Courting Islam

This book is an exploration of the perceptions of the American and British governments about Islam and Muslims based upon their experiences over the past two centuries. It provides a response to the accusation that US and British governments are inherently anti-Islamic and are seeking the destruction of that faith through their policy decisions. The book uses primary documents from the US and British governments to examine the attitudes of politicians and officials in a variety contexts ranging from the ‘War on Terror’, the Iranian Revolution and the ‘Trojan Horse’ Scandal to the conversion of Alexander Russell Webb to Islam, Islamic Finance and Mosque-building. In so doing it provides a wide-angle lens on the diversity of issues and experiences which have shaped the views of officials and politicians about Islam.

Presents a deeply contextualized account of public law and judicial review in Pakistan.

Family, Body, Sexuality and Health is Volume III of the Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures. In almost 200 well written entries it covers the broad field of family, body, sexuality and health and Islamic cultures.

Courts and the complex phenomenon of the courtly society have received intensified interest in academic research over recent decades, however, the field of Islamic court culture has so far been overlooked. This book provides a comparative perspective on the history of courtly culture in Muslim societies from the earliest times to the nineteenth century, and presents an extensive collection of images of courtly life and architecture within the Muslim realm. The thematic methodology employed by the contributors underlines their interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach to issues of politics and patronage from across the Islamic world stretching from Cordoba to India. Themes range from the religious legitimacy of Muslim rulers, terminologies for court culture in Oriental languages, Muslim concepts of space for royal representation, accessibility of rulers, the role of royal patronage for Muslim scholars and artists to the growing influence of European courts as role models from the eighteenth century onwards. Discussing specific terminologies for courts in Oriental languages and explaining them to the non specialist, chapters describe the specific features of Muslim courts and point towards future research areas. As such, it fills this important gap in the existing literature in the areas of Islamic history, religion, and Islam in particular.

It may be the twenty-first century, but who says courtship is obsolete? Coming from a (somewhat-traditional) Muslim family, twenty-seven-year-old Samira Abdel-Aziz has seen her fair share of suitors. Her general rule: if he comes in wearing shoes with tassels, a leather jacket circa 1982, and/or has a moustache, the doorknock appeal will fail from the outset. A girl has to have some standards, right? As an assistant at Bridal Bazaar magazine, Samira's sick of all things wedding-related. Then she unwittingly becomes wedding gofer for her cousin/nemesis Zahra and her life begins to resemble a soap opera. When she meets Menem in a chance encounter at a team-building day, for the first time Samira knows what it's like to naturally be interested in someone. But with that comes a whole new set of problems. How do you get to know someone when the options seem to be to get married or end up a spinster? Why is her best friend Lara insisting that Menem isn't right for her? And why has her childhood friend Hakeem started behaving so strangely? A light-hearted but honest peek into the life of a young, single Muslim woman who knows there's more to life than love at first suitor visit.

In the southern German city of Stuttgart lives a pious Muslim population that has merged with the local population to create a meaningful shared existence. In this ethnographic account, the author introduces and examines the lives of ordinary residents, neighborhoods, and mosque communities to analyze moments and spaces where Muslims and non-Muslims engage with each other and accommodate their respective needs. These accounts show that even in the face of resentment and discrimination, this pious population has indeed become an integral part of the urban community.

This book focuses on Islamic family law as interpreted and applied by judges in Europe, Australia and North America. It uses court transcriptions and observations to discuss how the most contentious marriage-related issues - consent and age of spouses, dower, polygamy, and divorce - are adjudicated. The solutions proposed by different legal systems are reviewed , and some broader questions are addressed: how Islamic principles are harmonized with norms based on gender equality, how parties bargain strategically in and out of court, and how Muslim diasporas align their Islamic worldview with a Western normative narrative.