bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Transcending Borders
Authors: Kersten Carool
Published: October 2020

This collection of essays is a spin-off of a workshop held in December1997, which was jointly organized by the venerable Koninklijk Instituutvoor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (the Royal Institute of Linguistics andAnthropology) and the more recently established International Institute ofAsian Studies in Leiden, the Netherlands. Both are important resource centersfor the study of Islam in Southeast Asia and are closely connected withLeiden University, which has a formidable reputation as a centuries-oldcenter of learning in Islamic and Asian studies. Publications like the presentone show that academic institutions with roots in the colonial past andwhich were once part of the now much-criticized scholarly tradition of“Orientalism” can reinvent themselves and continue to make valuable contributionsto the study of non-western cultures.Transcending Borders focuses on the phenomenon of Arab settlementin Southeast Asia. Although the role of these migrants in the Islamizationof the Malay–Indonesian archipelago has long been acknowledged, questionspertaining to their integration into Southeast Asian society and theresulting impact on their ethnic identity have received far less attention. Infact, the upsurge in research into these aspects is barely a decade old.However, the most recent developments in Muslim Southeast Asia will certainlykeep that interest alive, because some of the more militant key playersin Southeast Asian Islamic revivalism are themselves of Hadrami orsouthern Arabian descent.The book’s 10 articles approach the study of Arab migration and settlementfrom historical, sociological, anthropological, and Islamologicalperspectives. However, the editors have taken care to ensure that these differentapproaches provide intersecting images of the Arab presence in ...
Islam in Indonesia
Authors: Ali Muhamad
Published: October 2020

Southeast Asian Islam is receiving an increased amount of attention amongboth scholars and students. The direction has been toward understandingMuslim diversity and change, despite the still-existing perceptions among the public of a monolithic and static Islam. Fundamentalism still gains moreattention, partly due to its current influence and confusion. In this book,Giora Eliraz comparatively examines how the Middle Eastern Islamic modernistmovements influenced Islamic movements in the Malay-Indonesianworld throughout the twentieth century and contributed to the rise of contemporaryIslamic radicalism in Indonesia.Eliraz studies the transmission of modernist and/or radical ideas fromthe Middle East to Indonesia, the multiple organizations and strategieswithin Islamic movements, as well as the impacts of local and national valueson the distinct faces of Indonesian Islam. Despite the current emergenceof Islamic radicalism, the majority of the people continue to reject politicizedIslam. According to the author, the tradition of intellectual and organizationalpluralism has become the predominant characteristic ofIndonesian Islam.The book is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 examines how thereformist ideas of Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), his colleague Jamaluddinal-Afghani (1839-97), and Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865-1935) were transmittedto Southeast Asia (including Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula)through publications and networks, and how they were interpreted andapplied within the new environment. Thus, Islamic reformist ideas, particularlyfrom Egypt, influenced the rise of as well as the conflicts between themodernists, represented by the Muhammadiyah (established in 1912), andthe traditionalists, represented by the Nahdatul Ulama (NU, established in1926). In these two movements, Middle Eastern reformism underwent aprocess of localization that involved local preachers, activists, and scholars ...
Al-Maqasid
Authors: Khoury Najeeb Nabil
Published: October 2020

Nuh Ha Mim Keller’s translation of Al-Maqasid: Al-Nawawi’s Manual ofIslam, is, as advertised, a manual. In fact, it functions much like a manualfor electronic machinery: One learns how to use the technology withoutunderstanding why the technology works.In fairness, this is the purpose of Al-Maqasid, which was written by athirteenth-century Hadith specialist, jurisprudent, and an intellectual heir toImam Shafi`i. Al-Maqasid is a matn, a short basic text of fiqh designed tobe memorized by students so that they can give reliable religious answersto commonly asked questions in their community. In this translation,Keller, by adding his notes, enhances Al-Maqasid’s function: “[t]he goal inrendering the present work has been to provide an English translation thatcombines the reliability of a famous fiqh matn with an explanative style thatdoes not require a specialist to understand.”Keller’s audience appears to be novices approaching Islam for the firsttime, or recent converts attempting to navigate their way through Islamicorthopraxy: Islam’s basic tenets (chapter 1), the states of and processesfor ritual purification (chapter 2), prayer (chapter 3), zakat (chapter 4),fasting (chapter 5), hajj (chapter 6), and Sufism’s role in Islam from anon-perennial perspective (chapter 7). The eighth and final chapter consistsof Keller’s notes.This translation will serve a recent convert, especially if he or she followsthe Shafi`i madhhab (legal school), as it details much of the orthopraxy.However, if novices first approach Islam through this book, they ...
Ismaili Literature
Authors: Rustom Mohammed
Published: October 2020

