States across the Muslim world are faced with challenges associated with a perpetual cycle of conflict and violence organized along sectarian lines. To understand modern-day sectarianism, it is essential to move beyond explanations that focus predominantly on ancient Sunni-Shia animosities or a singular lens. It is important to engage in interdisciplinary and multidirectional examinations to better understand how sectarianism is strategically utilized by political entrepreneurs. Moreover, while religious identities and how individuals define themselves and their communities are important, it is also integral to analyze how identity has been utilized in historical and contemporary political contexts on state and non-state levels. This volume seeks to fill gaps in understanding the complexities associated with sectarianism through a transnational interdisciplinary analytical framework to enhance understanding of the socio-political, religio-political, cultural and security landscapes of the Middle East and South Asia. It also challenges narratives regarding sectarian divisions between Sunnis and Shias and deconstructs popular misconceptions about sectarianism, its spatial and temporal impact, as well as its influence on identities, conflict, and competition. The volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of the Middle East and South Asia, and those interested in history, politics, international relations, international security, religion, and sociology.

States across the Muslim world are faced with challenges associated with a perpetual cycle of conflict and violence organized along sectarian lines. To understand modern-day sectarianism, it is essential to move beyond explanations that focus predominantly on ancient Sunni-Shia animosities or a singular lens. It is important to engage in interdisciplinary and multidirectional examinations to better understand how sectarianism is strategically utilized by political entrepreneurs. Moreover, while religious identities and how individuals define themselves and their communities are important, it is also integral to analyze how identity has been utilized in historical and contemporary political contexts on state and non-state levels. This volume seeks to fill gaps in understanding the complexities associated with sectarianism through a transnational interdisciplinary analytical framework to enhance understanding of the socio-political, religio-political, cultural and security landscapes of the Middle East and South Asia. It also challenges narratives regarding sectarian divisions between Sunnis and Shias and deconstructs popular misconceptions about sectarianism, its spatial and temporal impact, as well as its influence on identities, conflict, and competition. The volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of the Middle East and South Asia, and those interested in history, politics, international relations, international security, religion, and sociology.

This book analyses the growth of sectarian-based terrorist violence in Pakistan, one of the Muslim majority states most affected by sectarian violence, ever since it was established in 1947. Sectarian violence among Muslims has emerged as a major global security problem in recent years. The author argues that the upsurge in sectarian violence in Pakistan, particularly since the late 1970s, has had less to do with theological differences between the various sects of Islam, but is a consequence of the specific political, social, economic, demographic and cultural changes that have taken place in Pakistan since it was established as an independent state. A major theme of the book is the increasing violence, extent and expressions of sectarian conflict which have emerged as new forms of sectarian terrorism. The volume provides an in-depth empirical case study which addresses some major theoretical questions raised by Critical Terrorism Studies researchers in respect of the links between religion and sectarian terrorism in Pakistan and more widely. This book will be of much interest to students of critical terrorism studies, Asian politics and history, religious studies and International Relations in general.

As the Middle East descends ever deeper into violence and chaos, 'sectarianism' has become a catch-all explanation for the region's troubles. The turmoil is attributed to 'ancient sectarian differences', putatively primordial forces that make violent conflict intractable. In media and policy discussions, sectarianism has come to possess trans-historical causal power. This book trenchantly challenges the lazy use of 'sectarianism' as a magic-bullet explanation for the region's ills, focusing on how various conflicts in the Middle East have morphed from non-sectarian (or cross-sectarian) and nonviolent movements into sectarian wars. Through multiple case studies -- including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and Kuwait -- this book maps the dynamics of sectarianisation, exploring not only how but also why it has taken hold. The contributors examine the constellation of forces -- from those within societies to external factors such as the Saudi-Iran rivalry -- that drive the sectarianisation process and explore how the region's politics can be de-sectarianised. Featuring leading scholars -- and including historians, anthropologists, political scientists and international relations theorists -- this book will redefine the terms of debate on one of the most critical issues in international affairs today.

