Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Governance And Islam In East Africa: Muslims And The State In Kenya And Tanzania, Farouk Topan, Kai Kresse, Erin E. Stiles, Hassan Mwakimako

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Explores the relationship between Muslim communities and the State in East Africa in political, institutional and legal contexts

• Focuses on the relationship between Muslims and the State in Kenya and Tanzania
• Asks which factors, both within and outside the Muslim community, shape and affect this relationship in contemporary times
• Presents 13 case studies exploring governance issues within and across the categories of politics, institutions and law in Kenya and Tanzania
• Identifies cross-cutting issues of governance and Muslim communities which are relevant beyond East Africa

Recent studies of Muslims in Kenya and Tanzania have tended either to examine governance of Muslims …

From Both Sides Now: Reflections On Recent Methodological Trends In The Study Of Islam, Aaron W. Hughes Prof

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

This is a set of critical reflections on the place and role of ‘theory and method’ within the context of the study of Islam, especially (but not solely) as carried out in the field of religious studies, over the course of roughly the last twenty years. The goal here is not to criticise, but instead to come at this issue of ‘theory and method’ in the study of Islam from a more mature perspective. At present in the field there is a diverse set of attempts to imagine ‘Islam’, not as a theological category that must be defended, but as …

Volume 10: Muslim Cultures Of The Indian Ocean : Diversity And Pluralism, Past And Present, Stephane Pradines, Farouk Topan

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Scholars are increasingly recognising the centrality of the Indian Ocean in the study of Muslim cultures.

This volume explores the expanding and changing roles of these Muslim communities across the Indian Ocean World from the seventh century to the mediaeval period to the present day. The book goes beyond the usual focus on geographical sub-regions to highlight different aspects of interconnectivity in relation to Islam. By analysing textual and material evidence, the fifteen papers in this volume examine identities and diasporas, manuscripts and literature, as well as vernacular and religious architecture. It explores the networks and movements of peoples, ideas …

What Is Islamic Studies?: European And North American Approaches To A Contested Field, Leif Stenberg, Philip Wood

Books

Explores the vibrant, divided and evolving field of Islamic studies in Europe and North America
Covers topics ranging from gender and secularism to pop music and modern science

Discusses contemporary and historical approaches in Islamic Studies

Features contributions from leading scholars studying Islam and Muslims, including Shahzad Bashir, Hadi Enayat, Juliane Hammer, Aaron Hughes, Carool Kersten, Susanne Olsson and Jonas Otterbeck

Addresses the role of both Muslims and non-Muslims in the ongoing construction of Islam
The study of Islam and Muslims in Europe and North America has expanded greatly in recent decades, becoming a passionately debated and divided field. This …

Volume 9: What Is Islamic Studies?: European And North American Approaches To A Contested Field, Leif Stenberg, Philip Wood

Exploring Muslim Contexts

The study of Islam and Muslims in Europe and North America has expanded greatly in recent decades, becoming a passionately debated and divided field. This collection critically assesses the development of the field of Islamic Studies and its place in society. Featuring contributions from anthropologists, historians and scholars of religion, each chapter contains new empirical material and discusses approaches to the study of Islam, past and present.

Key Features

• Covers topics ranging from gender and secularism to pop music and modern science
• Discusses contemporary and historical approaches in Islamic Studies
• Features contributions from leading scholars studying Islam and Muslims, including …

Anti-Veiling Campaigns In Turkey: State, Society And Gender In The Early Republic, Sevgi Adak

Books

The veiling and unveiling of women have been controversial issues in Turkey since the late-Ottoman period. It was with the advent of local campaigns against certain veils in the 1930s, however, that women's dress turned into an issue of national mobilisation in which gender norms would be redefined. In this comprehensive analysis of the anti-veiling campaigns in interwar Turkey, Sevgi Adak casts light onto the historical context within which the meanings of veiling and unveiling in Turkey were formed. By shifting the focus from the high politics of the elite to the implementation of state policies, the book situates the …

One Hundred Years Of Family Law Reform In Parliament, In Court, And On Screen, Gianluca Parolin, Nadia Sonnevald, Nathalie Bernard- Maugiron, Enas Lofti

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

This paper interrogates the very form of collective decision making that legislation signifies, its operationalisation in adjudication, and its interrelation with popular culture. Through the lens of the Egyptian legal system, the paper offers case-studies of collective decision making on matters of personal status, it focuses on the state's different approach towards the regulation of personal status for its Muslim and non-Muslim citizens; in the legal context of the ‘best interests of the child’ it looks at the multiple entanglements of legislation and its eventual actualisation in Egyptian courts; and it uses classical examples of Egyptian cinema popularly associated with …

The Awakening Of Islamic Pop Music, Jonas Otterbeck

Books

No abstract provided.

