Policy-makers and the public are increasingly attentive to the role of shari'a in the everyday lives of Western Muslims, with negative associations and public fears growing among their non-Muslim neighbors in the United States and Canada. The most common way North American Muslims relate to shari'a is in their observance of Muslim marriage and divorce rituals; recourse to traditional Islamic marriage and, to a lesser extent, divorce is widespread. Julie Macfarlane has conducted hundreds of interviews with Muslim couples, as well as with religious and community leaders and family conflict professionals. Her book describes how Muslim marriage and divorce processes are used in North America, and what they mean to those who embrace them as a part of their religious and cultural identity. The picture that emerges is of an idiosyncratic private ordering system that reflects a wide range of attitudes towards contemporary family values and changes in gender roles. Some women describe pervasive assumptions about restrictions on their role in the family system, as well as pressure to accept these values and to stay married. Others of both genders describe the gradual modernization of Islamic family traditions - and the subsequent emergence of a Western shari'a--but a continuing commitment to the rituals of Muslim marriage and divorce in their private lives. Readers will be challenged to consider how the secular state should respond in order to find a balance between state commitment to universal norms and formal equality, and the protection of religious freedom expressed in private religious and cultural practices.

A two volume encyclopedia set that examines the legacy, impact, and contributions of Muslim Americans to U.S. history.

Recently, new methods of dispute resolution in matters of family law-such as arbitration, mediation, and conciliation-have created new forms of legal culture that affect minority communities throughout the world. There are now multiple ways of obtaining restitution through nontraditional alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms. For some, the emergence of ADRs can be understood as part of a broader liberal response to the challenges presented by the settlement of migrant communities in Western liberal democracies. Questions of rights are framed as "multicultural challenges" that give rise to important issues relating to power, authority, agency, and choice. Underpinning these debates are questions about the doctrine and practice of secularism, citizenship, belonging, and identity. Gender and Justice in Family Law Disputes offers insights into how women's autonomy and personal decision-making capabilities are expressed via multiple formal and nonformal dispute-resolution mechanisms, and as part of their social and legal lived realities. It analyzes the specific ways in which both mediation and religious arbitration take shape in contemporary and comparative family law across jurisdictions. Demarcating lines between contemporary family mediation and new forms of religious arbitration, Bano illuminates the complexities of these processes across multiple national contexts.

When the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice announced it would begin offering Sharia-based services in Ontario, a subsequent provincial government review gave qualified support for religious arbitration. However, the ensuing debate inflamed the passions of a wide range of Muslim and non-Muslim groups, garnered worldwide attention, and led to a ban on religiously based family law arbitration in the province. Debating Sharia sheds light on how Ontario's Sharia debate of 2003-2006 exemplified contemporary concerns regarding religiosity in the public sphere and the place of Islam in Western nation states. Focusing on the legal ramifications of Sharia law in the context of rapidly changing Western liberal democracies, Debating Sharia approaches the issue from a variety of methodological perspectives, including policy and media analysis, fieldwork, feminist examinations of the portrayals of Muslim women, and theoretical examinations of religion, Sharia, and the law. This volume is an important read for those who grapple with ethnic and religio-cultural diversity while remaining committed to religious freedom and women's equality.

A fundamental and well-illustrated reference collection for anyone interested in the role of women in North American religious life.

I want to begin by congratulating my colleagues at the helm of the American Journal of Islam and Society (AJIS), as well as readers and contributors, that the journal is now finally SCOPUS-indexed. Consistently in circulation since its establishment in 1984, AJIS is now an open-access, biannual, double-blind peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary journal with global reach. Its newly acquired formal status speaks to its consistently high standards of scholarship and invites an ever-larger group of aspiring and senior scholars to publish their finest work on a variety of areas in Islamic thought and society. The issue of the American Journal of Islam and Society comprises four contributions, each exploring a different way in which Islam and society interact. Wardah AlKatiri proposes an Islamic vision to address the world’s deteriorating environmental prospects; Yousef Wahb addresses the challenge of upholding Islamic communal norms in North America; Sami al-Daghistani aspires to put the field of Islamic economics into conversation with classical Islamic ethics and spirituality; and Tabinda Khan addresses a theoretical lacuna in Western political scientists’ study of Islamism. Ovamir Anjum Editor

