New Book: “The Russian Orthodox Church, 1917-1948: From Decline to Resurrection”

By Daniela Kalkandjieva

Routledge, 2015

This book tells the remarkable story of the decline and revival of the Russian Orthodox Church in the first half of the twentieth century and the astonishing U-turn in the attitude of the Soviet Union’s leaders towards the church. In the years after 1917 the Bolsheviks’ anti-religious policies, the loss of the former western territories of the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union’s isolation from the rest of the world and the consequent separation of Russian emigrés from the church were disastrous for the church, which declined very significantly in the 1920s and 1930s. However, when Poland was partitioned in 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Stalin allowed the Patriarch of Moscow, Sergei, jurisdiction over orthodox congregations in the conquered territories and went on, later, to encourage the church to promote patriotic activities as part of the resistance to the Nazi invasion. He agreed a Concordat with the church in 1943, and continued to encourage the church, especially its claims to jurisdiction over émigré Russian orthodox churches, in the immediate postwar period. Based on extensive original research, the book puts forward a great deal of new information and overturns established thinking on many key points.

Link: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138788480/

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New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa
Edited by Rosalind I. J. Hackett and Benjamin F. Soares
Foreword by Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Indiana University Press, 2015

New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa casts a critical look at Africa’s rapidly evolving religious media scene. Following political liberalization, media deregulation, and the proliferation of new media technologies, many African religious leaders and activists have appropriated such media to strengthen and expand their communities and gain public recognition. Media have also been used to marginalize and restrict the activities of other groups, which has sometimes led to tension, conflict, and even violence. Showing how media are rarely neutral vehicles of expression, the contributors to this multidisciplinary volume analyze the mutual imbrications of media and religion during times of rapid technological and social change in various places throughout Africa.

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Religion and Politics in the European Union. The Secular Canopy, by François Foret

Cambridge University Press, 2015

This book analyzes the place and influence of religion in European politics. François Foret presents the first data ever collected on the religious beliefs of European decision makers and what they do with these beliefs. Discussing popular assumptions such as the return of religion, aggressive European secularism, and religious lobbying, Foret offers objective data and non-normative conceptual frameworks to clarify some major issues in the contemporary political debate.

http://www.cambridge.org/ar/academic/subjects/politics-international

-relations/european-government-politics-and-policy/religion-and-politics-european-union-secular-canopy

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The Sociology of Shari’a: Case Studies from around the World

Possamai, Adam, Richardson, James T, Turner, Bryan S. (Eds.)

http://www.springer.com/new+%26+forthcoming+titles+%28default%29/book/978-3-319-09604-9

This edited volume offers a collection of papers that presents a comparative analysis of the development of Shari’a in countries with Muslim minorities, such as America, Australia, China, Germany,  Italy, Singapore, South Africa and the Philippines, as well as countries with Muslim majorities, such as Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Tunisia. The Sociology of Shari’a provides a global analysis of these important legal transformations and  examines the topic from a sociological perspective. In addition, the third part of the book includes case studies that explore some ground-breaking applications of theoretical perspectives such as those from Chambliss and Eisenstadt.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction: Legal Pluralism and Shari’a, Bryan S. Turner and Adam Possamai.- Part 1. Case Studies from Muslim Majority Countries.- 2. One State, Three Legal Systems: Social Cohesion in a Multi-ethnic and Multi-religious Malaysia, Shamsul, A. B.- 3. Modern Law, Traditional ‘Shalish’ and Civil Society Activism in Bangladesh, Habibul Haque Khondker.- 4. Semi-Official Turkish Muslim Legal Pluralism: Encounters between Secular Official Law and Unofficial Shari’a, Ihsan Yilmaz.- Part 2. Case Studies from Muslim Minority Countries.- 5.  Soft Authoritarianism, Social Diversity and Legal Pluralism: The Case of Singapore, Bryan S. Turner.- 6.  The Philippine Shari’a Courts and the Code of Muslim Personal Laws, Isabelita Solamo-Antonio.- 7. Shari’a and Muslim Women’s Agency in a Multicultural Context: Recent Changes in Sports Culture, Helen McCue and Ghena Krayem.- 8. Shari’a Law in Catholic Italy: A Non-agnostic Model of Accommodation, Vito Breda.- 9. Trial and Error: Muslims and Shari’a in the German Context, Wolf D. Ahmed Aries and James T. Richardson.- 10. Between the Sacred and the Secular: Living Islam in China, Yuting Wang.- 11. The Case of the Recognition of Muslim Personal Law in South Africa: Colonialism, Apartheid and Constitutional Democracy, Wesahl Domingo.- Part 3. Theoretical and Comparative Considerations.- 12. The Constitutionalization of Shari’a In Muslim Societies: Comparing Indonesia, Tunisia And Egypt, Arskal Salim.- 13. Legal Pluralism and the Shari’a: A Comparison of Greece and Turkey.- Bryan S. Turner and Berna Zengin Arslan.- 14. Contradictions, Conflicts, Dilemmas, and Temporary Resolutions: A Sociology of Law Analysis of Shari’a in Selected Western Societies, James T. Richardson.- 15. Perception of Shari’a in Sydney and New York Newspapers, Adam Possamai, Bryan Turner, Joshua Roose, Selda Dagistanli and Malcolm Voyce.- 16. Profiting from Shari’a: Islamic Banking and Finance in Australia, Salim Farrar.- 17.  Shari’a and Multiple Modernities in Western Countries: Toward a Multi-faith Pragmatic Modern Approach Rather Than a Legal Pluralist One? Adam Possamai.- 18. The Future of Legal Pluralism, Bryan S. Turner and James T. Richardson.  

