Download or read book Islam the Alternative written by Murad Wilfried Hofmann and published by Garnet Education. This book was released on 1993 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This work, firmly rooted in classical Islam, is written by a Muslim schooled in law and philosophy, with an intimate knowledge of the Arab world. That he is also a German diplomat in Morocco and a convert to Islam gives his work unique importance amongst those Europeans who seek to understand Islam on a personal level. In an attempt to build bridges, he tackles all those difficult issues which have helped to form both the old and the new images of Islam amongst Europeans." "An important and provocative book, it will further our understanding of the true dimensions of a religion so near to us, yet of which we have so little genuine knowledge; a religion which shapes the lives of a billion people, including increasing numbers of Europeans. It is a book which will also further our understanding of the conflicts between our different religious cultures and perhaps, through greater awareness, find the means to resolve them."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Islam Sharia and Alternative Dispute Resolution written by Mohamed M. Keshavjee and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-30 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The meanings and contexts of Shari'a are the subject of both curiosity and misunderstanding by non-Muslims. Shari'a is sometimes crudely characterised by outsiders as a punitive legal system operating broadly outside, and separate from, national laws and customs. This groundbreaking book shows that Shari'a and its 'fiqh' (laws set forward by various Islamic legal schools) comprise a far more nuanced matrix of interpretations than is often assumed to be the case. Far from being monolithic or impervious to change from without, Muslim legal tradition has - since its beginnings in the early Islamic period - placed an emphasis on equity and non-adversarial conflict-resolution. Mohamed Keshavjee examines both Sunni and Shi'a applications of Islamic law, demonstrating how political, cultural and other factors have influenced the practice of fiqh and Shari'a in the West. Exploring in particular the modern development of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), the author shows that this process can revitalise some of the essential principles that underlie Muslim teachings and jurispudence, delivering not only formal remedies but also perceived justice, even to non-Muslims.
Download or read book A Culture of Ambiguity written by Thomas Bauer and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Western imagination, Islamic cultures are dominated by dogmatic religious norms that permit no nuance. Those fighting such stereotypes have countered with a portrait of Islam’s medieval “Golden Age,” marked by rationality, tolerance, and even proto-secularism. How can we understand Islamic history, culture, and thought beyond this dichotomy? In this magisterial cultural and intellectual history, Thomas Bauer reconsiders classical and modern Islam by tracing differing attitudes toward ambiguity. Over a span of many centuries, he explores the tension between one strand that aspires to annihilate all uncertainties and establish absolute, uncontestable truths and another, competing tendency that looks for ways to live with ambiguity and accept complexity. Bauer ranges across cultural and linguistic ambiguities, considering premodern Islamic textual and cultural forms from law to Quranic exegesis to literary genres alongside attitudes toward religious minorities and foreigners. He emphasizes the relative absence of conflict between religious and secular discourses in classical Islamic culture, which stands in striking contrast to both present-day fundamentalism and much of European history. Bauer shows how Islam’s encounter with the modern West and its demand for certainty helped bring about both Islamicist and secular liberal ideologies that in their own ways rejected ambiguity—and therefore also their own cultural traditions. Awarded the prestigious Leibniz Prize, A Culture of Ambiguity not only reframes a vast range of Islamic history but also offers an interdisciplinary model for investigating the tolerance of ambiguity across cultures and eras.
Download or read book iMuslims written by Gary R. Bunt and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-04-30 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the increasing impact of the Internet on Muslims around the world, this book sheds new light on the nature of contemporary Islamic discourse, identity, and community. The Internet has profoundly shaped how both Muslims and non-Muslims perceive Islam and how Islamic societies and networks are evolving and shifting in the twenty-first century, says Gary Bunt. While Islamic society has deep historical patterns of global exchange, the Internet has transformed how many Muslims practice the duties and rituals of Islam. A place of religious instruction may exist solely in the virtual world, for example, or a community may gather only online. Drawing on more than a decade of online research, Bunt shows how social-networking sites, blogs, and other "cyber-Islamic environments" have exposed Muslims to new influences outside the traditional spheres of Islamic knowledge and authority. Furthermore, the Internet has dramatically influenced forms of Islamic activism and radicalization, including jihad-oriented campaigns by networks such as al-Qaeda. By surveying the broad spectrum of approaches used to present dimensions of Islamic social, spiritual, and political life on the Internet, iMuslims encourages diverse understandings of online Islam and of Islam generally.
