One of the greatest dilemmas facing Muslims today is the fact that Muslim culture is often seemingly incompatible with the culture of the modern Western world, and the features associated with it - technological progress, consumerism, and new electronic communication, all of which have the potential for a homogenizing effect on any culture. This book explores many key aspects of the globalisation process, discussing how Muslim countries are coping with globalisation, as well as considering how the West is responding to Islam.

The Islamic World and the West - perhaps no other topic is currently so often present in the headlines of the international media. This timely volume, which brings together contributions by 14 established Muslim and Western scholars, intends to present a somewhat more positive outlook in the currently rather strained relations between the Islamic world and Europe by drawing on shared values and possibilities of cooperation in various fields, such as reflected in worldview, education, economics, multiculturalism, religious dialogue, politics, as well as security issues, and it shall also contain a historical revaluation of some of those contacts. It is the first project within the framework of the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding between Switzerland's University of Fribourg and the Asia-Europe Institute (AEI) in Kuala Lumpur's University of Malaya, Malaysia's oldest university. Dr. Christoph Marcinkowski, is an award-winning scholar working interdisciplinary in Islamic and Middle Eastern, as well as Southeast Asian and Security Studies. He is currently Principal Research Fellow and Chairman of the Publications Committee at the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS), a Malaysian think-tank, and concurrently Adjunct Professor at AEI.

In this accessible and carefully researched text, the authors broach one of the most urgent issues thrown up by the process of contemporary globalisation the future of the Muslim World. Their analysis probes the key material links between economic underdevelopment and Western Islamic cultural relations. This book is vital reading for anyone who wishes to understand the roots of the current high profile tension in global politics and to think beyond these conflicts towards the task of building a just and peaceful global order.

Globalization, modernity and identity are fundamental issues in contemporary Islam and Islamic Studies. This collection of essays reflects the wide diversity that characterises contemporary Islamic Studies. The case studies cover regions stretching from China and Southeast Asia to diaspora communities in the Caribbean and Tajikistan. There is significant participation of intellectual voices from all areas concerned, providing a real contribution to the academic exchange between the Muslim and the Euro-American worlds.

This book examines the cultural responses of Muslims to the transformations, contradictions and challenges confronting contemporary Islam as it moves towards the twenty-first century. The diffusion of populations, the globalization of culture and the forces of postmodernity have shaken the world like never before. These developments have generated a debate among Muslims which, as the contributors to this volume show, will have far-reaching consequences not just for the Muslim world, but for relations between Islam and the West more generally.

Globalisation and modernisation are the buzzwords of the new millennium. They serve to sharpen the focus on the dynamic nature of political, economic and social systems and, in this book, the editor and contributors attempt to locate educational changes in a selected number of Muslim countries within the over-arching global scene. There has been considerable debate about the legitimacy of these terms and both have inspired definitions, nuances and accompanying emotions that run the whole gambit from welcoming acceptance to murderous aggressions. Terms like ancient, medieval or modern, when describing eras in the history of Europe, with the most recent one being referred to as post-modern, have been strongly debated. And, within the broad sweep of globalisation it is argued that there are identifiable stages, with many making for exclusive definitions, others inclusive.