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Sufis and Salafis in the Contemporary Age explores the dynamics at play between what are usually understood as two very different forms of Islam, namely Sufism and Salafism. Sufism is commonly understood as the peaceful and mystical dimension of Islam whereas Salafism is perceived as strictly pietistic and moralist, and for some it conjures up images of violent manifestations of Islam. Of course these generalisations require more nuanced investigation, and this book provides a number of case studies from around the Islamic world to unpack the intricate relationship between the two. The diversity of the case studies that focus on Islamic groups in India, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey and South...
This is an anthology on the history, politics, and social aspects of Shi'ism including translations of original sources. It examines the historical development of Shi'ism, Shi'i political thought, the status of Shi'i minority communities in the Muslim world, and the life and works of prominent social and political thinkers. The book assesses the extent of the politicization process in Shi'ism in recent years and addresses that important question of the Shi'i attitude towards authority.
Despite late reconsideration, a dominant paradigm rooted in Orientalist essentialisations of Islam as statically legalistic and Muslims as uniformly transgressive when local customs are engaged, continues to distort perspectives of South Asia's past and present. This has led to misrepresentations of pre-colonial Muslim norms and undue emphasis on colonial reforms alone when charting the course to post-coloniality. This book presents and challenges staple perspectives with a comprehensive reinterpretation of doctrinal sources, literary expressions and colonial records spanning the period from the reign of the 'Great Mughals' to end of the 'British Raj' (1526-1947). The result is an alternative vision of this transformative period in South Asian history, and an original paradigm of Islamic doctrine and Muslim practice applicable more broadly.
This famous work from the Royal Asiatic Society is an indispensable tool for all serious students of Persian history and culture, and a welcome companion to Persian Literature in its most glorious period. This volume is the second part of C.A. Storey's History of Qur'anic Literature, including the Additions and Corrections, and Index.
The articles in this volume build up ethnographic analysis complementary to the historiography of South Asian Islam, which has explored the emergence of reformism in the context of specific political and religious circumstances of nineteenth-century British India. Taking up diverse popular and scholarly debates as well as everyday religious practices, this volume also breaks away from the dominant trend of mainstream ethnographic work, which celebrates Sufi-inspired forms of Islam as tolerant, plural, authentic and so on, pitted against a 'reformist' Islam. Urging a more nuanced examination of all forms of reformism and their reception in practice, the contributions here powerfully demonstrate the historical and geographical specificities of reform projects. In doing so, they challenge prevailing perspectives in which substantially different traditions of reform are lumped together into one reified category (often carelessly shorthanded as 'wah'habism') and branded as extremist – if not altogether demonised as terrorist.
A theoretically rich, nuanced history of Islam and Islamic civilization with a unique sociological component This major new reference work offers a complete historical and theoretically informed view of Islam as both a religion and a sociocultural force. Uniquely comprehensive, it surveys and discusses the transformation of Muslim societies in different eras and various regions, providing a broad narrative of the historical development of Islamic civilization. This text explores the complex and varied history of the religion and its traditions. It provides an in-depth study of the diverse ways through which the religious dimension at the core of Islamic traditions has led to a distinctive ty...
Any discussion about Islam these days bring about deep passions, both overt and latent. On both sides of the divide, the main common factor is that of fear. Apparently, this antagonism is between unequals. One side claims technological and material prowess within a civilized society while the other claims righteousness of their cause and the spirit of their faith. All this has given rise to the phenomenon of global heating that has elevated the global temperature in terms of fear, intolerance, terrorism, and open warfare.
The Arain/Rain is an agrarian tribe mainly settled in Punjab and parts of Sindh (now Pakistan). The estimated population of the tribe is more than 10 million. With the partition of India, the bulk of the community moved from East Punjab to West Punjab. The book elaborates all theories related to the origin of the community that has been proposed in last hundred years citing oriental and British accounts. During 18th & 19th centuries, the area was widely popular as Rohilkhand after the name of “Rohilla Afghans” once ruled the region in the 18th century. Its a story of the diasporic community formed in late 18th and early 19th century by few hundred Arain families immigrated from Punjab. T...
An examination of the sources and evolution of personal authority in one Islamic society Sufi Heirs of the Prophet explores the multifaceted development of personal authority in Islamic societies by tracing the transformation of one mystical sufi lineage in colonial India, the Naqshbandiyya. Arthur F. Buehler isolates four sources of personal authority evident in the practices of the Naqshbandiyya—lineage, spiritual traveling, status as a Prophetic exemplar, and the transmission of religious knowledge—to demonstrate how Muslim religious leaders have exercised charismatic leadership through their association with the most compelling of personal Islamic symbols, the Prophet Muhammad. Buehler clarifies the institutional structure of sufism, analyzes overlapping configurations of personal sufi authority, and details how and why revivalist Indian Naqshbandis abandoned spiritual practices that had sustained their predecessors for more than five centuries. He looks specifically at the role of Jama'at 'Ali Shah (d. 1951) to explain current Naqshbandi practices.
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