This compilation of Ismaili literature is the result of over thirty years ofresearch, put together by one of the world’s leading experts on Ismailithought and history. Previous attempts to take account of Ismaili literaturehave been carried out by such noteworthy scholars as W. Ivanow and I.Poonawala. But as the author notes, their compilations were essentially inventories of manuscripts, whereas the present bibliography is solely concernedwith those materials, both primary sources and secondary studies,which have been published.This bibliography contains an important survey of medieval and contemporarydevelopments in Ismaili studies. Particular attention is paid to theearly polemical assaults (and many outright fabrications) to which theIsmaili image collectively fell victim and which caused numerous misunderstandingsconcerning key Ismaili doctrines. Particularly noteworthy in thisregard is the Ismaili “black legend” that surreptitiously came to the fore bythe tenth century CE (see p. 87). This image, which severely distorted Ismailiteachings with regard to both its faith and practice, resulted in increasedIsmaili polemics and hostilities. In addition, this image also suffereddefamation from outside the house of Islam, for distortions spread by theCrusaders and other European travelers resulted in a slew of embellishedtales – the “Assassin legends.” ...
Al-Ghazali’s Unspeakable Doctrine of the Soul
Authors: Khalil Atif
Published: October 2020

Gianotti’s purpose behind this monograph is to draw out Ghazali’s positionon the vexed question of the true nature of the soul and its state in the afterlife.Ghazali’s actual views on this question have been a point of seriousdebate in both the Muslim intellectual tradition and Ghazali scholarship inthe West. At the heart of this debate lies the question of his true allegiance:Was the man, widely held to be the mujaddid (renewer of religion) of thefifth Islamic century, a full-fledged Asharite, as tradition has made him outto be, or was he, as others have suggested, a closet Avicennian? Or was he,to complicate matters even further, neither? The source of the problem restson the apparently conflicting doctrines he articulated in various places concerningthe soul in various places in his vast and multi-layered literary oeuvre.These seeming inconsistencies led Averroes, in the thirteenth century, toaccuse Ghazali of adhering “to no one doctrine in his books,” and of beinga Sufi with Sufis, an Asharite theologian with the Asharites, and a philosopherwith the philosophers (p. 19).Gianotti confesses that the “tensions and ambiguities are real and begresolution” (p. 8). He poignantly asks, however, whether they were the“unintentional mess left by a brilliant but indisciplined mind,” or whether ...
The Women of Karbala
Authors: Rizvi Sajjad H.
Published: October 2020

This beautifully produced work provides a gendered reading of the centralityof the Karbala commemorations among Shi`i communities. There isa strong Persian(ate) bias in the selections (only two papers really deal withpractices in an Arab context). However, it represents the maturity of the stateof Shi`i studies, having moved beyond the sensationalism of political obsessionsfollowing the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the textually basedOrientalism of an earlier generation to considerations of actual practices,performances, understanding of texts, and enactments of doctrines. The Women of Karbala is a significant contribution to the study of Shi`iIslam in practice. Most of the papers are based on anthropological fieldworkin majoritarian communities. The collection could have benefited from somemore historical studies (there are two studies on the Qajar period), textualstudies, and examinations of Arab communities, as well as the increasingsignificance of the Shi`i diasporic communities in Europe and North America(one paper does nod in that direction). Another feature that would haveenhanced the collection would be to interpret Shi`i more widely. For example,there is one paper on Bohra practices but none on the Zaydis and recentdevelopments in the Yemeni highlands that have made Shi`i commemorationscritical junctures of conflict ...
Reclaiming a Plundered Past
Authors: Giannuzzi Timothy
Published: October 2020

“Stuff happens.” United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’slaconic comment on the widespread looting triggered by Baghdad’s fall inearly April 2003 arguably marks the lowest point in Iraqi archaeology, afield already stained and tarnished by the ugliness of international geopolitics.Priceless treasures were plundered by well-informed gangs of thieveswho smashed or ignored replicas on display and went straight for the concealedoriginals, while the more opportunistic looters simply made offwith whatever they could seize. Despite briefings by archaeologists beforethe war, the American government did not order its military to intervene, andthereby allowed the damage to Iraq’s cultural patrimony to accelerate beyondrepair.In a fitting introduction, Magnus Bernhardsson uses this preventable disasteras a segue into the theme of his work: the largely unfortunate sublimationof the archaeological record to nationalism and nation building. As heaptly notes, “nationalism influences the kinds of questions archaeologistshave been willing to ask and determines what sort of historical sites to ...
Oukoubah
Authors: Willoughby Jay
Published: October 2020

