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Ritual and Belief in Morocco: Vol. II (Routledge Revivals)
By Edward Westermarck. 1926
Between the years of 1898 and 1926, Edward Westermarck spent a total of seven years in Morocco, visiting towns and…
tribes in different parts of the country, meeting local people and learning about their language and culture; his findings are noted in this two-volume set, first published in 1926. The first volume contains extensive reference material, including Westermarck’s system of transliteration and a comprehensive list of the tribes and districts mentioned in the text. The chapters in this, the second volume, explore such areas as the rites and beliefs connected with the Islamic calendar, agriculture, and childbirth. This title will fascinate any student or researcher of anthropology with an interest in the history of ritual, culture and religion in Morocco.Modern Sufis and the State: The Politics of Islam in South Asia and Beyond (Religion, Culture, and Public Life)
By Katherine Pratt Ewing and Rosemary R. Corbett. 2020
Sufism is typically thought of as the mystical side of Islam. In recent years, it has been held up as…
a supposedly peaceful alternative to the spread of forms of Islam associated with violence, an embodiment of democratic ideals of tolerance and pluralism. Are Sufis in fact as otherworldy and apolitical as this stereotype suggests?Modern Sufis and the State brings together a range of scholars, including anthropologists, historians, and religious-studies specialists, to challenge common assumptions that are made about Sufism today. Focusing on India and Pakistan within a broader global context, this book provides locally grounded accounts of how Sufis in South Asia have engaged in politics from the colonial period to the present. Contributors foreground the effects and unintended consequences of efforts to link Sufism with the spread of democracy and consider what roles scholars and governments have played in the making of twenty-first-century Sufism. They critique the belief that Salafism and Sufism are antithetical, offering nuanced analyses of the diversity, multivalence, and local embeddedness of Sufi political engagements and self-representations in Pakistan and India. Essays question the portrayal of Sufi shrines as sites of toleration, peace, and harmony, exploring cases of tension and conflict. A wide-ranging interdisciplinary collection, Modern Sufis and the State is a timely call to think critically about the role of public discourse in shaping perceptions of Sufism.The diversity crisis in paleontology refers not to modern biota or the fossil record, but rather how our discipline lacks…
significant representation of individuals varying in race, ethnicity, and other aspects of identity. This Element is a call to action for broadening participation through improved classroom approaches as described in four sections. First, a brief review of the crisis and key concepts are presented. Next, culturally responsive pedagogy and related practices are introduced. Third, specific applications are offered for drawing cultural connections to studying the fossil record. Finally, recommendations including self-reflection are provided for fostering your own cultural competency. Our discipline offers much for understanding earth history and contributing new knowledge to a world impacted by humans. However, we must first more effectively welcome, support, and inspire all students to embrace meaning and value in paleontology; it is critical for securing the future of our field.Themes in Religion and Human Security in Africa (Routledge Studies in Religion)
By Ezra Chitando, Joram Tarusarira. 2021
This book reflects on major themes present at the interface between religion and human security in Africa. It probes the…
extent to which religion is both a threat to and a resource for human security in Africa by examining specific issues occurring across the continent. A team of contributors from across Africa provide valuable reflections on the conceptualisation and applicability of the concept of human security in the context of religion in Africa. Chapters highlight how themes such as knowledge systems, youth, education, race, development, sacred texts, the media, sexual diversity, health and others have implications for individual and group security. In order to bring these themes into perspective, chapters in the first section reflect on the conceptual, historical and contextual factors at play. The chapters that follow demonstrate the theories put forward by means of case studies from countries such as Zimbabwe, Kenya, Botswana and Ghana that look at African religion, Islam and Christianity. This is a detailed and informative volume that provides new insights into the discourse on religion and human security. As such, it will be of significant use to any scholar of Religion and Violence, Religion in Africa and Religious Studies, as well as African and Security Studies more generally.Remaking Islam in African Portugal: Lisbon—Mecca—Bissau (Framing the Global)
By Michelle Johnson. 2020
When Guinean Muslims leave their homeland, they encounter radically new versions of Islam and new approaches to religion more generally.…