An examination of the relationship between imperial collapse, the emergence of successor nationalism, the exclusion of ethnic groups and the refugee experience. Written by both established authorities and younger scholars, this book offers a unique international comparative approach to the study of refugees at the end of empire

The mesmerizing story of two countries caught in history whose rivalry can destroy the world or restore its peace, this is the first book to untangle the complex relationship of Saudi Arabia and Iran by rejecting heated rhetoric and looking at the real roots of the issue to promise pathways to peace.

The Indian Ocean interregional arena is a space of vital economic and strategic importance characterized by specialized flows of capital and labor, skills and services, and ideas and culture. Islam in particular and religiously informed universalism in general once signified cosmopolitanism across this wide realm. This historical reality is at variance with contemporary conceptions of Islam as an illiberal religion that breeds intolerance and terrorism. The future balance of global power will be determined in large measure by policies of key actors in the Indian Ocean and the lands that abut it rather than in the Atlantic or the Pacific. The interplay of multiple and competing universalisms in the Indian Ocean arena is in urgent need of better understanding. Oceanic Islam: Muslim Universalism and European Imperialism is a fresh contribution to Islamic and Indian Ocean studies alike, placing the history of modern South Asia in broader interregional and global contexts. It refines theories of universalism and cosmopolitanism while at the same time drawing on new empirical research. The essays in the volume bring the best academic scholarship on Islam in South Asia and across the Indian Ocean in the age of European empire to the readers.

This volume presents a carefully edited and translated collection of Pre-Columbian ancient spiritual texts. It presents relevant examples of those sacred writings of the indigenous peoples of Central America, especially Mexico, that have survived destruction. The majority of texts were conceived in the 950-1521 A.D. period. Their authors were primarily anonymous sages, priests and members of the ancient nobility. Most were written in Nahuath (also known as Aztec or Mexican), in Yucatec and Quiche-Maya languages.

Interest in Shi'a Islam has increased greatly in recent years, although Shi'ism in the Indian subcontinent has remained largely underexplored. Focusing on the influential Shi'a minority of Lucknow and the United Provinces, a region that was largely under Shi'a rule until 1856, this book traces the history of Indian Shi'ism through the colonial period toward independence in 1947. Drawing on a range of new sources, including religious writing, polemical literature and clerical biography, it assesses seminal developments including the growth of Shi'a religious activism, madrasa education, missionary activity, ritual innovation and the politicization of the Shi'a community. As a consequence of these significant religious and social transformations, a Shi'a sectarian identity developed that existed in separation from rather than in interaction with its Sunni counterparts. In this way the painful birth of modern sectarianism was initiated, the consequences of which are very much alive in South Asia today.

This fascinating book uncovers the hidden stories behind Pakistan’s fixation with blasphemy–tales of revenge, political scheming and sovereign betrayal. Hussain’s account opens in nineteenth-century colonial Punjab and traces blasphemy killings to the present, linking their emergence to polemic encounters between Hindu and Muslim revivalist sects, namely the Arya Samaj and the Ahmadiyya. It offers, for the first time, the arresting backstories to the assassinations of Pandit Lekh Ram, a leading Hindu nationalist; Swami Shraddhanand, an early progenitor of Hindu nationalism and the principal advocate for converting Muslims; and Rajpal, the Hindu publisher of a sensationalist book on the Prophet Muhammad. Revenge, Politics and Blasphemy in Pakistan then maps the curious afterlives of these killings, illuminating the most critical moments in Pakistan’s history: 1953, when outraged protestors smashed stores owned by religious minorities, triggering the country’s first state of emergency; 1974, when Islamist parties pressured Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to put blasphemy on the constitutional agenda; 1984, when Zia-ul-Haq transformed Pakistan according to his Islamist vision, which included more severe punishments for blasphemy; and the twenty-first century, when digital media has dramatically increased the visibility of blasphemy killings, prompting political parties to demonstrate their commitment to the cause.