Download or read book Islamic Alternatives written by Shahrokh Raei and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Table of Contents -- Body -- List of Plates -- Preface -- Early Shiʻism and Futuwwa -- Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (Paris): New Remarks on Secrecy and Concealment in Early Imāmī Shiʻism: the Case of khatm al -nubuwwa - Aspects of Twelver Shiʻi Imamology XII -- Mohsen Zakeri (Göttingen): From Futuwwa to Mystic Political Thought - The Caliph al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh and Abū Ḥafṣ Suhrawardī's Theory of Government -- Ahl-e Ḥaqq (Yāresān) -- Philip G. Kreyenbroek (Göttingen): Some Remarks on the Early History of the Ahl-e Ḥaqq -- Martin van Bruinessen (Utrecht): Between Dersim and Dālahū - Reflections on Kurdish Alevism and the Ahl-e Ḥaqq Religion -- Yiannis Kanakis (Exeter): Yāresān Religious Concepts and Ritual Repertoires as Elements of Larger Net-works of Socio-Political 'Heterodoxy' - Some Thoughts on Yāresān, Shiite and Qizilbash/Bektashi Sources and Symbolism -- Cultural Anthropological Analysis -- Jürgen Wasim Frembgen (Munich): Beyond Muslim and Hindu - Sacred Spaces in the Thar Desert of Pakistan -- Alexandre Papas (Paris): Dog of God: Animality and Wildness among Dervishes -- Thierry Zarcone (Paris): Sacred Stones in Qalandariyya and Bektashism -- Khāksār -- Mehran Afshari (Tehran): Quṭb al-Dīn Ḥaydar-e Tūnī and his Connection to the Ḥaydariyya and Khāksāriyya -- Shahrokh Raei (Göttingen): Some Recent Issues and Challenges in the Khāksār Order -- Folk Sufism -- Razia Sultanova (Cambridge): Female Folk Sufism in the Central Asian Space-Time Continuum -- Index -- Plates
Download or read book Alternative Paradigms written by Ahmet Davutoğlu and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many scholars were convinced that the existing Western style of life, thought, and political institutions could easily be adapted to Muslim societies by bringing them into line with Islamic belief systems and rules. But after some experiences they were surprised when even intellectuals who had Western academic training remained deeply attached to Islam. In this book, Davutoglu develops a comparative analysis between Western and Islamic political theories and images. His argument contends that the conflicts and contrasts between Islamic and Western political thought originate from their philosophical, methodological, and theoretical background rather than mere institutional and historical differences. The questions of how and through which processes these alternative conceptions of the world affect political ideas via a set of axiological presuppositions are the crux of the book. Contents: Transliteration; Introduction; I. Theoretical Inquiries. Western Paradigm: Ontological Proximity; Islamic Paradigm: Tawhid and Ontological Differentiation; II. Political Consequences. Justification of the Socio-Political System: Cosmologico-Ontological Foundations; Legitimation of Political Authority: Epistemologico-Axiological Foundations; Power Theories and Pluralism; The Political Unit and the Universal Political System; Concluding Comparative Remarks.
Download or read book Islam and America written by Anouar Majid and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: is the enemy of future progress." --Daniel Martin Varisco, Hofstra University, author of Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation --
Download or read book Alternative Voices in Muslim Southeast Asia written by Norshahril Saat and published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This book was released on 2019-12-17 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to some observers, Southeast Asian Islam is undergoing a conservative turn. This means voices that champion humanist, progressive or moderate ideas are located on the fringes of society. Is this assessment accurate for a region that used to be known for promoting the “smiling face of Islam”? Alternative Voices in Muslim Southeast Asia examines the challenges facing progressive voices in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore today. It examines their discourses, which delve into how multiculturalism and secularism are the way forward for the diverse societies of these three countries. Moreover, it analyses the avenues employed by these voices in articulating their views amidst the dominance of state and quasi-state religious officials who seek to restrict and discipline them. Contributors to the volume include scholars, activists and observers, some of whom are victims of repression and discrimination. While most of the chapters cover developments of the last decade, some of them go back to the previous century, capturing the emergence of modernist thinkers influenced by parallel movements in the Middle East and the wider region. Others respond to recent developments concerning Islam and Muslims in the three countries: the Pakatan Harapan coalition victory in the 2018 Malaysian election, the re-election of Joko Widodo as Indonesia’s president in 2019, and recent religious rulings passed in Singapore. Readers should come not only to reflect on the struggles faced by this group but also to appreciate the humanist traditions essential for the development of the societies of these countries in the midst of change.
