American Murids is a major new ethnography of an African Sufi Muslim immigrant community in the United States. It is particularly timely given the current contentious discourse concerning Muslims and immigration. By listening to what Murids say about themselves, author Jonathan Bornman gives us the first ever look at how the spiritual and ethical values of Murids in the diaspora influence the ways they interact with other communities in New York City.No other religious gro...

In "Old Roads, New Friends," author Adam G. Fleming, "the friendliest guy on the Camino," shares his reflections on El Camino de Santiago, a 200-mile hike from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. IN spite of spending a great deal of time alone, the author finds friendships with other pilgrims developing at warp speed. Fleming explores questions such as: What is the value of an old road? How do we make space for new friendships? What's the difference between a traveler, a wand...

Europe's Angry Muslims traces the routes, expectations and destinies of immigrant parents and the plight of their children, transporting both the general reader and specialist from immigrants' ancestral villages to their new enclaves in Europe. It guides readers through Islamic nomenclature, chronicles the motive force of the Islamist narrative, offers them lively portraits of jihadists, and takes them inside radical mosques and into the minds of suicide bombers. Through interview...

Europe, Globalization, and the Coming Universal Caliphate analyzes the modern political trends and strategies that are leading to major changes in Western civilization, America included, since the OIC strategy targets America also. Learning from the European experience is crucial for Americans. Moreover this evolution is inscribed in the historical movement of Islamic theology and expansionism. It is not fortuitous but it has its own theological and political structure that must b...

Providing a record of the first six months of the war waged by the Israeli army after the 7 October attacks and drawing on a rich range of international sources, Didier Fassin examines how most Western governments have acquiesced in and often contributed to the destruction, by the Israeli army, of Gaza, its homes, infrastructures, hospitals, institutions of education, and civilian population. To justify their support and prevent criticism, they have provided an official version of the even...

A Winner of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa 2023 Bernard Lewis PrizeLandes, a medievalist and historian of apocalyptic movements, takes us through the first years of the third millennium (2000-2003), documenting how a radical inability of Westerners to understand the medieval mentality that drove Global Jihad prompted a series of disastrous misinterpretations and misguided reactions that have shaped our so-far unhappy century. These misi...

In this powerful, but accessible new study, John Bowen draws on a full range of work in social anthropology to present Islam in ways that emphasise its constitutive practices, from praying and learning to judging and political organising. Starting at the heart of Islam - revelation and learning in Arabic lands - Bowen shows how Muslims have adapted Islamic texts and traditions to ideas and conditions in the societies in which they live. Returning to key case studies in Asia, Africa and Wes...

As Syria’s anti-authoritarian uprising and subsequent civil war have left the country in ruins, the need for understanding the nation’s complex political and cultural realities remains urgent. The second of a two-volume series, Syria from Reform to Revolt: Culture, Society, and Religion draws together closely observed, critical and historicized analyses, giving vital insights into Syrian society today.With a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, contributors reveal how...

The French government's 2004 decision to ban Islamic headscarves and other religious signs from public schools puzzled many observers, both because it seemed to infringe needlessly on religious freedom, and because it was hailed by many in France as an answer to a surprisingly wide range of social ills, from violence against females in poor suburbs to anti-Semitism. Why the French Don't Like Headscarves explains why headscarves on schoolgirls caused such a furor, and why the furor...

This passionate book describes the author's struggles as a hijab-wearing Muslim woman, who was born and raised in Tunisia, where she attended university before coming to Quebec, Canada as an immigrant. Mazigh describes her struggles against Islamophobia as it applies to women, especially those wearing hijab, who consistently get stereotyped as silent and compliant women dominated by their men. In great detail she describes this phenomenon, encountered in the streets and public spaces, in u...

This collection critically examines "tolerance," "secularism," and respect for religious "diversity" within a social and political system dominated by Sufi brotherhoods. Through a detailed analysis of Senegal's political economy, essays trace the genealogy and dynamic exchange among these concepts while investigating public spaces and political processes and their reciprocal engagement with the state, Sunni reformist and radical groups, and non-religious organizations. The anthology provid...

How has ISIS been able to muster support far beyond its initial constituency in the Arab world and attract tens of thousands of foreign volunteers, including converts to Islam, and seemingly countless supporters online? In this compelling intervention into the debate about ISIS' origins and future prospects, the renowned French sociologist, Olivier Roy, argues that while terrorism and jihadism are familiar phenomena, the deliberate pursuit of death has produced a new kind of radical violen...