bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Arab Americans
Authors: Salaita Steven
Published: October 2020

Since 9/11, Arab Americans have been the subject of much discussion inboth popular and scholarly forums. Books on the suddenly visible Arab-American community have been published recently or are forthcoming, andcourses dealing with Arab Americans are gradually entering university curricula.This interest is cross-disciplinary, having become evident in numeroushumanities and social science fields.Yet this interest is bound largely to the political marketplace of ideas, foran emergent Arab-American studies existed well before 9/11 and had been onthe brink of increased visibility on the eve of 9/11. It took 9/11, however, forthis body of scholarship to generate broad attention. In addition, 9/11 alteredthe trajectories that had already been established, though not as dramaticallyas an unaffiliated observer might believe. Gregory Orfalea was among thegroup of scholars and artists who were assessing Arab America before 9/11through his work as a writer and editor. Orfalea continues his contribution tothat project with his latest book, The Arab Americans: A History, a voluminoustext that mixes exposition, commentary, and analysis.The author’s cross-disciplinary book will be of interest to students andscholars in the humanities and the social sciences, for it contains elements ofhistoriography, sociology, literary criticism, memoir, and anthropology. Theintroduction and first chapter recount a trip he took as a young man in 1972with his jaddu (grandfather) to Arbeen, Syria, his grandfather’s hometown.Subsequent chapters explore a number of sociocultural and political issuesof interest to the Arab-American community, including the politics of theArab world, activism (historical and contemporary) in Arab America, therelationship between Arab Americans and the American government at boththe local and federal levels, religious traditions in Arab America, and theinstability and diversity of Arab-American identity ...
I, Nadia, Wife of a Terrorist
Authors: Jérôme Alexandra Izabela
Published: October 2020

At the “Al Azhar” Association in Algiers, Algerian journalist Baya Gacemirecorded the story of a woman displaced by the country’s surge of Islamistviolence during the 1990s. Nadia, widowed, destitute, and alienated fromher community, weaves her own story and those of other women against thebackdrop of a wave of terror instigated by Islamist guerilla groups. Herstory is perhaps the singularly most terrifying story of bastardized religiosityand a testament to the human spirit. Yet despite the hardships that Nadianarrates, she never asks for pity or sympathy; rather, she is wary of herpride, speaks candidly, and retains a dignity that makes her an extraordinaryfigure.Unlike other testimonies from women in the Arab world, Nadia’s storyis different in that it is inclusive of her community and lacks the familiar formulaof journalistic accounts from “stereotypically oppressive” Muslimnations. In her story, the optimistic details of her upbringing and first experienceof love transition into the horror of the Islamic Action Group’s (GIA)germination in the wilderness surrounding her village. She marries her firstlove, Ahmed, a local thug whose sole intention in life is to compensate forhis decided lack of a masculine role model.On the day of their marriage, Nadia engages in bridal rituals that includethe use of cosmetics and henna, much to her husband’s dismay. At thismoment, we see a familiar Islamist tableaux unfold in the microcosm of thehousehold, when Ahmed declares: “From now on, you won’t be going to thehammam anymore, or the hair dressers. And this is the last time I want to seeyou wearing makeup” (p. 32). Their marriage is not consummated on theirwedding night, but rather spent engaged in extensive prayer and recitationof the Qur’an. Married for only a few hours, Ahmed disappears back to hisspiritual brothers in the mountains. At this moment, Nadia begins to realizethat Ahmed has not married her as a wife, but as a GIA (from French GroupeIslamique Armé) investment. Thus begins the cycle of her life as a wife of aGIA terrorist: She cooks meals, waits on her husband’s fellow reprobates,and reaps the material and social benefits of the GIA’s intimidation and thirstfor blood.Although Nadia could continue her story as a series of abuses and a testimonyof her existence at the hands of a husband who abused her, sheinstead constructs the story of the GIA and its abuses as a central part of her ...
US Government and American Muslims Engage to Define Islamophobia
Authors: Khan M. A. Muqtedar
Published: October 2020

On 4 December 2006, the American Muslims’ national leadership met withkey senior American government officials to discuss Islamophobia in thecountry and American-Muslim relations. The conference, organized by theBridging the Divide Initiative of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution,was co-sponsored by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding(ISPU) and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS).As conference chair, I had to bring together two parties that did not seeeye-to-eye on this issue. While American Muslim leaders and participantsargued that Islamophobia was not only a reality but also a rapidly growingphenomenon in the United States, the government’s position was that whilethere have been increased incidences of anti-Muslim episodes in the country,the word Islamophobia deepens the divide between the two sides. Other government representatives also suggested that the fear to which Muslimswere referring was not that of Islam, but rather that of Muslim terrorism, asmanifested on 11 September 2001.Stephen Grand (director, United States-Islamic World program) welcomedall participants and launched the conference. The government wasrepresented by the Department of State, the Department of HomelandSecurity, and associated agencies. The morning keynote address was deliveredby Alina Romanowski (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State forProfessional and Cultural Affairs). She was introduced by AmbassadorMartin Indyk (director, the Saban Center), who proclaimed the importanceof such dialogues at a time when the gap between the United States and theMuslim world appears to be widening ...
Secularism and Spirituality
Authors: Hashim Rosnani
Published: October 2020

