research paper on islam

• Search Menu
• Advance articles
• Author Guidelines
• Open Access
• Why Publish?
• About Journal of Islamic Studies
• About the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals Career Network
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Terms and Conditions
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Editor-in-Chief

Dr Farhan Ahmad Nizami

Dr Afifi Al-Akiti 

Dr Moin Ahmad Nizami

Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies

About the journal

The Journal of Islamic Studies is a multi-disciplinary publication dedicated to the scholarly study of all aspects of Islam and of the Islamic world …

Qurʾānic and Ḥadīth Studies virtual issue

Journal of Islamic Studies are proud to share their latest virtual issue on the theme of ‘Qurʾānic and Ḥadīth Studies’.

Browse here.

Networks and Travel Virtual Issue

Browse this virtual issue from the Journal of Islamic Studies on the theme of ‘Networks and Travel’.

Call for papers

The Journal of Islamic Studies is accepting papers on the scholarly study of all aspects of Islam and of the Islamic World. In particular, papers dealing with history, geography, political science, economics, anthropology, sociology, law, literature, religion, philosophy, international relations, environmental, and developmental issues are welcomed.

Latest articles

Recommend to your library

Fill out our simple online form to recommend Journal of Islamic Studies to your library.

Recommend now

Email alerts

Register to receive table of contents email alerts as soon as new issues of Journal of Islamic Studies are published online.

OUP Religion is now on Twitter

Join us for the latest Religion news, resources, and insights from Oxford University Press, including updates and free articles from Journal of Islamic Studies .

Related Titles

• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1471-6917
• Print ISSN 0955-2340
• Copyright © 2024 Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Islām, Īmān, Iḥsān: Climbing the Spiritual Mountain

Published: November 27, 2019 • Updated: November 24, 2022

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Seek beneficial knowledge. Sign-up and never miss a new paper!

Explore similar papers

General Psychology

How to Overcome Addiction through Faith: Ibn Al-Qayyim's Rehabilitation Program

Faith in Mind: Islam’s Role in Mental Health

The Divine Gift of Gratitude: The Secret of Happiness in the Modern World

Introduction.

Islam is to testify there is no true god but Allah and Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah, to establish prayer, to give charity, to fast the month of Ramadan, and to perform the Hajj pilgrimage to the House if one can find a way.

Faith is to believe in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and to believe in the Divine Decree ( al-qadr ), both its good and its evil.

Excellence is to worship Allah as if you see Him, for though you do not see Him, He surely sees you. 1

The hadith of Gabriel clarifies that Islam is built upon five pillars, which is Islam itself. It is not based upon anything other than its foundation. Rather, the Prophet ﷺ designated three degrees of the religion. The pinnacle is excellence ( al-iḥsān ), its middle is faith ( al-īmān ), and its base is Islam. Thus, every good-doer ( muḥsin ) is a believer and every believer is Muslim, but not every believer is a good-doer and not every Muslim is a believer. 2

Have you not seen how Allah strikes the parable of a good word as a good tree, its roots firmly planted and its branches reaching to the sky? It produces its fruit at all times, by the permission of its Lord. Allah strikes parables for people, that perhaps they will reflect. 3

Editor's Picks

The Qur’an’s Engagement with Christian and Jewish Literature

The Alchemy of Divine Love: How Our View of God Affects Our Faith and Happiness

Contemporary Ideologies

Islam and the LGBT Question: Reframing the Narrative

Islam: following the basics.

