Author: Eminent Contributors
Editor: Hastings Donnan
Publisher: Sage Publications
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 196
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8178290766
Description
This book documents the diversity and richness of contemporary knowledge about Islam and Muslim society, and offers a lucid guide to understanding Islam.. To help readers make sense of Islam this work examines the range of disciplinary approaches involved in its study.
‘Interpreting Islam’ documents the diversity and richness of contemporary knowledge about Islam and Muslim society.
The perpetuation of myths and stereotypes in the West has meant that Islam is much misunderstood. To help readers make sense of Islam this book examines the range of disciplinary approaches involved in its study. It focuses not only on what these approaches have emphasized but also on what they have left out, as well as on their varied responses to the challenge of representing ‘other’ cultures.
Interdisciplinary in scope and organization, the book explores the bewildering and seemingly anarchic diversity of perspectives for interpreting and making comprehensible contemporary Islam. Contributors reflect critically on the political, social, cultural autobiographical, and disciplinary contexts of their research to understand how the study of Islam in the West has been shaped and developed.
Written with the requirements of students in mind, this book offers a lucid guide to understanding Islam. It will be of interest to students of Islamic studies, sociology, politics, anthropology, and culture.
Contents
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
ONE
Interpreting interpretations of Islam
TWO
Orientalism, or the politics of the text
THREE
Researching the radical: The quest for a new perspective
FOUR
Islam in the media
FIVE
Interpreting Islam in American Schools
SIX
Ideological dimensions of Islam: A critical paradigm
SEVEN
Kissing cousins: Anthropologists on Islam
EIGHT
Islam and the sea: The causes of a failure
NINE
Organized charity in the Arab-Islamic world: A view from the NGOs
TEN
Silver sounds in the inner citadel? Reflections on musicology and Islam
Index