“Superb... A tour de force.” —Ebrahim Moosa “Provocative... Aydin ranges over the centuries to show the relative novelty of the idea of a Muslim world and the relentless efforts to exploit that idea for political ends.” —Washington Post When President Obama visited Cairo to address Muslims worldwide, he followed in the footsteps of countless politicians who have taken the existence of a unified global Muslim community for granted. But as Cemil Aydin explains in this provocative history, it is a misconception to think that the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims constitute a single entity. How did this belief arise, and why is it so widespread? The Idea of the Muslim World considers its origins and reveals the consequences of its enduring allure. “Much of today’s media commentary traces current trouble in the Middle East back to the emergence of ‘artificial’ nation states after the fall of the Ottoman Empire... According to this narrative...today’s unrest is simply a belated product of that mistake. The Idea of the Muslim World is a bracing rebuke to such simplistic conclusions.” —Times Literary Supplement “It is here that Aydin’s book proves so valuable: by revealing how the racial, civilizational, and political biases that emerged in the nineteenth century shape contemporary visions of the Muslim world.” —Foreign Affairs

Cesari argues that both religious and national communities are defined by the three Bs: belief, behaviour and belonging. By focusing on the ways in which these three Bs intersect, overlap or clash, she identifies the patterns of the politicization of religion, and vice versa, in any given context. Her approach has four advantages: firstly, it combines an exploration of institutional and ideational changes across time, which are usually separated by disciplinary boundaries. Secondly, it illustrates the heuristic value of combining qualitative and quantitative methods by statistically testing the validity of the patterns identified in the qualitative historical phase of the research. Thirdly, it avoids reducing religion to beliefs by investigating the significance of the institution-ideas connections, and fourthly, it broadens the political approach beyond state-religion relations to take into account actions and ideas conveyed in other arenas such as education, welfare, and culture.

This book argues that the Arab states in the Middle East have failed to provide security for their citizens or define themselves along the lines of traditional nation states. Due to continuous war, they have been unable to foster development and prosperity. The author argues that these failures have led to the development of an Islamic political theory that is based around the non-territorial concepts of the Umma and Dawla. Each concept is explored in detail and the author explains how crucial they are in explaining the difference between Western policy and the priorities and the identity of the Arab world. This unique book should be required reading for students of Middle East international relations and Islamic political theory.

Islamist political parties and groups are on the rise throughout the Muslim world, constituting a new political Islam that is global in scope and yet local in action. Emmanuel Karagiannis explains how various Islamists have endorsed human rights, democracy, and justice to gain influence and mobilize supporters.

An accessible, transregional exploration of how Islam and Asia have shaped each other's histories, societies and cultures from the seventh century to today.

During the 1980s, Islamic activists in the Arab Middle East have challenged the definition of "legitimate authority" and provided the means and rationale for revolutionary change, hoping to pressure established governments to alter domestic and foreign policies. No nation-state has been immune. Fearful Arab nationalist leaders, unwilling or unable to abandon decades of ideological baggage, have begun a gradual, if erratic, process of melding the spirit and letter of Islamic precepts into existing national laws and political rhetoric. Whether it is adequate to the challenge, the state nevertheless bears the onus of accommodation, because Islam and Arabism will not soon disappear. They will assume new form and substance in the changing realities of the region. Dilemmas inherent to this century and the gauntlet delivered to hitherto unquestioned political caveats will continue to exacerbate the competition between Islam and Arabism, their quest for political platforms and supporters, and the credibility of all other claimants, including the state. Visions of the future, especially when they are sacred and apocalyptic, can never be entirely freed of historical, emotive baggage. Even if Islamic political activism and pan-Arabism diminish in their intensity, they will endure as subtle, formative forces in all aspects of life. Indigenous inhabitants are fully aware that these influences have profound resonance in their lives. At the same time, these forces act like invisible sentinels in the mind, standing ready to cast a long shadow as unconscious motivators of political behavior. Sections are as follows: Declaration of Crisis; Pluralism: Minorities in the Arab World; Stateless Nations and Nationless States: Twentieth Century Disunity; Search for Unity: An Arab Sunni Core; Arabs and Non-Arabs: The Myth of Equality; Fatal Wounds: Universal Islam Takes the Offensive; and The State: Visionary Futures.