This compilation provides a systematic overview of the development andchallenges of Islamic education in Singapore. After the introduction by NoorAishah and Lai Ah Eng, Chee Min Fui focuses on the historical evolution ofmadrasah education (chapter 1) and Mukhlis Abu Bakar highlights the tensionbetween the state’s interest and the citizens’ right to an Islamic education(chapter 2). In chapter 3, Noor Aishah elaborates on the fundamental problemof the madrasah’s attempt to lay the educational foundation of both traditionaland rational sciences. Azhar Ibrahim surveys madrasah reforms inIndonesia, Egypt, India, and Pakistan in chapter 4, while Afiza Hashim andLai Ah Eng narrate a case study of Madrasah Ma`arif in chapter 5. Tan TayKeong (chapter 6) examines the debate on the national policy of compulsoryeducation in the context of the madrasah, and Syed Farid Alatas (chapter 7)clarifies the concept of knowledge and Islam’s philosophy of education,which can be used to assess contemporary madrasah education.Formal madrasah education in Singapore began with the establishmentof Madrasah Iqbal in 1908, which drew inspiration from Egypt’sreformist movement. This madrasah was a departure from traditionalIslamic education, which was informal and focused only on the traditionalsciences and Arabic. The madrasah’s importance and popularity in Singaporewas attested to by the fact that at one point, Madrasah al-Junied was“the school of choice for students from the Malay states, Indonesia and thePhilippines” (p. 10). After the Second World War, there were about 50-60such schools, mostly primary, with about 6,000 students using Malay asthe medium of instruction. The number declined with the introduction ofMalay-language secondary schools in the 1960s ...
The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism
Authors: Hammer Juliane
Published: October 2020

Perceptions of the “other” are a powerful force in day-to-day human interaction,as well as in domestic and international politics. Since the publicationof Edward Said’s Orientalism almost three decades ago, many scholarshave appropriated and debated his thesis about the reality-changing powerof European (and American) discourses on Muslims and Arabs. In the bookunder review, Timothy Marr, professor of English in the American StudiesCurriculum department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,simultaneously broadens and criticizes Said’s ideas.The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism (a somewhat misleadingtitle for a fascinating book) offers a rich analysis of how Americans appropriatedimages of Islam, Muslim societies, and the Middle East during theseventeenth to nineteenth centuries for various political, social, and cultural– but ultimately American – purposes related to domestic and internationalissues. The author argues that such perceptions, in light of their complex andmultiple uses in American history, are significant because they continue toshape contemporary American approaches to the Muslim world.Marr advances this thesis by looking at an impressive array of historicalsources and documents, as well as secondary literature on various aspects ofAmerican history and culture, in which he finds a multitude of references toIslam and Muslims (or Turks, Saracens etc., respectively). His analysis ofthese references offers a stunning kaleidoscope of American images of theMuslim “other,” but reveals far more about the inner dynamics of Americannation-building and cultural self-definition than about Islam or Muslims ...
Sexual Ethics and Islam
Authors: Katz Marion H.
Published: October 2020

Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics and Islam is a fresh and incisive examination of avariety of issues related to marriage and sexuality. Its primary objective is to engage with the values and aspirations of contemporary American Muslims,although it should also find a broad non-Muslim audience in undergraduatecourses and among non-specialist readers. Throughout the book, Ali analyzesthe concerns of a Muslim community striving both to realize a visionof justice and equality informed by contemporary social realities as well asto cultivate a genuine and honest commitment to Islam’s teachings.Although she sometimes addresses the internal dynamics of the Muslimcommunity (both American and international) in ways that may resonatemost with a faith-based audience, non-Muslim readers and students will befascinated by the degree of Muslim social and theological diversity that shedescribes.Ali identifies strongly with “progressive” Muslims, although she doesnot hesitate to critique liberal and conservative orthodoxies. She engagesintensively with an emerging canon of English-language progressiveIslamic thought, frequently citing such authors as Amina Wadud, AsmaBarlas, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Omid Safi, and Farid Esack. One of the book’sstriking (and useful) aspects is that it does not assume that the Islamic “center”lies in the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East or South andSoutheast Asia; it unapologetically (and accurately) assumes that theMuslims of North America and other minority communities can produceautonomous and valid developments in Islamic thought and practice.Although her sympathies clearly lie with, for instance, those who wouldseek to accommodate the religious and personal aspirations of Muslim homosexuals(chapter 5), she also displays an unsparing commitment to internalconsistency and intellectual rigor. She neither resorts to easy platitudesabout Islam’s egalitarianism and justice nor tolerates them in the argumentsof others ...
Faith in Moderation
Authors: Varisco Daniel Martin
Published: October 2020

