Read complete books and articles on: Islam and the West

Islam - ĭslämˈ, ĭsˈläm, [Arab.,=submission to God], world religion founded by the Prophet Muhammad. Founded in the 7th cent., Islam is the youngest of the three monotheistic world religions (with Judaism and Christianity). An adherent to Islam is a Muslim [Arab.,=one who submits].

Believers Worldwide

There are more

Believers Worldwide

There are more than 1 billion Muslims worldwide, fewer than one fifth of whom are Arab. Islam is the principal religion of much of Asia, including Indonesia (which has the world's largest Muslim population), Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula states, and Turkey. India also has one of the world's largest Muslim populations, although Islam is not the principal religion there. In Africa, Islam is the principal religion in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Somalia, and Sudan, with sizable populations also in Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania (where the island of Zanzibar is predominantly Muslim), and Nigeria.

In Europe, Albania is predominantly Muslim, and, historically, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Georgia have had Muslim populations. Elsewhere in Europe, immigrant communities of Muslims from N Africa, Turkey, and Asia exist in France, Germany, and Great Britain. In the Americas the Islamic population has substantially increased in recent years, both from conversions and the immigration of adherents from other parts of the world. In the United States, the number of Muslims has been variably estimated at 2–6 million; 20% of the population of Suriname is Muslim.

Islamic Beliefs

At the core of Islam is the Qur'an, believed to be the final revelation by a transcendent Allah [Arab.,=the God] to Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam; since the Divine Word was revealed in Arabic, this language is used in Islamic religious practice worldwide. Muslims believe in final reward and punishment, and the unity of the umma, the "nation" of Islam. Muslims submit to Allah through arkan ad-din, the five basic requirements or "pillars": shahadah, the affirmation that "there is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God"; salah, the five daily ritual prayers (see liturgy, Islamic); zakat, the giving of alms, also known as a religious tax; Sawm, the dawn-to-sunset fast during the lunar month of Ramadan; and hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. The importance of the hajj can hardly be overestimated: this great annual pilgrimage unites Islam and its believers from around the world.

The ethos of Islam is in its attitude toward Allah: to His will Muslims submit; Him they praise and glorify; and in Him alone they hope. However, in popular or folk forms of Islam, Muslims ask intercession of the saints, prophets, and angels, while preserving the distinction between Creator and creature. Islam views the Message of Muhammad as the continuation and the fulfillment of a lineage of Prophecy that includes figures from the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, notably Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus. Islamic law reserves a communal entity status for the ahl al-kitab, People of the Book, i.e., those with revealed religions, including Jews and Christians. Islam also recognizes a number of extra-biblical prophets, such as Hud, Salih, Shuayb, and others of more obscure origin. The chief angels are Gabriel and Michael; devils are the evil jinn.

Other Islamic obligations include the duty to "commend good and reprimand evil," injunctions against usury and gambling, and prohibitions of alcohol and pork. Meat is permitted if the animal was ritually slaughtered; it is then called halal.Jihad, the exertion of efforts for the cause of God, is a duty satisfied at the communal and the individual level. At the individual level, it denotes the personal struggle to be righteous and follow the path ordained by God.

In Islam, religion and social membership are inseparable: the ruler of the community (caliph; see caliphate) has both a religious and a political status. The unitary nature of Islam, as a system governing relations between a person and God, and a person and society, helped the spread of Islam so that, within a century of the Prophet's death, Islam extended from Spain to India.

The evolution of Islamic mysticism into organizational structures in the form of Sufi orders was also, from the 13th cent. onwards, one of the driving forces in the spread of Islam (see Sufism; fakir). Sufi orders were instrumental in expanding the realm of Islam to trans-Saharan Africa, stabilizing its commercial and cultural links with the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and to SE Asia.

Holidays and Honorifics

The original feasts of Islam are id al-fitr, corresponding to the breaking of the fast of Ramadan, and id al-adha, coinciding with the pilgrimage to Mecca. Shiite Islam also celebrates id al-ghadir, the anniversary of Muhammad's declaration of Ali as his successor. Other Islamic holidays include al-mawlid al-nabawwi, Muhammad's birthday, and al-isra wa-l-miraj, the anniversary of his miraculous journey to Jerusalem and ascension to Heaven. Among the Islamic religious honorifics are shaykh, a generic term refering to a religious scholar or a mystic master; qadi, a religious judge (handling particular cases); mufti, a religious authority who issues general legal opinions; and mullah, a synonym of shaykh used in the Persian-speaking world.