Islam is built upon five: to worship Allah and to disbelieve in what is worshipped besides him, to establish prayer, to give charity, to perform Hajj pilgrimage to the house, and to fast the month of Ramadan. 5

The purpose is to strike a parable of Islam as a building supported on these five pillars. The building cannot stand without them, while the remaining attributes of Islam perfect the building. If any of the secondary attributes are missing, the house will be lacking although it is standing. It will not fall by lacking those attributes, in contrast to these five pillars. 6

The bedouins say, ‘We have faith.’ Say, ‘You do not have faith, but rather say we have surrendered in Islam,’ for faith has not entered your hearts. If you obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not diminish anything from your deeds. Verily, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. 7

O you who have faith with their tongues but faith has not entered their hearts! Do not backbite the Muslims or seek out their faults. Whoever seeks their faults, Allah will seek his faults. And if Allah seeks his faults, He will expose him even in the privacy of his house. 9

Faith ( Īmān ): Actualizing our Islam

As for the definition of faith and its explanation, it is resolute belief and total acknowledgment of everything Allah and His Messenger commanded to have faith in, complying both outwardly and inwardly. It is belief in the heart and its acceptance, including actions of the heart and actions of the body… For this reason, the Imams among the righteous predecessors would say: Faith is a statement of the heart and the tongue, and the actions of the heart, the tongue, and the limbs. 17

Monotheism is the beginning and end of the matter, meaning the oneness of divinity. Monotheism has three components. First, knowledge of the divine attributes. Second, the oneness of Lordship and clarity that Allah alone has created all things. Third, the oneness of divinity, that Allah, Glorified and Exalted, deserves to be worshipped alone, without any partners. 22

He is Allah, besides whom there is no God, the Sovereign, the Holy, the Pure, the Faithful, the Overseer, the Almighty, the Compeller, the Superior. Glory be to Allah above what they associate with Him.

He is Allah, the Creator, the Inventor, the Fashioner; unto Him belong the Best Names. Whatever is in the heavens and on the earth glorifies Him, for He is the Almighty, the Wise. 23

The Qur’an is the word of Allah. It originated from Him, without ascribing a modality to its speech. It was revealed to His Messenger by divine inspiration. The believers affirm all of that as the truth. They have conviction that it is the word of Allah Almighty in reality, not created like the word of creatures. 27

I wanted to know the best of the life of one who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind… I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These, and not the sword, carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the second volume (of the Prophet’s biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of that great life. 42

Verily, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and in the alternation of night and day are signs for those who understand, who remember Allah standing, sitting, or lying on their sides and reflect deeply upon the creation of the heavens and the earth, saying, ‘Our Lord, You have not created all this without purpose. Glory be to You, so save us from the Hellfire.’ 44

Righteousness is not that you turn your faces east or west, rather righteousness is in one who has faith in Allah and the Last Day, the Angels, the Book, and the Prophets, who give out their wealth, despite their love for it, to relatives, the orphans, the needy, the wayfarers, those who ask, and for freeing slaves, who establish prayer, give in charity, and keep the promises they make, the patient in poverty, hardship, and times of danger. Such as these have been truthful and are Godfearing. 47

Whoever fulfills these characteristics is a true believer. Included in that are the establishment of obligations, both outwardly and inwardly, and avoidance of what is forbidden and discouraged… These verses are explicit in that faith includes theological beliefs, morals, outward and inward actions. Based on this, it increases by the increases in these characteristics and their actualization, and it decreases when they are decreased . 48

The recompense of a deed resembles its type of good and evil. Whoever covers the faults of a Muslim, Allah covers his faults. Whoever eases one in difficulty, Allah will make it easy for him in the world and the Hereafter. Whoever relieves a believer of hardship in the world, Allah will relieve his hardship on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever cancels a sale someone later regretted, Allah will cancel his slips on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever seeks out the faults of his brother, Allah will seek out his faults. Whoever harms a Muslim, Allah will harm him. Whoever is harsh, Allah is harsh with him. Whoever abandons a Muslim in a situation in which he needs support, Allah will abandon him in a situation in which he needs support. Whoever is tolerant, Allah is tolerant with him. The Most Merciful will show mercy to the merciful. Indeed, Allah only has mercy on His merciful servants. Whoever spends in charity, He will spend on him. Whoever is miserly, He will withhold from him. Whoever forgoes one of his rights, Allah will forgo one of His rights over him. Whoever overlooks the mistakes of people, Allah will overlook his mistakes. Whoever is keen to find fault, Allah is keen to find fault in him. This is the law of Allah, His decree, and His revelation. His reward and punishment are entirely based upon this principle. 53

Trending papers

Cosmic Cop or Loving Lord? The Influence of Parenting on Our View of God, Submission, and Contentment

Excellence ( iḥsān ): doing our best in islam.

