This collection of essays examines how modern public spheres reflect and mask - often both simultaneously - discourses of order, contests for hegemony, and techniques of power in the Muslim world. It builds on scholarship that re-imagines theories and practices of the public in modern and contemporary societies. While examining disparate time periods and locations, each contributor views modern and contemporary public spheres as crucial to the functioning, and understanding, of political and societal power in Muslim majority countries.

This collection of essays examines how modern public spheres reflect and mask--often simultaneously--discourses of order, contests for hegemony, and techniques of power in the Muslim world. It builds on scholarship that re-imagines theories and practices of the public in modern and contemporary societies. While examining disparate time periods and locations, each contributor views modern and contemporary public spheres as crucial to the functioning, and understanding, of political and societal power in Muslim majority countries.

Recent events have focused attention on the perceived differences and tensions between the Muslim world and the modern West. As a major strand of Western public discourse has it, Islam appears resistant to internal development and remains inherently pre-modern. However Muslim societies have experienced most of the same structural changes that have impacted upon all societies: massive urbanisation, mass education, dramatically increased communication, the emergence of new types of institutions and associations, some measure of political mobilisation, and major transformations of the economy. These developments are accompanied by a wide range of social movements and by complex and varied religious and ideological debates. This textbook is a pioneering study providing an introduction to and overview of the debates and questions that have emerged regarding Islam and modernity. Key issues are selected to give readers an understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The various manifestations of modernity in Muslim life discussed include social change and the transformation of political and religious institutions, gender politics, changing legal regimes, devotional practices and forms of religious association, shifts in religious authority, and modern developments in Muslim religious thought. Key Features *Each chapter contains an overview of relevant secondary literature and concludes with a summary of the key ideas presented and a set of questions *Contributing authors include some of the best-known academics from various disciplines in the field presenting state of the art scholarship in their specialised areas

The articles included in this "Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam" focus on two perspectives. Some link the comparative analysis of Islam to ongoing debates on the Axial Age and its role in the formation of major civilizations, while others are more concerned with historical constellations and sources involved in the formation of Islam as a religion and a civilization.

More than any other particular line of inquiry, new historical and sociological approaches to the Axial Age have revived the idea of comparative civilizational analysis and channeled it into more specific projects. A closer look at the very problematic place of Islam in this context will help to clarify questions about the Axial version of civilizational theory as well as issues in Islamic studies and sociological approaches to modern Islam. Contributors include Said Arjomand, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Josef van Ess and Raif G. Khoury.

Each of the editors are sociologists who have widely published on related issues.