Imagine that a struggling revolutionary movement is promising paradiseafter your defenseless country is unwillingly sucked into the maelstrom oftotal war; that the revolutionary leaders are highly respected men andwomen, many of whom were educated in the former colonial master’shomeland; and that the ruler, who is credited with single-handedly achievingyour nation’s independence and enjoys near-divine status among the masses, joins the revolutionaries after being overthrown and calls upon youto do likewise. And then, full of post-victory idealism, imagine that you livefor three years, eight months, and twenty days in the horror that introduceda new word into the English language: auto-genocide. Welcome to DemocraticKampuchea, whose ruling elite, the Khmer Rouge, targeted theauthor’s people, the Cham Muslims, for extermination: “The enemies ofAngkar [the “Organization”] come in many categories, but the biggest enemiesare the Cham. The plan is to destroy them all before 1980” (p. 6).This book is divided into five parts: “Introduction,” “S-21 PrisonerCases,” “Analysis,” “References,” and “Appendix.” The “Introduction” dealswith the controversial questions of how many Cham died under the KhmerRouge (from 77,000 to 400,000-500,000) and how many lived in Cambodiabefore the Khmer Rouge took over (from about 250,000 to 700,000, the latternumber being accepted by the Cham). Osman then moves on to how theKhmer Rouge sought to destroy community solidarity: turning Cham againstCham and children against parents, forbidding Islamic and Cham customs intoto, destroying the Qur’an and the keitab (a book explaining the Qur’an),making local leaders “disappear,” splitting up families during forced evacuations,and resettling the Cham among ethnic Khmer and Chinese. He alsoexplains why he chose the thirteen case studies that make up the next part:“…there is sufficient documentation for study and research” (p. 8) ...
The History of Women’s Mosques in Chinese Islam
Authors: Gladney Dru C.
Published: October 2020

This remarkable collaboration of primarily Maria Jaschok and Shui Jingjun(with contributions from nine other mostly Muslim Chinese women who areduly acknowledged), contains a wealth of information on a subject that most scholars of Muslim communities have never considered or perhaps evenimagined: the existence of bona fide women’s mosques in China. Throughpainstaking historical, archival, interview, and field research, the authors layout a convincing argument that such mosques have existed in China and continueto experience a “rapid increase” (p. 15), at least since the late Mingdynasty (sixteenth to seventeenth centuries), proliferating in northern China’scentral plains region (mainly Henan, Hebei, Shandong, and Anhui) during theQing emperor Jiaqing’s reign (1796-1820) (pp. 67-69).This work sheds light on “how women [in China] engendered and sustainedfaith, aspiration and loyalties under often challenging conditions” (p.5) – which is putting it mildly. Strenuously caught between Confucian,Islamic, and patrimonial requirements, they developed an institution of learningand cultural transmission perhaps unique to the Muslim world. While theauthors never fully address why “women’s mosques” and madrassahs developedso fully in China (and almost nowhere else), they do richly demonstratethe extraordinarily important role these religious and educational centershave played in preserving and promoting Islamic understanding amongChina’s Muslims, known as the Hui national minority (with a year 2000 populationof approximately 9.8 million, out of a total 20.3 million Muslims inChina, according to the especially accurate PRC state census).While the authors claim these women’s “prayer halls” (the Chinese termis ambiguous) and the women who lead them are fully-fledged ahongs orimams (again, the Chinese term, like the Arabic and Persian equivalents, isnot clear about the teacher’s actual status), the issue here is whether they haveany authority over men. Since they clearly do not, ahong should be taken inits more general sense of “one possessing advanced Islamic knowledge” ortraining, and does not imply institutionalized authority beyond the sphere ofwomen (and children, which in most instances includes boys). Nevertheless,it is significant that they have such organized authority, training, and separateprayer halls or mosques among themselves ...
The Private World of Ottoman Women
Authors: Jérôme Alexandra A. E.
Published: October 2020

The publication of The Private World of Ottoman Women is an importantlandmark in both social and gender history. Until this point, accounts of the seemingly mundane activities of Ottoman women were limited to travelers’accounts, gossip, and information that could be discerned through the latticeworkguarding the imperial harem. Godfrey Goodwin’s groundbreakingwork, however, introduces the reader to a society with women who were, inmany areas, their husbands’ peers and, although restrained by certain genderedrestrictions, had a remarkable level of mobility. His book not onlyremoves the popular notion that “Ottoman woman” is synonymous with“harem girl,” but shows that there was an extensive network of politics,intrigue, and socio-religious change and adaptation outside of the urban elite.It also presents the reader with an understanding, although not overemphasized,that these were women who lived within the parameters of Islam asboth Christian and Muslim women, and who distinctly embodied the idealsof the feminine in Islam.The book is cleverly organized to reflect both the chronology of theempire’s development and its class hierarchy. The majority of the first twochapters, “The Coming of the Nomads” and “The Wanderers,” discuss indepththe empire’s early formation and the pre-Islamic period of tribalnomadism, and essentially illustrate the empire’s boundaries and seeds ofsocial activity. Thus they are not terribly informative about Ottoman women.But this is in no way the fault of the author, who does provide some interestingtidbits where information could be gleaned and placed into the contextof the thesis ...
Frontiers and Ghettos
Authors: Blumi Isa
Published: October 2020

