Cultural History Of India Has Been Divided Into Three Parts To Discuss Various Aspects Of Development Of Indian Culture. It Talks About How Religions Such As The Vedic Religion, Buddhism, Jainism, Saivism And Vaisnavism Aimed At Securing Social Harmony, Moral Upliftment, And Inculcated A Sense Of Duty In The Individual. The Development Of Indian Art And Architecture Was A Creative Effort To Project Symbols Of Divine Reality As Conceived And Understood By The Collective Consciousness Of The People As A Whole. The Book Also Focuses On Social Intuitions, Educational Systems And Economic Organisation In Ancient India. Finally, The Book Discusses The Dietary System Of Indians From Pre-Historic Times To C. 1200 A.D. The Basis For Inclusion Of Food And Drinks In The Book On Indian Culture Is That Ancient Indians Believed That Food Not Only Kept An Individual Healthy, But Was Also Responsible For His Mental Make Up.According To The Author, It Is Of Utmost Importance That The Present Generation Imbibe Those Elements Of Indian Culture Which Have Kept India Vital And Going Through Its Long And Continuous History .Cultural History Of India Is An Extremely Useful Journal On Indian History And Culture For All Readers, Both In India And Abroad. It Is Therefore A Must-Read For All Interested In Indias Proud Past, Which Forms The Eternal Bed-Rock Of Its Fateful Present And Glorious Future. It Is An Academic Book Very Useful For Student Of History Aspiring For I.A.S.

This series of volumes on the manifold facets of Islamic culture is intended to acquaint a very wide public with the theological bases of its faith; the status of the individual and of society in the Islamic world; its expansion since the Revelation; its cultural manifestations in literature and the arts; and finally, Islam today between loyalty to its past and the new challenges of modernity. The last 100 years of Islamic history are examined in the final volume, although the approach is thematic rather than historical. The period considered has seen European colonialism in most of the Islamic world, and Islam has played a major role in the initiation and organization of resistance movements. We survey the groupings and forms of co-operation that have arisen since liberation from colonialism and investigate the political necessity and the moral stand that underlie the unity of the Islamic peoples. Social and economic progress is reviewed and space is devoted to such topics as the ongoing problem of Palestine, moves towards educational reform, and the status of women in Islam. As the Islamic world cannot be imagined in isolation, this volume examines the attitude of contemporary Islam towards other religions and cultures, and considers efforts aimed at achieving mutual understanding and coexistence in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

Spanning cultures across the 20th century, this volume explores how marriage, especially in the West, was disestablished as the primary institution organizing social life. In the developing world, the economic, social, and legal foundations of traditional marriage are stronger but also weakening. Marriage changed because an industrial wage economy reduced familial patriarchal control of youth and women and spurred demands and possibilities for greater autonomy and choice in love. After the Second World War, when more married women pursued education and employment, and gays and lesbians gained visibility, feminism and gay liberation also challenged patriarchal and restrictive gender roles and helped to reshape marriage. In 1920 most people married for life; in the twenty-first century fewer marry, and serial monogamy prevails. Marriage is more diverse and flexible in form but also more fragile and optional than it once was. Over the century control of courtship shifted from parents to youth, and friends, as opposed to kin, became more important in sustaining marriages. Dual-wage-earner families replaced the male breadwinner. Social and political liberalism assailed conservative laws and religious regimes, expanding access to divorce and birth control. Although norms of masculinity and femininity retain huge power in most cultures, visions of more egalitarian and romantic love as the basis of marriage have gained traction-made appealing by the global spread of capitalist social relations and also broadcast by culture industries in the developed world. The legalization of same-sex marriage-in over twenty-five nations by 2020-epitomizes a century of change toward a less gender-defined ideal that includes a continued desire for social recognition and permanence. A Cultural History of Marriage in the Modern Age presents an overview of the period with essays on Courtship and Ritual; Religion, State and Law; Kinship and Social Networks; the Family Economy; Love and Sex; the Breaking of Vows; and Representations of Marriage.

This book deals with Islamic studies and with the question how the scholarly study of religion can contribute to the study of Islam. The author advocates studying Islamic phenomena as signs and symbols interpreted and applied in diverse ways in existing traditions. He stresses the role of Muslims as actors in the ongoing debate about the articulation of Islamic ways of life and construction of Islam as a religion. A careful study of this debate should steer clear of political, religious, and ideological interests. Research in this area by Muslims and non-Muslim scholars alike should address the question of what Muslims have made of their Islam in specific circumstances. Current political contexts have created an unhealthy climate for pursuing an “open” approach to Islam based on reading, observing, listening and reflecting. Yet, precisely nowadays we need to look anew at ways of Muslim thinking and acting that refer to Islam and to avoid certain schemes of interpreting Muslim realities that are no longer adequate for present-day Muslim life situations. Muslim recourses to Islam can be studied as human constructions of value and meaning, and relations between Muslims and others can be seen in terms of human interaction, without blame always falling on Islam as such.

