The Tablīghī Jamā'at is a twentieth century faith renewal movement, which is presently operating in more than eighty countries. With millions of participants, its annual conference has become the second largest Muslim congregation after the Hajj. In the absence of official writings and its abstinence from media publicity, the Jamā'at can best be studied by participant observation, as illustrated by the studies of its activities in India, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Morocco and South Africa, which are presented in this volume. Studying the historical and...

Recent events have focused attention on the perceived differences and tensions between the Muslim world and the modern West. As a major strand of Western public discourse has it, Islam appears resistant to internal development and remains inherently pre-modern. However Muslim societies have experienced most of the same structural changes that have impacted upon all societies: massive urbanisation, mass education, dramatically increased communication, the emergence of new types of institutions and associations, some measure of political mobilisation, and major transformations of the economy....

Dispensing Justice is designed to serve as a sourcebook of Islamic legal practice and qadi court records from the rise of Islam to modern times, drawing upon court records and qadi judgments, in addition to literary sources. In the first chapter, we survey the state of the field, sketching the history, structure, and modern transformation of the qadiship. The twenty chapters that follow are grouped thematically in four sections: (1) the nature and functions of the judgeship and its development over time; (2) the structure of the judicial apparatus; (3) the application of juristic...