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What is wrong with Islamic economics? takes an objective look at the state of the art in Islamic economics and finance. It analyses reasons for perceived stagnation and also suggests a way forward. As well as probing various myths, the book presents several innovative ideas and a methodology for developing the subject on new foundations. It also highlights weaknesses in the conventional position on prohibition of interest, which has led Islamic banks devise a series of legal tricks. The author notes how the original aim of devising a new brand of banking has become less prominent whilst.

The paper explores the economics behind two large-scale rebellions in Japan throughout 1532–1536 and 1570–1580, launched by a religious organization called Honganji. The paper argues that Honganji’s large-scale rebellions took off primarily due to religious reforms, particularly, the creation of an after-life pardon doctrine, which enabled the functioning of more potent incentives that fostered participation. First, the doctrine raised the costs of not joining a rebellion by excluding the non-participants and consigning them to hell. This resulted in immediate spiritual, social and economic penalties, as condemned individuals were considered religiously corrupt and were expelled from the sect’s temple towns and sect-dominated village communities. Second, the after-life pardon doctrine reduced the costs of rebellious participation by guaranteeing an instant rebirth in paradise after dying for the sect’s cause. As many individuals at the time saw the world through the lens of religion and spirituality, the guarantee of paradise was an especially potent incentive to join a rebellion.

The Republican era of China witnessed three primary positions regarding Buddhist monastic robe reform. Taixu advocated preserving canonical forms (法服) for ritual garments while adapting regular robes (常服) to contemporary needs; Dongchu proposed diminishing ritual distinctions by establishing a tripartite hierarchical system—virtue-monk robes (德僧服), duty-monk robes (職僧服), and scholar-monk robes (學僧服); and Lengjing endorsed the full secularization of monastic robes. As a reformist leader, Taixu pursued reforms grounded in both doctrinal authenticity and contextual responsiveness. His initial advocacy for robe modifications, however, rendered him a target for traditionalists like Cihang, who conflated his measured approach with the radicalism of Dongchu’s faction. Ultimately, the broader Buddhist reform collapsed, with robe controversies serving as a critical lens into its failure. The reasons for its failure include not only wartime disruption and inadequate governmental support, but also the structural disadvantages of the reformists compared to the traditionalists, which proved decisive. This was due to the fact that the traditionalists mostly controlled monastic economies, wielded institutional authority, and commanded discursive hegemony, reinforced by lay Buddhist alignment. These debates crystallize the core tension in Buddhist modernization—the dialectic between “disenchantment” and “preservation of monastic discipline”. This dynamic of negotiated adjustment offers a vital historical framework for navigating contemporary Buddhism’s engagement with modernity.

The varied career of the Medideval Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330--1397) led him from Norwich Cathedral Priory to Oxford, Avignon and Rome. This volume presents recent research on Easton's oeuvre, his diplomacy and the books that accompanied him on his travels.

This study examines the responses of Reformed Christians living in the Carpathian Basin to ecclesiastical challenges that emerged after 1944. Focusing on the example of Reformed pastors in Transcarpathia, it explores the impact of the post-World War II transition on their communities—a shift not only in direction, but also in governance and national affiliation. The paper investigates a myth-forming episode within the collective memory of Reformed Christians, who found themselves in a unique borderland context. From a narrower perspective, the analysis reveals the relational and mental frameworks of pastoral groups, their differing interpretative coordinates, and the various ways they embodied their faith. These differences led to divergent understandings of the Church’s identity and mission, exposing internal mental fault lines. The fragmentation of group identity, brought to light during the 1947 conflict between the traditional national Church and the Eastern Friendship Circle, raised the possibility of schism. Intriguingly, atheist Soviet officials played a decisive role in preventing this split on two separate occasions.

Although there is growing agreement between scholars about the crucial role of Maraimalai Adigal in the early stage of the Tamil nationalist movement, the state of current understanding of this “religious phase of Tamil nationalism” is far from satisfactory. Authors of this article focused on three important claims in the currently accepted view on the character and goals of Adigal’s religious reform. The first stance portrays his efforts for purification of the Tamil language from foreign influences as “anti-Aryan” and “anti-Sanskritic.” The second claim describes the reformer’s efforts as a move from polytheism to “Shaiva monotheism”, and builds on ideas of the early Orientalists and Christian missionaries in India who formulated the “Sanskritic hegemony” thesis. As an assumption running through the debates about Adigal’s reforms, there is conviction that the Tamil intellectual basically accepted the crystallizing Aryan Invasion Theory as true description of both Ancient India and roots of the social problems in Tamilnadu of his times. In their thorough analysis of Adigal’s work and scholarly debates, authors of this article disclose the role of unexamined assumption about religious competition being the main form of cultural encounters in India, and argue for very different understanding of Adigal’s efforts to revive Shaivism.

Following an introduction by editors Michael Van Dussen and Pavel Soukup, the volume A Companion to the Hussites is divided into five parts. Each part contains articles which include Olivier Marin's \"The Early Bohemian Reform,\" Petra Mutlova's \"Major Hussite Theologians before the Compaetata,\" and Blanka Zilynska's \"The Utraquist Church after the Compaetata.\"

The closure of religious communities throughout England, commonly known as the ‘dissolution of the monasteries’, was commenced in 1536 and completed to all intents and purposes by 1540, resulting in what one commentator has recently described as ‘the greatest dislocation of people, property and daily life since the Norman Conquest’. This was an important part of Henry VIII’s break with Rome and served as a means not only of further establishing his new authority as supreme head of the Church of England but also as a fundraising mechanism. Ireland’s religious communities, as part of the Tudor kingdoms, now also fell (in theory, at least) under the control of the Crown and were therefore due for closure from the mid-1530s onwards. But in reality, due to the limited power held by the Crown throughout much of Ireland, the only religious houses to be dissolved were those in the Pale, the most English part of Ireland (inter Anglicos, encompassing mainly Counties Dublin, Meath, Tipperary and Kildare, as well as some other areas). In the Gaelic part of Ireland (inter Hibernicos), the king’s writ, which in theory was law, did not actually run, so much so that in one case, the commissioners appointed to inspect a religious house in Granard, County Longford, merely noted that they did not do so, ‘for fear of the wild Irish’. The dissolution process in Ireland was drawn out and took place in two stages, with a second wave of monastic dissolutions in the 1570s and 1580s, long into Elizabeth’s reign. This was just one arm of the queen’s expansionist movement into parts of the island hitherto out of the reach of Tudor administration. Although the Reformation process in Ireland as a whole can ultimately be said to have been a failure, the dissolution process (in parts of the island, at least) was a success, one of the very few triumphs of Henry’s Irish Reformation programme. Vast tracts of property and land exchanged hands, a land grab that was facilitated by characters such as William Brabazon, the Irish vice-treasurer whose corruption was notorious. Despite this, a small number of communities managed to escape closure and continued on, protected by their local communities and gentry. Since the early 1970s, Brendan Bradshaw and others have written of the Henrician ‘first wave’ of dissolutions, but little consideration has been given to the later wave of closures that took place in parts of Gaelic Ireland that had previously been out of the Crown’s reach. This essay will survey the closures of the 1530s before discussing the dissolutions that took place in the later sixteenth century, and by doing so, it is hoped, will present a new consideration of these events that irrevocably altered Ireland’s landscape and society.