Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Islamic Studies

Many in the United States and Israel believe that Hamas is nothing but a terrorist organization, and that its social sector serves merely to recruit new supporters for its violent agenda. Based on Sara Roy's extensive fieldwork in the Gaza Strip and West Bank during the critical period of the Oslo peace process, Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza shows how the social service activities sponsored by the Islamist group emphasized not political violence but rather community development and civic restoration.

Roy demonstrates how Islamic social institutions in Gaza and the West...

Despite its emblematic place within contemporary racism and its increasingly important position in defining relations between states and ethnicised minorities, Islamophobia remains a contested, frequently unrecognised and largely under-theorised form of racism.
"The Politics of Islamophobia" provides a definitive contribution to these debates, offering a theoretically sophisticated account which draws upon a series of substantive case studies to position Islamophobia as an expression of racialised governmentality.
By taking into account connections across different national...

Mulids, festivals in honor of Muslim "friends of God," have been part of Muslim religious and cultural life for close to a thousand years. While many Egyptians see mulids as an expression of joy and love for the Prophet Muhammad and his family, many others see them as opposed to Islam, a sign of a backward mentality, a piece of folklore at best. What is it about a mulid that makes it a threat to Islam and modernity in the eyes of some, and an indication of pious devotion in the eyes of others? What makes the celebration of a saint s festival appear in such dramatically different contours?...

- Essential reading for anyone interested in the Middle East today.
- The perfect antidote to prejudice, ignorance and racial injustice.

The level of noise about the Arab world has been steadily rising. In the pastfifteen years outsiders have twice sent armies to war in the Middle East-to liberate Kuwait from Saddam and then to overthrow him in Iraq. Chronic strife has also afflicted Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon and, by extension, Syria. Palestinians and Israelis have seen long periods of violence. The disaster of 9/11 has precipitated "The War on Terror" and scarcely an Arab country...

From Africa to Asia, there are areas that are home to minority and, in some cases, majority groups of Twelver Shia. Geography and history place Iran at the center of these Shia worlds, but to what extent can we speak of an -Iranian model- that these groups follow?

This essential work explores the tenuous relations between these groups and Iran while shedding light on understudied communities, such as those in the Gulf, Turkey, Afghanistan, central Asia, and Senegal.

Sabrina Mervin is a senior researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the...

Many Muslim societies, regardless of location, are displaying a 'youth bulge', where more than half their populations are under the age of 25. An increasingly globalized western culture is rapidly eroding 'traditional' ideas about society, from the family to the state. At the same time, there is a view that rampant materialism is creating a culture of spiritual emptiness in which demoralization and pessimism easily find root. For young Muslims these challenges may be compounded by a growing sense of alienation as they face competing ideologies and divergent lifestyles.
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Many Muslim societies, regardless of location, are displaying a 'youth bulge', where more than half their populations are under the age of 25. An increasingly globalized western culture is rapidly eroding 'traditional' ideas about society, from the family to the state. At the same time, there is a view that rampant materialism is creating a culture of spiritual emptiness in which demoralization and pessimism easily find root. For young Muslims these challenges may be compounded by a growing sense of alienation as they face competing ideologies and divergent lifestyles.
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When the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice announced it would begin offering Sharia-based services in Ontario, a subsequent provincial government review gave qualified support for religious arbitration. However, the ensuing debate inflamed the passions of a wide range of Muslim and non-Muslim groups, garnered worldwide attention, and led to a ban on religiously based family law arbitration in the province. Debating Sharia sheds light on how Ontario's Sharia debate of 2003-2006 exemplified contemporary concerns regarding religiosity in the public sphere and the place of Islam in...