Interpretation of the Qur'an

The revealed word of Islam, the Qur'an, in a formal Arabic which became more archaic with time, required explication. A complement to the Qur'an is the Sunna, the spoken and acted example of the Prophet, collected as hadith. The Sunna is almost as important to Islam as the Qur'an, for in it lie the elaborations of Qur'anic teaching essential to the firm establishment of a world religion. There are serious disagreements in the hadith, and interpretations of the Qur'an and the Sunna have varied so much as to be contradictory. These situations are resolved by reference to one of the most important of the sayings attributed to the Prophet, "My community will never agree in an error." This leeway also allowed Islam to expand by incorporating social, tribal, and ethnic traditions. For example, with the exception of inheritance and witness laws, Islamic rights and obligations apply equally to men and women. The actual situation of women is more a function of particular social traditions predating Islam than of theoretical positions. For a complete description of Islamic law, see sharia; for discussions of the major branches of Islamic theology, see Shiite, Sunni.

Bibliography

See F. Rahman, Islam (1966); M. Jameelah, Islam and Modernism (1968); P. K. Hitti, History of the Arabs (10th ed. 1970); P. M. Holt, ed., Cambridge History of Islam (2 vol., 1970); M. G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (3 vol., 1974); C. Glassé, Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (1991); J. L. Esposito, Islam (rev. ed. 1992) and The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2003); A. Schimmel, Islam (1992); D. Waines, An Introduction to Islam (1995); J. I. Smith, Islam in America (1999).

Show Excerpt Only

16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Islam and the West

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Islam and the West » Read Now
by Bernard Lewis. 217 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "the doyen of Middle Eastern studies," Bernard Lewis has been for half a century one of the West's foremost scholars of Islamic history and culture, the author of over two dozen books, most notably The Arabs in History, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, The...
Read More

Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "the doyen of Middle Eastern studies," Bernard Lewis has been for half a century one of the West's foremost scholars of Islamic history and culture, the author of over two dozen books, most notably The Arabs in History, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, The Political Language of Islam, and The Muslim Discovery of Europe. Eminent French historian Robert Mantran has written of Lewis's work: "How could one resist being attracted to the books of an author who opens for you the doors of an unknown or misunderstood universe, who leads you within to its innermost domains: religion, ways of thinking, conceptions of power, culture--an author who upsets notions too often fixed, fallacious, or partisan." In Islam and the West, Bernard Lewis brings together in one volume eleven essays that indeed open doors to the innermost domains of Islam. Lewis ranges far and wide in these essays. He includes long pieces, such as his capsule history of the interaction--in war and peace, in commerce and culture--between Europe and its Islamic neighbors, and shorter ones, such as his deft study of the Arabic word watan and what its linguistic history reveals about the introduction of the idea of patriotism from the West. Lewis offers a revealing look at Edward Gibbon's portrait of Muhammad in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (unlike previous writers, Gibbon saw the rise of Islam not as something separate and isolated, nor as a regrettable aberration from the onward march of the church, but simply as a part of human history); he offers a devastating critique of Edward Said's controversial book, Orientalism; and he gives an account of the impediments to translating from classic Arabic to other languages (the old dictionaries, for one, are packed with scribal errors, misreadings, false analogies, and etymological deductions that pay little attention to the evolution of the language). And he concludes with an astute commentary on the Islamic world today, examining revivalism, fundamentalism, the role of the Shi'a, and the larger question of religious co-existence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. A matchless guide to the background of Middle East conflicts today, Islam and the West presents the seasoned reflections of an eminent authority on one of the most intriguing and little understood regions in the world.
Show less
2.

