Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Islamic Studies

Writing boards and blackboards are emblematic of two radically different styles of education in Islam. The essays in this lively volume address various aspects of the expanding and evolving range of educational choices available to Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa. Contributors from the United States, Europe, and Africa evaluate classical Islamic education in Africa from colonial times to the present, including changes in pedagogical methods--from sitting to standing, from individual to collective learning, from recitation to analysis. Also discussed are the differences between British,...

A.Kadir Yildirim and other scholars have used the term "Muslim Democrat" to describe moderate Islamist political parties, suggesting a parallel with Christian Democratic parties in Europe. These parties (MDPs) are marked by their adherence to a secular political regime, normative commitment to the rules of a democratic political system, and the democratic political representation of a religious identity. In this book, Yildirim draws on extensive field research in Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco to examine this phenomenon and assess the interaction of economic and political factors in the...

Prozak Diaries is an analysis of emerging psychiatric discourses in post-1980s Iran. It examines a cultural shift in how people interpret and express their feeling states, by adopting the language of psychiatry, and shows how experiences that were once articulated in the richly layered poetics of the Persian language became, by the 1990s, part of a clinical discourse on mood and affect. In asking how psychiatric dialect becomes a language of everyday, the book analyzes cultural forms created by this clinical discourse, exploring individual, professional, and generational cultures of...

Prozak Diaries is an analysis of emerging psychiatric discourses in post-1980s Iran. It examines a cultural shift in how people interpret and express their feeling states, by adopting the language of psychiatry, and shows how experiences that were once articulated in the richly layered poetics of the Persian language became, by the 1990s, part of a clinical discourse on mood and affect. In asking how psychiatric dialect becomes a language of everyday, the book analyzes cultural forms created by this clinical discourse, exploring individual, professional, and generational cultures of...

An Islamic terrorist movement, ISIS (also dubbed IS or ISIL), has taken advantage of the chaotic "Arab Spring" in Syria and Iraq to declare an Islamic Caliphate wherever it has been able to rise to power. This movement is continuously attempting to extend the territory of its rule. The Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Libyan post-Qaddafi desert country have sworn allegiance to the Caliphate and every town that is captured by the fighting forces of ISIS is forced to submit to strict Islamic law.

The Caliphate movement is constantly increasing its power and influence. It is not only...

ISIS also referred to as ISIL, the Islamic State, or Daesh began to assert its power and gain recognition for its militant and terroristic activities in April 2013. After the coordinated attacks in Paris on November 13th, 2015, ISIS has captured the full attention of observers in the West. This accessible book explains what ISIS is, what the group's goals are, what their members believe, and why their ranks are growing. Readers will gain an understanding of how ISIS is a unique group one seeking to be the army of the righteous fighting to defeat the unbelievers and usher in the end of days...

Kenneth Cragg (1913-2012) was one of the West's most gifted interpreters of Islam. In this deeply insightful, classic work of Qur'anic studies, he argues that the West must put aside a "spiritual imperialism" that draws on Western prescripts alien to Muslims and "learn to come within" Islam. Only then can a conversation begin that can relieve the misunderstandings and suspicion that has grown between Islam and the West in the years since 9/11.

Cragg's close and thoughtful readings are as timely and relevant now as they were when The Qur'an and the West was originally...

Westerners 'know' Palestine through images of war and people in immediate distress. Yet this focus has as its consequence that other, less spectacular stories of daily distress are rarely told. Those seldom noticed are the women behind the men who engage in armed resistance against the military occupation: wives of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention and the widows of the martyrs. In Palestine, being related to a detainee serving a sentence for participation in the resistance activities against Israel is a source of pride. Consequently, the wives of detainees are expected to...

For some, the idea of an Islamic state serves to fulfill aspirations for cultural sovereignty and new forms of ethical political practice. For others, it violates the proper domains of both religion and politics. Yet, while there has been much discussion of the idea and ideals of the Islamic state, its possibilities and impossibilities, surprisingly little has been written about how this political formation is lived. For Love of the Prophet looks at the Republic of Sudan's twenty-five-year experiment with Islamic statehood. Focusing not on state institutions, but rather on the daily...

Young British Muslims continue to generate strong interest in public discourse. However, much of this interest is framed in negative terms that tends to associate them with criminality, religious extremism or terrorism. Focusing instead on other aspects of being young, Muslim and British, this volume takes a multidisciplinary approach that seeks to normalise the subjects and focus on their everyday lived realities. Structured into three sections, the collection begins by contextualising the study of young British Muslims, before addressing the sensitive social issues highlighted in the...

The rapid expansion of ISIS and its swathe of territorial gains across the Middle East have been headline news since 2013. Yet much media attention and analysis has been focussed upon the military exploits, brutal tactics and radicalisation methods employed by the group. While ISIS remains a relatively new phenomenon, it is important to consider the historical and local dynamics that have shaped the emergence of the group in the past decade. In this book Simon Mabon and Stephen Royle provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of the roots, tactics and ideology of the group, exploring...

The text of the Qur'an appears to many to be desperately muddled and lacking any coherence. The Composition of the Qur'an provides a systematic presentation of the writing processes (or rhetoric) and argues that there is indeed a coherence to the Qur'anic text. Michel Cuypers shows that the ancient Semitic texts, of which the Qur'an is a part, do not obey the Greek rhetoric and that their basic principle is therefore not progressive linearity, but symmetry which can take several forms, following precise rules. He argues that the knowledge of this rhetorical code allows for a...

The 'Alawis, or Alawites, are a prominent religious minority in northern Syria, Lebanon, and southern Turkey, best known today for enjoying disproportionate political power in war-torn Syria. In this book, Stefan Winter offers a complete history of the community, from the birth of the 'Alawi (Nusayri) sect in the tenth century to just after World War I, the establishment of the French mandate over Syria, and the early years of the Turkish republic. Winter draws on a wealth of Ottoman archival records and other sources to show that the 'Alawis were not historically persecuted as is often...