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The Power of Sovereignty explores the religio-political and philosophical concepts of Sayyid Qutb, one of the most influential political thinkers for contemporary Islamists and who has greatly influenced the likes of Osama Bin Laden. Executed by the Egyptian state in 1966, his books continue to be read and his theory of jahiliyya ‘ignorance’ is still of prime importance for radical Islamic groups. Providing a detailed perspective of Sayyid Qutb’s writings, this book examines: the relation between the specifics of the concept of hakimiyyah and that of jahiliyyah the force and intent of these two concepts how Qutb employs their specifics to critically assess the political establishments like nationalism and capitalism the influence of the two concepts on Egypt’s radical Islamic movements, where many of al’Qa’ida’s lieutenants, officers, ideologues and conspirators were fomented Shedding light on Islamic radicalism and its intellectual origins The Power of Sovereignty presents new analysis on the intellectual legacy of one of the most important thinkers of modern Islamic revival. Qutb’s Photograph. Qutb’s Article. Dedication. Acknowledgement. Introduction Part 1: Religio-Political Discourse 1. Sovereignty 2. Servitude 3. Universality of Islam Part 2: Philosophical Discourse 4. The Innate Character and Moral Constitution 5. Human Intellect 6. The Universe Part 3: Face to Face 7. Sovereignty and Political Establishments 7.1 Nationalism 7.2 Capitalism 7.3 Socialism 7.4 Communism 7.5 Democracy Part 4: Influences and Responses 8. Egypt’s Islamic Movement: Influences and State Responses 8.1 The Military Technical Academy Groups 8.2 The Society of Muslims 8.3 The Society of Jihad

In the face of Islam's own internal struggles, it is not easy to see who we should support and how. This report provides detailed descriptions of subgroups, their stands on various issues, and what those stands may mean for the West. Since the outcomes can matter greatly to international community, that community might wish to influence them by providing support to appropriate actors. The author recommends a mixed approach of providing specific types of support to those who can influence the outcomes in desirable ways.

Islamization of knowledge (islāmiyyat or aslamat al-ma‘rifah) has emerged as one of the most significant Muslim global intellectual enterprises over the past half-century. Its efforts to integrate Islamic epistemology with Western knowledge systems have, however, subjected it to extensive criticism, a subset of which dismisses it as an ideological programme aimed at reviving religion, defying secularism, and subverting Western universal values. This article focuses on this subset of criticism and analyses its discourse by framing it within the broader context of the “Muslim Question.” Reminiscent of the historical Jewish Question, the “Muslim Question” continues to serve as a lens through which Islam and Muslims are systematically constructed as a problem. To retrace and investigate the inherent structure shared by the “Muslim Question” and this criticism, this study undertakes a discursive analysis of the decades-long critique of Bassam Tibi. It puts the criticism within the broader narrative of crisis; however, distinguishing it from the European rhetoric of the “crisis of Islam,” and questions it at the intersection of reasonable critique and Islamophobia. This article concludes that a critique of the Islamization of knowledge and its recent facet, knowledge integration (al-takāmul al-ma‘rifī), should acknowledge the plurality and diversity within Muslim intellectual traditions and resist homogenizing them under reductive categories. Such a merited study will have the potential to promote a more nuanced and balanced engagement with the intricate realities of contemporary Muslim thought and practice.

This research explores the concept of religious universalism and its potential impact on expressions of Islamic devotion within Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The study aims to investigate how Islamic practices and beliefs can serve as a deterrent against the proliferation of religious extremism. By examining various dimensions of Islamic religiosity in these countries, this research seeks to uncover the ways in which a broad and inclusive interpretation of religion can contribute to countering the influence of radical ideologies. Through an analysis of religious rituals, educational frameworks, and cross-faith engagements, this study offers insights into the capacity of religious universalism to mitigate the advancement of religious extremism across diverse cultural and social contexts. Contribution This research enhances our understanding of how universality of religion can serve as a deterrent against religious extremism by examining its manifestations within the contexts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The findings offer practical insights and recommendations that can inform policies and initiatives aimed at fostering tolerance, inclusivity, and harmony within diverse religious societies.

This article revisits the controversy over the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s sympathetic, yet critical and provocative, views on Islam and fundamentalist terrorism as developed in his ‘A Glance on the Archives of Islam.’ Žižek, I argue, offers an original reading of the universality of Islam and its political potentiality, by reactualizing the originary impulse in Hegel’s dialectical analysis of Islam as endogenous to the series of monotheistic religions, without falling into the trap of either Hegel’s racist Orientalist, Eurocentric, and Islamophobic views about Islam or their antithetical Islamocentric views. First, I show that Žižek rejects Hegel’s emphasis on both Islam’s temporal incongruity and the Islamic unique conception of an abstract and transcendent God. Instead, Žižek reloads Hegel’s dialectical views and manages to resolve the deadlock in Hegel’s approach to Islam that could not account for the universality of Islam. Second, I draw out the political aspect of Žižek’s philosophical analysis of Islam, by examining his claim that Islam is the most politicized religion today. Grounding the emergence of political Islam in the encroachment of modernization project on the Islamicate world, he notes the ambiguity about sacrifice (martyrdom and terrorism) in Islam and attributes the rise of Islamic extremism (violence) to the contradictions and impasses of the global capitalist system.

This book summarizes all the topics in the Risale-i Nur, the author's great multivolume commentary on the Qur'an, and provides an outline for the later, more famous and massive treatise. Now available in English, it offers an overview of the material treated in the Risale-i Nur and an opportunity to browse through brief entries such as Flower, Spark, and Whiff, each of which is a keyword linked to a passage in the Qur'an or a figure of speech in a theological argument.

Al-Mathnawi Al-Nuri is a short summary of the topics covered in the author's great multivolume commentary on the Qur'an, the Risale-i Nur, and provides an outline for the later, more famous and massive treatise. Now available in English, it offers an opportunity to browse through brief entries such as 'Flower,' 'Spark,' and 'Whiff,' each of which is a keyword linked to a passage in the Qur'an or a figure of speech in a theological argument.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to appraise various service quality models and identify issues for future research based on the analysis of literature.Design methodology approach - The paper examines 14 different service quality models reported in the literature applicable to the banking sector. The critical review of the different service quality models is intended to compile the various dimensions which emerged out of the studies, compare the commonality between them, study their relevance and importance in banking in the various cultural and cultural contexts and highlight the limitations of the studies.Findings - The review of various service quality models in banking revealed that the meaning of service quality may have some universal aspects, as demonstrated by the similarities in the underlying dimensions as proposed in the different studies. This paper lends support to the contention that the dimensionality of SERVQUAL and importance of the dimensions vary with the cultural and country context even within the banking industry.Research limitations implications - This paper comprises a compiled report on the different service quality models and the effect of application of SERVQUAL in banking in different countries.Practical implications - Service quality has some common dimensions across the different models, however, the items involved and their operationalization in different cultural contexts within the same banking sector may vary. The paper indicates that a generic instrument for measurement of service quality or even one specifically developed for banking may not be applicable in its original form for all cultural contexts including Islamic society and banks. Development of the customized scale for measuring the service quality for a particular cultural or country context at that particular time is warranted. This paper brings a lot of information on service quality in banking under one roof and provides new directions to service quality researchers.Originality value - This paper offers practical help to researchers and practitioners in providing a direction for service quality improvement by indicating the common theme that emerges from the service quality models. Also, the differences in the relevance and importance of the dimensions, due to the change in the cultural and country contexts, have been brought to the forefront.