Scholars of state violence, among them sociologists and legal scholars, haveinsisted upon the existence of certain distinctions that separate those policemethods deemed acceptable to the international human rights communityfrom those methods of state brutality considered worthy of condemnation.Interestingly, most of the cases that cause confusion over what can be considereda legitimate use of state violence and what is condemned emanate fromthe same places: Serbia and Israel. James Ron’s impressive study of state violenceunder these two modern regimes offers an important genealogical andcomparative analysis of these blurred moral, ethical, and analytical lines.Ron’s work in Frontiers and Ghettos highlights, in particular, patternsof state violence in territories that are under varying degrees of direct statecontrol. These patterns both challenge assumptions about Israeli and Serbianhistory and serve as a corrective to much of the theoretical literature on stateviolence. Ron clearly argues that it is the nature of the state’s formal relationshipwith its territories that ultimately determines the level of state violencein both the Balkans and Palestine. His insight into these patterns is,perhaps, especially persuasive because they are fruitfully compared overdistinct periods of both regions’ history.At the heart of this provocative study is a bravely argued claim that patternsof state violence vary because of international borders and how statesoperate within and beyond them. Ron suggests that geographical and administrativeborders enforce a certain relational order between mechanisms ofcoercion and the extent to which the international community will toleratestate brutality. To make his argument, he carefully outlines how Serbian andIsraeli repertoires of coercion dramatically changed depending upon thenature of each state’s direct relationship with the territories in which theyoperated. In the cases of Serbia’s activities in the former Yugoslavia andIsrael’s actions in Palestine and southern Lebanon, he sees a pattern of ...
Fighting for Uyghur Rights
Authors: Kadeer Rebiya
Published: October 2020

I begin my brief story in the 1960s, when many Uyghur (also spelled“Uygur” and “Uighur”) people, including myself, struggled against starvation.The already difficult lives of Uyghurs living in East Turkestan1 (alsoknown as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region [XUAR]) under Chinesegovernment rule became much worse during the Cultural Revolution.Everything was rationed and controlled by the government and food was invery short supply. There was no private enterprise. Trying to find any way Icould to alleviate the poverty we were suffering, I started to make and sellchildren’s clothes. I also took in laundry to earn some money. From there, Ibegan to travel to different cities (first within East Turkestan and laterthroughout China) buying fabrics and garments and selling them on thestreet. Of course, this was not allowed under the communist system, andmany times the Chinese police confiscated all of my goods and charged mewith “taking the road of the capitalists.” Nor was it usual for a woman totravel in the region. I endured many hardships and indignities, but I wasdetermined to care for my children and improve my life.During the 1980s, as China began its economic reforms, I was able toset up a small store to do business in Urumchi, the capital of East Turkestan,and gradually started to prosper. I always tried to encourage the otherUyghur street sellers and merchants as well. In March 1987, I established the“Eighth of March” market (named in honor of International Women’s Day),a covered marketplace that housed ninety-three stores and stands. In 1989, Ibuilt a seven-story apartment building, and a few years later I built theRebiya Kadeer Department Store in downtown Urumchi. The Uyghur streetvendors could come and sell their goods in my store. At some point in mystruggle for economic independence, I became one of the ten richest peoplein China, for my business eventually grew into a multi-million dollar tradingcompany ...
The Development of Early Sunnite Hadith Criticism
Authors: Qureshi Jawad
Published: October 2020

Hadith is a uniquely Islamic discipline and of the utmost importance not onlyto Islamic thought, but also to Islamic culture and civilization. It is in this veinthat `Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak said that isnad (chain of transmission) is a partof the religion. While most studies on Hadith literature in western scholarshipfocus on the issue of authenticity, the hadith scholars’ method of determiningwhat is a basis for belief and practice, as well as that method’s historicaldevelopment, have been regretfully overlooked. The author’s The Developmentof Early Sunnite Hadith Criticism: The Taqdima of Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi (240/854-327/938) proposes to fill in some of those gaps.Chapter 1, “Hadith in the Time of Ibn Abi Hatim,” provides the settingfor Ibn Abi Hatim’s career. The two main factions of Islamic thought in thethird Islamic century were the adherents of hadith (ahl al-hadith) and theirrivals (ahl al-ra’y). Dickinson introduces two approaches to hadith: thecommentator (ahl al-ra’y) and the critic (ahl al-hadith). The commentatoraccepted the canon as it was and treated it as though it were closed. Any contradictionswere dealt with through interpretation. The critic, however, manipulatedthe canon’s boundaries and removed any objectionable material(p. 7) by using the “objective criteria of hadith criticism” (p. 1) ...
Managing Egypt’s Poor and the Politics of Benevolence, 1800-1952
Authors: Starrett Gregory
Published: October 2020