Much that has been written about political Islam emphasizes the negativeimages of suicide bombings, bearded and seemingly blind proponents ofjihad, patriarchal gender ideologies, and intolerance toward non-Muslims.Jillian Schwedler’s comparative study of two “Islamist” political parties inJordan and Yemen, respectively, is a welcome reminder that Muslims arejust as capable of protecting their faith in moderation as anyone else. Herbook provides a valuable record of the historical development of bothJordan’s Islamic Action Front (IAF: Jabhat al-`Aml al-Islami) and theYemeni Congregation for Reform, better known simply as the Islah(Reform) party.A political scientist with first-hand experience in both countries,she has researched the previous literature on each party and conductedover three dozen formal on-the-record interviews with party officials andother relevant individuals (and more than 200 political actors overall, p. 31).The bulk of the interviews were conducted between 1995 and 1998, withfollow-up trips as recently as 2003 ...
Morocco
Authors: Johnston David
Published: October 2020

Veteran journalist Marvine Howe’s book on Morocco is unique in its genre.Though she worked for Radio Maroc and as a stringer for the New YorkTimes and Time-Life in Morocco from 1951 to 1962, Howe has coveredseveral topics related to that country since and returned for a serious “Tourdu Maroc” with two old friends in 2001. Her book, with its countless interviewsof political and cultural personalities before and after her departure inthe 1960s, is more than simply journalism. Howe has invested a lifetime ofstudying Morocco and its people. This book, addressed to a general audience,reads like a comprehensive “state of the union” survey of Moroccotoday, in its variegated political, cultural, ethnic, religious, and economicaspects – all in a lucid and often elegant prose. Howe has kept upwith all of the majorworks onMorocco over the years,both in French and in English, fromJohnWaterbury’s The Commander of theFaithful (1970) to Fatima Sadiqi’s Women, Gender, and Language inMorocco (2002). Even the more recent book by Shana Cohen and LarabiJaidi, Morocco: Globalization and Its Consequences (2006), shares many ofher conclusions ...
Islam Obscured
Authors: Daniels Timothy P.
Published: October 2020

Daniel Martin Varisco’s Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of AnthropologicalRepresentation provides a very sound and well-informed literary critique ofClifford Geertz’s Islam Observed (1968), Ernest Gellner’s Muslim Society(1981), Fatima Mernissi’s Beyond the Veil (1975), and Akbar Ahmed’s DiscoveringIslam (1988). The author, an experienced ethnographer of MiddleEastern societies, examines the treatments and representations of Islam inthese seminal texts. After presenting his topic and background in the introduction,he demonstrates how these four authors obscured, misrepresented,and elided the everyday lives of Muslims. In the epilogue, Varisco gleanssome important lessons for the study of Islam from his entertaining andwitty exploration of these social science texts.In the book’s introduction, the author briefly discusses the intellectualhistory of anthropology and ethnographic studies of Muslims. He notes thatthe discipline of anthropology has encountered numerous problems, includingits recognition of Victorian traveler’s reports, Spencerian “evolutionism,”and the postcolonial critique of Eurocentric textual representations ofnon-western others. Addressing the current state of anthropological theory,Varisco mentions the blurring of boundaries between established disciplinesas well as the particularly American problem over whether to maintain thefour-field approach of holistically studying human beings.In keeping with this Eurocentric slant toward “primitives,” he observesthat there were very few ethnographic studies of Muslims, except Evans-Pritchard’s 1940s work on Cyrenaican Bedouins and those by others followinghis example, until ethnographers began to produce Robert Redfieldinfluencedcommunity studies.Yetmany of these latter studies were done byresearchers who, with little proficiency inArabic, wrote from a distance andthus barely penetrated the surface of Islam in local Muslims’ lives. Varisco ...
Transnational Muslims in American Society
Authors: Jerome Alexandra
Published: October 2020

In post-9/11 America, the necessity for a comprehensive study of transnationalMuslim communities, as well as their identities and dynamics withinAmerican society, is filled by Aminah Beverly McCloud’s Transnational Muslims in American Society. This comprehensive study examines a crosssectionof Muslim communities in diaspora and exile, from the Palestiniansto the Iranians to the very small community ofMuslim Chinese. The author’sexamination, which loosely relies on notoriously vague immigration records,first-person interviews, and clever anecdotes, is also coupled with a generalhistory and overviewof Islamand the individual communities. The brief historiesof each community and its ethnic, cultural, and Islamic idiosyncrasies,placed at the beginning of each chapter, are particularly helpful. In addition,her nuanced analyses ofwomen’s positions in the contexts of their own communitiesprovides an important depth to the study ...
Unity in Diversity
Authors: Gandolfo K. Luisa
Published: October 2020