This statement is among the comprehensive sayings ( jawāmiʿ al-kalim ) brought by the Prophet ﷺ. If one of us is able to worship as if he sees his Lord, Glorified and Exalted is He, he would never abandon any good thing he can do, such as being humble, reverent, behaving well, and taking care to combine outward and inward aspects completely, in the best possible manner. 57

How do we get there? Systematic spiritual advancement

Allah Almighty said: My servant does not grow closer to Me with anything more beloved to Me than the duties I have imposed upon him. My servant continues to grow closer to Me with extra good works until I love him. When I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes, and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask something from Me, I would surely give it to him. Were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant it to him. 70

My dear friend, the Prophet ﷺ, advised me to do three deeds and I will never abandon them until I die: to fast three days of every month, to perform the forenoon prayer, and to sleep after performing the  witr  prayer. 71

Say, ‘O Allah, the Knower of the unseen and the witnessed, the Originator of the heavens and the earth, the Lord of everything and its Owner, I testify that there is no God but You. I seek refuge in You from the evil of my soul and from the evil of Satan and his idolatry.’ Say this in the morning, evening, and when you lie down to sleep. 72

For everything that envy judges one should say or do, one should oblige oneself to do its opposite. If envy compels one to disparage the envied, one should oblige one’s tongue to praise him and commend him. If envy compels one to be arrogant against him, one should require oneself to be humble before him and apologize to him… These are the cures for envy and they are very beneficial, although they are very bitter for the heart. Rather, the benefit is in bitter medicine. 81

Disclaimer: The views, opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in these papers and articles are strictly those of the authors. Furthermore, Yaqeen does not endorse any of the personal views of the authors on any platform. Our team is diverse on all fronts, allowing for constant, enriching dialogue that helps us produce high-quality research.

How Does Ramadan Work? A Beginner’s Guide

Acts of Worship

On The Timing and Virtues of the Night of Power: The Heart's Joy in Remembering Laylat al-Qadr by Ibn al-ʿIrāqī

Ḥayāʾ: More Than Just Modesty in Islam

The Art of Worship: How to Make the Most of Ramadan Nights

Hijab: Spotlighting Servitude to God

Reading an Islamic epistemology into research: Muslim converts and contemporary religion in Britain

• Open access
• Published: 26 October 2022
• Volume 70 , pages 397–411, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Jeremiah Adebolajo 1  

2248 Accesses

2 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

This paper presents a tentative argument for the application of a unique methodological approach in researching convert Muslims in contemporary Britain. By throwing into relief some of the theoretical limitations of previous studies on the topic, a case is made for a dialectical model of thinking that foregrounds Islamic epistemology and places it into conversation with a critical posture. The article contributes to a wider discourse within academia about the ability of the contemporary study of religion to reflect the increasingly diverse world of religious and non-religious practice found in contemporary Britain. It is critical of the over enfranchisement of secular readings of Islamic conversion specifically, and orientalist framings of Islamic identity generally. I conclude by asserting insider positionality and the primacy of reflexivity as an approach to ensure intellectual rigour.

