Like anywhere else, the present-day Islamic world too is grappling with modernity and postmodernity, secularisation and globalisation. Muslims are raising questions about religious representations and authority. This has given rise to the emergence of alternative Islamic discourses which challenge binary oppositions and dichotomies of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, continuity and change, state and civil society. It also leads to a dispersal of authority, a collapse of existing hierarchical structures and gender roles. This book further argues that the centre of gravity of many of these alternative Islamic discourses is shifting from the Arabic-speaking 'heartland' towards the geographical peripheries of the Muslim world and expatriate Muslims in North America and Europe. At the same time, in view of recent seismic shifts in the political constellation of the Middle East, the trends discussed in this book hold important clues for the possible direction of future developments in that volatile part of the Muslim world.

This book situates Australian Muslim experiences of religious authority within the global context of Islam in the modern world. While drawing on examples of Muslim-majority states, new empirical findings indicate the growing diversity of Muslim religious actors in Australia, as well as the contextual realities shaping the way religious authority is legitimised and contested in democratic and authoritarian environments. In particular, the study challenges homogenous articulations of Islamic religious authority in unearthing new voices, epistemologies and socio-political factors shaping Muslim attitudes and experiences of religious authority. The book fills important gaps in the field, such as intra-Muslim relations, female religious authority, digital Islam and the relationship between traditional ulama, reformists and Muslim intellectuals in the West. Dr Shaheen Whyte is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation, Charles Sturt University. He holds a PhD from Deakin University, Australia. His research focuses on Islamic religious authority, Muslim minorities in the West, Islamic law and Middle Eastern politics.

Like anywhere else, the present-day Islamic world too is grappling with modernity and postmodernity, secularisation and globalisation. Muslims are raising questions about religious representations and authority. This has given rise to the emergence of alternative Islamic discourses which challenge binary oppositions and dichotomies of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, continuity and change, state and civil society. It also leads to a dispersal of authority, a collapse of existing hierarchical structures and gender roles. This book further argues that the centre of gravity of many of these alternative Islamic discourses is shifting from the Arabic-speaking 'heartland' towards the geographical peripheries of the Muslim world and expatriate Muslims in North America and Europe. At the same time, in view of recent seismic shifts in the political constellation of the Middle East, the trends discussed in this book hold important clues for the possible direction of future developments in that volatile part of the Muslim world.

The book offers an examination of issues, institutions and actors that have become central to Muslim life in the region. Focusing on leadership, authority, law, gender, media, aesthetics, radicalization and cooperation, it offers insights into processes that reshape power structures and the experience of being Muslim. It makes room for perspectives from the region in an academic world shaped by scholarship mostly from Europe and America.

The Politics of Religious Party Change examines the ideological change and secularization of religious political parties and asks: when and why do religious parties become less anti-system? In a comparative analysis, the book traces the striking similarities in the historical origins of Islamist and Catholic parties in the Middle East and Western Europe, chronicles their conflicts with existing religious authorities, and analyzes the subsequently divergent trajectories of Islamist and Catholic parties. In examining how religious institutional structures affect the actions of religious parties in electoral politics, the book finds that centralized and hierarchical religious authority structures - such as the Vatican - incentivize religious parties to move in more pro-system, secular, and democratic directions. By contrast, less centralized religious authority structures - such as in Sunni Islam - create more permissive environments for religious parties to be anti-system and more prone to freely-formed parties and hybrid party movements.

Indonesia's Muslims are still pondering the role of religion in public life. Although the religious violence marring the transition towards democratic reform has ebbed, the Muslim community has polarised into reactionary and progressive camps with increasingly antagonistic views on the place of Islam in society. Debates over the underlying principles of democratisation have further heated up after a fatwa issued by conservative religious scholars condemned secularism, pluralism and liberalism as un-Islamic. With a hesitant government dominated by Indonesia's eternal political elites failing to take a clear stance, supporters of the decision are pursuing their Islamisation agendas with renewed vigour, displaying growing intolerance towards other religions and what they consider deviant Muslim minorities. Extremist and radical exponents of this Islamist bloc receive more international media coverage and scholarly attention than their progressive opponents who are defiantly challenging this reactionary trend. Calling for a true transformation of Indonesian society based on democratic principles and respect for human rights, they insist that this depends on secularisation, religious toleration, and freethinking. Conceived as a contemporary history of ideas, this book aims to tell the story of these open- minded intellectuals and activists in the world's largest Muslim country.