The field of conflict resolution has rarely been tested so frequently as in theMiddle East. Since 1948, internecine conflict has flared in Israel/Palestine,Lebanon, and Iraq, with neighboring states sustaining the consequences ofthe tensions.Applying interfaith dialogue (IFD) as ameans to promote peacefulrelations is thus, by its very nature, fraught with controversy and uncertainty.Yet this unique approach draws on peace-building mechanisms thatbear such religious nuances as reconciliation, mercy, and forgiveness. Byeschewing secular concepts for religious resources, IFD provides a pointfrom which individuals can transcend the religious divide in search of furtherunderstanding and peace.Accordingly, following the activities of IFD organizationsin Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon is a complex undertakingfor the authors of Unity in Diversity. Having previously addressedNonviolence and Peacebuilding in Islam: Theory and Practice (UniversityPress of Florida: 2003) and Dialogue, Conflict Resolution, and Change:Arab-Jewish Encounters in Israel (State University of New York Press:1999), Abu-Nimer, an associate professor with the International Peace andConflict Resolution Program, lends a revealing insight into faith-based resolution.Alongside Khoury and Welty, this book introduces IDF and analyzesits application, limitations, and recommendations.Opening with an overview of the “Potentials and Challenges in InterfaithDialogue in the Middle East” in chapter 1, the authors proceed to elucidatethe book’s themes in chapter 2: “Basic Concepts and Approaches.” Inwith pdfFactory ...
Zina, Transnational Feminism, and the Moral Regulation of Pakistani Women
Authors: Zaman Habiba
Published: October 2020

Using the role of an immigrant researcher in her country of origin, ShahnazKhan uses her feminist lens to explore dualities, decontextualization, andstereotypes of third-world women, more specifically Muslim women, whileexamining the contested issue of the ZinaOrdinance and itsmultifaceted consequencesfor women in Pakistan. Juxtaposing her feminist analysis withinthe context of transnational feminism, the author examines the tensions surroundingthis ordinance by questioning three intersecting contexts, namely, culture, politics, and religion. Pointing out such issues as corruption, maleviolence, poverty, and drug and alcohol abuse, Khan argues that the ordinanceallows families, in collaboration with the state, to regulate women’ssexuality. She reminds her readers that women charged with adultery and fornicationby the state are not victims, as they resist their incarceration in multipleways. Ironically, the prisons as well as the state-sponsored sheltersbecome safer spaces for women to flee the wrath of their families ...
Islam, Civil Society, and Social Work
Authors: Latief Hilman
Published: October 2020

The practice of charity, which is commonly voluntary by definition, is embeddedwithin religious institutions or communities to support their vision ofsocial welfare. In this book, Egbert Harmsen underlines some improvements,advantages, and weaknesses as well as varieties of the roles played byMuslim-based voluntary organizations in the Middle East in general, and inJordan in particular. He reexamines whether such civic values as voluntary,autonomous, egalitarian, community-based initiatives, self-reliance, and independenceunder which civil society organizations developed can impact Muslimsociety on a larger scope.The author reassesses previous research findings, particularly thosepresented by such observers as Janine Clark and Sami Zubaida. Clark’sobservation of (horizontal) networks embedded among middle-classMuslims reveal that the lower class (the poor) does not benefit very muchfrom the existing social institutions. Meanwhile, Zubaida’s scrutiny of the(vertical) relation between Muslim associations and their needy clientsshows that the resulting relationships are generally paternalistic. In responseto Clark’s argument, Harmsen points out that while the social institutionsset up by the middle class do serve middle-class families, they by no means ...
Canadian Islamic Schools
Authors: Duderija Adis
Published: October 2020

Over the last two to three decades, a number of factors have ensured thatwestern Muslims and Islam have become socially and politically far moreembedded and visible in western liberal democracies. For example, a largesegment of new (post-1965) immigrant religious minority communities settlingin western liberal democracies, including Canada, are of the Muslimfaith. Moreover, an increasing number of educated, professional westernbornMuslims consider, unlike their immigrant parents, their countries ofbirth as their “home.” Furthermore, the politicization of Islam and the natureof the current state of international affairs, in which issues pertaining toMuslims and Islam often take central place, have highlighted the publicprominence of Islam and its adherents in theWest.This situation has problematized and generated a number of debatesrelating to the philosophical, religious, cultural, political, and social underpinningsof western liberal societies vis-à-vis their Muslim communityconstituency. In addition, it has induced several profound identity-relatedquestions pertaining to what it means to be “western” or “a westernMuslim”or, for some, a “Muslim” in theWest. One aspect of this overall dynamic isthe question of the role and the function of faith-based Islamic schoolsoperating in western liberal democracies, as their numbers have mushroomedover the last two decades ...
Islam and the Secular State
Authors: Sabet Amr G. E.
Published: October 2020

