Well known throughout the Islamic world as the foundational thinker for a significant portion of the contemporary Muslim intelligentsia, Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and was jailed by Gamal Abdul Nasser’s government in 1954. He became one of the most uncompromising voices of the movement we now call Islamism and is perhaps best known for his book, Ma`lam fi al-tariq.A Child from the Village was written just prior to Qutb’s convers...

Public interest in the religion of Islam and in Muslim communities in recent years has generated an impetus for Western Universities to establish an array of Institutes and programs dedicated to the study of Islam. Despite the growth in number of programs dedicated to this study, very little attention has been paid to the appropriate shape of such programs and the assumptions that ought to underlie such a study.The Teaching and Study of Islam in Western Universities attempts to add...

Although they are typically portrayed by the media as dangerous extremists in distant lands, Muslims in fact form a permanent, peaceful and growing population in nearly every Western country. While Westerners are now more commonly seeing mosques in their neighborhoods or scarved Muslim women in their streets, misperceptions and stereotypes remain. With expanding numbers and desires to protect their rights and identities, Muslims are coming into more and more into the public view. In Mu...

In Muslim Integration: Pluralism and Multiculturalism in New Zealand and Australia, contributors from a range of backgrounds investigate the state of Muslim integration in New Zealand and Australia. The growing presence of a Muslim minority has invited these two Pacific settler states to closely consider the question of Muslim integration into Western society. This collection discusses the future of religio-cultural pluralism, multicultural policies, and the growing demands for greater emp...

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of Islamic studies find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult...

Tariq Ramadan is very much a public figure, named one of Time magazine's most important innovators of the twenty-first century. He is among the leading Islamic thinkers in the West, with a large following around the world. But he has also been a lightning rod for controversy. Indeed, in 2004, Ramadan was prevented from entering the U.S. by the Bush administration and despite two appeals, supported by organizations like the American Academy of Religion and the ACLU, he is still barred from ...

Aysha Hidayatullah presents the first comprehensive analysis of contemporary feminist interpretations of the Qur'an. Synthesizing prominent feminist readings of the Qur'an in the United States since the late twentieth century, she provides an essential introduction to this nascent field of Qur'anic scholarship and engages in a deep investigation-as well as a radical critique-of its methods and approaches. With a particular focus on feminist "impasses" in the Qur'anic text, she ar...

Many Westerners view Islam as a religion that restricts and subordinates women in both private and public life. Yet a surprising number of women in Western Europe and America are converting to Islam. What attracts these women to a belief system that is markedly different from both Western Christianity and Western secularism? What benefits do they gain by converting, and what are the costs? How do Western women converts live their new Islamic faith, and how does their conversion affect thei...

In todays ever-changing and often uncertain world, encouraging healthy dialogue between all cultures and religions is vital. In Beyond the Clash of Civilizations, Mohamed Wa Baile carefully explores how Muslims and people of other faiths can achieve a peaceful coexistence instead of being victims of conflict.Wa Baile, a follower and practitioner of Islamic religion, has had the privilege of unconditional access to study Muslim communities in Switzerland. There, for the pas...

Islam, Context, Pluralism and Democracy aspires to clarify the tensions and congruences between the revelational and the rational, the text and the context, the limits and the horizons of contextualization in Islam, as these emanate from the Islamic interpretative tradition.This book examines classical and modern Muslim interpretations with regard to the concepts of diachronic development, pluralism and democracy based on Arabic-Islamic sources and literature. Focusing on ...

Islam's Predicament with Modernity presents an in-depth cultural and political analysis of the issue of political Islam as a potential source of tensions and conflict, and how this might be peacefully resolved.Looking at the issue of modernity from an Islamic point of view, the author examines the role of culture and religion in Muslim society under conditions of globalisation, and analyses issues such as law, knowledge and human rights. He engages a number of significant ...

The new and updated editionof Political Islam, World Politics and Europe focusses on the shift within political Islam, in light of 9/11 and the events of the Arab Spring, from a jihadist struggle, to institutional Islamism.Refuting what has often been referred to by commentators as the ‘moderation,’ of Islamism, the second edition of this book introduces the concept of ‘institutional,’ Islamism, a process which Tibi argues was accelerated in the aftermath of the Arab Sprin...