Cloth: 978-0-226-72613-7 | Paper: 978-0-226-72615-1 | Electronic: 978-0-226-72614-4
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226726144.001.0001
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ABOUT THIS BOOK
Through a series of poignant tales—from the struggle by a group of friends against daily corruption to the contest over a saint's identity, from nostalgia for the departed Jews to Salman Rushdie's vision of doubt in a world of religious certainty—Rosen shows how a dazzling array of potential changes are occurring alongside deeply embedded continuity, a process he compares to a game of chess in which infinite variations of moves can be achieved while fundamental aspects of "the game" have had a remarkably enduring quality. Whether it is the potential fabrication of new forms of Islam by migrants to Europe (creating a new "Euro-Islam," as Rosen calls it), the emphasis put on individuals rather than institutions, or the heartrending problems Muslims may face when their marriages cross national boundaries, each story and each interpretation offers a window into a world of contending concepts and challenged coherence.
The Culture of Islam is both an antidote to simplified versions of Islam circulating today and a consistent story of the continuities that account for much of ordinary Muslim life. It offers, in its human stories and its insights, its own contribution, as the author says, "to the mutual understanding and forgiveness that alone will make true peace possible."
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
REVIEWS
“Rosen is an excellent writer. The book's synthetic power resides in its ability to bring together three decades of ethnographic experience. Its clear and detailed style makes it an enjoyable read. Rosen gets credit for raising some of the questions at the heart of Muslim societies. Today, the Arab/Muslim world is undergoing a social, political, and economic paralysis. Rosen has raised some of the central issues in this dilemma where Muslims are struggling to find the convenient road to a better modernity. For this reason, I strongly recommend this book to audiences within and outside academe.”
“Four cultural themes connect these . . . essays: the centrality of reason and knowledge in Islamic thought and society, webs of social connections and relationships that define the person in North Africa, continuity and discontinuity in social and cultural life and the situations and contexts in which individuals interact with others.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Part One: Ambivalent Culture
1. The Circle of Beneficence: Narrating Coherence in a World of Corruption
2. Ambivalence towards Power: Approaches to Authority in Postcolonial Morocco
3. What Is a Tribe, and Why Does It Matter?
4. Constructing Institutions in a Political Culture of Personalism
Part Two: Memory Worlds, Plausible Worlds
5. Contesting Sainthood
6. Memory in Morocco
7. Have the Arabs Changed Their Mind?
Part Three: Shifting Concepts, Discerning Change
8. Marriage Stories: Crossing the Boundaries of Nation, Gender, and Law
9. Euro-Islam
10. Never in Doubt: Salman Rushdie’s Deeper Challenge to Islam
Notes
Bibliography
Index