An-Naim’s book is an addition to the genre of studies that apply the toolsand mechanisms of secular liberal change and social engineering to Muslimsocieties behind a benign façade of Islamic concern. His opening wordsemphasize the necessity of a secular state for a Muslim to be a believer byconviction. He claims a different perspective of the term, which really is notthat distinct from common understandings of what constitutes a secularstate, namely, neutrality regarding religious doctrine (p. 1). According to thisorganizational principle Islam does not need to be separated from politics orpublic life, but rather from the state, so as not to allow for its manipulation.At first glance this sounds like a perfectly sensible premise, as manyMuslim countries do, in fact, suffer from such a predicament. The problem isthat in the process of suggesting the means and methods of how to do so, An-Naim contests Islamic values as relative, infusing them with ambiguity, as aprelude to essentializing western values and structures of state, constitutionalism,human rights, and citizenship as universal and deterministic. This way,he sets the hierarchy of privilege in favor of the latter. Consequently adaptation,if not clearly succumbing to instead of challenging, the “reality” of aEurocentric postcolonial world (pp. 31-32) should be accepted as a startingpoint. This is the contextual fact to which Islam and Muslims have to reconcilethemselves, and thus any notions of applying the Shari`ah should be forsakenand is, in fact, “impossible” (p. 18) ...
Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy
Authors: Parray Tauseef Ahmad
Published: October 2020

Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy analyzes the theoretical relationshipbetween religion and democracy, specifically Islam’s relationshipwith liberal democracy. It discusses the relationship between Islam,Muslim-majority societies (viz., Iran, Turkey, and Indonesia), and liberaldemocracy in a way that advances theory and practice regarding their relationsand this relationship is the immediate focus of this study, and the conclusionshave a much broader applicability in illuminating the theoreticalrelationship between religion, secularism, and democracy in general, and incontributing to the development of a liberal-democratic theory for Muslimsocieties in particular.

The author’s primary methodological approach is historical and comparative.Drawing on insights and lessons from western political theory andhistory, he examines the relationship between liberal-democratic developmentand religion both theoretically and in the context of the Muslim world.The three countries mentioned above are presented as case studies as ameans to reinforce the theoretical claims. The book consists of four chaptersfollowed by a conclusion, endnotes, a bibliography, and an index ...
Reconsidering Islam in a South Asian Context
Authors: Robinson Francis
Published: October 2020

This is an ambitious book, as M. Reza Pirbhai attempts to lift our understandingof Islam in South Asia, or indeed of Islam anywhere, both out ofthe essentializing straitjacket in which western Orientalist scholarship hasplaced it and out of a similar straitjacket in which many modern Muslims,often influenced by western scholarship, have also placed it. He is concernedto demonstrate that what he calls “doctrinal Islam” ismultidisciplinary and variable within disciplines. Theology includes conceptsof immanent monism, transcendental monism, monotheism andabsolute transcendentalism. Jurisprudence is rooted in four Sunni and twoShi`a schools, most accepting concepts of independent reasoning andconsensus, some extending to notions of public utility, equity and the virtualinclusion of customary law as an additional source of the shari`a.Mysticism ranges from concepts included in theology and jurisprudenceto the addition of anti-nomian and latitudinarian doctrines…. (pp. 337-38)The rich possibilities of the Islamic tradition are set before us – indeed,the potential for there to be many “Islams.” In making sense of these possibilities,he brings forward two particular worldviews: the “Sober Path”and the “Intoxicated Way.” The former divides the world into “Muslim”and “non-Muslim” and has its distinctive forms of hospitality and hostilityto the resources it finds in any locality. The latter also contains a range ofapproaches, some intersecting with the sober path and others leading on toantinomian or latitudinarian ground. What is crucial, he insists, is that allremain equally valid expressions of doctrinal Islam, provided that no valuejudgment is made about what is orthodox Islam ...
The Legacy of Isma`il Raji al-Faruqi
Authors: Ibrahim Zakyi
Published: October 2020

A two-day seminar on Isma`il Raji al-Faruqi (1921-86), jointly organized bythe Centre for the Study of Democracy (University of Westminster), Princeal-Waleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (GeorgetownUniversity), and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIITUK and USA), took place in London at the University of Westminster on6-7 June 2010. Considering his intellectual output, academic agendas, andscholastic achievements, as well as to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversaryof his death, the organizers thought a seminar of this caliber wouldbe most appropriate. John Esposito and John Voll write of a certain Christianacquaintance of al-Faruqi lamenting the latter’s aspiration to become the“Luther” of Islam, believing that it is in dire need of reformation. This considerationguaranteed al-Faruqi a prominent slot in their “Makers of ContemporaryIslam” (2001) ...
Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights
Authors: Mokhtari Shadi
Published: October 2020

In Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights, Abdulaziz Sachedina calls fora new conversation between religious and secular forces to achieve an “overlappingconsensus” on human rights and its underlying principles. Accordingto him, developing a firm foundation for human rights in Islam is key toreaching such a consensus. Thus after critiquing the contemporary humanrights regime and the traditionalist Muslim approach to it, he tries to developsuch a theological foundation. Although showing a keen awareness of thenumerous tensions between the international human rights framework andthe Muslim world’s cultural, social, and political sensibilities, the authorposits that some form of notions of individuality, human agency, and humandignity are compatible with the Islamic revelation. Recognizing this providesIslam and the human rights project important “common moral terrain.” ...
The Mosque
Authors: Gaber Tammy
Published: October 2020

