Embracing a new religion, or leaving one’s faith, usually constitutes a significant milestone in a person’s life. While a number of scholars have examined the reasons why people convert to Islam, few have investigated why people leave the faith and what the consequences are for doing so. Taking a holistic approach to conversion and deconversion, Moving In and Out of Islam explores the experiences of people who have come into the faith along with those who have chosen to leave it—including some individuals who have both moved into and out of Islam over the course of their lives. Sixteen empirical case studies trace the processes of moving in or out of Islam in Western and Central Europe, the United States, Canada, and the Middle East. Going beyond fixed notions of conversion or apostasy, the contributors focus on the ambiguity, doubts, and nonlinear trajectories of both moving in and out of Islam. They show how people shifting in either direction have to learn or unlearn habits and change their styles of clothing, dietary restrictions, and ways of interacting with their communities. They also look at how communities react to both converts to the religion and converts out of it, including controversies over the death penalty for apostates. The contributors cover the political aspects of conversion as well, including debates on radicalization in the era of the “war on terror” and the role of moderate Islam in conversions.

This publication documents the voices of Muslims who live in secular democratic countries and who are gay, lesbian, and transgender. It weaves original interviews with Muslim activists into a picture which showcases the importance of the solidarity of support groups in the effort to change social relationships and achieve justice.

2015 Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award presented by the Stonewall Books Awards of the American Library Association Muhsin is one of the organizers of Al-Fitra Foundation, a South African support group for lesbian, transgender, and gay Muslims. Islam and homosexuality are seen by many as deeply incompatible. This, according to Muhsin, is why he had to act. “I realized that I’m not alone—these people are going through the very same things that I’m going through. But I’ve managed, because of my in-depth relationship with God, to reconcile the two. I was completely comfortable saying to the world that I’m gay and I’m Muslim. I wanted to help other people to get there. So that’s how I became an activist.” Living Out Islam documents the rarely-heard voices of Muslims who live in secular democratic countries and who are gay, lesbian, and transgender. It weaves original interviews with Muslim activists into a compelling composite picture which showcases the importance of the solidarity of support groups in the effort to change social relationships and achieve justice. This nascent movement is not about being “out” as opposed to being “in the closet.” Rather, as the voices of these activists demonstrate, it is about finding ways to live out Islam with dignity and integrity, reconciling their sexuality and gender with their faith and reclaiming Islam as their own.

Nonbelievers, Apostates, and Atheists in the Muslim World offers a contemporary, cross-cultural look at nonbelief and nonreligion in Islam. Providing historical, conceptual, statistical, and ethnographic data on nonbelievers from Morocco to Egypt, Turkey, and Bangladesh, it explores the unique nature and challenges of nonreligion for Muslims. It includes 11 chapters by experts on nonbelief, nonreligion, and atheism in an array of Muslim-majority countries. The book features multiple disciplines and offers both ethnographic and statistical information on this important, growing, but neglected population. It explores the unique nature of nonreligion in Islam, illustrating that nonbelief is specific to a particular religious tradition. It also examines how ex-Muslims navigate complexities and dangers of their societies—especially for women—and how nonbelief and nonreligion do not equate to atheism or the total repudiation of religion or of Muslim identity. This book is an outstanding resource for scholars and students of nonbelief, atheism, secularism, religion, and contemporary Islam.

"Much nuance and variability have been lost in the process of the reductivist analysis of Islam post 9/11 and, as this study amply demonstrates, we are all the poorer as a result. This exhaustive examination of the rise and spread of the Tablighi Jama'at, arguably the world's largest Islamic missionary movement, locates it in the larger perspective of global Islam and developments in the Muslim societies. Combining an overview of the history and current socio-political perception of the Tablighi Jama'at with a more analytical and philosophical approach to fundamental questions of identity, subject-positioning and representation, the author creates a comprehensive resource of interest to all scholars and students of Islam. Drawing on exhaustive research and records of conversion narratives of the new members of Tablighi Jama'at, cited here at length, the author creates a unique perspective on this complex phenomenon from both an internal and external viewpoints. Ahmad-Noor locates the spiritual framework of the movement in the context of its perception in the eyes of the political and religious authorities of the countries where it has a following, as well as the Western 'securocrat' approach."--Publisher's website.

