In Picturing the Islamicate World, Nadja Danilenko explores the message of the first preserved maps from the Islamicate world. Safeguarded in al-Iṣṭakhrī’s Book of Routes and Realms (10th century C.E.), the world map and twenty regional maps complement the text to a reference book of the territories under Muslim rule. Rather than shaping the Islamicate world according to political or religious concerns, al-Iṣṭakhrī chose a timeless design intended to outlast upheavals. Considering the treatise was transmitted for almost a millennium, al-Iṣṭakhrī’s strategy seems to have paid off. By investigating the Persian and Ottoman translations and all extant manuscripts, Nadja Danilenko unravels the manuscript tradition of al-Iṣṭakhrī’s work, revealing who took an interest in it and why.

Picturing Islam: Art and Ethics in a Muslim Lifeworld explores issues of religion, nationalism, ethnicity, and globalization through the life and work of the prominent contemporary Indonesian artist Abdul Djalil Pirous. Presents a unique addition to the anthropology of art and religion Demonstrates the impact of Islam, ethnicity, nationalism, and globalization on the work and life of an internationally recognized postcolonial artist Weaves together visual and narrative materials to tell an engrossing story of a cosmopolitan Muslim artist Looks at contemporary Islamic art and the way it has been produced in the world's largest Muslim nation, Indonesia

In This Is a Picture and Not the World, Joseph Natoli employs the lingua franca of film itself—screenplay dialogue—as well as the more recent form of the political blog to present a hyperreal account of popular film as both a creator and a reflector of our post-9/11 mass psyche. Drawing on both classic and contemporary film examples, the book also offers a quasihistory of film genres, including science fiction, the western, film noir, and screwball comedy, emphasizing how these genres have been shaken up, recontextualized, recombined, turned self-reflexive, and parodied over the past couple of decades. Taken together, these satirical parodies of screenplays and blogs reveal and perform how our very gaze has shifted from modern to postmodern, from a direct view of the world to a filtered one.

First published in 2008. This volume is a historical summary which describes the main events in the rise and evolution of this world religion and indicates its significance for present-day relations between the faiths.

Studying education and learning in the formative period of Islam is not immediately easy, since the sources for this are relatively late and frequently project backwards to the earlier period the assumptions and conditions of their own day. The studies in this volume have been selected for the critical approaches and methods of their authors, and are arranged under five headings: the pedagogical tradition; scholarship and attestation; orality and literacy; authorship and transmission; and libraries. Together with the editor’s introductory essay, they present a broad picture of the beginnings and evolution of education and learning in the Islamic world.

... a welcome addition to the already available introductory works on Islam. The chapters of the book combine depth of analysis and erudition on a wide range of subjects. Thus in a single volume one finds several superbly written papers not only on the foundations of Islam and the manifestations of Islamic culture but also on issues which are at the centre of contemporary debates among Muslims such as multiculturalism, social justice, democracy and diversity. As a sourcebook this work is equally useful for students, academicians and general readers′ - Zafar Ishaq Ansari, Director, Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University Islamic Studies is at a critical moment in its history. It seeks both to maintain its rich history and to engage with other - sometimes dominant - cultural and political studies. This tension is producing complex changes in both the theory and the practice of Islamic Studies. This timely and stimulating Handbook, edited by world-class experts in the field, provides a comprehensive guide to Islamic Studies today. It examines the main issues in the field and explores the key debates. It provides readers with an indispensable, balanced guide to the roots of Islam and the challenges it faces in the twenty-first century. The Handbook includes discussions of: - Islam as a community of discourse and a global system - Islam, diaspora and multiculturalism - The Qu′ran today - Islam as a moral and judicial system - Islam and politics - Islam and culture - Diversities and Islam Concise, level-headed and penetrating, this collection will be of interest to anyone who studies contemporary Islam. It brings together an unparalleled collection of international scholars who illuminate some of the most urgent and complex issues in the world today.

Following the tradition and style of the acclaimed Index Islamicus, the editors have created this new Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World. The editors have surveyed and annotated a wide range of books and articles from collected volumes and journals published in all European languages (except Turkish) between 1906 and 2011. This comprehensive bibliography is an indispensable tool for everyone involved in the study of material culture in Muslim societies.