Similar content being viewed by others

African Traditional Religion in Global Scholarship

The Place of Nonreligion in Theology and Religious Studies: Issues and Insights from Empirical Research with Scholars of Religion

‘Far from the Orthodox Road’: Conceptualizing the Shiʿa in the Nineteenth-Century Official Mind

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

The problematisation of the Muslim population’s interaction with the education system of the UK can be traced back to shortly after World War II, when, as a result of severe labour shortages, workers from the Indian subcontinent were invited to Britain to work (Shaw, 1988 ; Hansen, 1999 ). While education represented an early point of contact between the bourgeoning Muslim community and the state and marked an important element in the modern history of UK/Muslim relations, the literature examining Muslims’ religious (as opposed to racial or cultural) identity as a discrete group in the state education framework was severely limited until the 1980s (Modood et al., 1997 ; Modood 1994 ; 2004 ; Ansari, 2002 ). That decade represented a paradigmatic shift away from assimilationist and integrationist theory (Race, 2005 : 7) towards a multiculturalism that was, ostensibly, empathetic towards religious subjecthood. It is during this period that attempts to deal with the religious identity of Muslims began to formulate and essentialist understandings of religion began to be challenged more frequently within academic literature. For example, the Swann Report ( 1985 ), although criticised by some (Dwyer & Meyer, 1995 ; Verma, 1989 ; Duncan, 1987 ) as continuing to deal ‘with Muslims in terms of cultural and ethnic group, rather than in terms of religious principles and priorities’ (Nielsen, 2004 : 58), is broadly considered to be instrumental in recognising the importance of providing minorities a stake in education and the wider political landscape within a multicultural society (Malik, 2015 ). It falls beyond the scope of this paper to offer a detailed delineation of the various forms of multiculturalist theory. However, the rise of multiculturalism in Britain, defined by Parker-Jenkins ( 1995 : 17) as ‘creating tolerance for minority children, dispelling ignorance and reducing prejudice to create a harmonious society’, spurred more nuanced debates on the nature of social justice and gave rise to more critical explorations of identity. While it would be reductive to suggest that continued debate surrounding the ‘Muslim problematic’ did not persist (e.g., Muslim faith schools, rising secularism, Islamophobia in schools, etc.) (Parker-Jenkins, 1995 ; Parker-Jenkins et al., 2005 ; Runnymede Trust, 1997 , 2008 ), this more acute consideration of Muslim identity dominated public debate on policy for decades (Nielsen, 1986 ; Wahhab, 1989 ; Peach, 1990 ; Vertovec, 1993 ; Khan, 2000 ; Modood, 2010 ). However, following the 2001 riots across England, which were characterised as the result of the socio-cultural segregation of Asian and Muslim youth (Home Office, 2001 ), the attacks of 9/11 and the resultant ‘war on terror’, and culminating in the 7/7 bombings, policy and public opinion underwent a seismic shift (Revell, 2012 ).

No longer was ‘the Muslim integration problem’ viewed purely through the lens of spatial segregation (Miah, 2015 ). The issue had become one of cultural segregation, with the presiding call one of combating extremism in the Muslim community and integrating young, Asian men into mainstream British society (Finney & Simpson, 2009 ). It was suggested that previous policies had facilitated segregation, led to cultural alienation and acted as a conduit for radicalisation (Taylor, 2009 ). The government recognised that one of the key areas in which policy might seek to redress this problem was in the schooling and education of Muslims, leading to the formation of educational policies designed to combat the growing problem (HM Government, 2015 ; Lander 2019 ). Addressing the slew of policies that emerged during that period, Revell ( 2012 ) writes:

The scope and range of government intervention in education in relation to extremism and its links to Islam constitutes a coherent and systematic framework that effectively criminalises aspects of theology, education, cultural practices and community that are associated with Islam. (p. 82 & 83)

