Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

3 6Islam i n World Cult u r e sSince September 11, 2001, the U.S.-led “War on Terror” has already hadwidely diverse and extremely complex effects, particularly among Muslim communities.Among the dozen or so nations whose citizens have been marked byU.S. immigration authorities for closer scrutiny, all but one (North Korea)have a majority Muslim population. Furthermore, Muslim minorities havecome under increased scrutiny and sometimes even violent attack by the nationalgovernments of states like China and Russia, which believe that theUnited States will now look the other way if they call their actions part of acrackdown on terrorism. Since 2001, U.S. troops have been deployed in Iraq,Afghanistan, and in Muslim regions of the southern Philippines, bringing farflungareas of the Muslim world into the Western media spotlight to an unprecedenteddegree.H o w e v e r, it is important that we not allow the constant media coverage of Islamicmilitant movements around the globe to be our only source of informationin trying to understand Islam in contemporary societies. For beyond theheadline-grabbing terrorists, there exists a great diversity of Muslim experiences.These include some remarkable developments among scholars and activistsworking toward more liberal or progressive visions of Islam to accommodatethe rapidly changing needs of contemporary societies. In the course ofyour reading in this book, you will be briefly introduced to some of thesescholars, ranging from Ebrahim Moosa of South Africa to the Indonesian NurcholishMadjid. For those interested in exploring the works of such Muslims,there are considerable resources available in English. Many Muslim scholarsand activists, both “liberal” and “conservative,” now regularly write in English,which has come to serve as a language of international Muslim discourse inthe era of globalization. In the suggestions for further reading in Chapter 11,you will find books originally in English by Farid Esack and Anwar Ibrahim aswell as collections of shorter pieces, such as those in the volume recently publishedby Omid Safi (2003). Beyond these sources, more material translatedinto English from a wide variety of other languages can be found in CharlesK u r z m a n ’s anthology Liberal Islam ( 1 9 9 8 ) .Many people now want to learn more about Islam and about Muslim cultures.The chapters in this volume explore the religious, political, social, andcultural dynamics of contemporary Islam in a number of societies where Muslimsform either a majority or a minority of the population. As you readthrough this book, you will be introduced to a range of histories and culturalphenomena, from the interaction of Islam and secular nationalist ideals inUzbekistan to issues of race and gender in the United States. In taking this approachto detailed, contextual studies of Islam in different societies, this bookis meant to be an aid in moving beyond the headlines and sound bites of current-eventsreportage and to serve as an introduction to the multiplicity ofMuslim experiences in the modern world.