Explore the vast range of titles available.

Much nuance and variability have been lost in the process of the reductivist analysis of Islam post- 9/11 and, as this study amply demonstrates, we are all the poorer as a result. This exhaustive examination of the rise and spread of the Tablighi Jama'at, arguably the world's largest Islamic missionary movement, locates it in the larger perspective of global Islam and developments in the Muslim societies. Combining an overview of the history and current socio-political perception of the Tablighi Jama'at with a more analytical and philosophical approach to fundamental questions of identity, subject-positioning and representation, the author creates a comprehensive resource of interest to all scholars and students of Islam.

Dedicated to supernatural revelation and the divine governance of society, Pakistan's Ahmadi community has endured mob violence and penal sanctions for refusing to embrace the beliefs of the Sunni majority. They disagree with fundamentalist ideas of exclusiveness and consider themselves a reformed version of Islam. Although they have adopted Enlightenment ideas about the pursuit of scientific knowledge and produced a notable number of technicians, doctors, and scientists, women continue to live under a strict definition of purdah and the community remains conservative. The Ahmadis reveals a society strictly grounded in divinely prescribed patterns - including parental authority, close family ties, a disposition towards gender-specific roles, and separation of the sexes - but at odds with fanatical Muslim fundamentalism, whose wrath has spread beyond the Ahmadi minority to include the West.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - Tension, Transmission, Transformation (JCIT) brings together innovative volumes exploring the reception and mediation of ideas and practices in the three monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, from antiquity to the twenty-first century. Monographs, collected works, text editions, and bibliographic databases address their intertwining relations in various historical and geographical contexts. The series is intentionally interdisciplinary, inviting proposals across disciplines dealing with at least two of these three religions. Among the research areas to be studied are, for example, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Latin, and Ottoman cultural spheres; the Enlightenment and modernity in various contexts; imperialism, colonialism, postcolonialism, and globalization. Attention is given to exegesis and intertextuality, political models and patterns of social order, spiritual symbols and images, scholarly interactions and mystical experiences. The series is relevant to scholars as well as to those interested and engaged in interreligious exchange.

Examining the intellectual output of female American Muslim writers and scholars since 1990, Hammer demonstrates that the themes at the heart of women’s writings are central to the debates of modern Islam worldwide.

Investigating the core questions about Arab identity and history, this book tackles the time-honoured stereotypes that depict Arabs as ancient Arabian Bedouin, and reveals the stories to be a myth: tales told by Muslims to recreate the past to explain the meaning of Islam and its origins.

This text challenges existing writing on 'Abd al-Qādir al-Jazā'irī which divides his life into two juxtaposed phases separated by narratives of conversion: from Francophobia to Francophilia, from militarism to pacifism, from activism to quietism, from Islamism to pluralism, from politics to religion.

Some of the most pressing questions in the Middle East and North Africa today revolve around the proper place of Islamic institutions and authorities in governance and political affairs. Drawing on data from 42 surveys carried out in fifteen countries between 1988 and 2011, representing the opinions of more than 60,000 men and women, this study investigates the reasons that some individuals support a central role for Islam in government while others favor a separation of religion and politics. Utilizing his newly constructed Carnegie Middle East Governance and Islam Dataset, which has been placed in the public domain for use by other researchers, Mark Tessler formulates and tests hypotheses about the views held by ordinary citizens, offering insights into the individual and country-level factors that shape attitudes toward political Islam.

The essays focus on identity formation in five minority groups - Copts in Egypt, Baha'is and Christians in Pakistan, Berbers in Algeria and Morocco, and Kurds in Turkey and Iraq. While every minority community is distinctive, the experiences of these groups show that a state's authoritarian rule, uncompromising attitude towards expressions of particularism, and failure to offer tools for inclusion are all responsible for the politicization and radicalization of minority identities. The place of Islam in this process is complex: while its initial pluralistic role was transformed through the creation of the modern nation-state, the radicalization of society in turn radicalized and politicized minority identities. Minority groups, though at times possessing a measure of political autonomy, remain intensely vulnerable.

Examines how violence was described and evaluated in the foundational texts of Islam. How was violence justified in early Islam? What role did violent actions play in the formation and maintenance of the Muslim political order? How did Muslim thinkers view the origins and acceptability of violence? These questions are addressed by an international range of eminent authors through both general accounts of types of violence and detailed case studies of violent acts drawn from the early Islamic sources. Violence is understood widely, to include jihad, state repressions and rebellions, and also more personally directed violence against victims (women, animals, children, slaves) and criminals. By understanding the early development of Muslim thinking around violence, our comprehension of subsequent trends in Islamic thought, during the medieval period and up to the modern day, become clearer. Key Features: Examines the portrayal of violence in a variety of different intellectual contexts * Takes a broad understanding of violence - from warfare between Muslims (and between Muslims and others) to individual acts of violence * Enables a better informed debate about the nature of violence in early Islam * Includes contributions from leading international experts including Michael Cooperson, Maribel Fierro, Geert Jan van Gelder, Christopher Melchert, John Nawas, Andrew Rippin and Dominique Urvoy

Foreigners and Their Food explores how Jews, Christians, and Muslims conceptualize \"us\" and \"them\" through rules about the preparation of food by adherents of other religions and the act of eating with such outsiders. David M. Freidenreich analyzes the significance of food to religious formation, elucidating the ways ancient and medieval scholars use food restrictions to think about the \"other.\" Freidenreich illuminates the subtly different ways Jews, Christians, and Muslims perceive themselves, and he demonstrates how these distinctive self-conceptions shape ideas about religious foreigners and communal boundaries. This work, the first to analyze change over time across the legal literatures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, makes pathbreaking contributions to the history of interreligious intolerance and to the comparative study of religion.