With the regulatory gaze of educational policy extending to matters of Islamic theology, the post-9/11 policy milieu was judged by some as a “new assimilationism” (Back et al., 2002 : 452) and a disassembling of previously well-established relationships between Muslim communities and local government authorities (Marshall, 2010 ). Furthermore, scholars in the fields of sociology (Modood, 2004 , 2010 ; Parekh, 2008 ; Sealy, 2021a ), religion (Davie, 2015 ) and education (Panjwani & Moulin-Stożek, 2017 ) intimate that the form of multiculturalism which took root in this period appeared to harbour a theoretically rooted mistrust of religious qua religious identity, preferring to elide Muslims’ religious and ethno-cultural identity. This has had the result of positioning discretely religious identity as culturally ‘other’ within the social imaginary (Modood, 2013 ; Levey & Modood, 2009 ). This suspicion is perhaps reflected in contemporary debates about the future of Religious Education (RE). It is notable, for example, that the final report of the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) ( 2018 ) recommended that RE be renamed ‘Religion and Worldviews’ partly ‘to signify… concepts such as “secularity”, “secularism” and “spirituality” (p. 7). It is against this contextual backdrop that contemporary Muslim converts, who the literature suggests, tend to display discretely religious identities (Sealy, 2021a ; Panjwani, 2017 : 602), have emerged as the subject of sociological inquiry.

While contemporary literature has gone some way in detailing the implications of the aforementioned socio-political climate (Imtiaz, 2011 ; Lewis, 2007 ; Modood 2010 ) and policy imperatives (Miah, 2017 ) upon the wider British Muslim community, particularly within the context of education (Scott-Baumann et al., 2020 ), a broad-brush approach to understanding the diversities within this minority means that there is a dearth of literature exploring the experiences of Muslim converts within this realm (Panjwani, 2017 : 602).

Given the CoRE report’s advocacy of, among other things, a more nuanced understanding of religions and the diversity that exists within ‘fluid and dynamic’ institutional worldviews (CoRE, 2018 : 36), a closer look at one of the key diversities amongst contemporary British Muslims is timely. As Ahs et al., ( 2019 ) note, any revision of the RE curriculum must seek to recognise the ‘variations and fluidity’ (p. 212) in the ways in which people, particularly the younger generation, practice and experience spirituality and religion. And while there remains no exact count of the number of Muslim converts in the UK (Pędziwiatr, 2017 ; Sealy, 2019b ), it is clear that there is a sizeable and growing population within the evolving Muslim demographic (Brice, 2011 ; Jawad, 2013 ; Sealy, 2021a ); one that requires a degree of sustained academic reflection. Acknowledging that, this article engages with some of the key theoretical limitations of existing literature on the topic of conversion to Islam in Britain, contributing to a discussion about the methodological approaches suited to extending knowledge about this diverse minority. The paper critiques the over-enfranchisement of secular readings of conversion in current discourse and highlights the distinctive contribution insider research may bring to knowledge creation in the field of religion. I posit that one of the ways in which we may extend understanding of the religious development and identity formation of Muslim converts is by bringing a ‘theological ear’ (Keenan, 2003 : 20) to academic work on the topic. The article, therefore, presents tentative arguments for the use of a unique methodological dialectic which foregrounds an Islamic epistemology in conjunction with critical narrative and ethnographic approaches.

2 Conversion in the literature

The subject of conversion has long been one of academic interest, spawning a variety of theories and academic outputs in the fields of psychology (Starbuck, 1897 ; James, 2015 ), sociology (Lofland & Stark, 1965 ), theology (Rambo, 1993 ) and comparative religion (Underwood, 1925 ). However, with the growing number of Britons converting to Islam at a time in which the religion has entered the social imaginary through the negative frames of Islamophobia and Orientalism (Allen, 2010 ; Pędziwiatr, 2015 ), and with the mainstream media’s construction of converts as cultural threats, closely associated with terrorism and prone to radicalism (Spoliar & Brandt, 2020 ; Ramahi & Suleiman, 2017 ; Moosavi, 2014 ; Brice, 2011 , 13–16; Sealy, 2017 , 198–200), the experiences of contemporary British Muslim converts has attracted some recent scholarly attention.