The Islamic World and the West: An Introduction to Political Cultures and International Relations » Read Now
by Mohammed Arkoun, Kai Hafez, Mary Ann Kenny, Udo Steinbach. 246 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

The anthology is an introduction to political cultures in the Islamic world and into relations between the West and Islam. It outlines similarities and differences in the understanding, perception and communication of basic politico-ideological issues like modernity democracy, human rights...
Read More

The anthology is an introduction to political cultures in the Islamic world and into relations between the West and Islam. It outlines similarities and differences in the understanding, perception and communication of basic politico-ideological issues like modernity democracy, human rights, violence, the emancipation of women, and economic development and social justice.
It details its analyses in country studies on relations between the USA and Europe on the one side and Algeria, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Bosnia, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Central Asia and Pakistan on the other side.
The book, which was first published in Germany, was deemed to be "a convincing reply to Huntington" (S]ddeutsche Zeitung). Mostly German scholars and scholars working in Germany present original insights into a complex matter that although at the heart of international and intercultural relations is often treated in simplistic ways.
Show less
3.

A Sense of Siege: The Geopolitics of Islam and the West » Read Now
by Graham E. Fuller, Ian O. Lesser. 193 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

...Siege The Geopolitics of Islam and the West Graham E. Euller and...Psychological Perception of the West 27 Islam as a Christian Heresy...Islam , 164 Islam and the West in...
4.

The Formation and Perception of the Modern Arab World: Studies » Read Now
by Marwan R. Buheiry, Lawrence I. Conrad. 624 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This volume -- an indispensable contribution to an understanding of contemporary Arab history -- comprises twenty-seven important studies by the eminent Lebanese historian Marwan R Buheiry, who died in London in 1986. In the course of his distinguished career at the American University of Beirut, he...
Read More

This volume -- an indispensable contribution to an understanding of contemporary Arab history -- comprises twenty-seven important studies by the eminent Lebanese historian Marwan R Buheiry, who died in London in 1986. In the course of his distinguished career at the American University of Beirut, he published many studies on the political, economic, social, and intellectual history of the modern Arab world, in particular of Lebanon and the Arab East in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The studies published in this volume revolve around four main themes: European Perceptions of the Orient; The Superpowers and the Arab World; The Economic History of the Middle East; Middle Eastern Intellectual and Artistic History. Many of these studies were first published in French or Arabic translation, this volume publishes the original English text and includes much previously unpublished material. The final chapter includes a selection of 49 photographs from Buheiry's photograph collection.
Show less
5.

Arabs Face the Modern World: Religious, Cultural, and Political Responses to the West » Read Now
by Nissim Rejwan. 256 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

This book of extraordinary breadth condenses and presents the works of the major Arab thinkers of the modern period. It surveys the ways in which Muslim Arabs have responded to challenges from the West since the first Muslim reformists made their appearance in Egypt in the 1870s up to the most...
Read More

This book of extraordinary breadth condenses and presents the works of the major Arab thinkers of the modern period. It surveys the ways in which Muslim Arabs have responded to challenges from the West since the first Muslim reformists made their appearance in Egypt in the 1870s up to the most recent pleas for Islam's regeneration at the end of the 20th century.
The book begins with reactions to the West in the works of such religious leaders as Afghani, 'Abduh, A1-Kawakibi, Rashid Rida, Qasim Amin, and Taha Husain; the rise of Islamic militancy; and the spread of the nationalist movement. It describes events surrounding the Six-Day War of 1967 and the October War of 1973 and the rise of a new and more violent type of religious fundamentalism. And it summarizes issues that continue to preoccupy Muslim Arabs into the late 1990s -- prospects for democracy, the position of women, changing attitudes toward Israel, and the plight of intellectuals in the face of rising militancy.
Show less
6.

The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? » Read Now
by John L. Esposito. 328 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Are Islam and the West on a collision course? From the Ayatollah Khomeini to Saddam Hussein, the image of Islam as a militant, expansionist, and rabidly anti-American religion has gripped the minds of Western governments and media. But these perceptions, John L. Esposito writes, stem from a long...
Read More

Are Islam and the West on a collision course? From the Ayatollah Khomeini to Saddam Hussein, the image of Islam as a militant, expansionist, and rabidly anti-American religion has gripped the minds of Western governments and media. But these perceptions, John L. Esposito writes, stem from a long history of mutual distrust, criticism, and condemnation, and are far too simplistic to help us understand one of the most important political issues of our time. In this new edition of The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Esposito places the challenge of Islam in critical perspective. Exploring the vitality of this religion as a global force and the history of its relations with the West, Esposito demonstrates the diversity of the Islamic resurgence--and the mistakes our analysts make in assuming a hostile, monolithic Islam. This third edition has been expanded to include new material on current affairs in Turkey, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Southeast Asia, as well as a discussion of international terrorism.
Show less
7.