Refreshingly candid and at times contradictory, not to mention multidisciplinaryand entirely provocative, this book’s alternative and polished graphicand design immediately places it outside mainstream architecture texts oncontemporary mosque design. Although specifically focused on the contemporarydesign of mosques in the Netherlands, its broader and more generalunderstandings are easily grasped through its grounded arguments.Many of the chapters also contextualize issues of mosque design in thatcountry within the larger scope of mosque design in the West. Each of theten chapters is written by a different author: architects, architectural historians,philosophers, politicians, and other experts. Titled with a provocativequestion, the introductory short commentary ties together what may at firstseem like disparate interpretations of the contemporary mosque’s role anddesign ...
Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran
Authors: Mozafari Arshavez
Published: October 2020

One cannot think of politicized Islam in Iran without thinking of the IranianLeft’s formation and overall history. The awkward yet symbiotic relationshipbetween them continues to impact how political decisions are made,especially at the parliamentary level. Given the Left’s wide-ranging linkageswith surrounding regions, including the Causacus (early twentieth century)and the Arab Middle East (particularly during the 1970s), experts dealingwith those regions’ politics would benefit from this work. As one of theMiddle East’s strongest leftist movements before the 1980s, any discussionof neighboring revolutionary movements must at least consider it. Althoughthis book assumes familiarity with twentieth-century Iran’s secular politicsand might be considered too dense, its rather large bibliographic section ismeant to encourage individual intellectual pursuits.Many contemporary scholars of the Iranian Left agree on its adherents’general lack of critical self-reflection throughout the twentieth century.Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran offers a forum for criticalreassessments of organizational platforms along with constructive propositionsmeant to enhance the viability of left-leaning programs – especiallysocial-democratic initiatives. This latter point is crucial, because severalcontributors deliberately state the importance of rejuvenating the Leftthrough social democratic reformism. Historical examples are used to provethis option’s viability over the more “rigid” Marxist-Leninist and Stalinistexamples ...
Seyyed Hossein Nasr with Ramin Jahanbegloo, In Search of the Sacred
Authors: MacDonald Matthew A.
Published: October 2020

In Search of the Sacred, as the subtitle indicates, lets readers in on a widerangingconversation between Seyyed Hossein Nasr, one of the world’smost prolific Muslim intellectuals, and his cousin, Ramin Jahanbegloo,about Nasr’s life and thought. Terry Moore provides a fine, admirably conciseintroduction, which, like many introductions to Nasr’s thought, occasionallyborders on the hagiographic.Those who are relatively unfamiliar with Nasr’s life, let alone histhought, will learn a lot from this highly readable book and, hopefully,be inspired to read some, or more, of his prodigious oeuvre. It would beof particular interest to students of Islam, comparative religion, religiousstudies, philosophy of religion, political philosophy and theory, and traditionalstudies. Those who are familiar with Nasr’s work, meanwhile, maynot learn much that is new here, although they may gain a different perspectiveor new insights on certain aspects of Nasr’s thought. At times, itfeels as though you are sitting in the same room as Nasr and Jahanbegloo,which is certainly a treat ...
Defining Iran
Authors: Behbahani Leyli I.
Published: October 2020

Shabnam Holliday’s Defining Iran: Politics of Resistance is a timely investigationof the Iranian national identity. Through careful discursiveanalysis of a number of texts, including primary sources – speeches, statements,and interviews – as well as articles on the Iranian identity in generaland national identity in particular, Holliday seeks to show how discoursesand counter-discourses emerge and shape the ways Iranians imagine anddefine their national identity. Such deconstruction regards texts producedsince the Pahalvis reign as a preface to her main focus on those producedduring and after Seyyed Mohammad Khatami’s presidency. By lookingat the genealogy of tensions and dynamics between Irānīyat (referring topre-Islamic Iran), Islāmīyat (referring to Islam, namely Persian Shi’i), andthe Western influences in defining what it means to be Iranian, Hollidayillustrates the roots of the “contemporary Iranian national identity” and“Iranian cosmopolitanism” (127) ...
Observing the Observer
Authors: Warren David H.
Published: October 2020

This publication, a collection of ten essays incorporating both quantitative andqualitative studies, has emerged as part of a lengthy research project conductedby the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Center for Islamand Public Policy (CIPP) beginning in 2004 and concluding in 2007. Naturally,given the state of relations between the United States and those countries perceivedas comprising the “Muslim World,” as well as regular controversies andscandals relating to the American Muslim minority and those who purport toobserve, study, and teach others about them and their religion, such a study isparticularly welcome. The studies included are aimed at both students and specialists,not only in the field of “Islamic studies” itself, but also more broadlywith regard to such related academic fields as theology and anthropology. Anotheraudience is the more general interested reader who might wish to learnwhat may (or may not) have changed in that field attacked so successfully inEdward Said’s great polemic, that its title Orientalism ultimately entered Islamicstudies as a truly condemnatory and pejorative slogan ...
Christian and Muslim Dialogues
Authors: Johnston David
Published: October 2020

