Asian Islam in the 21st Century

Although more than half of the world's Muslims live in Asia, most books on contemporary Islam focus on the Middle East, giving short shift to the dynamic and diverse presence of Asian Islam in regional and global politics. The Muslims of Asia constitute the largest Muslim communities in the world - Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Central Asia. In recent years, terrorist bombings in Bali, separatist conflicts in Thailand and the Philippines, and opposition politics in Central Asia, all point to the strategic importance of Asian Islam.  In Asian Islam in the 21st Century, terrorism and its effects are placed within the broader context of Muslim politics and how Islamic ideals and movements, mainstream and extremist, have shaped Asian Muslim societies. Democratization experiments -- successful and unsuccessful -- are examined. The rise of radical militant movements is analyzed and placed in historical perspective. The result is an insightful portrait of the rich diversity of Muslim politics and discourse that continue to affect Asian Muslim majority and minority countries.  Specialists and students of Islamic studies, religion and international affairs, and comparative politics as well as general readers will benefit from this sorely needed comprehensive analysis of a part of the world that has become increasingly important in the 21st century.

History

Esposito, John L.

BAKAR, OSMAN

Voll, John

Asia

Oxford University Press

Although more than half of the world's Muslims live in Asia, most books on contemporary Islam focus on the Middle East, giving short shift to the dynamic and diverse presence of Asian Islam in regional and global politics. The Muslims of Asia constitute the largest Muslim communities in the world - Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Central Asia. In recent years, terrorist bombings in Bali, separatist conflicts in Thailand and the Philippines, and opposition politics in Central Asia, all point to the strategic importance of Asian Islam. In Asian Islam in the 21st Century, terrorism and its effects are placed within the broader context of Muslim politics and how Islamic ideals and movements, mainstream and extremist, have shaped Asian Muslim societies. Democratization experiments - successful and unsuccessful - are examined. The rise of radical militant movements is analyzed and placed in historical perspective. The result is an insightful portrait of the rich diversity of Muslim politics and discourse that continue to affect Asian Muslim majority and minority countries. Specialists and students of Islamic studies, religion and international affairs, and comparative politics as well as general readers will benefit from this sorely needed comprehensive analysis of a part of the world that has become increasingly important in the 21st century.

The classification of knowledge is a recurring theme in Islamic scholarship. Successive generations of Muslim scholars, from al-Kindi in the ninth century to Shah Waliallah of Delhi in the eighteenth century, have devoted considerable efforts to the exposition of this theme. The lives and the ideas of the three thinkers discussed in Classification of Knowledge in Islam - al-Farabi (870-950AD), al-Ghazzali (1058-1111AD) and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236-1311AD) - cover the pivotal period of Islamic history from the first flourishing of the philosophical sciences to the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols. In addition, each of these three thinkers was either a founder or an eminent representative of a major intellectual school in Islam. Al-Farabi was the founder and one of the most prominent representatives of the mashsha'i (Peripatetic) school of philosopher-scientists. Al-Ghazzali is still recognised as the most famous theologian/sufi of Islam. Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi represents the ishraqi (Illuminationists) school of philosophy. Prof. Osman Bakar's Classification of Knowledge in Islam is the first work of its kind in the English language and is based on extensive scholarships and reference to the original texts.

Classification of Knowledge in Islam: A Study in Islamic Philosophies of Science (Islamic Texts Society)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Islamic Texts Society

The essays presented in The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science discuss the principles behind the different sciences cultivated in the Islamic world from the third century of the Islamic era onwards and the place of science in relation to other branches of Islamic learning. In defining what Islamic science means, Professor Osman Bakar shows how these sciences are organically related to the fundamental teachings of Islam. Covering all the natural and mathematical sciences, The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science illustrates what Islamic science shares with modern science. Professor Osman Bakar also highlights where the Islamic approach to science differs from the secular, modern approach.

The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science (I.B.Tauris in Association With the Islamic Texts Society)

Philosophy

QUR’ANIC PICTURES OF THE UNIVERSE: The Scriptural Foundation of Islamic Cosmology

Islamic Book Trust

Al-Fārābī who was conferred the distinguished title of al-Mu‘allim al-thānī (The Second Teacher), is here sympathetically portrayed as a deeply religious man—a true Muslim—whose life and thought was essentially shaped and influenced by Islamic teachings contained in the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet. It was on the basis of the Qur’an and Hadīths that al-Fārābī sought to formulate an intellectual response to Greek thought. His Islamization of Greek science and philosophy should be of considerable interest to Muslim scholars today when the Muslim ummah is confronted with perhaps the most serious intellectual challenge in its history.

AL-FARABI: Life, Works and Significance: SECOND EDITION with a New Preface

Religion & Spirituality

Islam

In this book fourteen leading scholars and intellectual-activists provide a collective treatment of the theme of colonialism in the Malay Archipelago from the as yet little explored perspective of civilisational encounters. The centuries-long Western colonial presence in the Archipelago had generated both peaceful and violent encounters that were to prove consequential on the civilisational history of the region. The book’s chapters attempt to present new insights into the nature and multidimensional character of these civilisational encounters and their significance for the life and thought of contemporary Malay Archipelago that now comprises the modern nation-states of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, and Timor-Leste.

COLONIALISM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO: Civilisational Encounters

ISTAC-IIUM Publications

Islamic Civilisation and the Modern World: Thematic Essays

UBP Press

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