"The article deals with two recent Iranian films, al-Masih (Teh Messiah) by Nader Talebzadeh and Maryam al-Muqaddasah (Holy Mary) by Shahriar Bahrani. Both movies are about religious characters shared by Islam and Christianity: Zechariah, Mary and Jesus. The article explores the way the filmmakers h
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ave made use of both Islamic and non-Islamic sources to tell their story, and it analyses the stylistic and narrative means they have employed. Are these films contributing to the mutual religious understanding of Christians and Muslims? If so, how? And if not, why not?" (Abstract)
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"Much work has been done to map out the contours of Islamic intellectual production in West Africa before the twentieth century. However, we still do not understand very well the process by which ideas and texts circulated in the region. Lists of specific books imported by West Africans during the n
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ineteenth century are rare (although one such compilation helps frame this paper), and the particular books memorized and/or copied by individual students on particular subjects usually fail to tells us much about their mentors’ libraries. As a result, the reconstruction of a trans-Saharan, much less the east-west Sahelian book trade, if these existed in any formal sense, must be subject to some speculation. Clearly, there was a steady demand in West Africa for Arabic texts; libraries and literary capital have long been understood as an important component of religious authority. But our knowledge of what might have been the actual texts sought in a book trade, is limited. We can deduce something about the distribution of books in West Africa from the authors and subjects studied in particular venues, and from analyses of the citations used in particular scholarly works written by West Africans. But both the works studied and the analysis of citations tell us about books that were known to individual scholars rather than works that were actually in demand. This paper seeks to describe the books—by author and title—that were in heaviest demand by doing an inventory of the contents of a cross-section of West African libraries." (Introduction)
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"The article addresses the use of the internet by Islamic social movement organizations (SMOs), focusing on the case of Justice and Charity (JC), the biggest opposition political group in Morocco. It examines the extent to which the SMO exploits the potential of the medium in collective action, and
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the implications of this use for the SMO’s capacity to advance its cause and resist state repression. Drawing on social movement and radical democracy theories, the study highlights the implications of the internet for collective identity-building in the political project of the Islamic SMO. The article argues that while JC draws extensively on the internet to enhance collective identity-construction and build an antagonistic public sphere, it fails to benefit from the potential of the medium to promote gender equality and genuine participative communication, and to build an agonistic political sphere." (Abstract)
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"Die Umbrüche in Ägypten 2011 haben gezeigt, dass Medien eine wesentliche Rolle für die Mobilisierung politischer Partizipation spielen. Die Muslimbruderschaft, einer der wichtigsten gesellschaftlichen Akteure Ägyptens, hat seit 2002 gezielt auf Internetmedien gesetzt, um das Regime Mubaraks her
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auszufordern. Unter Rückgriff auf Ansätze aus der Forschung zu sozialen Bewegungen und politischer Transformation ordnet die Autorin zunächst die Medienstrategien der Islamisten in die Strukturen des politischen Systems und des Mediensystems Ägyptens ein. Mittels einer Inhaltsanalyse der Website der Muslimbrüder, ikhwanonline.com, Interviews mit deren Produzenten sowie einer Nutzerbefragung wird überprüft, welches Potenzial islamistische Medien haben, zu einer Demokratisierung Ägyptens beizutragen." (Klappentext)
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"This issue of Australian Religion Studies Review examines the intersection of religion and celebrity, both major discourses in the modern world. The six articles examine the imbrication of celebrity with: three traditional religions, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism; the new religion of Candomblé;
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and contemporary spiritual trends such as spiritual tourism, secular equivalents of religion like the Olympic Games, and the veneration of sports stars by fans. The study of the impact of celebrity on religion is still in its infancy, and the contributions to this special issue of Australian Religion Studies Review demonstrate both the rich results that such studies can yield, and the range and diversity of subjects that would repay future research." (Page 227)
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"This article describes and analyzes a little understood Afghan Taliban propaganda tool: chants or taranas. These melodic refrains effectively use historical narratives, symbology, and iconic portraits. The chants are engendered in emotions of sorrow, pride, desperation, hope, and complaints to mobi
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lize and convince the Afghan population of the Taliban’s worldview. The chants represent culturally relevant and simple messages that are communicated in a narrative and poetic form that is familiar to and resonates with the local people. They are virtually impossible for the United States and NATO to counter because of Western sensitivities concerning religious themes that dominate the Taliban narrative space, not to mention the lack of Western linguistic capabilities, including the understanding and mastering the poetic nature of local dialects." (Abstract)
