Category Archives: Islam: Introduction

Contesting Islamism

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Ethics, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islam: Introduction, Islamophobia, Scholars, Teaching Resources, Terrorism Issue

Stanford University Press has just published Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam, edited by Richard C. Martin and Abbas Barzegar. In this book Political Scientist Donald Emmerson argues for an inclusive use of the term “Islamism” in order to rescue the term from its misappropriation in the media. This is followed by my essay, in which I argue that the term “Islamism” is as tainted as “Mohammedanism” and should be avoided as a replacement for fundamentalist and political Islam. Our two essays are followed by twelve short responses from a variety of perspectives, Muslim and non-Muslim. The contributors include Feisal Abdul Rauf, Syed Farid Alatas, Hillel Fradkin, Graham Fuller, Hasan Hanafi, Amir Hussain, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Richard Tapper, M. Zuhdi Jasser, Bruce Lawrence, Anouar Majid, Angel Rebasa and Nadia Yassine. Given the range of perspectives on one of the hot topics of the day, this volume will be a great addition to courses on Islam or the Middle East.

The publisher’s description is presented below: Continue reading Contesting Islamism →

Mapping the Global Muslim Population

Anthropology/Sociology, Islam: Introduction, Teaching Resources


The “President’s Mosque” in Sanaa, Yemen

Mapping the Global Muslim Population
A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, October 2009

Executive Summary

A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.

While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. Indeed, more than half of the 20 countries and territories1 in that region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater.

More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined. Continue reading Mapping the Global Muslim Population →

Reviewing the Review

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Islam: Introduction, Islamic Texts, Orientalism, Scholars, Sufism

In 2005 I published Islam Obscured, a critical assessment of four books widely read as “the” anthropology of Islam. The books I examined were by Clifford Geertz, Ernest Gellner, Fatima Mernissi and Akbar Ahmed. Having wielded an iconclastic hammer over the first four chapters, I concluded the book with a brief question-and-answer survey of the ways in which “Islam” has and should be studied by anthropologists who value the role of ethnographic fieldwork. At the time, the publisher failed to send the book out for review, although some review copies finally went out over a year ago. There are many, many books out there on “Islam,” but my text was, to not mire myself in humility, somewhat unique. It faulted these texts for not using ethnographic data but rather essentializing their own views of what Islam should be.

I recently received a lengthy review by Ken Lizzio, whose research was on Sufi texts, in The Journal of North African Studies (14:309-316, June, 2009). Having written my book in large part for non-anthropologists, I was quite interested in how a specialist in Near Eastern Studies would react to it. The thrust of the reviewer strikes me as quite positive, especially when he states: “As Varisco proceeds to fell some of the giants in the anthropological forest, he does so with an axe sharpened with impeccable logic and refreshing intellectual honesty” (p. 310). The reviewer agrees with me that both Geertz and Gellner both fail to apply data from fieldwork to their assertions. So far, so good. Continue reading Reviewing the Review →

Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies Newsletter

Anthropology/Sociology, Islam: Introduction, Journalism and Media, Teaching Resources


Charles Kurzman, Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina

The Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies website is an important resource for anyone interest in the study of Islam from a sociological perspective. The current summer issue is available online at the main website. In the current edition, Charles Kurzman has an introduction well worth reading. He observes,

The sociology of Islam and Muslim societies is “hot,” for all the wrong reasons. It is not because globalization has drawn the world closer together, or because sociology is internationalizing its focus beyond its historical interest in Western Europe and North America. No, the sociology of Islam is “hot” because of the common but inaccurate association of Islam with terrorism and international conflict. The world wants to know why we are seeing such violence in the name of Islam, and sociologists — along with other social scientists — are expected to have answers. Violence and stereotypes related to Muslims are, sadly, good for business in the sociology of Islam. Continue reading Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies Newsletter →

Eyes Wide Shut

Iraq War, Islam: Introduction

Eyes wide shut in the Islamic world

by Tarek Fatah, Globe and Mail, Toronto

THE CRISIS IN ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION by Ali A. Allawi. Yale University Press, 320 pages, $33.50

LOST IN THE SACRED: Why the Muslim World Stood Still by Dan Diner. Princeton University press, 214 pages, $35.95

The Muslim world seems to be caught up in a crisis that shows no end in sight. If there is a single image that reflects this ongoing catastrophe, it is captured in the haunting eyes of a dying Neda Soltani, the 24-year-old woman shot dead on the streets of Tehran.

Since Bernard Lewis’s tome What Went Wrong, much has been written on this subject. Now, two books shed new light on the fall and decline of Muslim civilization. Both authors, Ali Allawi, an Iraqi politician-academic who teaches in the U.S., and Dan Diner, a Jewish professor of modern history in Germany, not only study the decline, but also look into the reasons why attempts to resuscitate the Ummah have failed. Continue reading Eyes Wide Shut →

Documenting the Study of Islam

Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Islam: Introduction, Journalism and Media

The Internet has become the ultimate research library, especially for older and rare volumes that one used to have to look at only in rare book collections or major university libraries. I noticed recently that several of the earliest journals devoted to the study of Islam now have their earliest versions available online. The extraordinary site, The Internet Archive, now has the first 11 volumes of Der Islam, the first 6 volumes of Die Welt des Islams, and the first 12 volumes of The Moslem World. This is a great resource for scholars, but also worth a browse, especially if you know some German. There is much of value, historical as well as continuing scientific, in these early volumes.

Islamic Civilization in Peril

Iraq, Islam in America, Islam: Introduction, Terrorism Issue

By Ali A. Allawi, The Chronicle Review, June 29

I was born into a mildly observant Muslim family in Iraq. At that time, the 1950s, secularism was ascendant among the political, cultural, and intellectual elites of the Middle East. It appeared to be only a matter of time before Islam would lose whatever hold it still had on the Muslim world. Even that term — “Muslim world” — was unusual, as Muslims were more likely to identify themselves by their national, ethnic, or ideological affinities than by their religion.

To an impressionable child, it was clear that society was decoupling from Islam. Though religion was a mandatory course in school, nobody taught us the rules of prayer or expected us to fast during Ramadan. We memorized the shorter verses of the Koran, but the holy book itself was kept on the shelf or in drawers, mostly unread. The elderly still made the pilgrimage to Mecca to atone for their transgressions in preparation for death — more an insurance policy than an act of piety. I don’t recall ever coming across the word “jihad” in a contemporary context. The political rhetoric of the day focused on Arab destiny and anti-imperialism. Continue reading Islamic Civilization in Peril →

Islam and the Power of Kindness

Ethics, Islam: Introduction, Qur'an, Terrorism Issue, Traditions (hadith literature)

[Note: The following excerpt by a Muslim intellectual is perhaps the best antidote for the ongoing violence of mosque bombings, Taliban and Basij brutality towards Muslim women and vitriolic sermons.]

Islamic Perspectives of Inter-Community Relations

by Maulvi Yahya Nomani (Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand) TwoCircles.net

The issue of what Islam has to say about inter-community relations is one about which much misunderstanding exists. Anti-Muslim propagandists claim that Islam preaches hatred for non-Muslims, and that the Quran is a menace to world peace. They go so far as to argue that world peace is simply impossible as long as the Quran exists. In order to back their propaganda, they have deliberately twisted and misinterpreted certain verses of the Quran. Many people with little knowledge have fallen prey to this poisonous propaganda, which has been aggressively spread on an enormous scale through the media. Continue reading Islam and the Power of Kindness →