The nascent body of work in this area has tended, however, to focus upon conversion patterns and processes (Roald, 2004 , 2012 ), dynmics of change and continuity (Alyedreessy, 2016 ), socio-political context (Flower, 2013 ), identity (Brice, 2011 ; Pędziwiatr, 2017 ; Sealy, 2021c ), race (Moosavi, 2014 , 2015 ) and gender (Spoliar & Brandt, 2020 ; Ramahi & Suleiman, 2017 ). What emerges from over two decades of research into the convert experience following 9/11 is a sharp dissonance between the religious motivations and perspectives spoken about by converts themselves (Sealy, 2021c ) and the ways in which they are constructed and theorised about in the discourse. This dissonance presents itself in a variety of ways. In some instances, the authenticity of conversion itself is questioned, reproducing orientalist tropes of Muslims’ ‘incapacity for self-representation, self-understanding, self-consciousness’ (Said, 1985 : 97). In other instances, conversion is framed through exclusively socio-political prisms, with notions of cultural betrayal, cultural hybridity and adherence to counterculture as a response to secularisation taking the fore. While it would be reductive to dismiss these perspectives on the motivations and patterns behind conversion to Islam in modern Britain, there appears to be a notably secular bias in reading Islamic conversion; an attempt to rationalise the phenomenon within secular paradigms. Seemingly absent from the literature are theoretical approaches which enfranchise and faithfully capture the epistemological and ontological viewpoints of the converts themselves. This absence reveals an inadequacy in current theorisations of Muslim conversion and points to implications upon the knowledge built about this group. Rambo’s ( 2003 ) comments on the topic are illustrative of this point:

Research on conversion should include more serious studies of Islamic conversion. Especially since September 11, 2001, it is imperative that Islam be better understood and recognized as a force exerting a powerful political, cultural, and religious influence around the world… In the study of Islamic conversion, care must be taken to see the phenomenon with new eyes. Christian-based categories must be set aside, at least temporarily, so that the nature and scope of conversion to Islam can be examined without preconception or bias. (p. 197)

As well as cautioning researchers investigating conversion to Islam in a post-9/11 world to move beyond the application of theories that have proven inadequate in explaining patterns of conversion to Islam in modern Britain (McLoughlin, 1998 ; Hussain, 1999 ; Al-Qwidi, 2002 ), and which fail to address the paradox of Islamic conversion in light of the large body of literature in the field of ‘secularisation theory’ which predicted an inexorable secularisation of Western civilisation (Berger, 1969 : 133; Wilson 1976 : 85; Martin 1967 : 100), Rambo’s exhortation encourages new research perspectives and new types of researchers.

3 New eyes: a case for the insider

There has undoubtedly been a spectrum of scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who have deployed a variety of methods in the study of converts to Islam in post-9/11 Britain. However, the literature exposes a surprising lack of variation in researcher positionality. Sealy’s ( 2019a ; 2019b ; 2021a ; 2021b ; 2021c ) efforts to foreground religiosity and enfranchise the theological perspective of converts is perhaps the most theoretically notable attempt at bringing new eyes to the field. However, in being ‘guided by a methodological agnosticism, in contrast to methodological atheism’ (Sealy, 2019b : 57), I contend that his body of work falls short of providing the epistemological space for the Islamic convert’s authentic voice to be heard. I have argued that this limitation is instructive of the need for insider research (Adebolajo, 2022 ).

The value of the ‘complete member’, insider researcher (Adler & Adler, 1987 ) may seem obvious in the context of research involving Muslim converts. In sharing many of the religious views and spiritual perspectives of the research subjects, the insider may already possess a deeper insight into the lived experiences of the group; an insight that may be inaccessible to the non-native, outsider researcher. Yet, for every argument in favour of the enhanced depth an insider brings to the field of knowledge, questions abound regarding the objectivity and intellectual rigour of the insider’s research endeavour. What Neitz ( 2013 : 129–130) describes as the ‘neopositivist assumption that the researcher’s objectivity is essential to producing valid, value-neutral research, and that objectivity is produced through methodologies that reduce or even eliminate bias’, throws into question the positionality of such a researcher, along with the methodologies which she deploys. It is this questioning that I will now subject to critique.

