Islam in Southeast Asia: Bibliographies

During the past decade in the Middle East, widespread war and violence, the collapse of numerous regimes, and the emergence of ISIS have caused profound geopolitical shifts. This book addresses these changes and how they may shape the future of this tumultuous region. First, Graham E. Fuller focuses on Shari'a law and its appropriate role, if any, in the politics and governance of the Muslim world, thereby further exploring why identity may be the most important factor in examining politics in the Middle East today. He also addresses the current Shi'ite-Sunni conflict, going beyond theological approaches found in most Western analysis to better understand the many more extra-religious factors also at work. Perhaps most importantly, this book claims that the appearance of ISIS has stretched the perennial phenomenon of political Islam to the extreme. Fuller concludes by asking what ISIS implies for the future of the Middle East and for Muslims' understanding of Islam itself.  

This book explores Muslim communities in Southeast Asia and the integration of Islamic culture with the diverse ethnic cultures of the region, offering a look at the practice of cultural and religious coexistence in various realms. The volume traces the origins and processes of adoption, transmission, and adaptation of Islam by diverse ethnic communities such as the Malay, Acehnese, Javanese, Sundanese, the Bugis, Batak, Betawi, and Madurese communities, among others. It examines the integration of Islam within local politics, cultural networks, law, rituals, education, art, and architecture, which engendered unique regional Muslim identities. Additionally, the book illuminates distinctive examples of cultural pluralism, cosmopolitanism, and syncretism that persisted in Islamic religious practices in the region owing to its maritime economy and reputation as a marketplace for goods, languages, cultures, and ideas. As part of the Global Islamic Cultures series that investigates integrated and indigenized Islam, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of theology and religion, Islamic studies, religious history, political Islam, cultural studies, and Southeast Asian studies. It also offers an engaging read for general audiences interested in world religions and cultures.

A Genealogy of Islamic Feminism offers a new insight on the changing relationship between Islam and feminism from the colonial era in the 1900s to the early 1990s in Indonesia. The book juxtaposes both colonial and postcolonial sites to show the changes and the patterns of the encounters between Islam and feminism within the global and local nexus. Global forces include Dutch colonialism, developmentalism, transnational feminism, and the United Nations¿ institutional bodies and their conferences. Local factors are comprised of women¿s movements, adat (customs), nationalism, the politics underlying the imposition of Pancasila ideology and maternal virtues, and variations of Islamic revivalism. Using a genealogical approach, the book examines the multifaceted encounters between Islam and feminism and attempts to rediscover egalitarianism in the Islamic tradition¿a concept which has been subjugated by hierarchical gender systems. The book also systematizes Muslim women¿s encounters with Islam and feminism into five phases: emancipation, association, development, integration, and proliferation eras. Each era discusses the confluence of global and local factors which shape the changing relationship between Islam and feminism and the way in which the discursive narrative of equality is debated and contextualized, progressing from biological determinism (kodrat) to the ethico-spiritual argument. Islamic feminism contributes to the rediscovery of Islam as the source of progress, the centering of women¿s agency through spiritual equality, and the reworking of the private and public spheres. This book will appeal to anyone with interest in international women¿s movements, interdisciplinary studies, cultural studies, women¿s studies, post-colonial studies, Islamic studies, and Asian studies.

The Politics of Gender and the Culture of Sexuality outlines theories of gender within the intellectual paradigm of the triple heritage: Islam, Africanity, and the West. This book describes the impact of individual contexts and politics on meanings attributed to the human body. The Politics of Gender and the Culture of Sexuality explores how men and women relate to each other in monogamous and polygamous marriage, race rivalries, slavery, miscegenation, cultures of procreation, family planning, and the Islamic view of women's dignity vis- -vis the Western view of women's liberty. In doing so, the author and editor present a multifaceted and dynamic theoretical discourse of gender.