In Remaking Islam in African Portugal, Michelle C. Johnson explores the religious lives of these migrants in the context of diaspora. Since Islam arrived in West Africa centuries ago, Muslims in this region have long conflated ethnicity and Islam, such that to be Mandinga or Fula is also to be Muslim. But as they increasingly encounter Muslims not from Africa, as well as other ways of being Muslim, they must question and revise their understanding of "proper" Muslim belief and practice. Many men, in particular, begin to separate African custom from global Islam. Johnson maintains that this cultural intersection is highly gendered as she shows how Guinean Muslim men in Lisbon—especially those who can read Arabic, have made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and attend Friday prayer at Lisbon's central mosque—aspire to be cosmopolitan Muslims. By contrast, Guinean women—many of whom never studied the Qur'an, do not read Arabic, and feel excluded from the mosque—remain more comfortably rooted in African custom. In response, these women have created a "culture club" as an alternative Muslim space where they can celebrate life course rituals and Muslim holidays on their own terms. Remaking Islam in African Portugal highlights what being Muslim means in urban Europe and how Guinean migrants' relationships to their ritual practices must change as they remake themselves and their religion.Within the broad contours of Islamic traditions, Muslims are enjoined to fast during the month of Ramadan, they are invited…
to a disciplined practice of prayer, and they are offered the Quran as the divine revelation in the most beautiful verbal form. But what happens if Muslims choose not to fast, or give up prayer, or if the Quran's beauty seems inaccessible? When Muslims do not take up the path of piety, what happens to their relationships with more devout Muslims who are neighbors, friends, and kin? Between Muslims provides an ethnographic account of Iraqi Kurdish Muslims who turn away from devotional piety yet remain intimately engaged with Islamic traditions and with other Muslims. Andrew Bush offers a new way to understand religious difference in Islam, rejecting simple stereotypes about ethnic or sectarian identities. Integrating textual analysis of poetry, sermons, and Islamic history into accounts of everyday life in Iraqi Kurdistan, Between Muslims illuminates the interplay of attraction and aversion to Islam among ordinary Muslims.The Oasis of Now: Selected Poems (Lannan Translations Selection Series)
By Sohrab Sepehri. 2013
Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) is one of the major Iranian poets of the 20th century. His verses are often-recited in public…
gatherings and lines from them were used as slogans by protesters in 2009. A painter, wood-worker, and poet, Sepehri wrote these poems after journeys through Japan, China, and India, where he was exposed to various cultural arts and spiritual disciplines.This book examines the legal conundrum of reconciling international human rights law in a Muslim majority country and identifies a…
trajectory for negotiating the protection of religious minorities within Islam. The work explores the history of religious minorities within Islam in Indonesia, which contains the world’s largest Muslim population, as well as the present-day ways by which the government may address issues through reconciling international human rights law and Islamic law. Given the context of multiple sets of religious norms in Indonesia, this is a complicated endeavour. In addition to amending and enacting human rights norms, the government is also negotiating with the long history of Islamisation in Indonesia. Particularly relevant is the practice of customary law, which puts the rights of community over individualism. This practice directly affects the rights of religious minorities within Islam. Readers, especially those conducting research, will also be provided with information and references which are relevant to the field of human rights, especially in relation to religious minorities and international law. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the fields of International Human Rights Law, Law and Religion, and Islamic Studies.How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction (Princeton Science Library #108)
By Beth Shapiro. 2015
An insider's view on bringing extinct species back to lifeCould extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back…
to life? In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist and pioneer in ancient DNA research, addresses this intriguing question by walking readers through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction. From deciding which species should be restored to anticipating how revived populations might be overseen in the wild, Shapiro vividly explores the extraordinary cutting-edge science that is being used to resurrect the past. Considering de-extinction's practical benefits and ethical challenges, Shapiro argues that the overarching goal should be the revitalization and stabilization of contemporary ecosystems. Looking at the very real and compelling science behind an idea once seen as science fiction, How to Clone a Mammoth demonstrates how de-extinction will redefine conservation's future.Faith, Ideology and Fear: Muslim Identities Within and Beyond Prisons
By Gabriele Marranci. 2009
Based on four years anthropological research within prisons and Muslim communities in the UK, this book offers a unique discussion…
