During the last decade the agenda of local and global politics is heavily marked by the encounter of two powerful currents, namely democracy and political Islam. On the one hand Islam as a religion itself is facing a cultural dialectic between a modern and an authentic form, producing a synthesis which is only to be criticized again by a new radical antithesis. Within that framework political I...

Islamic bioethics derives from a combination of principles, duties and rights, and, to a certain extent, a call to virtue. In Islam, bioethical decision-making is carried out within a framework of values derived from revelation and tradition. It is intimately linked to the broad ethical teachings of the Qur'an and the tradition of the Prophet Muhammed, and thus to the interpretation of Islamic ...

Beliefs and customs surrounding death, funeral rites, and mourning provide a window into a society’s most deeply held values. In the monotheistic faith of Islam, eschatology – belief in the Day of Judgment (Yawm al-din) and resurrection (al-qiyama) – underlies many practices. Public mourning rituals that commemorate the deaths of saints and martyrs are closely linked to the concept of salvation...

The question of women‘s rights in Islam generates huge interest among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Scholars of feminism are sharply divided on the question of women‘s status in Islam. One group associates Islam with misogyny and gender oppression, while the other celebrates the religion as a liberatory force for women. Remarkably, despite a surge in female educational attainment and conscious...

Abstract Can Muslim values be reconciled with a feminist outlook? The question is pressing on both an individual level—for feminists—and political the project of making Islamic practice compatible ideals just and liberal society. A version this arises specifically for central text, Quran: message Quran There have, broadly speaking, been two approaches to more specific question. I argue that are...

Using the POLITY IV and Freedom House indices, Rowley and Smith (2009) found that countries with Muslim majorities enjoy less freedom and are less democratic than countries in which Muslims are a minority. Because the POLITY IV and Freedom House indices have been criticized on several grounds, I reinvestigate Rowley and Smith ́s finding using the new Democracy-Dictatorship data from Cheibub et a...