Rigid notions of masculinity are causing crisis in the global Islamic community. These are articulated from the Qur'an, its commentary, historical precedents and societal, religious and familial obligations. Some Muslims who don't agree with narrow constructs of manliness feel forced to consider themselves secular and therefore outside the religious community. In order to evaluate whether there really is only one valid, ideal Islamic masculinity, The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities explores key figures of the Qur'an and Indian-Pakistani Islamic history, and exposes the precariousness of tight constraints on Islamic manhood. By examining Qur'anic arguments and the strict social responsibilities advocated along with narrow Islamic masculinities, Amanullah De Sondy shows that God and women (to whom Muslim men relate but are different from) often act as foils for the construction of masculinity. He argues the constrainers of masculinity have used God and women to think with and to dominate through and that rigid gender roles are the product of a misguided enterprise: the highly personal relationship between humans and God does not lend itself to the organization of society, because that relationship cannot be typified and replicated. Discussions and debates surrounding Islamic masculinities are quickly finding their place in the study of Islam and Muslims, and The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities makes a vital contribution to this emerging field.

This innovative book outlines the great complexity, variety and difference of male identities in Islamic societies. From the Taliban orphanages of Afghanistan to the cafés of Morocco, from the experience of couples at infertility clinics in Egypt to that of Iraqi conscripts, it shows how the masculine gender is constructed and negotiated in the Islamic Ummah. It goes far beyond the traditional notion that Islamic masculinities are inseparable from the control of women, and shows how the relationship between spirituality and masculinity is experienced quite differently from the prevailing Western norms. Drawing on sources ranging from modern Arabic literature to discussions of Muhammad‘s virility and Abraham‘s paternity, it portrays ways of being in the world that intertwine with non-Western conceptions of duty to the family, the state and the divine.

Sovereign Attachments rethinks sovereignty by moving it out of the exclusive domain of geopolitics and legality and into cultural, religious, and gender studies. Through a close reading of a stunning array of cultural texts produced by the Pakistani state and the Pakistan-based Taliban, Shenila Khoja-Moolji theorizes sovereignty as an ongoing attachment that is negotiated in public culture. Both the state and the Taliban recruit publics into relationships of trust, protection, and fraternity by summoning models of Islamic masculinity, mobilizing kinship metaphors, and marshalling affect. In particular, masculinity and Muslimness emerge as salient performances through which sovereign attachments are harnessed. The book shifts the discussion of sovereignty away from questions about absolute dominance to ones about shared repertoires, entanglements, and co-constitution.

First colonized and now living under political oppression, experiencing marginalization, and feeling dejection and humiliation, many Muslim men in and outside Muslim countries have no opportunities to prove themselves as "honorable" or practice "masculinity" in culturally prescribed ways. Troubled and troublesome, many turn to militant jihadist networks to achieve self-actualization and heroism. Terrorist networks, acting as surrogates to national liberation and antiauthoritarian movements, further complicate these dynamics. Maleeha Aslam argues that gender is a fundamental battleground on which al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their types must be defeated. Issues of regressive radicalism, literalism, militancy, and terrorism can only be solved through people-centered interventions. Therefore, governments and civil society should promote an alternative culture of growth, self-expression, and actualization for Muslim men. To achieve sustainable counterterrorism results, Aslam recommends emphasizing masculine behaviour within the context of Muslim tradition and expanding the scope of required interventions beyond those confined to Islam. The book also includes empirical data from a pilot study conducted on Pakistani Muslim masculinities.

The question of Muslim identity–and, more specifically, Muslim masculinities, political loyalty, and action–has become the central pivot for the debate on the place of Islam in the West, state polices on multiculturalism, and even foreign policy towards the Middle East. Young, western-born Muslim men are central figures in these questions, yet their lives and identities remain poorly understood. Political Islam and Masculinity: Muslim Men in Australia reveals important and timely insights into why young Muslim men, often from very similar social backgrounds, are pursuing such dramatically different political paths in the name of Islam. Based on an unprecedented depth of engagement and quality of sources, this book examines the key social influences behind exceptional examples of political action by young Australian Muslim men who have extended their reach into the international realm, from the streets of Jakarta to the battlefields of Syria and Iraq.

This volume provides intimate anthropological accounts of Muslim men’s everyday lives in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and diasporic communities in the West. Amid increasing political turmoil and economic precarity, Muslim men around the world are enacting nurturing roles as husbands, sons, fathers, and community members, thereby challenging broader systems of patriarchy and oppression. By focusing on the ways in which Muslim men care for those they love, this volume challenges stereotypes and showcases Muslim men’s humanity.

This unique study spotlights the role of masculinity in Iranian history, linking masculinity to social and political developments.

Arab Masculinities provides a groundbreaking analysis of Arab men's lives in the precarious aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings. It challenges received wisdoms and entrenched stereotypes about Arab men, offering new understandings of rujula, or masculinity, across the Middle East and North Africa. The 10 individual chapters of the book foreground the voices and stories of Arab men as they face economic precarity, forced displacement, and new challenges to marriage and family life. Rich in ethnographic details, they illuminate how men develop alternative strategies of affective labor, how they attempt to care for themselves and their families within their local moral worlds, and what it means to be a good son, husband, father, and community member. Arab Masculinities sheds light on the most private spaces of Arab men's lives—offering stories that rarely enter the public realm. It is a pioneering volume that reflects the urgent need for new anthropological scholarship on men and masculinities in a changing Middle East.

The handbook provides a broad view of masculinities primarily across the social sciences, but including important debates in areas of the humanities & natural sciences.

Broken Masculinities portrays the post-dictatorial novel of the 1970s in all its complexity, and introduces the reader to a 1968-era Turkey, a period which challenges Turkey?s now reinforced Islamic image by portraying the quest for sexual liberation and critical student uprisings. G?nay-Erkol argues that the literature written after the 1970 coup in Turkey constitutes a coherent sub-genre and needs to be considered together. These novels share a common ground which is rich in images of men and women craving for power: general isolation, sexual-emotional frustration, and a traumatic sense of solitude and alienation. This book is an original and significant contribution to two major fields of study: (1) gender and sexuality with respect to formation of subjectivity through literature, and (2) modern literature and history through the study of Turkish literature. The chief concern in this book is not only literature?s response to a particular period in Turkey, but also the role of literature in bearing witness to trauma and drastic political acts of violence?and coming to terms with them. ÿ