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"As the manuscript treasures in the libraries of Timbuktu and throughout the northwestern quarter of Africa become known, many questions are raised. How did a manuscript culture flourish in the Sahara and in Muslim Africa more generally? Under what conditions did African intellectuals thrive, and ho
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w did they acquire scholarly works and the writing paper necessary to contribute to knowledge? By exploring the history of the trans-Saharan book and paper trades, the scholarly production and teaching curriculae of African Muslims and the formation, preservation and codicology of library collections, the authors of this original volume provide a variety of answers. The select number of invited contributions represents current research in the material, technological, economic, and cultural dimensions of manuscript production, circulation, and preservation, and the development of specific scholarly and intellectual traditions in Saharan and Sudanic Africa." (Publisher description)
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"Within less than 20 years, the number of Arabic-language satellite channels has risen from zero to more than 500, including channels financed by the US, Russia, China, the UK and France. Some 50 of these channels label themselves as Islamic (and a handful are Christian), but Islamic programming is
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also present in many of the other channels, whether state-run or private. This massive proliferation of Islamic programming has also given rise to specifically Islamist and Salafist channels and programmes. This chapter will describe these developments and discuss their implications. Mass media and Islamic fundamentalism go back a long way in the Arab World." (Page 264)
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"About 200 million people in Muslim-majority countries used the Internet in 2010, forming oneninth of the world’s population of netizens. Literature on the Muslim Internet tends to focus disproportionately on radical fundamentalism, overlooking the large numbers of ordinary Muslims for whom the In
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ternet is an increasingly important instrument of daily life. This article explores the spatiality of the Internet in 41 Muslim-majority countries in several steps. First, it outlines the important roles of telecommunications policies and infrastructure in structuring patterns of usage in the Muslim ecumene. Next, it depicts the distribution and growth of users. Third, it summarizes the contours of Muslim ecommerce and e-government, which, while still in their infancy, are nonetheless having substantial impacts on lives and communities. Finally, it illustrates the types and levels of Internet censorship that are found unevenly across the Muslim realm." (Abstract)
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"Around the developing world, political leaders face a dilemma: the very information and communication technologies that boost economic fortunes also undermine power structures. Globally, one in ten internet users is a Muslim living in a populous Muslim community. In these countries, young people ar
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e developing their political identities—including a transnational Muslim identity—online. In countries where political parties are illegal, the internet is the only infrastructure for democratic discourse. In others, digital technologies such as mobile phones and the internet have given key actors an information infrastructure that is independent of the state. And in countries with large Muslim communities, mobile phones and the internet are helping civil society build systems of political communication independent of the state and beyond easy manipulation by cultural or religious elites. This book looks at the role that communications technologies play in advancing democratic transitions in Muslim countries. As such, its central question is whether technology holds the potential to substantially enhance democracy. Certainly, no democratic transition has occurred solely because of the internet. But, as the book argues, no democratic transition can occur today without the internet. According to this book, the major (and perhaps only meaningful) forum for civic debate in most Muslim countries today is online. Activists both within diasporic communities and within authoritarian states—including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan—are the drivers of this debate, which centers around issues such as the interpretation of Islamic texts, gender roles, and security issues. Drawing upon material from interviews with telecommunications policy makers and activists in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Tajikistan, and Tanzania and a comparative study of seventy-four countries with large Muslim populations, this book demonstrates that these forums have been the means to organize activist movements that have lead to successful democratic insurgencies." (Publisher description)
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"Since the mid-1990s, the influence of satellite television broadcasting in the Middle East has become central to the shaping of public attitudes in the region and beyond. While many of the main influential mainstream satellite channels are news-focused, entertainment and religious broadcasting are
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also significant. Religious Broadcasting in the Middle East offers a synopsis of a conference held at Cambridge in January 2010. It focuses on the discourses of a selection of Islamic, Christian and Jewish religious broadcasting channels, as well as the wider factors and structures that sustain them." (Back cover)
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