Download or read book British Muslim Converts written by Kate Zebiri and published by ONEWorld. This book was released on 2008 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only exploration of this unique group in British society, this well-argued and powerful book investigates the fascinating contribution that Western converts to Islam are making to a distinctive take on Islamic thought and discourse. Informed by interviews with British converts as well as published and internet material, Zebiri asks whether converts could act as much-needed mediators in the growing divide between Islam and the West.
Download or read book Beyond Debt written by Daromir Rudnyckyj and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-11-22 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent economic crises have made the centrality of debt, and the instability it creates, increasingly apparent. This realization has led to cries for change—yet there is little popular awareness of possible alternatives. Beyond Debt describes efforts to create a transnational economy free of debt. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Malaysia, Daromir Rudnyckyj illustrates how the state, led by the central bank, seeks to make the country’s capital Kuala Lumpur “the New York of the Muslim world”—the central node of global financial activity conducted in accordance with Islam. Rudnyckyj shows how Islamic financial experts have undertaken ambitious experiments to create more stable economies and stronger social solidarities by facilitating risk- and profit-sharing, enhanced entrepreneurial skills, and more collaborative economic action. Building on scholarship that reveals the impact of financial devices on human activity, he illustrates how Islamic finance is deployed to fashion subjects who are at once more pious Muslims and more ambitious entrepreneurs. In so doing, Rudnyckyj shows how experts seek to create a new “geoeconomics”—a global Islamic alternative to the conventional financial network centered on New York, London, and Tokyo. A groundbreaking analysis of a timely subject, Beyond Debt tells the captivating story of efforts to re-center international finance in an emergent Islamic global city and, ultimately, to challenge the very foundations of conventional finance.
Download or read book The House of Islam written by Ed Husain and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Ed Husain has become one of the most vital Muslim voices in the world. The House of Islam could very well be his magnum opus.” -Reza Aslan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Zealot “This should be compulsory reading.” -Peter Frankopan, author of the international bestseller The Silk Roads Today, Islam is to many in the West an alien force, with Muslims held in suspicion. Failure to grasp the inner workings of religion and geopolitics has haunted American foreign policy for decades and has been decisive in the new administration's controversial orders. The intricacies and shadings must be understood by the West not only to build a stronger, more harmonious relationship between the two cultures, but also for greater accuracy in predictions as to how current crises, such as the growth of ISIS, will develop and from where the next might emerge. The House of Islam addresses key questions and points of disconnection. What are the roots of the conflict between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims that is engulfing Pakistan and the Middle East? Does the Koran encourage the killing of infidels? The book thoughtfully explores the events and issues that have come from and contributed to the broadening gulf between Islam and the West, from the United States' overthrow of Iran's first democratically elected leader to the emergence of ISIS, from the declaration of a fatwa on Salman Rushdie to the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo. Authoritative and engaging, Ed Husain leads us clearly and carefully through the nuances of Islam and its people, taking us back to basics to contend that the Muslim world need not be a stranger to the West, nor our enemy, but our peaceable allies.
Download or read book Islam and Sustainable Development written by Odeh Rashed Al-Jayyousi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Islam and Sustainable Development, Odeh Al-Jayyousi addresses the social, human and economic dimensions of sustainability from an Islamic perspective. Islam is sometimes viewed as a challenge, threat and risk to the West, but here we are reminded that the celebration of cultural diversity is a key component in Islamic values. Promoting common understanding between East and West, this American-educated, Middle Eastern-based author offers something broader and deeper than conventional Western ways of thinking about sustainability and presents new insights inspired by Islamic worldviews. Drawing on his roles as both academic researcher and senior development practitioner, Professor Al-Jayyousi applies his deep understanding of Islamic values to contemporary environmental, financial and social conflicts and crises and defines a framework for sustainability embracing local, regional and global perspectives. He also addresses how education might produce innovation, knowledge creation and development to support a new paradigm for sustainability that re-defines what constitutes good life, beyond consumerism and the production of waste. This book will interest policy makers, development and donor communities, funding agencies and banks in the Islamic World and beyond, as well as those with a professional interest in planning and in environmental and conservation issues. Scholars of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies and more broadly, those with an academic interest in cultural and religious studies, will find that this book in Gower's Transformation and Innovation Series is perhaps the most substantial work yet on sustainable development from an Islamic perspective.