Since 2001, there has been a tremendous backlash against the very idea that it is possible to be both American and Muslim-the controversy over the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" and the attempts to ban shari'a law are examples. Even within the Muslim community many leaders urge believers to integrate more fully into the mainstream of American life. Is it possible to be both fully American and devoutly Muslim? An American citizen born and raised in the Sudan, an internationally recognized scholar of Islam, and a human rights activist, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im brings a unique perspective to this crucial question. By demanding that Muslims assimilate, he argues, allies and critics alike assume that American Muslims are a monolithic bloc, a permanent minority set apart from that which is truly "American." An-Na'im wholeheartedly rejects this notion and urges Muslims to embrace their faith without fear. Islam, he argues, is one of many dimensions of identity-Muslims are also members of different ethnic groups, political parties, and social circles, not to mention husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, baseball fans and movie buffs. In short, Muslims share a vast array of identities with other Americans, but the most important identity they all share is as citizens. Muslims, An-Na'im argues, must embrace the full range of rights and responsibilities that come with American citizenship, and participate fully in civic life, while at the same time asserting their right to define their faith for themselves. They must view themselves, simply, as American citizens who happen to be Muslims. What Is an American Muslim? is a bold and provocative take on the future of Islam in America.

Focuses on women and the civilizations and societies in which Islam has played a historic role. Surveys all facets of life (society, economy, politics, religion, the arts, popular culture, sports, health, science, medicine, environment, and so forth) of women in these societies.

The conflict between Islam and the West is as disturbing on the outside, as it polarizes the world, as it is on the inside, when it divides families and causes enormous stress to Muslims living in the West. A mutual understanding is the answer to both of these conflicts. This work enhances the West's understanding of Muslim minorities and helps Muslims to understand their own identity problem in Western culture. Ultimately, Professor Akhtar delineates how Muslim families can integrate into Western society in a creative way that will benefit their families and society-at-large. Muslim Family in a Dilemma provides empirical examinations of many problems in the Muslim family in the U.S. and Europe, such as divorce, mental health, and the abuse of women. One chapter gives a special analysis of the maltreatment of Muslim women in Turkish families in Germany. In regard to these issues and women's equality, the Western position is accepted, and Islam is interpreted in several chapters as reconcilable with this outlook. Further consistent with the Western position, is what the writer of the last chapter, a Muslim female, has to state: pleasing your wife sexually is a religious obligation in Islam. That is in regard to sex in marriage. However, sex outside of marriage or free sex is irreconcilable to Islam. In a detailed critique of some of the Western practices and anti-family forces, Professor Akhtar determines the mutually exclusive relationship between unrestricted sex and marital integrity. One can have free sex or long-lasting marriage, but not both. He considers extra-marital sex as a paradox of Western culture, as it derives from an overvaluation of sex and overemphasis of individualism and cuts into relationships.

Designed as a useful reference tool to help students, educators, and diplomats maneuver through scholarly literature as well as primary sources published in English between 1989 and 1994, this work seeks to help the researcher make sense of the explosion of literature on this often contentious topic. In addition to surveying the literature on Islamic revival worldwide, it provides commentary on literature pertaining to important topics such as the role of women in Islam, Islamic economics, and the migration of Muslims to western Europe and North America. This work is a continuation of the first edition published by Greenwood in 1991, ^IThe Contemporary Islamic Revival^R. Governments, policymakers, and experts around the world are debating whether contemporary Islamic revival, in particular Islamic Fundamentalism, is a diverse and multifaceted phenomenon or a uniformly clear and present danger to be consistently and persistently repressed or eradicated. Some propose that there are means of cooperation, collaboration, or co-optation with those who adhere to it, while others see it as a menace, warning of a clash of civilizations, and of an Islamic population explosion which poses a demographic threat to national security and world peace.