Muslim Politics

In an attempt to demystify ‘Muslim Politics’ for a wider audience, Dale Eikelman and James Piscatori explore how the politics of Islam is played out in the daily lives of Muslims throughout the world. From the role of women in public life to Islamic perspectives on modernization and free speech, the authors probe the diversity of the contemporary Islamic experience, suggesting general trends and challenging popular notions of Islam as a monolithic movement. In so doing, they clarify concepts such as tradition, authority, ethnicity, protest and symbolic space, notions that are crucial to an in-depth understanding of ongoing political events. The book poses questions about ideological politics in a variety of countries, from south east Asia and middle east to Europe, America and Africa. The authors examine the long-term cultural and political implications of this transnational shift as an emerging generation of Muslims, often the products of secular schooling, begin to reshape politics and work towards a different vision of societies in the future".