analysis of their religious, political, and legal situations.

Since 9/11, and particularly since the Madrid and London bombings of 2004 and 2005, the Muslim presence in Europe and the United States has become a major political concern. Many have raised questions regarding potential links between Western Muslims, radical Islam, and terrorism. Whatever the justification of such concerns, it is insufficient to address the subject of Muslims in the West from an exclusively counter-terrorist perspective. Based on empirical studies of Muslims in the US and Western Europe, this edited volume posits the situation of Muslim minorities in a broader reflection on the status of liberalism in Western foreign policies. It also explores the changes in immigration policies, multiculturalism and secularism that have been shaped by the new international context of the 'war on terror'.

This book will be of great interest to students of Critical Security Studies, Islamic Studies, Sociology and Political Science in general.

Jocelyne Cesari is an Associate at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for European Studies, teaching at Harvard Divinity School and the Government Department, specializing in Islam and the Middle East.

This book is the first systematic attempt to study the situation of European and American Muslims after 9/11, and to present a comprehensive analysis of their religious, political, and legal situations.

Since 9/11, and particularly since the Madrid and London bombings of 2004 and 2005, the Muslim presence in Europe and the United States has become a major political concern. Many have raised questions regarding potential links between Western Muslims, radical Islam, and terrorism. Whatever the justification of such concerns, it is insufficient to address the subject of Muslims in the West from an exclusively counter-terrorist perspective. Based on empirical studies of Muslims in the US and Western Europe, this edited volume posits the situation of Muslim minorities in a broader reflection on the status of liberalism in Western foreign policies. It also explores the changes in immigration policies, multiculturalism and secularism that have been shaped by the new international context of the war on terror .

This book will be of great interest to students of Critical Security Studies, Islamic Studies, Sociology and Political Science in general.

Jocelyne Cesari is an Associate at Harvard s Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for European Studies, teaching at Harvard Divinity School and the Government Department, specializing in Islam and the Middle East.

Discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity is forbidden in contemporary international human rights law, yet in many interpretations of Islamic law, this is seen to contradict the tenets of Islam. Vanja Hamzic here offers a path-breaking historical and anthropological analysis of the discourses on sexual and gender diversity in the Muslim world. The first of its kind, the book sheds new light on the understanding of diversity and resistance to hegemonic visions of the self in Muslim societies. Combining first-hand ethnographic accounts of Muslims in contemporary Pakistan including the hijra community whose pluralist sexual and gender experience defy the disciplinary gaze of both international and state law with new archival research, this book provides a unique mapping of Islamic jurisprudence, court practice and social developments in the Muslim world. Hamzic provides a comprehensive look at the ways in which sexually diverse and gender-variant Muslims are seen, and see themselves, within the context of the Islamic legal tradition.

It is commonly believed that during the interwar period, Kemalist secularism successfully eliminated religion from the public sphere in Turkey, leaving Turkish national identity devoid of religious content. However, through its examination of the impact of the Ottoman millet system on Turkish and Balkan nationalisms, this book presents a different view point. Cagaptay demonstrates that the legacy of the Ottomon millet system which divided the Ottoman population into religious compartments called millets, shaped Turkey s understanding of nationalism in the interwar period. Providing a compelling examination of why and how religion shapes national identity in Turkey and the Balkans the book covers topics including:

* Turkish nationalism
* the Ottoman legacy
* Kemalist citizenship policies and immigration
* Kurds, Muslims and Jews and the ethno-religious limits of Turkishness.

Incorporating documents from untapped Turkish archives, this book is essential reading for scholars and students with research interests in Turkey, Turkish nationalism and Middle East history.

Since 2011, with the British Government's counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, non-violent Islamist groups have been considered a security risk for spreading a divisive ideology that can lead to radicalisation and violence. More recently, the Government has expressed concerns about their impact on social cohesion, entryism, and women's rights. The key protagonists of non-violent Islamist 'extremism' allegedly include groups and individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Jama'at-i-Islami. They have been described as part of the 'global Muslim Brotherhood', but do they constitute a singular phenomenon, a social movement? This book shows that such groups and individuals do indeed comprise a movement in Britain, one dedicated to an Islamic 'revival'. It shows how they are networked organisationally, bonded through ideological and cultural kinship, and united in a conflict of values with the British society and state. Using original interviews with prominent revivalist leaders, as well as primary sources, the book also shows how the movement is not so much 'Islamist' in aspiring for an Islamic state, but concerned with institutionalising an Islamic worldview and moral framework throughout society. The conflict between the Government and the global Muslim Brotherhood is apparent in a number of different fields, including education, governance, law, and counterterrorism. But this does not simply concern the direction of Government policy or the control of state institutions. It most fundamentally concerns the symbolic authority to legitimise a way of seeing, thinking and living. By assessing this multifaceted conflict, the book presents an exhaustive and up-to-date analysis of the political and cultural fault lines between Islamic revivalists and the British authorities. It will be useful for anyone studying Islam in the West, government counter-terrorism and counter-extremism policy, multiculturalism and social cohesion.