Legal Translation In A Political Context: The Trick Of Choosing Between Alternatives In Translating Electoral Terms, Zakia Deeb

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

Legal electoral terminology is a specialist subject within the broader legal language discourse. When translating into Arabic, even basic electoral terms can be translated differently in different Arab countries for various reasons due to different sources of inspiration. Most legal electoral terms have a variety of alternative equivalents within the relevant linguistic field or semi-legal domain. This paper discusses such alternatives while presenting problems related to the existing resources in the field. Data collected from the 2012 election of members of the Libyan General National Congress are analysed to test the consistency in selecting from these alternatives. Furthermore, material presented …

The Awakening Of Islamic Pop Music, Jonas Otterbeck

Music & Performance in Muslim Contexts

Awakening – an Islamic media company formed in London – has created the soundtrack to many Muslim lives during the last two decades. It has produced three superstars (Sami Yusuf, Maher Zain and Harris J.) among a host of other artists. As the company celebrates their first 20 years in the industry, Jonas Otterbeck examines their remarkable rise to success and their established reputation as one of the most important global enterprises producing pop music inspired by Islam.

Otterbeck thoroughly describes the history and development of new Islamic popular music genres, in particular pop-nashid and Islamic pop, for the first …

Islamic And Middle East Area Studies Librarianship, Walid Ghali, Waseem Farooq, Paul Auchterlonie, Arnoud Vrolijk

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

The three papers collected here are based on a seminar on Islamic Studies Librarianship held on 31 January 2019 at the Aga Khan Library (AKL), in conjunction with the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC). Curators, area studies directors, and collection librarians, who are currently involved in this field, gathered to discuss common challenges and to identify strategic areas for collaboration.

Secularism In The Arab World: Contexts, Ideas And Consequences, Aziz Al-Azmeh, David Bond

In Translation: Modern Muslim Thinkers

Explores secularism and secularisation in Arab societies since the mid-19th century.

This book is a translation of Aziz al-Azmeh’s seminal work Al-'Ilmaniya min mandhur mukhtalif that was first published in Beirut in 1992. Both celebrated and criticised for its reflections on Arab secularisation and secularism in the modern history of the Arab World, it is the only study to date to approach its subject as a set of historical changes which affected the regulation of the social, political and cultural order, and which permeated the concrete workings of society, rather than as an ideological discussion framed from the outset by …

40 Years On: Reflections On The Iranian Revolution, Sevgi Adak, Touraj Atabaki, Kamran Matin, Valentine M. Moghadam

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

The three articles compiled here are based on a panel discussion held at the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC) on 23 May 2019.

Marking the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, its aim was to revisit the debate on the causes and impact of the revolution for Iran and beyond.

Three questions in particular guided the interdisciplinary dialogue and political reflections on this world historical event: How should we analyse the conditions underpinning the revolutionary dynamics in Iran in the global context of the 1970s? How should the Iranian Revolution be analysed in an …

Volume 8: Gender, Governance And Islam, Deniz Kandiyoti, Nadje Al-Ali, Kathryn Spellman Poots

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Analyses the links between gender and governance in contemporary Muslim majority countries and diaspora contexts.

Following a period of rapid political change, both globally and in relation to the Middle East and South Asia, this collection sets new terms of reference for an analysis of the intersections between global, state, non-state and popular actors and their contradictory effects on the politics of gender.