In Egypt and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, the social safety net representedby the extended family branched off in many directions. By Mamluktimes, it encompassed the patronage of wealthy and noble families who distributedfood to the poor on religious festivals and during times of hardship,and who sponsored the construction of bridges, waterworks, and publicfountains. In addition, mosques sometimes housed schools, soup kitchens,and hospitals; merchants regularly fed beggars; Sufi lodges housed travelers;and waqf endowments sponsored various religious and charitable activities.Ruling dynasties, including their women, created funds that sponsoredorphans’ homes, paid the dowries of poor women, and provided pensions forthe widows and children of soldiers killed in battle.As Ener shows in her valuable and carefully researched book, the valuesof ihsan (generosity) and sadaqah (almsgiving) have been applied accordingto ideas about charity’s legitimate beneficiaries (e.g., clerics, the poor,orphans, and women without family support). Ener traces the fortunes of thepoor, the changing constellation of institutions available for their relief, andthe transformation in Egyptian understanding of those entitled to such care.By the middle of the nineteenth century, the traditional “mixed economy”of relief (p. 9), which incorporated countless donors and institutions,operated alongside a more centralized set of interests and practices intendedto control poor people’s movement and activities. Such practices had notbeen common previously (p. 15) and appear to have been unique in theMiddle East (p. 29). Authorities began to distinguish between the deservingand the undesirable poor and sought to prevent able-bodied men fromencroaching on urban space as beggars or “fake” mendicants and from usingpublicly available forms of assistance. In nineteenth-century Cairo andAlexandria, such men and peasants “absconding” from the countrysidewere often arrested, sent back to their home regions, and pressed into involuntaryagricultural, industrial, or military service. The growing modern statewas increasingly interested in controlling crime, immigration, and the flowof disease through internationalized urban spaces ...
Editorial
Authors: Bullock Katherine
Published: October 2020

In July 2007, the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS) launchedits new website: www.amss.net. This event signals a reinvigorated AMSSthat seeks to update itself and enhance its professional image. The launchcomes after several years of hard work, conducted mostly behind the scenes,on behalf of the AMSS Executive Board. Under the guidance of Dr. RafikBeekun (president, AMSS), a recognized expert in strategic planning,AMSS has undergone a complete overhaul, from a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses,opportunities, threats) analysis to revising its by-laws and engagingin strategic planning, to implementation.In order to recognize the separate but related nature of Canada to theUnited States (it is not simply the 51st state!), as well as the prominent rolebeing played by Canadian social scientists in AMSS, the board has suggesteda new name: The Association of Muslim Social Scientists of NorthAmerica. This is, of course, contingent upon the membership’s pendingapproval of the new by-laws. In addition, this name change helps identifyus in relation to our sister organizations: AMSS-UK and AMSS-France.Each association is an independent entity sharing a common name, vision,and goals. The first AMSS international conference was held in Istanbul in2006.One theme of AMSS’ new mission statement is that the organizationwill serve as an enabling environment for critical dialogue and debatebetween Muslim and non-Muslim scholars about issues of importance tothe ummah and global society at large. The ability to dialogue is currentlynot one of the Muslim community’s strengths. Dialogue is about talking,about sitting down with people from different backgrounds in order tounderstand their perspective on often controversial issues. The point is notto convince them that your position is the “truth” or vice versa, but to hearthem as fellow human beings and have them hear you. As the NationalCoalition for Dialogue and Deliberation points out, “dialogue is not aboutwinning an argument or coming to an agreement, but about understandingand learning. Dialogue dispels stereotypes, builds trust and enables peopleto be open to perspectives that are very different from their own” (http://-thataway.org/index.php/?page_id=713) ...
Gender Equality in Iranian History
Authors: Rahimieh Nasrin
Published: October 2020

This ambitious undertaking, comprising 6 chapters, 16 tables, 4 appendixes,and a glossary, is the culmination of a doctoral program at McGill University’sInstitute of Islamic Studies. A specialist in Islam, world religions, andgender studies, Minoo Derayeh is now an assistant professor at York Universityin Toronto.Gender Equality in Iranian History seeks to uncover the social, political,and economic status of women across the vast expanse of Iranian history.In her “Foreword,” Ratna Gosh (McGill University) applauds theauthor’s contribution for showing that the “concept of Islamic feminism isfounded on the idea of complementary rather than equal rights” and, equallyimportantly, for laying bare “the root of cultural patriarchy” (p. ii). The veryidea of complementarity, as the book’s chapters reveal, has not always beenunproblematically present in Iran’s encounter with Islam ...
Freedom and Orthodoxy
Authors: Johnston David
Published: October 2020

Freedom and Orthodoxy is a brilliant apology for dismantling the hegemonicand false pretensions of western universalisms in favor of a world inwhich local groups (e.g., religious communities, regions, and nations) areallowed to construe their own strategies for cultural, political, and economicflourishing. A Moroccan intellectual teaching in the United States(chair of the Department of English, University of NewEngland) and a leadingyoung cultural critic who writes in a lucid and often elegant Englishprose,AnouarMajid’s French cultural background also shines through, judgingby his abundant use of French sources (though not one in Arabic).Building on his previous book, Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial Islamin a Polycentric World (Duke University Press: 2000), Majid expands anddeepens his historical and philosophical analysis, exhorts both Muslims andwesterners to search their souls, remove the roots of their own cherished certaintiesthat exclude the Other (i.e., fundamentalisms), and engage in the pathof creative dialog. Yet as the book unfolds, it turns out that over 90 percent ofthe material relates to the western universalisms born of the Renaissance andthe Enlightenment – ideals that, in fact, cannot be separated from the historicalrealities of the Reconquista, the Spanish conquest of Latin America, theAnglo-American colonization of North America, and the subsequent genocideof the native population. Even the revolutionary ideals of the Americanand French revolutions, however universal the reach of freedom and humanrights might have been in theory, came to be wedded to a capitalist ideologythat has, in the postcolonial era, become an economic and cultural steamroller,a globalization process that consolidates western hegemony andimposes its secular and consumerist values on the non-western world.Besides the already heavy toll in human suffering,Majid argues that fargreater clashes loom on the horizon if this scenario continues. This bringsus to the remaining 10 percent of his book: although Muslims must takeresponsibility for their own extremists and find ways to reinterpret the traditionalShari`ah in a polycentric world, nevertheless, contemporaryIslamic militancy should be seen as an offshoot of “the triumph of capitalismand its ongoing legacy of conquest” (pp. 213-14). Hence, most of thebook unveils what he has coined “the post-Andalusian paradigm,” or the ...
Iran in the 21st Century
Authors: Hassan-Yari Houchang
Published: October 2020

