A New Anthropology of Islam

This powerful, accessible new study explores the contributions that anthropology has made to the study and understanding of Islam.

John R. Bowen (Author)

9780521822824, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 August 2012

230 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.5 cm, 0.49 kg

'For those who would drive a wedge between textual Islam and local practice, or simply reduce the one to the other, this insightful study will come as a vital corrective. In such crucial domains as learning, law, and ritual, Bowen both synthesizes and reconfigures the study of Islamic cultures in ways that ordinary readers - as well as journalists, politicians, and scholars - will find immeasurably valuable.' Lawrence Rosen, Princeton University

In this powerful, but accessible new study, John Bowen draws on a full range of work in social anthropology to present Islam in ways that emphasise its constitutive practices, from praying and learning to judging and political organising. Starting at the heart of Islam - revelation and learning in Arabic lands - Bowen shows how Muslims have adapted Islamic texts and traditions to ideas and conditions in the societies in which they live. Returning to key case studies in Asia, Africa and Western Europe, to explore each major domain of Islamic religious and social life, Bowen also considers the theoretical advances in social anthropology that have come out of the study of Islam. A New Anthropology of Islam is essential reading for all those interested in the study of Islam and for those following new developments in the discipline of anthropology.

1. How to think about religions - Islam, for example
2. Learning
3. Perfecting piety through worship
4. Reshaping sacrifice
5. Healing and praying
6. Pious organizing
7. Judging
8. Migrating and adapting
9. Mobilizing.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Sociology: customs & traditions [JHBT], Islamic studies [JFSR2], Cultural studies [JFC]