Islam in South Asia in Practice

Islam in South Asia in Practice
Author: Barbara D. Metcalf
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 505
Release: 2009-09-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1400831385

This volume of Princeton Readings in Religions brings together the work of more than thirty scholars of Islam and Muslim societies in South Asia to create a rich anthology of primary texts that contributes to a new appreciation of the lived religious and cultural experiences of the world's largest population of Muslims. The thirty-four selections--translated from Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati, Hindavi, Dakhani, and other languages--highlight a wide variety of genres, many rarely found in standard accounts of Islamic practice, from oral narratives to elite guidance manuals, from devotional songs to secular judicial decisions arbitrating Islamic law, and from political posters to a discussion among college women affiliated with an "Islamist" organization. Drawn from premodern texts, modern pamphlets, government and organizational archives, new media, and contemporary fieldwork, the selections reflect the rich diversity of Islamic belief and practice in South Asia. Each reading is introduced with a brief contextual note from its scholar-translator, and Barbara Metcalf introduces the whole volume with a substantial historical overview.

Sharia and Justice

Sharia and Justice
Author: Abbas Poya
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2018-05-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110574594

Justice is considered the basic norm of human coexistence. Every legal order refers to the concept of justice, and Muslims also regard their religious norms (the Sharia) as offering just solutions to legal questions. But is the assumption that the Sharia is just merely an acceptance of a status quo correct? And is justice the necessary aim of the Sharia? In this volume, renowned scholars discuss these questions from different perspectives. In principle, the first normative source of Islam, the Qur'an, orders justice and fair conduct (Rohe). At the same time, an analysis of the concept of justice in the classical age of Islam (Ahmed and Poya) also shows that there existed ambivalent understandings of this concept. The relationship of the idea of justice in Islam to political questions (Ende), to war (Poya), and to modern reform (Mir-Hosseini) again confirms the importance of the concept for a critical reflection on traditional assumptions and existing circumstances. The discussion on the hijab in Western countries (Ladwig) shows paradigmatically how justice can regulate the relationship between the secular state and the Sharia. The essays in this volume endeavor to show that debates about justice, in Islam as well, express an underlying tension between the perception of an order as just on the one hand, and the feeling of injustice under the same order on the other. This discussion validates the idea that justice should be understood as a concept subject to a perpetual reexamination according to changing times and circumstances.

Islam's Quantum Question

Islam's Quantum Question
Author: Nidhal Guessoum
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2010-10-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0857730754

In secular Europe the veracity of modern science is almost always taken for granted. Whether they think of the evolutionary proofs of Darwin or of spectacular investigation into the boundaries of physics conducted by CERN's Large Hadron Collider, most people assume that scientific enquiry goes to the heart of fundamental truths about the universe. Yet elsewhere, science is under siege. In the USA, Christian fundamentalists contest whether evolution should be taught in schools at all. And in Muslim countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan and Malaysia, a mere 15 per cent of those recently surveyed believed Darwin's theory to be 'true' or 'probably true'. This thoughtful and passionately argued book contends absolutely to the contrary: not only that evolutionary theory does not contradict core Muslim beliefs, but that many scholars, from Islam's golden age to the present, adopted a worldview that accepted evolution as a given. Guessoum suggests that the Islamic world, just like the Christian, needs to take scientific questions - 'quantum questions' - with the utmost seriousness if it is to recover its true heritage and integrity. In its application of a specifically Muslim perspective to important topics like cosmology, divine action and evolution, the book makes a vital contribution to debate in the disputed field of 'science and religion'.

Teaching Intolerance in Pakistan

Teaching Intolerance in Pakistan
Author: U S Commission on International Religio
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2016-08-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781537178004

The major findings of this report are that the content of Pakistani public school textbooks related to non-Islamic faiths and non-Muslims continue to teach bias, distrust, and inferiority. Moreover, the textbooks portray non-Muslim citizens of Pakistan as sympathetic towards its perceived enemies: Pakistani Christians as Westerners or equal to British colonial oppressors, and Pakistani Hindus as Indians, the arch enemy of Pakistan. These perceptions predispose students early on that the non-Muslim population of Pakistan are outsiders and unpatriotic. These grossly generalized and stereotypical portrayals of religious minority communities signal that they are untrustworthy, religiously inferior, and ideologically scheming and intolerant. These messages are reinforced by the absence of deeper content addressing the complexity of religions, the rights of religious minorities, and the positive contributions of religious minorities in the development and protection of Pakistan.

Self-defense in Islamic and International Law

Self-defense in Islamic and International Law
Author: N. Shah
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2008-03-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230611656

The book argues that the concept of self-defense in Islamic and International law is compatible. Al-Qaeda's declaration of Jihad does not meet the Islamic legal test. Similarly, the invasion of Iraq does meet the international legal test.

Islamic Civilization in South Asia

Islamic Civilization in South Asia
Author: Burjor Avari
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0415580617

Muslims have been present in South Asia for 14 centuries. Nearly 40% of the people of this vast land mass follow the religion of Islam, and Muslim contribution to the cultural heritage of the sub-continent has been extensive. This textbook provides both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as the general reader, with a comprehensive account of the history of Islam in India, encompassing political, socio-economic, cultural and intellectual aspects. Using a chronological framework, the book discusses the main events in each period between c. 600 CE and the present day, along with the key social and cultural themes. It discusses a range of topics, including: How power was secured, and how was it exercised The crisis of confidence caused by the arrival of the West in the sub-continent How the Indo-Islamic synthesis in various facets of life and culture came about Excerpts at the end of each chapter allow for further discussion, and detailed maps alongside the text help visualise the changes through each time period. Introducing the reader to the issues concerning the Islamic past of South Asia, the book is a useful text for students and scholars of South Asian History and Religious Studies.