Islam remains misunderstood by many in the West essentially because it has not been part of the Western cultural tradition. Negative perceptions in the West are enhanced by popular reactions to abhorrent practices committed by some Muslims, even when those practices clearly contradict the teachings of Islam.1 These negative perceptions are also enhanced by Islamophobia.2 Conversely, the West’s ...

Commercial links and a common orientation towards maritime trade continued to bind Southeast Asian Austronesian communities together in historical times, and the spread of Islam is regarded as a consequence of these cultural ties. Islam required many changes in traditional Austronesian social and religious practices, as did Christianity, but the strength of Austronesian tradition, reinforced gr...

This paper attempts to demonstrate that it is not only the universal principles of Islam that ground our everyday actions, but also the practical and immediate issues which we confront. Although Islam provides a universal set of principles to make life meaningful, I shall argue that these principles are vernacularized and localized in specific narratives. By offering seven diverse zones of Isla...

I n Central Asia, as in other regions of the world with large Muslim populations, opposition groups are increasingly turning to the ideas of militant Islam in their efforts to challenge authoritarian rule. Activists fromKokand to Kabul have learned that political Islam provides an unusually potent language of opposition. In Central Asia, a wide array of opposition movements—the Islamic Movement...

Political Islam in Iran, which initially formed in the guise of Sultāni order, experiences its second form after 1979 Revolution, named popular order. While in both forms, the authority of religion has been accepted in political life, these types of order demonstrate two different experiences of political Islam in Iran. Thus, the comprehension of this new experience of political Islam after the...

Culturalists claim that political outcomes, such as respect for human rights, are deeply rooted in culture. Some have singled out Islam as particularly problematic. We assess whether Muslim societies suffer higher levels of political terror compared with others. Our results show that countries containing larger shares of Catholics, and those dominated by Catholics, fare the worst. The share of ...

about the bases of validity of “expert’s advise” existing of “tradition of learned” upen reference to “experts” has not been doubted and it has been accepted that this tradition has been confirmed with the legislator of islam. however, some of jurists have emphasized upen concluding “confidence” frome the experts advise. others have belived the expert’s advise as a kind of witness, so they thou...

This book investigates the central role of reason in Islamic intellectual life. Despite widespread characterization of Islam as a system of belief based only on revelation, JohnWalbridge argues that rational methods, not fundamentalism, have characterized Islamic law, philosophy, theology, and education since the medieval period. His research demonstrates that this medieval Islamic rational tra...