Presents entries A to L of a two-volume encyclopedia discussing religion around the globe, including biographies, concepts and theories, places, social issues, movements, texts, and traditions.

The multi-volume Encyclopedia of Global Religion provides a comprehensive overview of the globalization of religious culture and society around the world in both its historical and contemporary aspects. The encyclopedia includes topics related to the diaspora of cultures and dispersions of peoples; the transitional aspects of religious ideas and practices; the cultural diversity of religious traditions; and the responses of religion—both negative and positive—to multicultural society. The volumes include essays on the contemporary religious society of every country in the world. The contributors to the encyclopedia are leading authorities on these topics from around the world. The editors, Mark Juergensmeyer and Wade Clark Roof., are sociologists of religion at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Contains nearly 600 brief entries on the world's religious traditions.

The Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions gives students greater insight into the stories behind the headlines by providing in-depth coverage of the religions that shape the world. This authoritative and comprehensive book answers your questions and exposes you to the concepts, movements, people, and events associated with living and ancient religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.

Created by two of the field’s leading experts, this unique introduction to international religious demography outlines the challenges in interpreting data on religious adherence, and presents a contemporary portrait of global religious belief. Offers the first comprehensive overview of the field of international religious demography – detailing what we know about religious adherents around the world, and how we know it Examines religious freedom and diversity, including agnostics and atheists, on a global scale, highlighting trends over the past 100 years and projecting estimates for the year 2050 Outlines the issues and challenges related to definitions, taxonomies, sources, analyses, and other techniques in interpreting data on religious adherence Considers data from religious communities, censuses, surveys, and scholarly research, along with several in-depth case studies on the global Muslim population, religion in China, and the religious demography of recently created Sudan and South Sudan Argues against the belief that the twentieth-century was a ‘secular’ period by putting forward new evidence to the contrary Provides resources for measuring both qualitatively and quantitatively important data on the world's religious situation in the twenty-first century

This work fills a significant gap in the current literature by providing a concise introduction to religious institutions and an insightful analysis of their role in world affairs. Focusing on formal institutions specifically dedicated to governing religious communities, the work examines the intersections between religious and other global institutions, set against the fundamental question: why and how do these intersections matter? The work explores the role of religion within key issues including Human rights Human security International development and humanitarian relief Climate change Moral responsibilities The new forms that religious institutions are taking, their fit with human rights and democratic ideals, their changing nature in plural societies, are a highly relevant part of the global institutional picture and this book is essential reading for all students and scholars of global institutions, international relations and religion.

Increasingly, ethnic and religious variables are taken into account to explain conflict and relations between nations. However, ethnic and religious groups exist beyond the confines of frontiers. In Africa, for example, hundreds of ethnic groups were divided by colonial borders, and many retained kinship connections to their brethren in other countries, thus creating “cross-border ethnic/religious affinity.” Such cross-border connections affect a variety of foreign policy, from diplomacy to the use of force. An internal problem can spread to other states, or external actors can become involved in domestic disputes due to such factors. Therefore data on cross-border connections are essential to measure and assess their actual or potential effects on foreign policy or conflict. This unique resource serves both qualitative and quantitative researchers. For ease of use, it is divided in sections for each region of world, with the entries organized by pairs of contiguous countries. Each entry for a pair of countries briefly discusses the ethnic and religious groups that are common to both countries and the historical and current connections between these groups. The entries are organized based on the Correlates of War country codes, which are widely used by researchers and allow for country pairs to be organized geographically within each section to facilitate easy use of the data.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Religion takes a three-pronged look at this, namely investigating the role of religion in society; unpacking and evaluating the significance of religion in and on human history; and tracing and outlining the social forces and influences that shape religion. This encyclopedia covers a range of themes from: • fundamental topics like definitions • secularization • dimensions of religiosity to such emerging issues as civil religion • new religious movements This Encyclopedia also addresses contemporary dilemmas such as fundamentalism and extremism and the role of gender in religion.

The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies is a comprehensive one volume reference guide to Islam and study in this area. A team of leading international scholars - Muslim and non-Muslim - cover important aspects of study in the field, providing readers with a complete and accessible source of information to the wide range of methodologies and theoretical principles involved. Presenting Islam as a variegated tradition, key essays from the contributors demonstrate how it is subject to different interpretations, with no single version privileged. In this volume, Islam is treated as a lived experience, not only as theoretical ideal or textual tradition. Featuring a series of indispensable research tools, including a substantial A-Z of key terms and concepts, chronology and a detailed list of resources, this is the essential reference guide for anyone working in Islamic Studies.