This multidisciplinary study addresses a host of issues facing Iran. Througha comprehensive study of political, economic, cultural, social, and securityrelatedquestions, seventeen Iranian researchers tried to create a book that is, as Katouzian states in her preface, “likely to become a standard text for therelevant academic courses.”In an elaborate introduction, the editors paint a quick picture of eventsendured by the Iranian people during the twentieth century up to theadvent of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Farideh Farhi examines the questionof crafting a national identity as a national preoccupation in modernIranian history. She points to the central role of a narrative reference thatbrings together and connects all Iranians. The second main point of heranalysis is the ongoing tension between what she calls autocratic/theocratic/arbitrary rule and democracy/chaos and Iran’s relationship with theoutside world. Farhi studies three sets of discursive transformations toillustrate her main points: the transformation of the national question intoan ethnic challenge, of the Islam/pre-Islam dichotomy into a confrontationbetween popular sovereignty and patrimonialism, and of how “Iran” seesitself in the world...
The Anthropology of Islam
Authors: Newcomb Rachel
Published: October 2020

Gabriele Marranci’s latest book, The Anthropology of Islam, examines thehistory and current status of anthropological work focusing on Islam.Despite its title, this work seems less intended as an overview of the anthropologyof Islamthan as a critique of the field. Essentialism,Marranci argues,still marks prominent works of anthropology that focus onMuslims. EdwardSaid’s critique of Orientalism and anthropology’s post-1980s “crisis of representation”notwithstanding, Islam and Muslims are still represented inmany anthropological texts as fixed and unchanging, tethered to an imagined,unitary tradition. Anthropological studies have not yet caught up withthe impact of migration, the Internet, or other global processes, and thus theyrepresent Muslims abroad as caught between cultures or locked in aninevitable crisis of identity in which a rigidly defined faith is found to be atodds with the pluralism of western life.The approach Marranci advocates involves examining the diverse waysMuslims feel and experience their religion, as well as the complex networksand interactions in which they locate themselves, particularly in the West.“‘Muslim,’” he writes, “has an emotional component attached to it. Theyfeel to be Muslim. Then, and only then, the ‘feeling to be’ is rationalized,rhetoricized, and symbolized, exchanged, discussed, ritualized, orthodoxizedor orthopraxized” (p. 8). Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, the authoradvocates exploring identity practices through this “feeling to be” Muslim ...
The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad
Authors: Colby Frederick S.
Published: October 2020

Despite the central importance of festival and devotional piety to premodernMuslims, book-length studies in this field have been relatively rare.Katz’s work, The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, represents a tour-deforceof critical scholarship that advances the field significantly both throughits engagement with textual sources from the formative period to the presentand through its judicious use of theoretical tools to analyze this material. Asits title suggests, the work strives to explore how Muslims have alternativelypromoted and contested the commemoration of the Prophet’s birth atdifferent points in history, with a particular emphasis on how the devotionalistapproach, which was prominent in the pre-modern era, fell out of favoramong Middle Eastern Sunnis in the late twentieth century. Aimed primarilyat specialists in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, especially scholarsof history, law, and religion, this work is recommended to anyone interestedin the history of Muslim ritual, the history of devotion to the Prophet, andthe interplay between normative and non-normative forms ofMuslim beliefand practice ...
Islam, Oil and Geopolitics
Authors: Sabet Amr G. E.
Published: October 2020

Emerging from the heap of the Soviet empire into a backwater landmass,the CentralAsian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,and Uzbekistan have been increasingly gaining in significance andimportance as the rumblings of a new Great Game is being sounded on theirterritory.According to this book, the three great powers – the United States,Russia, and China – are expected to play determinate roles in the politics and shaping of this region’s evolution on the world stage. The role of thesenewly independent republics, however, is less clear or easy to forecast,however, for they seem to be still in the process of forging their nationalidentities and deciding upon the thrust of their global relations, alliances,and interests.In addition, whether they will continue to be able to maintain theirnewly gained independence, particularly given their vulnerability as landlockedcountries, remains a significant question. Russia, their earlier master,is seeking to reassert its position in what it considers to be its natural sphereof influence. The rising neighboring Chinese giant is developing both economicand strategic interests beyond its borders and into that region. TheAmerican superpower is intruding as a major player into both countries’backyard under the pretext of fighting terrorism and spreading freedom anddemocracy (p. 2). The outcome of the interplay of sometimes traversing yetfrequently conflicting geopolitical as well as economic interests is what thisbook seeks to explore. Fusing the explosive elements of geopolitics, religion,and energy, this four-part book brings together twenty internationalpolicy and security analysts in a conversation about the meaning, from differentperspectives, of a post-9/11 world to the United States and its allies(actual or potential), Russia, and China, as well as to regional powers andthe CentralAsian republics ...
Who Put Hate in My Sunday Paper?
Authors: Safi Omid
Published: October 2020

