Summary
Contents
Subject index
Islam is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the West. Myths and stereotypes surround it. This clear and penetrating volume helps readers to make sense of Islam. It offers a penetrating guide to the diversity and richness of contemporary knowledge about Islam and Muslim society. Throughout, the emphasis is upon the value of pluralistic approaches to Islam, rather than condensing complexity with unifying concepts such as `Orientalism'. Interdisciplinary in scope and organization, the book cuts through the bewildering and seemingly anarchic diversity of contemporary knowledge about Islam and Muslim society. The methodological difficulties and advantages of Western researchers focusing on Islam are fully documented. The book demonstrates how gender, age, status and `insider' / `outsider' status impacts upon research and inflects research findings.
Kissing Cousins: Anthropologists on Islam
Kissing Cousins: Anthropologists on Islam
If one wants to write an anthropology of Islam one should begin, as Muslims do, from the concept of a discursive tradition that includes and relates itself to the founding texts of the Quran and the hadith. Islam is neither a distinctive social structure nor a heterogeneous collection of beliefs, artifacts, customs and morals. It is a tradition. (Asad 1986: 14)
In the pages to follow, I will briefly discuss the history of and prospects for an anthropology of Islam. This is a difficult and daunting task, and I should say at the outset that I make no claims whatsoever to completeness, nor do I claim to cover the whole vast geographical span where Islam is found. ...
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