Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Islamic Studies

" I]t is extremely salubrious to see the ways Islam works in the lives of ordinary people who are not politicized in their religious lives.... No other book on South Asia has material like this." --Ann Grodzins Gold

In Amma's Healing Room is a compelling study of the life and thought of a female Muslim spiritual healer in Hyderabad, South India. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger describes Amma's practice as a form of vernacular Islam arising in a particular locality, one in which the boundaries between Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity are fluid. In the "healing room," Amma meets a diverse...

This book examines the authority of saints in Islam and their ability to build communities among Muslims in North Africa. It analyzes the power generated in religious communities through their allegiance to saints, a power usually identified with the term "Sufism." In the late 15th and 16th centuries, a community of Sufis in Fes (Fez), Morocco, and other urban centers in North Africa advocated this paradigm of sainthood during a time of intense political and religious crisis. Juridical sainthood, a concept that fuses Islamic legal rectitude and devotional piety, was the center of their...

"Dr. Farhat Moazam has written a wonderful book, based on her extraordinary first-hand study.... S]he is an exceptionally gifted and evocative writer. Her book not only has the attributes of a superb piece of intellectual work, but it has literary artistic merit." --Renee C. Fox, Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania

This is an ethnographic study of live, related kidney donation in Pakistan, based on Farhat Moazam's participant-observer research conducted at a public hospital. Her narrative is both a "thick" description of renal...

Presenting a picture of the world giving rise to Islamic terrorism, "From the Terrorists' Point of View" argues that terrorism arises from a deep and pervasive identity crisis in Islamic societies. The account presented in these 10 chapters is shaped by the author's first-hand experiences of life in the Islamic world, as well as his more than quarter-century of research on the psychology of conflict and radicalism. Moghaddam shows us why individuals who are recruited into terrorist organizations are convinced it is the only viable alternative. They believe there are no effective legal...

Suicide bombers are often compared to smart bombs. From the point of view of their dispatchers, they are highly effective, inexpensive forms of weaponry, and there is no need to invest in their technological development. Suicide bombers are in fact smarter than smart bombs because they can choose their own target--and they can react to circumstances on the ground, changing their target, or their timing, in an instant, to ensure the maximum damage, destruction, and death. Of course, unlike smart bombs, suicide bombers think and feel, they have histories, stories, beliefs, desires--in short,...

This innovative study examines patterns of change in Shi'i symbols and rituals over the past two centuries to reveal how modernization has influenced the societal, political, and religious culture of Iran. Shi'is, who support the Prophet Mohammad's progeny as his successors in opposition to the Sunni caliphate tradition, make up 10 to 15 percent of the world's Muslim population, roughly half of whom live in Iran. Throughout the early history of the Islamic Middle East, the Sunnis have been associated with the state and the ruling elite, while Shi'is have most often represented the...

A passionate personal journey through two cultures in conflict

Shortly after militant Islamic terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, Tamim Ansary of San Francisco sent an e-mail to twenty friends, telling how the threatened U.S. reprisals against Afghanistan looked to him as an Afghan American. The message spread, and in a few days it had reached, and affected, millions of people-Afghans and Americans, soldiers and pacifists, conservative Christians and talk-show hosts; for the message, written in twenty minutes, was one Ansary had been writing all his life....

Soon after the bombs stopped falling on Kabul, award-winning journalist and women's rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city. This is her trenchant report from the city where she spent the next four winters working in humanitarian aid. Investigating the city's prison for women, retraining Kabul's long-silenced English teachers, Jones enters the lives of everyday women and men and reveals through small events some big disjunctions: between the new Afghan "democracy" and the still-entrenched warlords, between American promises and performance, between what's boasted of and...

There are as many as six million Muslims living in the United States, and in American Islam, Paul M. Barrett takes us into their homes, mosques, and private gatherings, from West Virginia to Los Angeles, depicting a population of striking variety. In vivid, subtle, artful prose, Barrett tells seven stories of American Muslims in all their stereotype-defying complexity. Theirs is a dramatic new chapter in the American story, and American Islam is an intimate and vibrant group portrait of American Muslims today.

The debate over the underlying causes of the clash between Hindus and Muslims which continues to polarize India is the central concern of this volume. Syed Nesar Ahmad challenges popular viewpoints regarding the Hindu-Muslim conflict by asserting that, although instrinsic differences between the two cultures do exist and this schism has been somewhat fueled by the cultural conditions in colonial India, the emergence and growth of the conflict is primarily the result of social and economic forces, both global and regional, that has caused the initial differences to intensify into cultural...

Islamic Thought is a fresh and contemporary introduction to the philosophies and doctrines of Islam. Abdullah Saeed, a distinguished Muslim scholar, traces the development of religious knowledge in Islam, from the pre-modern to the modern period. The book focuses on Muslim thought, as well as the development, production and transmission of religious knowledge, and the trends, schools and movements that have contributed to the production of this knowledge. Key topics in Islamic culture are explored, including the development of the Islamic intellectual tradition, the two foundation...

Presenting bold and original insights, this book examines the policies and diplomacies pursued by Arab and Western governments, while discussing both the political and cultural roles played by the modern Arab World. It explores the various facets of the malaise affecting the Arab world, stressing the urgent call for reform and recovery, as well as the need to address major issues including inter-Arab affairs, relations with a hegemonic USA, and peace with Israel.

In addition, the book provides new perspectives on a range of topics including Arab and Muslim diplomacy,...

Political Islam and Violence in Indonesia presents a penetrating new investigation of religious radicalism in the largest Muslim country in the world.

Indonesia is a country long known for its diversity and tolerant brand of Islam. However, since the fall of Suharto, a more intolerant form of Islam has been growing, one whose adherents have carried out terrorist attacks, waged sectarian war, and voiced strident anti-Western rhetoric.

Zachary Abuza's unique analysis of radical Islam draws upon primary documents such as Jemaah Islamiyah's operations manual,...

This is a new and engaging examination of the emergence of a Muslim women's movement in India. The state of Bhopal, a Muslim principality in central India, was ruled by a succession of female rulers throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most notably the last Begam of Bhopal, Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam.

Siobhan Lambert-Hurley puts forward the importance for early Muslim female activists to balance continuity and innovation. By operating within the framework of Islam, these women built on traditional norms in order to introduce incremental change in terms of veiling, female...

Anyone who wants to understand what militant Muslims think has to understand what they read-and they read Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual father of Islamic fundamentalism. Qutb, an Egyptian literary critic and philosopher who was appalled by American decadence, gained prominence in the Muslim Brotherhood, was imprisoned by Nasser, and hanged in 1966. Through his death and prolific writings he became a martyr for the cause of political Islam. His work is virtually unknown outside the Muslim world, but Qutb is at the heart of the intellectual rationale for jihad and violence in the name of...

Moving from the year 1204, when Persianized Turks from North India annexed the former Hindu states of...