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From the origins of Muhammad's prophetic movement through the development of Islam's principal branches to the establishment of the Umayyad dynasty, the concept of authority has been central to Islamic civilization. By examining the nature, organization, and transformation of authority over time, Dabashi conveys both continuities and disruptions inherent in the development of a new political culture. It is this process, he argues, that accounts for the fundamental patterns of authority in Islam that ultimately shaped, in dialectical interaction with external historical factors, the course of Islamic civilization. The book begins by examining the principal characteristics of authority in pre-...
"Key Themes for the Study of Islam" examines the central themes and concepts indispensable to an informed understanding of Islamic religion and society. From Gender and History to Prayer and Prophecy, each authoritative chapter focuses on a single aspect of the religion and presents a critical discussion written by a world expert in that field. Exposing as false the idea that Islam and Muslims are incomprehensible to Western culture, this book will become the first choice for students and experts in religion from disparate fields, who wish to know how Islam relates to vital concepts in religion and society today.
This collection of case studies, covering the period from classical Islam to the present, and taken from across the Islamic world, compares the role of women across time and space.
This study examines how religious authority was distributed in early Islam. It argues the case that, as in Shi'ism, it was concentrated in the head of state, rather than dispersed among learned laymen as in Sunnism. Originally the caliph was both head of state and ultimate source of religious law; the Sunni pattern represents the outcome of a conflict between the caliph and early scholars who, as spokesmen of the community, assumed religious leadership for themselves. Many Islamicists have assumed the Shi'ite concept of the imamate to be a deviant development. In contrast, this book argues that it is an archaism preserving the concept of religious authority with which all Muslims began.
Introduction: Cultivating Islam -- Part I. Authority in Motion: 1. Figures -- 2. Texts -- 3. Institutions -- Part II. Assembling Authority: 4. Itineraries -- 5. Infrastructures -- 6. Politics -- 7. Genealogies -- Epilogue: Authority and Universality -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.
Offering a detailed analysis of the structure of authority in Islamic law, this book focuses on the figure of Yahyā b. Sharaf al-Nawawī, who is regarded as the chief contributor to the legal tradition known as the Shāfi'ī madhhab in traditional Muslim sources, named after Muhammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi'ī (d. 204/820), the supposed founder of the school of law. Al-Nawawī’s legal authority is situated in a context where Muslims demanded to stabilize legal disposition that is consistent with the authority of the madhhab, since in premodern Islamic society, the ruling powers did not produce or promulgate law, as was the case in other, monarchic civilizations. Al-Nawawī’s place in the lo...
Focuses on Middle Eastern Muslim majority societies in the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. This work contains papers which highlight the scope and variety of religious authorities in Muslim societies.
Gary R. Bunt is a twenty-year pioneer in the study of cyber-Islamic environments (CIEs). In his new book, Bunt explores the diverse and surprising ways digital technology is shaping how Muslims across vast territories relate to religious authorities in fulfilling spiritual, mystical, and legalistic agendas. From social networks to websites, essential elements of religious practices and authority now have representation online. Muslims, embracing the immediacy and general accessibility of the internet, are increasingly turning to cyberspace for advice and answers to important religious questions. Online environments often challenge traditional models of authority, however. One result is the r...
Drawing on both religious and secular sources, this challenging book argues that divinely ordained law is frequently misinterpreted by Muslim authorities at the expense of certain groups, including women. Khaled Abou El Fadl cites a series of injustices in Islamic society and ultimately proposes a return to the original ethics at the heart of the Muslim legal system.
Followers of Muhammad b. ’Abd al-Wahhab, often considered to be Islam’s Martin Luther, shaped the political and religious identity of the Saudi state while also enabling the significant worldwide expansion of Salafist Islam. Studies of the movement he inspired, however, have often been limited by scholars’ insufficient access to key sources within Saudi Arabia. Nabil Mouline was granted rare interviews and admittance to important Saudi archives in preparation for this groundbreaking book, the first in-depth study of the Wahhabi religious movement from its founding to the modern day. Gleaning information from both written and oral sources and employing a multidisciplinary approach that combines history, sociology, and Islamic studies, Mouline presents a new reading of this movement that transcends the usual resort to polemics.