Many Muslim societies are in the throes of tumultuous political transitions, and common to all has been heightened debate over the place of shari`a law in modern politics and ethical life. Bringing together leading scholars of Islamic politics, ethics, and law, this book examines the varied meanings and uses of Islamic law, so as to assess the prospects for democratic, plural, and gender-equitable Islamic ethics today. These essays show that, contrary to the claims of some radicals, Muslim understandings of Islamic law and ethics have always been varied and emerge, not from unchanging texts but from real and active engagement with Islamic traditions and everyday life. The ethical debates that rage in contemporary Muslim societies reveal much about the prospects for democratic societies and a pluralist Islamic ethics in the future. They also suggest that despite the tragic violence wrought in recent years by Boko Haram and the Islamic State in Iraq, we may yet see an age of ethical renewal across the Muslim world.

One of the most important developments in Muslim politics in recent years has been the spread of movements calling for the implementation of sharia or Islamic law. Shari a Politics maps the ideals and organization of these movements and examines their implications for the future of democracy, citizen rights, and gender relations in the Muslim world. These studies of eight Muslim-majority societies, and state-of-the-field reflections by leading experts, provide the first comparative investigation of movements for and against implementation of sharia. These essays reveal that the Muslim public's interest in sharia does not spring from an unchanging devotion to received religious tradition, but from an effort to respond to the central political and ethical questions of the day.

Product Description: When students from a Muslim boarding school were convicted for the 2002 terrorist bombings in Bali, Islamic schools in Southeast Asia became the focus of intense international scrutiny. Some analysts have warned that these schools are being turned into platforms for violent jihadism...read more

Product Description: Since the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996, the public has grappled with the relationship between Islamic education and radical Islam. Media reports tend to paint madrasas--religious schools dedicated to Islamic learning--as medieval institutions opposed to all that is Western and as breeding grounds for terrorists...read more

Product Description: There is a struggle for the hearts and minds of Muslims unfolding across the Islamic world. The conflict pits Muslims who support pluralism and democracy against others who insist such institutions are antithetical to Islam. With some 1...read more

(view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

Product Description: In the aftermath of the cold war, political commentators spoke ebulliently of the triumph of liberal democracy over its ideological rivals. Shortly thereafter, however, a surge of ethnic and religious violence raised doubts about whether democracy could survive outside Western culture...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Since the late 1970s, Southeast Asia's Muslim population has experienced an unprecedented religious revival. This resurgence has created a new kind of Islamic discourse, one oriented to the needs of a broad public rather than to narrow circles of religious adepts...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

One of the most remarkable developments of our time has been the spectacular growth of capitalist enterprise among overseas Chinese and Southeast Asians. Market Cultures examines this event, not in terms of formal models and faceless abstractions, but in light of the institutions through which local people give meaning and moral value to business enterprise. The chapters show that some Chinese and Southeast Asians have welcomed new forms of enterprise and consumption, but others regard both with strong ethical reservations. Eschewing talk of a uniform Asian “miracle,” this volume argues that Chinese and Southeast Asian societies had cultural precedents for and against market capitalism, reflecting subcultural heritages of religion, ethnicity, gender, and class.The case studies illustrate the deeply embedded nature of market institutions and reveal a moral and organizational variety unacknowledged in most analysis of modern capitalism. Rather than a unitary Confucian perspective on capitalism, contributors show that modern Chinese tradition has been interpreted in strikingly different ways by men and women, elites and masses, the wealthy and the poor. Avoiding stereotypes of “Asian values,” the volume’s essays on Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore portray local worlds deeply—but differentially—engaged with market capitalism.Addressing one of the great social transformations of our time, Market Cultures will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists, political economists, and students of Asian history and culture, as well as those concerned with the economic ascent of modern Asia and its implications for our world.

A rich and sensitive portrait of a changing peasantry, this study is also a general inquiry into the nature of status, class, and community in the developing world. Robert Hefner presents an analysis designed to bridge the gap between village studies and social history. He describes the forces that have shaped upland politics and society from pre-colonial times to the Green Revolution today.

Product Description: One of the most striking developments in the history of modern civilizations has been the conversion of tribal peoples to more expansively organized "world" religions. There is little scholarly consensus as to why these religions have endured and why conversion to them has been so widespread...read more

Product Description: The description for this book, Hindu Javanese: Tengger Tradition and Islam, will be forthcoming.