Examining different forms of resistance among Shi'i women in the Middle East and Europe, this book studies the performance of sectarian and gender power relations as expressed in Shi'i ritual practices. It provides a new transnational approach to researching gender agency in contemporary Islamic movements in both the Middle East and Europe.
Examining different forms of resistance among Shi'i women in the Middle East and Europe, this book studies the performance of sectarian and gender power relations as expressed in Shi'i ritual practices. It provides a new transnational approach to researching gender agency in contemporary Islamic movements in both the Middle East and Europe.
This updated reissue of Mark LeVine’s acclaimed, revolutionary book on sub- and countercultural music in the Middle East brings this groundbreaking portrait of the region’s youth cultures to a new generation. Featuring a new preface by the author in conversation with the band The Kominas about the problematic connections between extreme music and Islam. An eighteen-year-old Moroccan who loves Black Sabbath. A twenty-two-year-old rapper from the Gaza Strip. A young Lebanese singer who quotes Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” Heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, and reggae are each the music of protest, and are considered immoral by many in the Muslim world. As the young people and subcultures featured in Mark LeVine’s Heavy Metal Islam so presciently predicted, this music turned out to be the soundtrack of countercultures, uprisings, and even revolutions from Morocco to Pakistan. In Heavy Metal Islam, originally published in 2008, Mark LeVine explores the influence of Western music on the Middle East and North Africa through interviews with musicians and fans, introducing us to young people struggling to reconcile their religion with a passion for music and a thirst for change. The result is a revealing tour de force of contemporary cultures across the Muslim majority world through the region’s evolving music scenes that only a musician, scholar, and activist with LeVine’s unique breadth of experience could narrate. A New York Times Editor’s Pick when it was first published, Heavy Metal Islam is a surprising, wildly entertaining foray into a historically authoritarian region where music reveals itself to be a true democratizing force—and a groundbreaking work of scholarship that pioneered new forms of research in the region.
A diverse collection of personal and political narratives and prose by Muslim women includes pieces by writers from a wide range of cultures and includes such tales as a woman's remembrance of a beloved cousin killed in a suicide bombing, a transsexual who remembers the veil he no longer wears, and a woman's confrontation of sexism and hypocrisy on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Original.
This book explores how traditional Sunni Muslim conceptions have informed or shaped Islamization strategies in contemporary Turkey. In particular, the author proposes to examine the teaching curriculum of the Ministry of Education, which oversees Turkish public religious education; the activities and teachings of Diyanet, the constitutional organ responsible for managing all religious affairs; and the ideas and activities of three Muslim religious groups currently operating in Turkey. The monograph explains how the interpretation and practice of Islam affects various situations in the Muslim world and analyzes the concept of nature in Islam, which has been an indivisible component of Islamic tradition since the beginning.
This book explores the threat of Christian conversion to Islam in twelve early modern English plays. In works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Massinger, and others, conversion from Christianity to Islam is represented as both tragic and erotic, as a fate worse t
How do Muslims who grew up after September 11 balance their love for hip-hop with their devotion to Islam? How do they live the piety and modesty called for by their faith while celebrating an art form defined, in part, by overt sexuality, violence, and profanity? In Representing Islam, Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir explores the tension between Islam and the global popularity of hip-hop, including attempts by the hip-hop ummah, or community, to draw from the struggles of African Americans in order to articulate the human rights abuses Muslims face. Nasir explores state management of hip-hop culture and how Muslim hip-hoppers are attempting to "Islamize" the genre's performance and jargon to bring the music more in line with religious requirements, which are perhaps even more fraught for female artists who struggle with who has the right to speak for Muslim women. Nasir also investigates the vibrant underground hip-hop culture that exists online. For fans living in conservative countries, social media offers an opportunity to explore and discuss hip-hop when more traditional avenues have been closed. Representing Islam considers the complex and multifaceted rise of hip-hop on a global stage and, in doing so, asks broader questions about how Islam is represented in this global community.
During the uprisings of the Arab Spring, oppositional movements used political humor to criticize political leaders or to expose the absurdities of sociopolitical conditions. This comprehensive study of political humor in the uprisings explores the varieties and functions of humor as a creative tool for resistance.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition The Art of the Qur'an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Istanbul, held at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., October 15, 2016-February 20, 2017.