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Grace Davie  Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox.

Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2015

http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405135964.html

Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox describes and explains the religious situation in twenty-first century Britain.  It explores the country’s increasing secularity alongside religion’s growing presence in public debate, and the impact of this paradox on different aspects of British society (religious organizations, politics, the law, education and welfare).  It is based on the highly successful Religion in Britain Since 1945 (Blackwell, 1994) but has been comprehensively re-written to reflect the current situation.

Table of Contents

• List of Figures and Tables ix
• Preface xi
• Part I Preliminaries 1
• 1 Introduction: A Framework for Discussion 3
• 2 Contexts and Generations 19
• 3 Facts and Figures 41
• Part II Religious Legacies 69
• 4 Cultural Heritage, Believing without Belonging and Vicarious Religion 71
• 5 Territory, Politics and Institutions 91
• 6 Presence: Who Can Do What For Whom? 113
• Part III Shifting Priorities: From Obligation to Consumption 133
• 7 An Emerging Market: Gainers and Losers 135
• 8 Proliferations of the Spiritual 155
• Part IV Public Religion and Secular Reactions 175
• 9 Managing Diversity 177
• 10 Religion in Public Life 197
• Part V Thinking Theoretically 219
• 11 Religion and Modernity Continued 221
• References 237
• Index 255

Grace Davie is Professor emeritus in Sociology at the University of Exeter, UK and a former President of the ISA RC 22 Research Committee

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The Orphan Scandal: Christian Missionaries and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood
Beth Baron
Stanford University Press, July 2014
http://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/orphan-scandal

On a sweltering June morning in 1933 a fifteen-year-old Muslim orphan girl refused to rise in a show of respect for her elders at her Christian missionary school in Port Said. Her intransigence led to a
beating—and to the end of most foreign missions in Egypt—and contributed to the rise of Islamist organizations.

Turkiyya Hasan left the Swedish Salaam Mission with scratches on her legs and a suitcase of evidence of missionary misdeeds. Her story hit a nerve among Egyptians, and news of the beating quickly spread through the country. Suspicion of missionary schools, hospitals, and homes increased, and a vehement anti-missionary movement swept the country.

That missionaries had won few converts was immaterial to Egyptian observers: stories such as Turkiyya’s showed that the threat to Muslims and Islam was real. This is a great story of unintended consequences: Christian missionaries came to Egypt to convert and provide social services for children. Their actions ultimately inspired the development of the Muslim Brotherhood and similar Islamist groups.

In The Orphan Scandal, Beth Baron provides a new lens through which to view the rise of Islamic groups in Egypt. This fresh perspective offers a starting point to uncover hidden links between Islamic activists and a broad cadre of Protestant evangelicals. Exploring the historical aims of the Christian missions and the early efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood, Baron shows how the Muslim Brotherhood and like-minded Islamist associations developed alongside and in reaction to the influx of missionaries. Patterning their organization and social welfare projects on the early success of the Christian missions, the Brotherhood launched their own efforts to “save” children and provide for the orphaned, abandoned, and poor. In battling for Egypt’s children, Islamic activists created a network of social welfare institutions and a template for social action across the country—the effects of which, we now know, would only gain power and influence across the country in the decades to come.

