Mosques In The Metropolis

"Mosques in the Metropolisis a dual-site ethnographic study of two of Europe's largest mosques, one a conservative Islamist community in London and the other a progressive Muslim community in Berlin. The contrasting sites allow sociologist Elisabeth Becker to provide a complex picture of Islam in Europe at a particularly fraught time. She spent over thirty months studying the mosques through immersion and interviews and provides an analysis that goes deep into European Muslim communities. Individual Muslim voices come through loud and clear-for example, the young mother of three in London trying to reconcile her conservative religious views with her desire to leave her husband-as do the historical and structural forces at play. Ultimately Becker insists that caste is a crucial lens through which to view Islam in Europe, and through this lens she critiques what she perceives as failing European pluralism. To amplify her point, Becker brings Jewish history and twentieth-century Jewish thought into the conversation directly, drawing on the ways in which Bauman and Arendt utilized the concept of caste to describe Jewish life and marginality. What is at stake here is nothing less than the fundamental values of freedom, equality, and individual rights--ostensibly the bedrock of European identity"--

Juxtaposing Muslim scholarsÕ debates over womenÕs attendance in mosques with historical descriptions of womenÕs activities within Middle Eastern and North African mosques, this study shows how over the centuries legal scholarsÕ arguments have often reacted to rather than dictated Muslim womenÕs behavior. Tracing Sunni legal positions on women in mosques from the second century of the Islamic calendar to the modern period, this volume connects shifts in scholarly terminology and argumentation to changing constructions of gender. Over time, assumptions about womenÕs changing behavioral norms over different stages of the lifecycle gave way to a global preoccupation with sexual temptation, which then became the central rationale for limits on womenÕs mosque access. At the same time, travel narratives, biographical dictionaries, and religious polemics document patterns suggesting that womenÕs usage of mosque space often diverged in both timing and content from the ritual models constructed by scholars. This book demonstrates both the concrete social and political implications of Islamic legal discourse and the autonomy of womenÕs mosque-based activities. It also examines womenÕs mosque access as a trope in Western travelersÕ narratives and the evolving significance of womenÕs mosque attendance among different Islamic currents in the twentieth century.

Energy Transition in Metropolises, Rural Areas and Deserts presents detailed field studies of energy transition in Lille, Riyadh, Fayence, Bokhol, Ouarzazate and the Arabian Desert. It analyzes local actions and good practices – according to the resources and constraints involved – in the process of removing the obstacles to the transition. Solutions are sought for the right type of space for buildings, transport, industry and services, and targets are set for Europe, the Middle East and Africa as part of the Paris Climate Agreement. As a pedagogical tool, this book is aimed at not only politicians and professionals, but also any members of the public who wish to learn about changes in production and energy consumption.

The public visibility of Islam is becoming increasingly controversial throughout European countries. With case studies drawn from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, this book examines a range of public issues, including mosque construction, ritual slaughter, Sharia councils and burqa bans, addressing the question of ’Islamic difference’ in public life outside the confines of established normative discourses that privilege freedom of religion, minority rights or multiculturalism. Acknowledging the creative role of dissent, it explores the manner in which public controversies unsettle the religious-secular divide and reshape European norms in the domains of aesthetics, individual freedom, animal rights and law. Developing an innovative conceptual framework and elaborating the notion of controversy as a methodological tool, Islam and Public Controversy in Europe draws our attention to the processes of interaction, confrontation and mutual transformation, thereby opening up a new horizon for rethinking difference and pluralism in Europe. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in religion, integration, cultural difference and the public sphere.

Following the tradition and style of the acclaimed Index Islamicus, the editors have created this new Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World. The editors have surveyed and annotated a wide range of books and articles from collected volumes and journals published in all European languages (except Turkish) between 1906 and 2011. This comprehensive bibliography is an indispensable tool for everyone involved in the study of material culture in Muslim societies.