Lonely Modernist Muslims (Los Angeles Review of Books) (original) (raw)

The Cambridge Companion to American Islam

2013

The Cambridge Companion to American Islam offers a scholarly overview of the state of research on American Muslims and American Islam. The book presents the reader with a comprehensive discussion of the debates, challenges and opportunities that American Muslims have faced through centuries of American history. This volume also covers the creative ways in which American Muslims have responded to the myriad serious challenges that they have faced and continue to face in constructing a religious praxis and complex identities that are grounded in both a universal tradition and the particularities of their local contexts. The book introduces the reader to some of the many facets of the lives of American Muslims that can only be understood in their interactions with Islam's entanglement in the American experiment.

SOCIOLOGY OF ISLAM & MUSLIM SOCIETIES WINTER 2011 2008 Newsletter No. 6

In the Post September 11 era, we have been witnessing a close and multifaceted relationship between state actors and academia. The Aields of Islamic and Middle East Studies -or Central Asian Studies -are the main targets of this co-optation process, which has created its own children that are also embedded in the system of colonialism and beneAit directly from the continuation of this trend. Consequently, Islam has become the target and Muslims the subject of this neo-colonialist process. These new groups of "scholars" should be called 'Neo-Orientalists' but they are less knowledgeable than classical Orientalists, and they have a more complicated relationship with state actors. The state needs them as much as they need the state for status and Ainancial beneAit. Most of these Neo-Orientalists focus on Women and Islam, or Terrorism and Islam; and in this context, they operate from a feeling that they have the responsibility to 'civilize' others. Their contribution to human civilization however, is nothing more than an abstract of Rudyard Kipling's civilization project. Saving a girl from Afghanistan's oppressive Taliban regime, rescuing the Iranian People from Ahmadinejad and the Mullah Regime; regardless of the actual merits of these forms of leadership; and bringing democracy to the 'savage Muslim societies' is the main purpose of Neo-Orientalists. In this sense, Islam is not seen as part of the social structure of Muslim societies, but has been portrayed as an ideological and uncivilized type of cult. Muslims should be liberated from their 'backwards traditions' and from Islam itself, which should at minimum be reformed in the interests of this new encroaching imperialism. Neo-Orientalist academics play an important role in perpetuating and strengthening this process. In this issue, you will read the articles based on a non-orientalist approach to Islam and Muslim Societies.

Contemporary Issues in Islam - Introduction

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 3276 3 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 3277 0 (paperback) ISBN 978 0 7486 3224 4 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 9575 1 (epub)

Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West, 2nd ed.

Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West. Second Edition, edited by R. Tottoli (with introduction, pp. 1-18, London – New York, Routledge, 2022, xv + 558 pp., 2022

With new topics and contributions, this updated second edition discusses the history and contemporary presence of Islam in Europe and America. The book debates the relevance and multifaceted participation of Muslims in the dynamics of Western societies, challenging the changing perception on both sides. Collating over 30 chapters, written by experts from around the world, the volume presents a wide range of perspectives. Case studies from the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula between the Middle Ages and the modern age set off the Handbook, along with an outline of Muslims in America up to the twentieth century. The second part covers concepts around new conditions in terms of consolidating identities, the emergence of new Muslim actors, the appearance of institutions and institutional attitudes, the effects of Islamic presence on the arts and landscapes of the West, and the relational dynamics like ethics and gender. Exploring the influence of Islam, particularly its impact on society, culture and politics, this interdisciplinary volume is a key resource for policymakers, academics and students interested in the history of Islam, religion and the contemporary relationship between Islam and the West.