Beth Baron is Professor of History at City College and Director of the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics (2005) and The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (1994).

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Sindre Bangstad
The Politics of Mediated Presence
Exploring The Voices of Muslims in Norway´s Mediated Spheres
Spartacus, 2014
http://www.spartacus.no/index.php?ID=Bok&ID2=806

An important contribution to the literature on freedom of expression, the public sphere and Muslim minorities in Europe. The increased public presence and visibility of Muslims in Europe has long been seen by many Europeans as a challenge to hegemonic conceptions concerning the secular nature of modern public spheres. In Norway, the past decade has seen an increase in the number of young, often well-educated and highly articulate «second-generation» Muslim youth engaging in public, controversial and highly mediatised debates on Islam, Muslims, immigration and integration. This  monograph is based on five years ethnographic research on the experiences of young individuals of Muslim background active in Norway’s mediated public spheres, and the mainstream liberal media editors who have provided them with access to these spheres.

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Elisheva Machlis, Shi’i Sectarianism in the Middle East: Modernisation and the Quest for Islamic Universalism.
I.B. Tauris, 2014
http://www.amazon.com/Shii-Sectarianism-Middle-East-Modernisation/dp/178076720X

The eruption of violent sectarianism in Iraq following the US invasion in 2003 brought the question of Sunni-Shi’i relations in the country to the forefront of the international public agenda. Empowerment of the Shi’i majority for the first time in the history of modern Iraq and the emergence of a factious political system strengthened the popular belief that contemporary Shi’ism is inherently sectarian. Challenging this widely accepted consensus and providing a more ecumenical depiction of Islam, Elisheva Machlis here assesses the relationship between sectarianism and universalism in Shi’i thought by examining the scholarly interaction between Iran, Iraq and Lebanon in the twentieth century. The author presents a multifaceted and complex analysis of the shifting sectarian identity of Shi’ism in the transition to the modern era, exploring questions of leadership, religious identity, group membership and transnationalism. Examining the relationship between intellectual thought and socio-political development in the region, this book provides a new perspective concerning the future of an increasingly globalised Muslim world.

Dr. Elisheva Machlis
The Center for Iranian Studies
Tel Aviv University

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Freedom of Speech and Islam
Edited by Erich Kolig, University of Otago, New Zealand
Ashgate, 2014
http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472424020

Freedom of speech and expression is considered in the West a high public good and an important social value, underpinned by legislative and ethical norms. Its importance is not shared to the same extent by conservative and devout Muslims, who read Islamic doctrines in ways seemingly incompatible with Western notions of freedom of speech. Since the Salman Rushdie affair in the 1980s there has been growing recognition in the West that its cherished value of free speech and associated freedoms relating to arts, the press and media, literature, academia, critical satire etc. episodically clash with  conservative Islamic values that limit this freedom for the sake of holding religious issues sacrosanct. Recent controversies – such as the Danish cartoons, the Charlie Hebdo affair, Quran burnings, and the internet film ‘The Innocence of Muslims’ which have stirred violent reactions in the Muslim world – have made the West aware of the fact that Muslims’ religious sensitivities have to be taken into account in exercising traditional Western freedoms of speech.

Featuring experts across a spectrum of fields within Islamic studies, Freedom of Speech and Islam considers Islamic concepts of blasphemy, apostasy and heresy and their applicability in the modern world.

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NEW BOOK OUT NOW

Marian Burchardt, Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Matthias Middell (Eds.)

MULTIPLE SECULARITIES BEYOND THE WEST

Religion and Modernity in the Global Age

Questions of secularity and modernity have become globalized, but most studies still focus on the West. This volume breaks new ground by comparatively exploring developments in five areas of the world, some of which were hitherto situated at the margins of international scholarly discussions: Africa, the Arab World, East Asia, South Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe.In theoretical terms, the book examines three key dimensions of modern secularity: historical pathways, cultural meanings, and global entanglements of secular formations. The contributions show how differences in these dimensions are linked to specific histories of religious and ethnic diversity, processes of state-formation and nation-building. They also reveal how secularities are critically shaped through civilizational encounters, processes of globalization, colonial conquest, and missionary movements, and how entanglements between different territorially grounded notions of secularity or between local cultures and transnational secular arenas unfold over time.

Marian Burchardt, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity Göttingen;  MonikaWohlrab-Sahr and Matthias Middell, University of Leipzig.

Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter

http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/209741?format=G

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