Focuses on subjects such as family life, marriage, law, human rights, and Muslim extremism before turning to 14 regional surveys on manifestations of Islam in every corner of the globe.

This book brings together edited articles from the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam that are relevant to food culture, health, diet, and medicine in pre-Islamic Muslim societies.

A rapidly expanding Islamic revival movement shows that Islamic rationalism and not jihadism is to define twenty-first century Islam.

The Isma'ili Muslims, a major sect of Shi'i Islam, form a community that is intriguing in its deterritorialized social organization. Informed by the richness of Isma'ili history, theories of transnationalism and globalization, and firsthand ethnographic f

These case studies link genealogical knowledge to particular circumstances in which it was created, circulated and promoted. They stress the malleability of kinship and memory, and the interests this malleability serves. From the Prophet's family tree to the present, ideas about kinship and descent have shaped communal and national identities in Muslim societies. So an understanding of genealogy is vital to our understanding of Muslim societies, particularly with regard to the generation, preservation and manipulation of genealogical knowledge.

Why contemporary Islam is able to support austerely traditional and conservative regimes as well as revolutionary ones is the subject of this collection of essays. Professor Gellner's position is supported by a series of case studies and critical evaluations of rival interpretations.

From the cleric-led Iranian revolution to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, many people have been surprised by what they see as the modern reemergence of an antimodern phenomenon. This book helps account for the increasingly visible public role of traditionally educated Muslim religious scholars (the `ulama) across contemporary Muslim societies. Muhammad Qasim Zaman describes the transformations the centuries-old culture and tradition of the `ulama have undergone in the modern era--transformations that underlie the new religious and political activism of these scholars. In doing so, it provides a new foundation for the comparative study of Islam, politics, and religious change in the contemporary world. While focusing primarily on Pakistan, Zaman takes a broad approach that considers the Taliban and the `ulama of Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and the southern Philippines. He shows how their religious and political discourses have evolved in often unexpected but mutually reinforcing ways to redefine and enlarge the roles the `ulama play in society. Their discourses are informed by a longstanding religious tradition, of which they see themselves as the custodians. But these discourses are equally shaped by--and contribute in significant ways to--contemporary debates in the Muslim public sphere. This book offers the first sustained comparative perspective on the `ulama and their increasingly crucial religious and political activism. It shows how issues of religious authority are debated in contemporary Islam, how Islamic law and tradition are continuously negotiated in a rapidly changing world, and how the `ulama both react to and shape larger Islamic social trends. Introducing previously unexamined facets of religious and political thought in modern Islam, it clarifies the complex processes of religious change unfolding in the contemporary Muslim world and goes a long way toward explaining their vast social and political ramifications.

"This third edition of Ira M. Lapidus's classic A History of Islamic Societies has been substantially revised to incorporate the insights of new scholarship and updated to include historical developments in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Lapidus's history explores the beginnings and transformations of Islamic civilizations in the Middle East and details Islam's worldwide diffusion to Africa, Spain, Turkey and the Balkans, Central, South and Southeast Asia, and North America, situating Islamic societies within their global, political, and economic contexts. It accounts for the impact of European imperialism on Islamic societies and traces the development of the modern national state system and the simultaneous Islamic revival from the early nineteenth century to the present. This book is essential for readers seeking to understand Muslim peoples."--Publisher information.

Many Muslim societies are in the throes of tumultuous political transitions, and common to all has been heightened debate over the place of shari`a law in modern politics and ethical life. Bringing together leading scholars of Islamic politics, ethics, and law, this book examines the varied meanings and uses of Islamic law, so as to assess the prospects for democratic, plural, and gender-equitable Islamic ethics today. These essays show that, contrary to the claims of some radicals, Muslim understandings of Islamic law and ethics have always been varied and emerge, not from unchanging texts but from real and active engagement with Islamic traditions and everyday life. The ethical debates that rage in contemporary Muslim societies reveal much about the prospects for democratic societies and a pluralist Islamic ethics in the future. They also suggest that despite the tragic violence wrought in recent years by Boko Haram and the Islamic State in Iraq, we may yet see an age of ethical renewal across the Muslim world.

Where will Muslim societies be tomorrow? The world is increasingly and constantly changing, making it hard to keep up. This makes the state much more dire and troublesome for those already marginalised – particularly Muslim societies. Normal is no longer capable of upholding the promise of tomorrow’s certainty. These are postnormal times. In this storm of ignorance and uncertainty, Muslim societies stand to lose the most. But this is not destiny. In the cultivation of a new type of literacy – futures literacy – there resides a hope. Muslim Societies in Postnormal Times offers an alternative where we can ‘rescue’ and decolonise our futures. Sardar, Serra, and Jordan take an open and plural approach to the future revealing the true potentials that lie before us. Through detailed analysis of contemporary trends, the road to destruction is revealed. Through identifying and exploring emerging issues, agency through options can allow for positive change. And in the extrapolation of these ideas into scenarios, the authors pave the way for us to navigate our own preferred futures. Their study challenges the reader to think about the future in a new way, redefining the monolithic future as three tomorrows (Extended Present, Familiar Futures, and Unthought Futures), along the way ever watchful for Black Swans, Black Elephants, and the illustrious Black Jellyfish that could disrupt the path ahead. The authors pull no punches in critically evaluating the possibilities and nightmares that could potentially befall Muslim societies. Through a display of creativity and imagination, this book looks beyond the conventional to illuminate impacts in the context of the complex, interconnected world we find ourselves in. This informative and enlightening text will push readers to see beyond popular, yet native notions of present and future. In the exposition of the reader’s ignorance and uncertainty, they will begin to look for the unthought and take agency in recolonising and navigating their preferred tomorrow.