Islam

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Amira K. Bennison

"This work challenges colonial and post colonial assumptions about the nature of the pre-colonial Moroccan sultanate by reassessing the political concepts that regulated the relationship between the state and its mostly tribal subjects. Colonial interpretations of the sultanate portrayed it as chronically divided into territories obedient to the state and those dissident towards it. Yet by using previously under-exploited archival sources in Morocco and Europe, the author suggests that state-society warfare was not merely dissidence, but part of a constant process of political negotiation. Key to this negotiation was the idea that a sultan's legitimacy lay in his ability to wage jihad. Detailed analysis of state and society interpretations of jihad during the critical period of the French conquest of Algeria clearly shows this process at play and its growing importance as the likelihood of European aggression increased."--BOOK JACKET.

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Chitralekha Zutshi

"Despite its centrality to the political life of India and Pakistan, Kashmir has met with rather perfunctory treatment from historians of South Asia. The few works of history and politics that have appeared on this region, moreover, insist on defining Kashmiri culture, history, and identity in terms of the ahistorical concept of Kashmiriyat, or a uniquely Kashmiri cultural identity. This book, in contrast, questions the notion of any transcendent cultural uniqueness and Kashmiriyat by returning Kashmir to the mainstream of South Asian historiography. It examines the hundred-year impact of indirect colonial rule on Kashmirs class formation. It studies the uses (and abuses) made of Kashmirs political elites by the state. It looks at the responses of Kashmirs society to social and economic restructuring. It shows that while all these historical changes had a profound impact on the political culture of the Kashmir Valley, there is nothing very inevitable or quite definite about the 'political regionalism' and 'Islamic particularism' of this area. Using local language sources and every important archive, this major history of the formation of Kashmir shows precisely how the Kashmir Valley assumed the position it has come to occupy in postcolonial South Asia."--Jacket.

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M. Hakan Yavuz

"In November of 2002, the Justice and Development Party swept to victory in the Turkish parliamentary elections. Because of the party's Islamic roots, its electoral triumph has sparked a host of questions both in Turkey and in the West. In this work, M. Hakan Yavuz seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of Islamic political identity in Turkey." "Yavuz argues that Islamic social movements can be important agents for promoting a democratic and pluralistic society, and that the Turkish example holds long-term promise for the rest of the Muslim world. Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, this work offers a sophisticated new understanding of the role of political Islam in one of the world's most strategically important countries."--Jacket.

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Alami M'Chichi Houria

La volonté du gouvernement marocain, en 1999, dʹintégrer les femmes au développement a suscité de nombreux questionnements entre modernistes et islamistes. Selon H. Alami MʹChichi (professeur de science politique à la faculté de droit de Casablanca), lʹintroduction de lʹanalyse du genre dans le domaine politique permet, dʹune part de mettre à nu des rapports socialement et historiquement construits, responsables de nombreuses inégalités entre les sexes, et, dʹautre part de révéler des divergences entre modernistes et islamistes, mais aussi des confusions partagées sur la place de la femme dans la société marocaine.