This book collects 15 papers on the greatest philosopher of late antiquity and founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (d.270), and the founding figure of philosophy in the Islamic world: al-KindAE" (d. ca. 873). A number of the contributions focus on the text that joins the two: the so-called Theology of Aristotle, in fact an Arabic version of Plotinus' Enneads produced in al- KindAE"'s translation circle. Across several papers, Adamson argues that this translation is best understood as a reinterpretation of Plotinus designed to appeal to contemporary readers in the culture of the 'AbbAEsid era. Two contributions also analyze the notes on the Theology written by the great Avicenna. Other papers look at aspects of al-KindAE"'s own thought, exploring his ideas concerning metaphysics, free will astrology, and optics. The traditions of Plotinus and al-KindAE" are also treated, with papers on Plotinus' student Porphyry and his Arabic reception, and on followers of al-KindAE". Adamson argues that we can identify what he calls a 'Kindian tradition' in the 9th-10th centuries. He discusses the philosophical presuppositions of this movement, and the use of al-KindAE"'s ideas made by one particular representative of the Kindian tradition, the Persian thinker Miskawayh.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) were elected to power in 2002 and since then Turkish politics has undergone considerable change. This book is a comprehensive analysis of the AKP, in terms not just of its ideological agenda, but also of its social basis and performance in office in the main theatres of public policy - political reform, and cultural, economic and foreign policies.

Based on an extensive analysis of official and party documents, interviews, academic sources and media coverage, the book outlines the main features of the current global debate on the relationship between Islam, Islamism and democracy. While most top AKP leaders come from an Islamist background, the party has behaved as a moderate, centre-right, conservative democratic party who are fully committed to democracy, a free market economy and Turkey's EU membership. The book explores and analyses these changes in Turkish politics, and provides coverage of the workings of the contemporary Turkish political systems, policy and ideological issues that go to the heart of Turkish identity.

Filling a gap in the existing Turkish and English literature on the subject, this book will be an important contribution to Political Science, particularly the areas of Turkish politics, Middle Eastern studies, Islamic studies and comparative politics.

The volume brings together seventeen studies on Avicenna by Dimitri Gutas, written over the past twenty-five years. They aim to establish Avicenna's historical and philosophical context as a means to determining his philosophical project and the orientations of his thought. They deal with his life and works, his method, his epistemology, and his later reception in the Islamic world, ending with a programmatic essay on the state of the field of Avicennan studies and future agenda. Occasioned by issues raised in Gutas's monograph on Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition (whose second edition has just appeared), they form a substantive complement to it. For this reprint, a number of the essays have been reset and accordingly revised and updated. Provided with exhaustive indexes of names, places, subjects, and technical terms, the volume constitutes a new and major research tool for the study of Avicenna and his heritage. (CS1050).

The growth of Islam both worldwide and particularly in the United States is especially notable among African-American inmates incarcerated in American state and federal penitentiaries. This growth poses a powerful challenge to American penal philosophy, structured on the ideal of rehabilitating offenders through penance and appropriate penal measures. Islam in American Prisons argues that prisoners converting to Islam seek an alternative form of redemption, one that poses a powerful epistemological as well as ideological challenge to American penology. Meanwhile, following the events of 9/11, some prison inmates have converted to radical anti-Western Islam and have become sympathetic to the goals and tactics of the Al-Qa'ida organization. This new study examines this multifaceted phenomenon and makes a powerful argument for the objective examination of the rehabilitative potentials of faith-based organizations in prisons, including the faith of those who convert to Islam.

Themistius' close relationship with Christian emperors from Constantius to Theodosius makes him one of the most important political thinkers and politicians of the later fourth century, and his dealings with Julian the Apostate have recently attracted much speculation. This volume presents a new critical edition, translation and analysis of Themistius' Letter to Julian about kingship and government, which survives mainly in Arabic, together with texts, translations and analyses of Julian's Letter to Themistius and Sopater's Letter to Himerius. The volume is completed with a text, translation and analysis of the other genuine work of Greek political theory to survive in Arabic, the Letter of Aristotle to Alexander, which dates from an earlier period and throws into relief the particular concerns of Themistius, Julian, and the rulers of the fourth-century Roman world.