The volume charts the shifts in academic discourse and global development practice that shape our understanding of gender both as an object of policy and as a terrain for activism. Nine individual case studies systematically explore how …

Volume 6: Contemporary Islamic Law In Indonesia : Sharia And Legal Pluralism, Arskal Salim

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Indonesia has probably the fastest changing legal system in the Muslim world. This book represents the first ethnographic account of legal pluralism in the post-conflict and disaster situation in Aceh. It addresses changes in both the national legal system and the regional legal structure in the province.

Focusing on the encounter between diverse patterns of legal reasoning advocated by multiple actors and by different institutions (local, national and international; official and unofficial; judicial, political and social cultural) it considers the vast array of issues arising in the wake of the December 2004 earthquake and tsunami in Aceh.

It investigates disputes …

Volume 5: Genealogy And Knowledge In Muslim Societies : Understanding The Past, Sarah Bowen Savant, Helena De Felipe

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Genealogy is one of the most important and authoritative organising principles of Muslim societies.

From the Prophet’s day to the present, ideas about kinship and descent have shaped tribal, ethnic, sectarian and other identities. An understanding of genealogy is therefore vital to our understanding of Muslim societies, particularly with regard to the generation, preservation and manipulation of genealogical knowledge.

This book addresses the subject through a range of case studies that link genealogical knowledge to the particular circumstances in which it was created, circulated and promoted. They stress the malleability of kinship and memory, and the interests this malleability served.

The Political Aesthetics Of Global Protest : The Arab Spring And Beyond, Pnina Werbner, Martin Webb, Kathryn Spellman-Poots

Independent Volumes

A remarkable feature of the Arab Spring and other protests that followed in Egypt, India, Botswana and the UK, among other places, has been the salience of images, songs, videos, humour, satire and dramatic performances.

This book explores the central role the aesthetic played in energising the mass mobilisations of young people, the disaffected, the middle classes, the apolitical silent majority, as well as enabling solidarities and alliances among democrats, workers, trade unions, civil rights activists and opposition parties.

Comparing the North African and Middle Eastern uprisings with protest movements such as Occupy, the authors bring to bear an anthropological …

Islam And The Foundations Of Political Power, Ali Abdel Razek, Maryam Loutfi, Abdou Filali-Ansary

In Translation: Modern Muslim Thinkers

The publication of this essay in Egypt in 1925 took the contemporaries of Ali Abdel Razek by storm.

At a time when there was widespread turmoil over the abolition of the caliphate by Ataturk in Turkey, Ali Abdel Razek, a religious cleric trained at Al-Azhar University, argued in favour of secularism.

The abolition of the caliphate had re-ignited the question of Islam and its relationship to political power. This essay unleashed the Arab world’s first great public debate published in the press with polemics supporting or refuting Ali Abdel Razek’s ideas.

Volume 4: Cosmopolitanisms In Muslim Contexts : Perspectives From The Past, Derryl N. Maclean, Sikeena Karmali Ahmed

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Cosmopolitanism is a key concept in social and political thought, standing in opposition to closed human group ideologies such as tribalism, nationalism and fundamentalism. Much recent discussion of this concept has been situated within Western self-perceptions, with little inclusion of information from Muslim contexts.

This volume redresses the balance by focusing attention on instances in world history when cosmopolitan ideas and actions pervaded specific Muslim societies and cultures, exploring the tensions between regional cultures, isolated enclaves and modern nation-states. Models are chosen from four geographic areas: The Swahili coast, the Ottoman empire/Turkey, Iran and Indo-Pakistan.

Interpretations Of Law And Ethics In Muslim Contexts, Aptin Khanbaghi

Muslim Civilisations Abstracts

Law within Muslim societies is not uniform; even within Muslim majority regions it can be interpreted differently according to different denominations and legal traditions. As law forms an integral part of normative social practice, reflecting the moral and ethical principles of a society, it is important to highlight the diversity of interpretations to better enable the study of law along with the ethical principles of a community.

Volume 2 of the MCA series brings together some of the many unheard voices of scholars studying law and ethics in languages other than English. It features 200 abstracts with bibliographical details in …

Volume 3: Ethnographies Of Islam : Ritual Performances And Everyday Practices, Baudouin Dupret, Thomas Pierret, Paulo G. Pinto, Kathryn Spellman-Poots

Exploring Muslim Contexts

This comparative approach to the various uses of the ethnographic method in research about Islam in anthropology and other social sciences is particularly relevant in the current climate. Political discourses and stereotypical media portrayals of Islam as a monolithic civilisation have prevented the emergence of cultural pluralism and individual freedom.