Uncovering the Israeli-Republican-Evangelical Networksbehind the “Obsession” DVDSomething strange showed up inside the Sunday newspapers of millions ofAmericans last September. Thematerial included alongside comics, coupons,and advertisement for local stores is a controversial DVD called “Obsession:Radical Islam’sWar against theWest.” Some 28 million copies of it were distributedfor free in this fashion. In some ways, this campaign’s scale and ideologicalvenom were unprecedented: many newspapers stated that they hadnever previously distributed freeDVDs as inserts, certainly nothing with sucha charged content. The copies were distributed not randomly across the country,but only in the “swing states” (viz., Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan,Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, etc.) that were seen as toss-ups in theNovember presidential elections between McCain and Obama. Obviously,someone was trying to influence theAmerican electorate by playing on fearmongeringand hate-mongering themes. But who?Who was behind thismassive,multi-million dollar campaign?Answering that question proved harder than one might think, as thegroups behind this DVD have worked hard to hide their tracks. The connections,which were partially concealed in the DVD and the distribution campaign,took one from groups in Israel to pro-Israel lobby organizations in the ...
Islam in the Age of Global Challenges
Authors: Willoughby Jay
Published: October 2020

On 14-15 November 2008, Georgetown University’s Copley Formal Loungeand Philodemic Room served as the venues for an extraordinary conferenceon a unique Muslim leader who is finally becoming better known in theUnited States: Fethullah Gulen. Beginning in the early 1950s, this graduateof the Turkish seminary system began encouraging Turkish businessmen andothers to build schools to provide a modern education to as many students aspossible. People listened, and there are now over 600 schools in 100 countries.This conference, “Islam in the Age of Global Challenges: AlternativePerspectives of the Gulen Movement,” which was sponsored by the GeorgetownUniversity President’s Office, the Alwaleed bin Talal Center forMuslim-Christian Understanding, and the Rumi Forum, attracted both Muslimand non-Muslim academics and others.Of the 170 papers submitted, forty were chosen the address the movementfrom the following viewpoints: (1) the man, his thoughts and ideas,and how he formed his community and (2) what the movement is doing visà-vis bringingmeaning to people’s lives, who/what were/are his sources, tolerance,dealing with non-Muslims, issues of religious freedom, women,peace issues, interfaith dialogue, the role of his schools in peacemaking,charitable organizations, financial sources, and globalization ...
Editorial
Authors: Ibrahim Zakyi
Published: October 2020

In his capacity as president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, on 13 April2009AsifAli Zardari signed an ordinance (Nizam-e-Adl Regulation) imposingShari`ah law on the Swat Valley. Although approved by the PakistaniNational Assembly,1 analysts believe this measure will embolden theTaliban’s already increasing strength in and around that region. Some humanright groups also fear that the Taliban will see this decision as a license tosend the region’s people back to the “Dark Ages" (whatever that maymean).2 These reactions are not new.It may be quite tempting to ask why the Shari`ah is so abhorrent to itsopponents and why implementing it is so attractive to those Muslims whoare bent on applying it. Frankly put, although the mere mention of such aprospect evokes both emotions, to the majority of practicing Muslims evenposing such questions affronts their religious sensibilities. However, is thecurrent reaction truly about the Shari`ah’s essence and application, or aboutwhat the Taliban will make of it? Yes, the maddening and egregious behaviorof the Taliban and other extremist elements render almost everythingabout Islam (especially the Shari`ah) terrifyingly repulsive.But in this era of information explosion, it is the responsibility of theworld’s “civilized” people, regardless of religion, to inform themselves, inan honest and sincere manner, about the Shari`ah’s contents (not that doingso would absolutely guarantee its positive or fair consideration) in order toavoid any “hair-splitting” whenever its application is proposed.Whose faultis it if people fail to distinguish between the likes of the Taliban (who areunable to understand the Shari`ah’s real reasons and wisdom, even if theyhave the utmost zeal to apply them) and the actual Shari`ah (which, themajority ofMuslims believe, exists only to protect and guide people in theirlives and does not impose on them anything beyond their capability)? ...
Representing the Unpresentable
Authors: Gheytanchi Elham
Published: October 2020

