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Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands brings into conversation the distinct fields of tafs=ir (Qur'anic exegesis) studies and women's studies by exploring significant shifts in modern Qur'anic commentaries on the subject of women. Hadia Mubarak places three of the most influential, Sunni Qur'anic commentaries in the twentieth century- Tafs=ir al-Man=ar, F=i Zil=al al-Qur'an, and al-Tahr=ir wa'l-Tanw=ir - against the backdrop of broader historical, intellectual, and political developments in modern North Africa. Mubarak illustrates the ways in which colonialism, nationalism, and modernization set into motion new ways of engaging with the subject of women in the Qur'an. Focusing her analysis o...
What does it mean to be modern? This study regards the concept of ‘society’ as foundational to modern self-understanding. Identifying Arabic conceptualizations of society in the journal al-Manar, the mouthpiece of Islamic reformism, the author shows how modernity was articulated from within an Islamic discursive tradition. The fact that the classical term umma was a principal term used to conceptualize modern society suggests the convergence of discursive traditions in modernity, rather than a mere diffusion of European concepts.
The volume investigates flows of knowledge that transcended social, cultural, linguistic and political boundaries. Dealing with different sources such as dictionaries, early printed books, political advice literature, and modern periodicals, the case studies in this anthology cover a time frame from the 15th to the early 20th century. Being concerned with a wide variety of geographical areas, including the Ottoman capital Istanbul, provincial settings like Ottoman Palestine, and also Egypt, Bosnia, Crimea, the Persian realm and Poland-Lithuania, this volume gives transepochal and transregional insights in the production, transmission, and translation of knowledge. In so doing it contributes to current debates in transcultural studies, global history, and the history of knowledge.
Building on the rich scholarly legacy of Gunnar Jarring, the Swedish Turkologist and diplomat, the fourteen contributions by sixteen authors representing a variety of disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences provide an insight into ongoing research trends in Uyghur and Xinjiang Studies. In one way or other all the chapters explore how new research in the fields of history, linguistics, anthropology and folklore can contribute to our understanding of Xinjiang’s past and present, simultaneously pointing to those social and knowledge practices that Uyghurs today can claim as part of their traditions in order to reproduce and perpetuate their cultural identity. Contributors include: Ildikó Bellér-Hann, Rahile Dawut, Arienne Dwyer, Fredrik Fällman, Chris Hann, Dilmurat Mahmut, Takahiro Onuma, Alexandre Papas, Eric Schluessel, Birgit Schlyter, Joanne Smith Finley, Rune Steenberg Jun Sugawara, Äsäd Sulaiman, Abdurishid Yakup, Thierry Zarcone.
A broad discussion about how history and religion contribute to identity politics in contemporary Europe, this book provides case studies exemplifying how public intellectuals and academics have taken an active part in the construction of recent and traditional pasts. Instead of repeating the simplistic explanation as a return of religion, this volume focuses on public platforms and agents and their use of religion as a political and cultural argument. Filled with previously unpublished data gathered from texts, interviews, field observations, artifacts, and material culture, this record challenges stereotypical images of East and Southeast Europe.
The global Muslim population includes a large number of lineal descendants and relatives of the Prophet Muhammad. These kinsfolk, most often known as "sayyid" or "sharif," form a distinct social category in many Muslim societies, and their status can afford them special treatment in legal matters and in the political sphere. This book brings together an international group of renowned scholars to provide a comprehensive examination of the place of the kinsfolk of Muhammad in Muslim societies, throughout history and in a number of different local manifestations. The chapters cover: how the status and privileges of sayyids and sharifs have been discussed by religious scholars how the prophetic descent of sayyids and sharifs has functioned as a symbolic capital in different settings the lives of actual sayyids and sharifs in different times and places Providing a thorough analysis of sayyids and sharifs from the ninth century to the present day, and from the Iberian Peninsula to the Indonesian Archipelago, this book will be of great interest to scholars of Islamic studies, Middle East and Asian studies.
"One of the largest Muslim populations in the world today resides in Southeast Asia. The region has also produced its own pedigree of reformers who have critiqued the limits of Islamic thought and propounded new lines of thinking in the road to construct a better ummah. This book captures the progressive and pluralistic nature of Islamic reformism in Southeast Asia from the mid-twentieth century onwards, a period can now be regarded as the age of networked Islam. Offering a fresh conceptualization that could be well applied in the parts of the Islamic world, the author shows how several influential Muslim intellectuals have given rise to an "Islamic reformist mosaic" in Southeast Asia. Representing different strands of reformist thinking, these shapers of Islam form a unified and coherent frame of thought that distinguishes itself from the ultra-traditionalist and ultra-secularist leanings. This fascinating study is indispensable to anyone interested in understanding the challenges facing Islam and other religions in the modern world"--
This sourcebook offers rare insights into a formative period in the modern history of religions. Throughout the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, when commercial, political and cultural contacts intensified worldwide, politics and religions became ever more entangled. This volume offers a wide range of translated source texts from all over Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, thereby diminishing the difficulty of having to handle the plurality of involved languages and backgrounds. The ways in which the original authors, some prominent and others little known, thought about their own religion, its place in the world and its relation to other religions, allows for much needed insight into the shared and analogous challenges of an age dominated by imperialism and colonialism.
In Bukhara and the Muslims of Russia Allen Frank examines the relationship of Tatars and Bashkirs with the city of Bukhara during the Russian Imperial era. For Muslims in Russia Bukhara’s prestige was manifested in genealogies, fashion, and in the elevated legal status of Bukharan communities in Russia. The historical relationship of Russia’s Muslim communities with Bukhara was founded above all on Bukhara’s reputation as a holy city of Islam, an abode of great Sufis, and a center of Islamic scholarship. The emergence of Islamic reformism critiquing Bukhara’s sacred status, led by Tatar scholars who were trained in Bukhara, created a number of paradoxes. The symbol of Bukhara became an important feature in theological and political debates among Russia’s Muslims.
A pioneering history of cross-cultural knowledge that exposes enduring fractures in unity across the world’s largest continent The nineteenth century saw European empires build vast transport networks to maximize their profits from trade, and it saw Christian missionaries spread printing across Asia to bring Bibles to the colonized. The unintended consequence was an Asian communications revolution: the maritime public sphere expanded from Istanbul to Yokohama. From all corners of the continent, curious individuals confronted the challenges of studying each other’s cultures by using the infrastructure of empire for their own exploratory ends. Whether in Japanese or Persian, Bengali or Arabic, they wrote travelogues, histories, and phrasebooks to chart the vastly different regions that European geographers labeled "Asia." Yet comprehension does not always keep pace with connection. Far from flowing smoothly, inter-Asian understanding faced obstacles of many kinds, especially on a landmass with so many scripts and languages. Here is the dramatic story of cross-cultural knowledge on the world’s largest continent, exposing the roots of enduring fractures in Asian unity.