This book counters such discourses by showing the diversity and plurality of Muslim societies and by promoting reflection on how the ethnographic method allows the description, representation and analysis of the social and cultural complexity of Muslim societies in the discourse of anthropology.

The Construction Of Belief : Reflections On The Thought Of Mohammed Arkoun, Abdou Filali-Ansari, Aziz Esmail

Independent Volumes

Mohammed Arkoun was one of the most prominent and influential Arab intellectuals of his day. During a career spanning more than thirty years, he was revered as an outstanding research scholar, a bold critic of the theoretical tensions embedded within Islamic studies and an outspoken public figure, upholding political, social and cultural modernism.

This festschrift honours Mohammed Arkoun’s scholarship, bringing together the contributions of eleven distinguished scholars of history, religious studies and philosophy. It offers a comprehensive selection of critical engagements with Arkoun’s work, reflecting on his considerable influence on contemporary thinking about Islam and its ideological, philosophical and theological …

Islam : Between Message And History, Abdelmadjid Charfi, Abdou Filali-Ansary, Sikeena Karmali Ahmed, David Bond

In Translation: Modern Muslim Thinkers

This book could easily be called ‘A Guide for the Modern Muslim’, someone for whom the sentiments of his or her ancestors resonate but who cannot accept the canonised formulas of a prescriptive education.

Charfi spells out what for him is the essential message of Islam, followed by a history of its unfolding through the person of the Prophet Muhammad, whom he perceives as a visionary seeking to change the ideals, attitudes and behaviours of the society in which he lived. Charfi delineates the message and its history as two separate elements, conflated by tradition.

Charfi confronts with great lucidity …

Volume 2: Development Models In Muslim Contexts : Chinese, 'Islamic' And Neo-Liberal Alternatives, Robert Springborg

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Recent discussions of the 'Chinese economic development model', the emergence of an alternative 'Muslim model' over the past quarter century and the faltering globalisation of the 'Washington Consensus' all point to the need to investigate more systematically the nature of these models and their competitive attractions.

This is especially the case in the Muslim world which both spans different economic and geographic categories and is itself the progenitor of a development model.

The 'Chinese model' has attracted the greatest attention in step with that country's phenomenal growth and therefore provides the primary focus for this book. This volume examines the …

Volume 1: The Challenge Of Pluralism : Paradigms From Muslim Contexts, Abdou Filali-Ansary, Sikeena Karmali Ahmed

Exploring Muslim Contexts

The volume discusses notions of pluralism and its specific relevance to Muslim societies. Current popular and academic discussions tend to make certain assumptions regarding Islam and its lack of compatibility with notions of pluralism. Some notable liberal thinkers have even argued that pluralism itself is inherently antithetical to Islam.

These assumptions are challenged by discussing the broad spectrum of relevance and application of the notion of pluralism to modern day societies, examining securalism, multiculturalism, democracy, globalisation and the pivotal role of civil society.

Encyclopaedias About Muslim Civilisations, Aptin Khanbaghi

Muslim Civilisations Abstracts

Over the past 150 years, numerous encyclopaedias have been produced on Muslim civilisations, both by Muslims and non-Muslims, with different approaches to the organisation of knowledge and understanding of Muslim beliefs, cultures and societies. Access to and knowledge of these reference works and databases have until now been hindered by language barriers. The first volume in the MCA series seeks to overcome this obstacle by presenting material in three languages: English, Arabic and Turkish.

This is a unique reference catalogue containing 200 annotated bibliographies and abstracts of encyclopaedias published during the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Islam På Svenska : Tidskriften Salaam Och Islams Globalisering, Jonas Otterbeck

Books

My PhD dissertation about Islamic discourse in Sweden. It resulted in a few English articles, see below (years around 2000).

The Islamization Of Science. Four Muslim Positions Developing An Islamic Modernity, Leif Stenberg

Books

No abstract provided.