Download or read book Islam and Democracy in the Middle East written by Larry Diamond and published by . This book was released on 2003-08-07 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive assessment of the origins and staying power of Middle East autocracies, as well as a sober account of the struggles of state reformers and opposition forces to promote civil liberties, competitive elections and a pluralistic vision of Islam. Drawing on the insights of some 25 leading Western and Middle Eastern scholars, the book highlights the dualistic and often contradictory nature of political liberalization. Yemen suggest, political liberalization - as managed by the state - not only opens new spaces for debate and criticism, but is also used as a deliberate tactic to avoid genuine democratization. In several chapters on Iran, the authors analyze the benefits and costs of limited reform. There, the electoral successes of President Mohammad Khatami and his reformist allies inspired a new generation but have not as yet undermined the clerical establishment's power. By contrast, in Turkey a party with Islamist roots is moving a discredited system beyond decades of conflict and paralysis, following a stunning election victory in 2002. force for change. While acknowledging the enduring attraction of radical Islam throughout the Arab world, the concluding chapters carefully assess the recent efforts of Muslim civil society activists and intellectuals to promote a liberal Islamic alternative. Their struggles to affirm the compatibility of Islam and pluralistic democracy face daunting challenges, not least of which is the persistent efforts of many Arab rulers to limit the influence of all advocates of democracy, secular or religious.
Download or read book Max Weber and Islam written by Toby E. Huff and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Max Weber and Islam is a major effort by Islamic-studies specialists to reexamine and appraise Max Weber's perspectives on Islam and its historical development. Eight specialists on Islam and two sociologists explore many dimensions of Weber's comments on Islam, along with Weber's conceptual framework. The volume's introduction links the discussions to contemporary issues and debates. Wolfgang Schluchter reconstructs Weber's conceptual apparatus as it applies to Islam and its historical development. In subsequent chapters, Islamic specialists consider such major topics as the developmental history of Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic reform, Islamic law and capitalism, secularization in Islam, as well as the value of attempting to apply Weber's concept of sects to Islam. While some authors find flaws in Weber's factual knowledge of Islam, they also find considerable merit in the kinds of questions Weber raised. Contributors to the volume include highly respected contemporary international scholars of Islam: Ira Lapidus, Nehemia Levtzion, Richard M. Eaton, Peter Hardy, Rudolph Peters, Barbara Metcalf, Francis Robinson, Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, and S.N. Eisenstadt. Toby Huff's introduction not only knits the thematics of the separate essays together but adds its own stresses while engaging the contributors in dialogue and debate about fundamental issues. This acute collective analysis establishes a new benchmark for understanding Weber and Islam. This book also provides an up-to-date overview of the developmental history of many aspects of Islam. A major reappraisal of the entire span of Max Weber's sociological thought on Islam, this book will appeal to a wide range of scholars and laymen interested in the Islamic world. It will be of particular interest to sociologists specializing in religion and Middle East area specialists. Toby E. Huff is professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He is editor of On the Roads to Modernity: Conscience, Science and Civilization--Selected Writings by Benjamin Nelson and the author of Max Weber and the Methodology of the Social Sciences and The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. Wolfgang Schluchter is professor of sociology at the University of Heidelberg and dean of the Max Weber Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Erfurt.
Download or read book Journey to Islam written by Murad Wilfried Hofmann and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pathways to an Inner Islam written by Patrick Laude and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2010-01-21 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to four Western figures influenced by Sufism who wrote about an "inner," esoteric Islam.
Download or read book Esoteric Transfers and Constructions written by Mark Sedgwick and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-07 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Similarities between esoteric and mystical currents in different religious traditions have long interested scholars. This book takes a new look at the relationship between such currents. It advances a discussion that started with the search for religious essences, archetypes, and universals, from William James to Eranos. The universal categories that resulted from that search were later criticized as essentialist constructions, and questioned by deconstructionists. An alternative explanation was advanced by diffusionists: that there were transfers between different traditions. This book presents empirical case studies of such constructions, and of transfers between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the premodern period, and Judaism, Christianity, and Western esotericism in the modern period. It shows that there were indeed transfers that can be clearly documented, and that there were also indeed constructions, often very imaginative. It also shows that there were many cases that were neither transfers nor constructions, but a mixture of the two.