of the relationship between the experience of prison among Muslims and the formation of religious identity. Gabriele Marranci thoroughly examines Muslim religious life in prison, the work of Muslim chaplains and imams (and the overall impact that they have on Muslim prisoners), providing an analysis of the current prison policies aiming to prevent radicalisation, and discusses the counterproductive results of an increasing young Muslim presence in prisons, as well as the reaction of the Muslim communities to this increase. Marranci suggests that the prison environment, and increasing restrictions therein, are linked to the fear of radicalization, and are facilitating identity processes in which Islam turns into an ideology. This important study goes on to make a thorough examination of the lives of former Muslim prisoners, showing how they are particularly vulnerable to extremists' recruitment, and explaining the dynamics which have led, in certain cases, to their recommitting offences, or embarking on a path of radicalization.The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali
By W. Montgomery Watt, Abu Hamid Ghazali. 1994
Al-Ghazali was one of the great Muslim theologians. In this book the author provides a translation of some of his…
works, including his spiritual autobiography. Al-Ghazali's description of his own emergence from scepticism anticipates the philosophical method of systematic doubt employed by Descartes. Another work translated here sets out Al-Ghazali's ideal of how a religious person should order his life from hour to hour and day to day.Night Comes to the Cretaceous: Dinosaur Extinction and the Transformation of Modern Geology (Extinction of Dinosaurs)
By James Lawrence Powell, James L. Powell, D. Powell. 1998
What killed the dinosaurs? For more than a century, this question has been one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in…
science. But, in 1980, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, proposed a radical answer: 65 million years ago an asteroid or comet as big as Mt. Everest slammed into the earth, raising a dust cloud vast enough to cause mass extinction. A revolutionary idea that challenged the ice-age extinction theory, the asteroid-impact theory was scorned and derided by the science community. But after years of bitter debate and intense research, an astonishing discovery was made-an immense impact crater in the Yucatn Peninsula that was identified as Ground Zero. The Alvarezes had their proof. A dramatic scientific detective story, Night Comes to the Cretaceous is a brilliant example of science at work-in the trenches, complete with passionate struggles and occasional victories.Polymaths of Islam: Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia
By James Pickett. 2020
Polymaths of Islam analyzes the social and intellectual power of religious leaders who created a shared culture that integrated Central…
Asia, Iran, and India from the mid-eighteenth century through the early twentieth. James Pickett demonstrates that Islamic scholars were simultaneously mystics and administrators, judges and occultists, physicians and poets. This integrated understanding of the world of Islamic scholarship unlocks a different way of thinking about transregional exchange networks. Pickett reveals a Persian-language cultural sphere that transcended state boundaries and integrated a spectacularly vibrant Eurasia that is invisible from published sources alone. Through a high cultural complex that he terms the "Persian cosmopolis" or "Persianate sphere," Pickett argues that an intersection of diverse disciplines shaped geographical trajectories across and between political states. In Polymaths of Islam he paints a comprehensive, colorful, and often contradictory portrait of mosque and state in the age of empire.With a new afterword Acts of Faith is a remarkable account of growing up Muslim in America and coming…
to believe in religious pluralism, from one of the most prominent faith leaders in the United States. Eboo Patel&’s story is a hopeful and moving testament to the power and passion of young people—and of the world-changing potential of an interfaith youth movement.Fluid Jurisdictions: Colonial Law and Arabs in Southeast Asia
By Nurfadzilah Yahaya. 2020
This wide-ranging, geographically ambitious book tells the story of the Arab diaspora within the context of British and Dutch colonialism,…
unpacking the community's ambiguous embrace of European colonial authority in Southeast Asia. In Fluid Jurisdictions, Nurfadzilah Yahaya looks at colonial legal infrastructure and discusses how it impacted, and was impacted by, Islam and ethnicity. But more important, she follows the actors who used this framework to advance their particular interests. Yahaya explains why Arab minorities in the region helped to fuel the entrenchment of European colonial legalities: their itinerant lives made institutional records necessary. Securely stored in centralized repositories, such records could be presented as evidence in legal disputes. To ensure accountability down the line, Arab merchants valued notarial attestation land deeds, inheritance papers, and marriage certificates by recognized state officials. Colonial subjects continually played one jurisdiction against another, sometimes preferring that colonial legal authorities administer Islamic law—even against fellow Muslims.Fluid Jurisdictions draws on lively material from multiple international archives to demonstrate the interplay between colonial projections of order and their realities, Arab navigation of legally plural systems in Southeast Asia and beyond, and the fraught and deeply human struggles that played out between family, religious, contract, and commercial legal orders.The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature (Convergences #28)
By Tarif Khalidi. 2001