In his first book David Bertaina, assistant professor of religion in the Universityof Illinois’ History Department (Springfield), makes an important contributionto our knowledge of Christian-Muslim relations in the first fivecenturies of the Islamic era. Also a scholar with the Institute of Catholic Culturein McLean, VA, he is critical of many interreligious dialogues today, asthey tend to be straightjacketed by liberal ideals of tolerance and neutrality.The result is that, unlike the robust and dynamic dialogue literature in the earlycenturies of Islamdom that took “seriously the truth claims of its participantsin matters of faith and reason,” much of which passes now for interfaith conversationavoids what is most precious to each side in the name of “neutrality.”Another lesson we can draw from the past is the importance of highlightingthe issue of power when different communities of faith come together to debate. Not surprisingly, much interfaith dialogue today, he notes, can often feel“oppressive” to Muslims, at least to some extent, as it did for Christians livingunder Islamic rule – even in the heyday of cosmopolitan Abbasid Baghdad.An historian and Semitic languages specialist, Bertaina trains his sightson the ancient Near Eastern literary genre of interreligious dialogue, whichcan be traced back to Plato and other early Greek writers, and which Christiansleveraged in their own polemics with Jews in the fifth and sixth centuries CE.Between the second and fifth centuries AH, both Muslims and Christians usedthe dialogue genre to communicate their own convictions about religious truth,in both apologetic and polemical modes. While they were mostly addressingtheir own communities, they also sought to persuade the religious other. Infact, this was a discourse that also functioned as “a means to fulfill epistemiccommitments such as that of Christians to evangelization and Muslims to mission(da’wa)” (p. 3) ...
Toward Our Reformation
Authors: Johnston David L.
Published: October 2020

Understandably, Muslims tend to bristle at the common quip by non-Muslims

(especially in the West) that Islam is badly in need of a “Reformation” – referring

to the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation that, despite the violence

it unleashed in Europe for the next two centuries, did actually engender

some positive changes within the Catholic church. No people, regardless of

who they are or where they live, like outsiders telling them that they need to

set their house in order.

This book, by contrast, is written by an insider telling other insiders (Muslims)

that Islamic law needs serious revamping, a weighty charge indeed. The

author faces an extra hurdle based on the fact that he does not belong to the

traditional ulama class, the gatekeepers of Islamic jurisprudence. Farooq earned

a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Tennessee, taught in the United States

for over a decade, and now heads the Bahrain Institute for Banking and Finance’s

Centre for Islamic Finance. Rashid Rida would have said in his day

that Farooq represents the new face of the ulama: one well versed in many aspects

of the Islamic sciences and yet, because of his parallel expertise in the

modern sciences, one who could provide indispensable guidance to society in

the name of Islam.

Why does Islam need a reformation? Much of the book seeks to expose

the abuse, misapplication, and distortion of the Shari‘ah committed by states

and individual ulama alike, for it “is being used to rubber stamp extremist, violent

behavior, the abuse of women, and the unfair control and imprisonment

of human beings” (p. 16). Speaking of South Asia in particular, he writes that

the following are “prevalent”: “[t]he torture and persecution of brides over

their dowry, the throwing of acid onto girls who do not either want to accept

a proposal of marriage or to concede to extramarital sex, the practice of honor

killings and so on …” (p. 86) ...
Muslim Diaspora in the West
Authors: Piela Anna
Published: October 2020

This excellent edited collection unpicks and disputes multifarious and intricate

processes that underpin the homogenization, otherization, and vilification of

immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, Muslim citizens, and individuals

with a Muslim cultural background in the group of countries known as “the

West.” It does so through presenting a selection of essays that offer an insight

into the localized, day-to-day realities of people whose lives are currently defined

by their link to Islam. The focus on gender, home, and belonging emphasizes

the particular challenge faced by Muslim women: Their bodies are

the battleground for the ideological wars fought by western governments on

the one hand, and by political Islamists on the other (pp. 30-31).

At the same time, media outlets and governmental policies portray and

essentialize all Muslims as a single, uniform community defined exclusively

by their Muslimness, thereby ignoring any of their differences based on “national

origin, rural-urban roots, class, gender, language, lifestyle and degree

of religiosity, as well as political and moral conviction” (p. 2). As all of the

essays demonstrate, these concerns about representation remain valid, despite

the critiques of historical and contemporary orientalism published by Edward

Said over thirty years ago notwithstanding: Orientalism (1979) and Covering

Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of

the World (1981).

The collection is a result of two conferences held in Toronto (2006) and

Amsterdam (2008) to discuss these issues. It is organized around four themes:

discourse, organizations, and policy; sexuality and family; youth; and space

and belonging. The first theme is represented by different perspectives from

the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Halleh Ghorashi

analyzes the disempowering effects of supposedly “empowering courses” for

immigrant women of Muslim backgrounds and indicates how women themselves

critique the terms on which such courses are delivered. Fauzia Erfan

Ahmed writes about the deteriorating situation for female American Muslim

community leaders who are forced into silence despite a long history of female

leadership since the time of slavery. Cassandra Balchin’s chapter focuses on

Muslim women’s refusal to cede the discourse of their legal rights to both the

governments and to patriarchal males within Muslim communities, who are ...
Young British Muslims
Authors: Hamid Sadek
Published: October 2020

Most popular and academic interest in the subject of British Muslim communities

in recent years can be located within the context public debates around

the visible presence of western Muslims and fears of radicalization and religious

extremism. The 7/7 London bombings of 2005, which increased the attention

of journalists, researchers, and government policymakers on Muslim

young people, has resulted in numerous books, reports, and journal articles

purporting to explain why some young British Muslims seem attracted to terrorism.