This book sheds an interdisciplinary light on ‘transforming bodies’: bodies that have been subjected to, contributed to, or have resisted social transformations within religious or secular contexts in contemporary Europe. It explores the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion that underpin embodied transformations. Using post-secularist, postcolonial and gender/queer perspectives, it aims to gain a better understanding of the orchestrations and effects of larger social transitions related to religion. This volume is the outcome of the intensive collaboration of the authors, who for years have been meeting regularly in Utrecht, the Netherlands, to discuss themes related to religion and ‘the challenge of difference’, with an added afterword by Prof. Pamela Klassen from the University of Toronto. The book is divided in three subsections that focus on particular types of embodiment: body politics in governmental and NGO organisations; the role of the body in literary and/or autobiographical narratives; and ethnographic case studies of bodies in daily life. Doing so, it provides an innovative exploration of contemporary religion and the body. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Theology, and Philosophy.

The public visibility of Islam is becoming increasingly controversial throughout European countries. With case studies drawn from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, this book examines a range of public issues, including mosque construction, ritual slaughter, Sharia councils and burqa bans, addressing the question of ’Islamic difference’ in public life outside the confines of established normative discourses that privilege freedom of religion, minority rights or multiculturalism. Acknowledging the creative role of dissent, it explores the manner in which public controversies unsettle the religious-secular divide and reshape European norms in the domains of aesthetics, individual freedom, animal rights and law. Developing an innovative conceptual framework and elaborating the notion of controversy as a methodological tool, Islam and Public Controversy in Europe draws our attention to the processes of interaction, confrontation and mutual transformation, thereby opening up a new horizon for rethinking difference and pluralism in Europe. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in religion, integration, cultural difference and the public sphere.

Scholars from various disciplines worked together to present the first interdisciplinary book to address the issue of Islam, secularism and globalization. The book has a clear structure which represents its interdisciplinary approach: the first section addresses the philosophical and historical discussion about Islam and secularism; the second section discusses the topic from an ethnographical and social anthropological viewpoint; and the final section addresses Islam, secularism and globalization from a political viewpoint. This unique collection not only offers innovative research and new material, it also provides empirical examples and theoretical debates, and could therefore also be used as a textbook for courses on Islam, globalization, anthropology, politics, sociology and law.

An acclaimed Arab Studies scholar and bestselling author offers a groundbreaking new interpretation of the status and vision of Muslim women—and challenges our own sense of the meaning of feminism. "Islamic feminism" would seem a contradiction in terms to most Westerners. We are taught to think of Islam as a culture wherein social code and religious law alike force women to accept male authority and surrender to the veil. How could feminism emerge under such a code, let alone flourish? Now, traveling throughout Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as Islamic communities in the United States, acclaimed Arab Studies scholar and bestselling author Elizabeth Fernea sets out to answer that question. Fernea's dialogue with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances prompts a range of diverse and unpredictable responses, but in every country she visits, women demonstrate they are anything but passive. In Iraq, we see an 85 percent literacy rate among women; in Egypt, we see women owning their own farms; and in Israel, we see women at the very forefront of peacemaking efforts. Poor or rich, educated or illiterate, these women define their own needs, solve their own problems, and determine the boundaries of their own very real, very viable feminism.

Women's issues continue to dominate the Islamic world in particular, as there has been a very gradual change in the status of women in the Islamic world as a whole. This book covers various aspects relating to the status of women in the pre-Islamic period -- customs and -traditions, forms of marriage, divorce and forms of divorce, dower, traditions regarding slave-girls, and so on. It then goes on to deal with the status of women in the post-Islamic period -- the Qur'anic concept of women's rights in marriage, divorce, inheritance, custody of children, polygamy, maintenance, property, right to earn, etc. It quotes extensively from the Qur'an and Sunnah. It also deals with the Arab adaat, that is, pre-Islamic customs and traditions regarding women. Altogether, it attempts to arm Muslim women with Islamic arguments for their empowerment. The author, a renowned scholar, has sought to set the record straight by reinterpreting women's rights in the true Qur'anic spirit. He argues quite convincingly that the Holy Book gives equal rights to both the sexes, and it does not discriminate between them as regards personal, democratic and human rights. The question whether in a secular society Muslim personal law needs any change, and, if so, in which direction the reform should be undertaken is dealt with in detail. This third edition contains a chapter: 'On a Muslim Woman Leading the Congregational Prayer'. This chapter deals with the important aspect of Muslim women's problems and also hopes to further enhance their understanding of the Shari'ah issues.