According to many Islamic jurists, the world is divided between dar al-Islam (the abode of Islam) and dar al-harb (the abode of war). This dual division of the world has led to a great amount of juridical discussion concerning what makes a territory part of dar al-Islam, what the status of Muslims living outside of this is, and whether they are obliged to obey Islamic jurisprudence. Susanne Olsson examines the differing understandings of dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, as well as related concepts, such as jihad and takfir. She thereby is able to explore how these concepts have been utilised, transformed and negotiated throughout history. As the subject of Muslims living in Europe is such a topical and sometimes controversial one, this book will appeal to researchers of modern Islam as integral to the Western experience.

As Syria’s anti-authoritarian uprising and subsequent civil war have left the country in ruins, the need for understanding the nation’s complex political and cultural realities remains urgent. The second of a two-volume series, Syria from Reform to Revolt: Culture, Society, and Religion draws together closely observed, critical and historicized analyses, giving vital insights into Syrian society today. With a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, contributors reveal how Bashar al-Asad’s pivotal first decade of rule engendered changes in power relations and public discourse—dynamics that would feed the 2011 protest movement and civil war. Essays focus on key arenas of Syrian social life, including television drama, political fiction, Islamic foundations, and Christian choirs and charities, demonstrating the ways in which Syrians worked with and through the state in attempts to reform, undermine, or sidestep the regime. The contributors explore the paradoxical cultural politics of hope, anticipation, and betrayal that have animated life in Syria under Asad, revealing the fractures that obstruct peaceful transformation. Syria from Reform to Revolt provides a powerful assessment of the conditions that turned Syria’s hopeful Arab spring revolution into a catastrophic civil war that has cost over 200,000 lives and generated the worst humanitarian crisis of the twenty-first century.

Against the background of long-standing narratives in which Twelver Shi'ism is viewed as fundamentally authoritarian, The School of Hillah and the Formation of Twelver Shi'i Islamic Tradition builds upon recent scholarship in the fields of Religious Studies, Anthropology, and History to argue that Twelver Shi'ism is better understood as a discursive tradition. At a conceptual level, this solves the basic problem of how to integrate the extraordinary diversity of Twelver Shi'ism across time and space into a single historical category without engaging in a normative assessment of its underlying essence. Furthermore, in light of this conception of tradition, the School of Hillah stands out as a seminal period in the archive of Twelver Shi'ism, though it has seldom been recognized as such in European-language scholarship. Insofar as it gave birth to a conversation that would prove capable of encompassing the dynamism of Twelver Shi'ism, the School of Hillah should be considered the formative period of Twelver Shi'i tradition. Moreover, when the tradition is conceptualized in this manner, it is a bulwark against the very authoritarianism by which Twelver Shi'ism has been characterized for so long.

While Christian approaches to the problem of evil have been much discussed, the issue of theodicy in Islam is relatively neglected. A Muslim Response to Evil explores new insights and viewpoints and discusses possible solutions to theodicy and the problem of evil through the early philosophy and theology ofIslam as well as through a semantic analysis of evil (sharr) in the Qur’Ä n. Reflecting on Said Nursi’s magnum opus, the Risale-i Nur Collection (Epistles of Light), Tubanur Yesilhark Ozkan puts Nursi’s theodicy into discourse with so called ’secular’ theodicy or ’anthropodicy’, supported by scholars such as Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant. Her study offers a fascinating new perspective on the problem of evil for scholars of comparative religion, philosophy of religion, and Islamic thought.