This work presents in English translation the largest collection ever assembled of the sayings and stories of Jesus in Arabic…
Islamic literature. In doing so, it traces a tradition of love and reverence for Jesus that has characterized Islamic thought for more than a thousand years. An invaluable resource for the history of religions, the collection documents how one culture, that of Islam, assimilated the towering religious figure of another, that of Christianity. As such, it is a work of great significance for the understanding of both, and of profound implications for modern-day intersectarian relations and ecumenical dialogue. Tarif Khalidi’s introduction and commentaries place the sayings and stories in their historical context, showing how and why this “gospel” arose and the function it served within Muslim devotion. The Jesus that emerges here is a compelling figure of deep and life-giving spirituality. The sayings and stories, some 300 in number and arranged in chronological order, show us how the image of this Jesus evolved throughout a millennium of Islamic history.The Internal Law of Religions: Introduction to a Comparative Discipline (ICLARS Series on Law and Religion)
By Burkhard Josef Berkmann. 2021
Comparative law of religions has developed in recent years as a new discipline at the intersection of legal and religious…
science, of theology and anthropology. This book presents a systematic theoretical basis for this new discipline. While law is mostly associated with the state, many religions also have their own internal law. These internal legal norms are aimed at a particular form of behaviour on the part of believers. They therefore play a particular role in conflicts arising today between certain religious forms of behaviour. The comparison of the internal law of religions serves to establish and explain the commonalities and differences between various religious legal traditions. The religions examined here include: the law of Christian denominations, Jewish law, Islamic law, Hindu law, Buddhist law, and other religious legal systems. The work assesses six current approaches to the comparative law of religions, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, leading to the development of a new approach. The book discusses the role of religious law in state law and looks to likely future developments. The work will be essential for those interested in the administration of justice and politics, for those professions where intercultural competence is required, and for interreligious dialogue.This book examines various attempts in the ‘West’ to manage cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity – focusing on Muslim minorities…
in predominantly non-Muslim societies. An international panel of contributors chart evolving national identities and social values, assessing the way that both contemporary ‘Western’ societies and contemporary Muslim minorities view themselves and respond to the challenges of diversity. Drawing on themes and priority subjects from Islamic Culture within Euro-Asian, Australian, and American international research, they address multiple critical issues and discuss their implications for existing and future policy and practice in this area. These include subjects such as gender, the media, citizenship, and multiculturalism. The insight provided by this wide-ranging book will be of great use to scholars of Religious Studies, Interreligious Dialogue and Islamic Studies, as well as Politics, Culture, and Migration.Muhammad: Forty Introductions
By Michael Muhammad Knight. 2019
Muhammad: Forty Introductions offers a distinct and nuanced take on the life and teachings of the prophet Muhammad, using a…
traditional genre of Islamic literature called the forty hadiths collection. Michael Muhammad Knight offers forty narrations that provide windows into the diverse ways in which Muslims envision Muhammad. He also examines his own relationship to Muslim traditions while exploring such topics as law, mysticism, sectarianism, gender, and sexuality. By revealing the Prophet to be an ongoing construction, he carefully unravels notions about Islam's center and margins.Transforming Bodies and Religions: Powers and Agencies in Europe (Routledge Critical Studies in Religion, Gender and Sexuality)
By Mariecke Van Den Berg, Lieke Schrijvers, Jelle Wiering, Anne-Marie Korte. 2021
This book sheds an interdisciplinary light on ‘transforming bodies’: bodies that have been subjected to, contributed to, or have resisted…
social transformations within religious or secular contexts in contemporary Europe. It explores the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion that underpin embodied transformations. Using post-secularist, postcolonial and gender/queer perspectives, it aims to gain a better understanding of the orchestrations and effects of larger social transitions related to religion. This volume is the outcome of the intensive collaboration of the authors, who for years have been meeting regularly in Utrecht, the Netherlands, to discuss themes related to religion and ‘the challenge of difference’, with an added afterword by Prof. Pamela Klassen from the University of Toronto. The book is divided in three subsections that focus on particular types of embodiment: body politics in governmental and NGO organisations; the role of the body in literary and/or autobiographical narratives; and ethnographic case studies of bodies in daily life. Doing so, it provides an innovative exploration of contemporary religion and the body. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Theology, and Philosophy.