The title under review joins a handful of similar publications that provide

more nunanced observations in this field, notably, Philip Lewis’ Young,

British, and Muslim(2007), Anshuman Mondal’s Young British Muslim Voices

(2008), and Sughra Ahmed’s Seen and Not Heard: Voices of Young British

Muslims (2009), all of which explore the lives, experiences, and views of

young Muslims in Britain.

This important subject area warrants deep research and rigorous analysis.

Nahid Afrose Kabir’s extensive ethnographic fieldwork draws upon 216 interviews

with young people aged between fifteen and thirty from five of

Britain’s main cities with substantial Muslim communities. Structured around

the themes of identity, religion, and culture, it also includes responses to questions

of citizenship and loyalty, media bias, recent controversies around the

niqab (face veil), and reactions to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments

on implementing aspects of the Shari‘ah in the country. Overall, it makes a

contribution to the nascent field of Muslim youth studies by offering windows

into the hopes and aspirations of young British Muslims as well as presenting ...
The Future of the Arab Spring
Authors: Sardar Ziauddin
Published: October 2020

To understand how the Arab Spring may evolve over the coming years, we

have to understand its specific context. The “revolutions” across the Middle

East are not just a product of discontent and fury against dictatorships; after

all, the Arabs have been raging against their rulers for well over half a century.

The Arab Spring is also a creation of a particular period of time, a time in

which globalization, interconnection, and instant communication are the norm,

and authority and political legitimacy are in flux. It is a period of uncertainty,

ambiguity, chaotic behavior, and rapid change that I have elsewhere described

as “postnormal times.”1Moreover, as Nader Hashemi has observed, “the Arab

Spring is not a single event but rather a long-term process of political change.

Its precipitating factors were both political and economic; and while history

has yet to render its ultimate judgment, fundamental questions remain about

how best to understand the nature, character, and trajectory of Arab revolts.”2

I contend that we need to grasp the context of postnormal times, which served

as a catalyst for the Arab revolts and within which the long-term process of

political transformation is taking place, to comprehend the dynamics of the

Arab Spring and anticipate its trajectory.

To appreciate the reality of contemporary times, it is important to realize

that the problems of the Arab state, indeed the problems of all societies, national

as well as international, are complex. The politics of a democracy, the

questions of economic reforms, the hopes and aspirations of a diverse and

pluralistic society, the stubbornness of entrenched institutions such as the police

and the military, are all complex issues that do not have simple or straightforward

answers. Complexity is enhanced by the fact that all such problems ...
British Asian Muslim Women, Multiple Spatialities, and Cosmopolitanism
Authors: Piela Anna
Published: October 2020

This book is a valuable contribution to the growing body of research on theexperiences and identities of British Muslim women. Intersections betweengender, ethnicity, and Islam only became a prominent theme in British socialsciences when the need for a careful and fair investigation of Muslim women’srealities arose during the last decade due to the unfolding of several Islamorientedpolicy debates (i.e., politicians’ critiques of the niqab) and the introductionof legislation designed to tackle “violent extremism” and “honorcrimes.” The way these matters were represented in the media and policy documentshas recycled and reinforced the age-old Orientalist stereotypes of Muslimwomen as silent and passive victims of patriarchal oppression.The author challenges these stereotypes, which are often expressedthrough depictions of Muslim women as spatially anchored and restricted.Thus this book focuses on cosmopolitan practices, particularly spatial andsocial transitions, among second-generation British Asian Muslim women.This approach brings together Bhimji’s earlier work, in particular articlesdealing with these women’s online interactions focused on religion (2005),travelling to and belonging in South Asia (2008), and religious study circles(2009). The monograph is updated with new themes (e.g., case studies ofprominent artists) and applies the analytic lens (viz., the concepts of spatialitiesand cosmopolitanism) adopted in her article on traveling overseas, toall of the issues discussed.The idea of these women crossing geographical, political, and socialboundaries runs throughout the book in order to identify how the stereotypemay be challenged. Bhimji demonstrates that cosmopolitanism, commonlyunderstood as a rejection of localized identities in favor of global ones andwhich is based on social, cultural, and economic privilege, may also be interpretedas a willingness to cross boundaries and engage with difference. Asboundaries and differences form a range of spaces, Bhimji builds her argumentby utilizing a multi-method approach to her data. Not only does she engagein “traditional” ethnographic research with the women attending mosquebasedstudy groups in northern England, as well as women who travel to SouthAsia and beyond, but she also includes media texts, online discussion transcripts,and case studies (i.e., a comedian, a poet, a visual artist, and a political ...