When the question is asked what are Islam’s contributions to civilization, often the focus is on scientific development, to the ancient world this is by far the most misleading standard for advancement and development. While Islam was certainly the most advanced civilization of the ancient world it’s social and moral development is what set it apart from the rest of the world. Social and moral development in the ancient world had a far more significant impact on a society than scientific development, although still important in many ways, this is because ideology changes how the entire community behaved and lived their lives. Moral development drives social development because it defines the framework for how that society should live and spend it’s time and energy, scientific development historically was a result of both of these because the backdrop in the ancient world for a society that did not develop socially and morally was either living as hunter gatherers or a nomadic life, they either never advanced as a community or degraded after advancement as the moral fabric of that society disappeared, the pyramids could not be built until the Egyptian religion and society demanded it which then directed mans scientific and engineering efforts. As the world at large moved away from this Islam was instrumental in shaping the development of the entire world as it shared it's scientific discoveries from one end of the empire to the other, it was a trade empire whose borders stretched from west Africa and southern Europe to China, it’s scientific advancements which surpassed the rest of the world where a direct result of changing communities and societies around the world and encouraging them to study nature and the world, this global effort would later spread around the world from Europe to Asia to the Americas. By only the 9th century for example muslim scientist’s had discovered the world was round and in comparison to Europe, the masses embraced the notion and took it for granted, Ibn Hazm said its proof was “that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth”, meaning if you where to follow the sun to where you perceived it to be setting, you would always find it vertical (up in the sky) to that location even though from your original location it may appear to be setting, that notion dawned on Galileo 500 years later. This book looks at what it is in Islam that encouraged this change in so many communities and it discusses the spirituality that shaped so many lives. Some of these societies where among the most primitive people on earth but in a short period of time they would set up large empires spanning multiple continents, this processes was seen numerous times in Islam’s history in different regions of the earth by communities of different backgrounds. From the Arab Ummayids who first invaded Europe, to the African Mali Empire whose most famous ruler was the richest person in History, to the Turkish Ottomans who had one of the largest Empires on earth and one of the longest lasting family dynasties, all had simple beginnings but one thing in common that changed their societies in a short period of time, Islam.

This new volume of essays marks eighty years since the death of Marmaduke Pickthall. His various roles as translator of the Qurʾan, traveller to the Near East, political journalist writing on behalf of Muslim Turkey, and creator of the Muslim novel are discussed. In later life Pickthall became a prominent member of the British Muslim community in London and Woking, co-worker with Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, supporter of the Khilafat movement, and editor of the journal Islamic Culture under the patronage of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Marmaduke Pickthall: Islam and the Modern World makes an important contribution to the field of Muslims in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. Contributors are: Humayun Ansari, Adnan Ashraf, James Canton, Peter Clark, Ron Geaves, A.R. Kidwai, Faruk Kokoglu, Andrew C. Long, Geoffrey P. Nash, M. A. Sherif and Mohammad Siddique Seddon.

This comprehensive introduction explores the landscape of contemporary Islam. Written by a distinguished team of scholars, it: provides broad overviews of the developments, events, people and movements that have defined Islam in the three majority-Muslim regions traces the connections between traditional Islamic institutions and concerns, and their modern manifestations and transformations. How are medieval ideas, policies and practices refashioned to address modern circumstances investigates new themes and trends that are shaping the modern Muslim experience such as gender, fundamentalism, the media and secularisation offers case studies of Muslims and Islam in dynamic interaction with different societies. Islam in the Modern World includes illustrations, summaries, discussion points and suggestions for further reading that will aid understanding and revision. Additional resources are provided via a companion website.

In recent years, events in the Islamic world have captured the attention of the West to an unprecedented degree. However, much of the media coverage of events like the Islamic revolution in Iran has merely reinforced current prejudices and misconceptions about Islam. This collection of essays, by specialists in a variety of disciplines, gives an impressionistic overview of contemporary Islam. Different areas of Islamic life are singled out for special attention; these include the problem of relations between Islam and the West, the role of the Sufi orders and the revival of religious fundamentalism, Islam and the feminine, Islamic economics and Islamic architecture. Geographically, the essays cover a wide area, ranging over Sudan, Turkey, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Each discussion should appeal to the layman and specialist alike and collectively they bring together a comprehensive range of material not often covered in one volume. Above all, they cut across the stereotypes of Islam found in the popular media, to reveal facets of a complex, living tradition often unsuspected in the West. First published in 1983.

Dynamics of Islam in the Modern World scrutinizes and analyzes Islam in context. It posits Muslims not as independent and autonomous, but as relational and interactive agents of change and continuity who interplay with Islamic(ate) sources of self and society as well as with resources from other traditions. Representing multiple disciplinary approaches, the contributors to this volume discuss a broad range of issues, such as secularization, colonialism, globalization, radicalism, human rights, migration, hermeneutics, mysticism, religious normativity and pluralism, while paying special attention to three geographical settings of South Asia, the Middle East and Euro-America.

In The Middle East and the Making of the Modern World, Cyrus Schayegh takes up a fundamental problem historians face: how to make sense of the spatial layeredness of the past. He argues that the modern world’s ultimate socio-spatial feature was not the oft-studied processes of globalization or state formation or urbanization. Rather, it was fast-paced, mutually transformative intertwinements of cities, regions, states, and global circuits, a bundle of processes he calls transpatialization. To make this case, Schayegh’s study pivots around Greater Syria (Bilad al-Sham in Arabic), which is roughly coextensive with present-day Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine. From this region, Schayegh looks beyond, to imperial and global connections, diaspora communities, and neighboring Egypt, Iraq, and Turkey. And he peers deeply into Bilad al-Sham: at cities and their ties, and at global economic forces, the Ottoman and European empire-states, and the post-Ottoman nation-states at work within the region. He shows how diverse socio-spatial intertwinements unfolded in tandem during a transformative stretch of time, the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, and concludes with a postscript covering the 1940s to 2010s.

Using an elite consensus/conflict analytical frame, this book examines why some majority Muslim countries perform so much better at democracy and/or development than others, questioning received wisdoms that Islam, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment go together. Identifying four distinct democracy and development outcomes in the Muslim world, four case studies are interrogated to show that there is more variability in democracy and development outcomes in Muslim majority countries than macro-historical studies and aggregate data have shown. By demonstrating that democracy and development outcomes in Muslim countries are the consequence of elite conflict and elite consensus, rather than the precepts or institutions of Islam, the book places the competition for power among contending elites, rather than Islam, at the center of the story of democracy and development in the Muslim world. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political development/development studies, democratization and autocratization studies, democracy promotion, and more broadly comparative politics.

How does religious fundamentalism operate in modern global society? This two-volume series analyses the dynamics of fundamentalism and its relationship to the modern state, the public sphere and globalisation. In this first volume, fundamentalism is approached from the perspective of state and community building, ideology and practices within the context of global society, and the ways in which fundamentalism is intertwined with issues of politics, state power, democracy, globalization, political activism and political ideology. Expert scholars in the field address specific contemporary and past fundamentalist movements that have emerged from within mainstream Islam, Christianity, Baha'ism, Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism. This is an important study of an increasingly significant and controversial aspect of modern society, and will be essential reading in the fields of Religion, Politics and International Relations.

This book is concerned with the rationality and plausibility of the Muslim faith and the Qur'an, and in particular how they can be interrogated and understood through Western analytical philosophy. It also explores how Islam can successfully engage with the challenges posed by secular thinking. The Quran and the Secular Mind will be of interest to students and scholars of Islamic philosophy, philosophy of religion, Middle East studies, and political Islam.