Islam In The Modern World Rle Politics Of Islam

In recent years, events in the Islamic world have captured the attention of the West to an unprecedented degree. However, much of the media coverage of events like the Islamic revolution in Iran has merely reinforced current prejudices and misconceptions about Islam. This collection of essays, by specialists in a variety of disciplines, gives an impressionistic overview of contemporary Islam. Different areas of Islamic life are singled out for special attention; these include the problem of relations between Islam and the West, the role of the Sufi orders and the revival of religious fundamentalism, Islam and the feminine, Islamic economics and Islamic architecture. Geographically, the essays cover a wide area, ranging over Sudan, Turkey, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Each discussion should appeal to the layman and specialist alike and collectively they bring together a comprehensive range of material not often covered in one volume. Above all, they cut across the stereotypes of Islam found in the popular media, to reveal facets of a complex, living tradition often unsuspected in the West. First published in 1983.

The Islamic perception of the socio-economic process is dynamic and its insistence on social justice is uncompromising. To produce the best social structure, according to this view, man’s economic endeavours should be motivated by a meaningful moral philosophy. In the face of the challenges presented by the modern world, the practice of Islamic economics raises many complex and profound issues. These are addressed in this highly important work, which must be considered essential reading for all those who live in the vision of the ‘right’. First published in 1994.

There has been a significant upsurge of western interest in the political manifestations and significance of Islam in the last decade, fuelled by the notion of Islamic ‘revival’, the Iranian revolution and by events in countries as diverse as Egypt, Pakistan and Sudan. Oil power and its effect on the international economic order, the relationship of Muslim countries with the superpowers and the continuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict have also served to focus attention on Islamic politics and, in particular, on the notion of Islamic reassertion. As the author of this book argues, one result of this interest has been the development of a view of Islam as monolithic and implacable. He takes a broad view of the intellectual and cultural history of Islam, emphasising the extraordinary diversity of Islamic societies and the ways in which the ideal is often pragmatically adapted to reality. In this wider social and historical context, the nature of Islamic revival is then reassessed. First published in 1988.

The recent resurgence of Islam in the Middle East is a far more complex phenomenon than is often suggested by those analyses which reduce recent developments in the area to no more than an intensification of religiosity. Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East challenges that perception of the contemporary Middle East. It explores the nature of the Islamic revival and attempts to establish the original impulse behind particular instances of Islamic resurgence. It also examines the degree to which religious institutions have served as a mechanism for expressing secular demands and frustrations and investigates to what extent politics is a functional alternative to religion. First published in 1984.

Islam is a burning topic in modern scholarship and contemporary world affairs. It is a subject poorly understood by Western observers, and in this book Professor Montgomery Watt takes a significant step towards its demystification. Montgomery Watt examines the crucial questions of traditional world-view and self-image which dominate the thinking of Muslims today. This traditional self-image causes them to perceive world events in a different perspective from Westerners – a fact not always appreciated by the foreign ministries of Western powers. Professor Watt presents a brilliant and critical analysis of the traditional Islamic self-image, showing how it distorts Western modernism and restricts Muslims to a peripheral role in world affairs. In a scholarly and incisive way, he traces this harmful image to its origins in the medieval period and then to the traumatic exposure of Muslims to the West in modern times. He argues that Muslim culture is suffering from a dangerous introspection, and in his closing chapters presents a constructive criticism of contemporary Islam, aimed at contributing to a truer, more realistic Islamic self-image for today. First published in 1988.

The Iranian Revolution has catalysed the preconceptions holding sway in the Western World about the character of Islam and its politics, based as they are on a mixture of imagined cultural superiority and a latent fear of a resurgence similar to the Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries of the long Ottoman domination of Eastern Europe. This book constitutes a counterweight to such monolithic perceptions of Islam. It surveys the nature of opinion and of government in the larger Muslim regions of the world, and the position of Muslims in states where they are not the dominant population. Each contributor expresses his own assessment of the regional data, and the editor’s concluding chapter draws together the threads of a work which will form an important contribution to international understanding and a first breach in the ‘Green Curtain’ dividing East and West. First published in 1981.

Now available in a fully-revised and updated third edition, Islam: History, Religion and Politics, provides a comprehensive and engaging introduction to the core teachings, historical development, and contemporary public struggles of Islam. Features a new chapter on the Arab Spring and the ongoing struggles for representative governance throughout the Muslim world Includes up-to-date analysis of the civil wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, including the rise of terrorist groups like Boko Haram and ISIS Spans Islamic history from the life of Muhammad and the birth of Islamic ideals, through Islam’s phenomenal geographical expansion and cultural development, to the creation of modern states and its role in today’s global society Written by a leading scholar of Islamic studies

The 1970s witnessed a mushrooming of Islamic movements and ideas which was described variously as Islamic revival, Islamic resurgence and Islam on the march. Whether as part of the majority or minority, whether under capitalist or socialist regimes, Muslims have been moved by this reawakening. But what really are the causes and nature of this Islamic resurgence? Is it a purely religious revival? Or is it a social and political movement that must be understood in the context of the Muslim’s conditions and milieu? Will it really lead to the establishment of an Islamic socio-political order or will it end up as an instrument of struggle between Muslim ruling elites and their opposition? And what are the foreign policy implications of these developments? Do they necessarily lead to a more militant and hostile attitude towards the West? These questions and more are tackled by the contributors to Islam and Power. First published in 1981.