This volume presents a comprehensive and collaborative survey of how people, individually and within collective entities, thought about, experienced, and enacted racializing differences. Addressing events, texts, and images from the 5th to the 16th centuries, these essays by ten eminent scholars provide broad, multi-disciplinary analyses of materials whose origins range from the British Isles, Western Iberia, and North Africa across Western and Eastern Europe to the Middle East. These diverse communities possessed no single word equivalent to modern race, a term (raza) for genetic, religious, cultural, or territorial difference that emerges only at the end of the medieval period. Chapter by chapter, this volume nonetheless demonstrates the manifold beliefs, practices, institutions, and images that conveyed and enforced difference for the benefit of particular groups and to the detriment of others. Addressing the varying historiographical self-consciousness concerning race among medievalist scholars themselves, the separate analyses make use of paradigms drawn from social and political history, religious, environmental, literary, ethnic, and gender studies, the history of art and of science, and critical race theory. Chapters identify the eruption of racial discourses aroused by political or religious polemic, centered upon conversion within and among Jewish, Christian, and Islamic communions, and inspired by imagined or sustained contact with alien peoples. Authors draw their evidence from Hebrew, Latin, Arabic, and a profusion of European vernaculars, and provide searching examinations of visual artefacts ranging from religious service books to maps, mosaics, and manuscript illuminations

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Muslims and Popular Culture illustrates how Muslims participate in a broad spectrum of activities. Moving beyond a framework that emphasizes ritual, legal, historical, or theological issues, this book speaks to how Muslims live in the world, in relation to their religion and the realities of the world around them. The international team of contributors provide in-depth analysis that chronicles Islamic cultural products in regional and transnational contexts, explores dominant and emerging theories about popularization, and offers provocations in the field of religion and popular culture. The handbook is structured in six parts: spaces; appetites; performances; readings; visions; and communities. The book explores a variety of Muslim societies and communities within the last 100 years, ranging from the Islamic presence in Latin American architecture to Muslim Anglophone hip-hop, and Muslims in modern Indian theatre.

Drawing on original fieldwork, Carl Morris examines Muslim cultural production in Britain, with a focus on the performance-based entertainment industries: music, comedy, film, television and theatre. It is a seminal study that charts the growing agency and involvement of British Muslims in cultural production over the last two decades. Morris sets this discussion within the context of wider religious, social and cultural change, with important insights concerning the sociological profile, religious lives and public visibility of Muslims in contemporary Britain. Morris draws on theoretical considerations concerning the mediatization of religion and cosmopolitanization in a globally-connected world. He argues that a new generation of media-savvy and internationalist Muslim cultural producers in Britain are constructing counter narratives in the public sphere and are reshaping everyday religious lives within their own communities. This is having a profound impact upon areas that range from Islamic authority and religious practice, to political and public debate, and understandings of Muslim identity and belonging.

This study, done within the comprehensive Weberian framework, focuses on religion and social change in Bangladesh through an imaginative use of qualitative as well as quantitative methods of modern social research. It first provides a sociological interpretation of the origin and development of Islam in Bengal using historical and literary works on Bengal. The main contribution is based on two sample surveys conducted by Mrs. Banu in 20 villages of Bangladesh and in three areas in the metropolitan Dhaka city. Using these survey data, she gives a sociological analysis of Islamic religious beliefs and practices in contemporary Bangladesh, and more importantly, she studies the impact of the Islamic religious beliefs on the socio- economic development and political culture in present-day Bangladesh. She also shows how Islam compares with modern education in social 'transforming capacity'. This careful and rigorous work is a notable contribution to sociology of religion and helps to deepen our understanding of the interactions between religious and social changes common to many parts of the Third World.

Reportedly, the prophet Muhammad told his followers that after he was gone prophecy would come only through "true dreams." Based on this and other statements, early Muslims created what might be called a theology of dreams. Dreams were regarded as an important means used by God to guide the faithful, especially after the cessation of Koranic revelation. However, since these dreams were often symbolic, they required interpretation, and early Muslims wrote numerous manuals dedicated to deciphering their meaning. Utilizing manuscripts preserved in Middle Eastern mosques and libraries, this book offers the first comprehensive account of the early Muslim tradition of dream interpretation. In addition to describing how and when the tradition developed, author John C. Lamoreaux discusses the social context in which dream interpretation arose and its role in the intellectual life of the time. He demonstrates that early Muslims considered dream interpretation a fully orthodox theological discipline, one sanctioned both by the Koran and the example of the prophet Muhammad.