Full Description
In recent decades, traditional methods of philology and intellectual history, applied to the study of Islam and Muslim societies, have been met with considerable criticism from rising generations of scholars who have turned to the social sciences, most notably anthropology and social history, for guidance. This change has been accompanied by the rise of new fields, studying, for example, Islam in Europe and Africa, and new topics, such as the role of gender. This collection surveys these transformations and others, taking stock of the field and showing new paths forward.
Contents
INTRODUCTION Dichotomies, Transformations, and Continuities in the Study of Islam Léon Buskens TEXTS The Anthropologist as Reader Brinkley Messick Textual Aspects of Religious Authority in Premodern Islam Jonathan P. Berkey What to do with Ritual Texts: Islamic Fiqh Texts and the Study of Islamic Ritual A. Kevin Reinhart GENDER Textual Study of Gender Marion Katz Scholarship on Gender Politics in the Muslim World: Some Critical Reflections Dorothea E. Schulz THEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF IDEAS Power, Orthodoxy, and Salvation in Classical Islamic Theology Christian Lange Dialectical Theology in the Search for Modern Islam Abdulkader Tayob LAW "Classical" Islamic Legal Theory as Ideology: Nasr Abu Zayd's Study of al-Shafi'i's al-Risala Muhammad Khalid Masud Islamic Law in the Modern World: States, Laws, and Constitutions Knut S. Vikør NETWORKS Sufi Networks, Ethics of Hospitality and Vernacular Cosmopolitanism Pnina Werbner CULTURE AND RELIGION Middle Eastern Studies and Islam: Oscillations and Tensions in an Old Relationship Léon Buskens NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS OVERVIEW OF NISIS AUTUMN SCHOOLS, 2010-2014