Negar Mottahedeh’s book contains an important analysis of the relationshipbetween Babism and modernity in Iran. The author argues that in order tounderstand “the historical conditions for Iranian perceptions of modernity”(p. 236), scholars need to break away from traditional disciplinary systems,just as Babism itself went against traditional understandings of Shi`ism inIran. It is a complex, highly reflexive, and ambitious proposal. The book’sdetailed historical account of the emergence of the Bab and the critical lensthrough which the author analyzes the impact of Qurrat al-Ayn Tahirih’s figureon the Iranian perceptions of the modern woman are bound to inspireany serious student of Iranian modernity. The figures of the Bab and Qurratal-Ayn Tahirih are analyzed against the backdrop of the deeply ingrained images of the ta`ziyeh, Fatimah, and Joseph, as well as Qur’anic images ofParadise and houris in Iranian culture. I have come away with a deeperunderstanding of the Iranian psyche and cultural attitudes toward modernitywith their unfathomable embrace of traditional and religious motifs.The book’s underlying questions are “Why are modern acts, often articulatedin terms of dress or veiling, associated with the dissent of the Babi?And why does this image of ‘the Babi’ appear as a dialectic of modernity,fluctuating between images ofWestern secularism and unveiling on the onehand, and as unpresentable images of Shi`ite antiquity, on the other?” (p.236). The reader does not get an answer addressing either the “why,” identifyingthe causes for this phenomenon, or an ethnographic account of howmodern Iranian society grapples with the antique elements of Shi`ite Islamicthought. Instead, the author sets out to map the influences of the ta`ziyeh onIranian cultural modernity in an “anti-disciplinary” fashion – just as Babismshould be understood in relation to Shi`ite thought infused with Iraniannationalism ...
International Conference on Islamic Economics and Economies of the OIC Countries 2009
Authors: Kassim Salina H.
Published: October 2020

Amidst the current global interest in searching for possible solutions to thecurrent financial difficulties, the International Conference on IslamicEconomics and Economies of the OIC Countries 2009 (ICIE2009) held inKuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was indeed timely. Held during 28-29 April2009, it provided a platform to promote an intellectual discourse designedto evaluate the current state of the discipline’s various subdisciplines asregards its practical applications. The Department of Economics of theInternational Islamic UniversityMalaysia (IIUM) and the Islamic Researchand Training Institute of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), adopting aproactive approach, brought together scholars and industry players fromacross the world to analyze how to enhance the theoretical and appliedaspects of Islamic economics, banking, and economic cooperation amongMuslim countries. This event also marked an important date: the IIUM iscelebrating its twenty-fifth-year anniversary, while the OIC is celebratingits fortieth ...
The Meanings of Timbuktu
Authors: Haron Muhammed
Published: October 2020

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki took a proactive stand in recognizingthe significance and importance of Timbuktu’s rich AfricanMuslim scholarly legacy after he visited the city during his official visit toMali in November 2001. As a consequence of this trip, he initiated the SouthAfrica-Mali Timbuktu project, which was subsequently declared a special“South African President” project. Apart from deepening the relationsbetween these two nation-states, one extremely important outcome was theSouth African Department of Arts and Culture-supported conference held inCape Town in August 2005. The book under review, which consists of thepapers presented, was produced by Shamil Jeppie (advisor to SouthAfrica’s inter-ministerial committee, which is also responsible for this specialproject, and a historian based at the University of Cape Town) andSouleymane Bachir Diagne (professor of philosophy, Northwestern University[Illinois]).This invaluable text makes African scholarship proud and has injectednew life into Timbuktu and its manuscript tradition. The mere fact that it wasaesthetically produced and accompanied by appropriate eye-catching illustrationsis evidence that the editors took pride in compiling and editing materialthat would, upon first glance, attract the public eye. That said, the book itself is divided into five distinct sections consisting of twenty-four chapters,including the editors’ two introductory chapters ...
Exploring Challenges and Prospects in the 21st Century
Authors: Kayadibi Saim
Published: October 2020

The International Conference on Research in Islamic Laws 2009 (ICRIL‘09)was held on 15-16 July 2009 at the University of Malaya’s (UM) Departmentof Shari`ah and Law. The 145 presenters focused on the contemporary challengesand prospects in Islamic studies. Zubaidah Ismail (director, ICRIL‘09)welcomed the audience and spoke of the importance of Islamic laws; IbrahimLembut (director general and chief Shari`ah judge of Malaysia) gave anopening address, and Ahmad Hidayat Buang (director, the Academy ofIslamic Studies) declared the event officially opened on behalf of Ghauth Jasmon(vice chancellor, UM) ...
Negotiating with Iran
Authors: Sabet Amr G. E.
Published: October 2020

In his preface to this book, Mark Bowden states that John Limbert is “thebest American friend Iran had” (p. ix) and that the United States is “not anineteenth-century-style imperial power bent on colonizing smallernations.” Thus, Iranian suspicions of it as well as their suspecting (re)actions were “inexplicable.” This was particularly so as in the case when the UnitedStates became one of the “primary victims of Iran’s assault on internationalcivility” (pp. x-xi). With this auspicious introduction, Bowden inauguratesLimbert’s study on how to negotiate with Iran ...