Islam and the West, in Foreign Policy » Read Now
by Ghassan Salame. 16 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...Islam and the West. by Ghassan Salame Now...strategists have identified a new enemy of the West: Islam. But among those strategists knowledge...ill-defined presumed...
8.

Islamic Activists in the West: A New Issue Produces Backlash, in Middle East Policy » Read Now
by Michael C. Dunn. 9 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...series on political Islam looks at the impact of exiled...activists in the West. A number of events...and hostility to Islam of the West in general, and...generally or feel...
9.

Islam in the World (Chap. 7 "Challenges from the West") » Read Now
by Malise Ruthven. 512 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

This valuable introductory guide provides a complete and lively summary of Islam, one of the most worldly of the great religions, in which the quest for spiritual fulfillment is inevitably bound up with political aspirations. Malise Ruthven presents a full overview of the religion in its historical...
Read More

This valuable introductory guide provides a complete and lively summary of Islam, one of the most worldly of the great religions, in which the quest for spiritual fulfillment is inevitably bound up with political aspirations. Malise Ruthven presents a full overview of the religion in its historical, geographic, and social settings. For this revised and long-awaited second edition, Ruthven divides his original chapters into more accessible sub-sections and provides new headings. Also included is a new concluding chapter that focuses on women in Islam, the challenges Islam faces in today's climate of globalization, and the key developments in Islamic political history since 1984--an especially fertile period that has seen, among other things, the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and the controversial publication of Rushdie's Satanic Verses. Islam and the World, Second Edition likewise features a new preface, redrawn maps, updated data on population and dispersal, and a new chronology of events with genealogical charts.
Show less
10.

Islamic Society and the West: A Study of the Impact of Western Civilization on Moslem Culture in the Near East, Vol. 1 » Read Now
by H. A. R. Gibb, Harold Bowen. 392 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

...were embodied in the Sacred Law of Islam, the Seria , which had been constructed...For the first six centuries of Islam the Seria , the Sacred Law of the orthodox...days...
11.

Islam in Australia » Read Now
by Abdullah Saeed. 231 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

"A clear and complete introduction to the world of Islam: the history, beliefs, practices and laws of this ancient religion. With particular focus on the contemporary Muslim world, and on Islam in Australia."
12.

Fanaticism: A Major Obstacle in the Muslim Christian Dialogue. The Case of Twentieth Century Islamic Fundamentalism, in Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ) » Read Now
by Roberto Marin-Guzman. 34 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...have led to mutual antagonism. The West considers Islam to be a threat on three levels...54 and p.67. Ralph Braibanti, Islam and the West. Common Cause or Clash?...
13.

Communicating with the Muslim World: What Can the United States Do to Counter the Anti-Americanism Prevalent in Many Islamic Countries?, in World and I » Read Now
by Mary-Jane Deeb. 6 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...to sacrifice their lives in the defense of Islam. It was a strongly emotional...misguided young terrorists in the name of Islam. Why is the U.S. hated? How...demonstrate a...
14.

Post-Communist Eastern Europe and the Middle East: The Burden of History and New Political Realities, in Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ) » Read Now
by Andrej Kreutz. 31 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...transportation to the West.(54) In that area, just as in the Middle East as a...impact of Middle East Islam has already made...fundamentalism in the West in order to...
15.

Legislating Religious Freedom: Muslim Challenges to the Relationship between "Church" and "State" in Germany and France, in Daedalus » Read Now
by Katherine Pratt Ewing. 24 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...schools, and which organization should represent Islam to Muslim schoolchildren-had been brewing as...controversies with their own distinct histories, the first involving...
16.

How the West Saw Medieval Islam, in History Today » Read Now
by Malcolm Barber. 7 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

...How the West saw medieval Islam by Malcolm Barber Since the Christians are not at...Twelfth-Century Syria, ed. M. Shaemiller (E.J. Brill 1993); Norman Daniel, Islam and...