4 Objectivity and reflexivity

I begin by problematising the acceptance of Western assumptions within the human and social sciences (Al-Zeera, 2001 ; see also Liddicoat & Zarate 2009 : 10–11) and call for an attitude of criticism of the notion that any of the methodological stances can ever be impartial and value-free. Guba & Lincoln ( 1981 ) summarise the dominant objectivist paradigm as carrying with it ‘an axiological assumption of value-freedom, that is, that the methodology guarantees that the results of an inquiry are essentially free from the influence of any value system (bias)’ (p. 28). My own Islamic epistemological posture is inclined to reject this notion (Ahmed, 2017 ; Al-Zeera, 2001 ) and can be summarised by Al-Zeera ( 2001 ), who notes:

The neutrality and freedom from value in scientific and educational research is a dangerous assumption that is fostered by the so-called scientific approach. Suppression of values, principles, and beliefs for the sake of being ‘objective’ causes severe damage to people and to humanity. It numbs the feelings and emotions and develops irresponsible individuals. (p. 35).

In the abovementioned theoretical perspective, an alignment with the critical tradition emerges; a concession that all research is prejudiced by human interests (Sprague, 2005 ) and that validity in research is achieved, not in pursuit of an objective standing, but through careful interrogation of one’s prejudices. Rose ( 1985 ) summarises this point thus:

There is no neutrality. There is only greater or less awareness of one’s biases. And if you do not appreciate the force of what you’re leaving out, you are not fully in command of what you’re doing (p. 77).

Both the critical and Islamic positions argue that researchers are socialised into accepting that the objectivist, ‘scientific’ method of obtaining knowledge is the only method of rigor and that other ways of knowing are less respectable. Al-Zeera ( 2001 ) refers to this socialisation as a type of colonisation of knowledge (p. 36), defined by Raskin (Raskin & Bernstein, 1987 ) as ‘the elimination of alternate explanations, and the unwillingness to accept the interrelationships between the sort of science we do, how we do it, the questions we ask, and the sorts of ‘proof’ we require . (p. 160).

In the Islamic paradigm’s ontological acceptance of an objective reality (Ahmed, 2014 ), and in its rejection of scientific neutrality, we begin to see a dialectical model of thinking emerge alongside an unsettling of the mono-perspective. It is upon the axis of this dialectic that the methodology I am positing is able to pivot between the rigor of qualitative sociological inquiry whilst recognising the divine by ensuring interpretation of data retains ‘the integrity of intellectual and spiritual identity’ (Al-Zeera, 2001 : 76). An important implication of recognising the complex multiplicity involved in occupying the subjectivities of a researcher and cultural insider is the need to centre reflexivity. While varying notions of reflexivity have been articulated within educational research (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004 ; Lynch, 2000 ; Reinharz, 1992 ; Wasserfall 1997 ; Nixon et al., 2003 ), each has to do with an exercise in the researcher deconstructing her own prejudices in order to acknowledge and analyse the effects of those prejudices upon the research. In so doing, reflexivity leads to improved ‘quality and validity of the research and recognizing the limitations of the knowledge that is produced which leads to more rigorous research’ (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004 : 275).

5 Dialectical thinking and critical theory

Further implications of the dialectical model of thinking I have described above can be seen in the multi-perspective attitude I will adopt in the discussions to follow. For example, in speaking of the features of objectivist and subjectivist paradigms that align with my epistemology, I touch upon an understanding of researcher neutrality which is suspicious of the hegemony of Western research paradigms’ and the dismissal of other ways of knowing (Duderija, 2013 : 69). This reveals a further strand of the dialectic that upholds my proposed methodology; the lineament of criticality within Islamic research (Niyozov & Memon, 2011 ; Duderija, 2013 ; Gilani-Williams, 2014 ). It is, perhaps, unsurprising to consider that an Islamic epistemology points towards a critical posture, considering the numerous social scientists who have placed Islamic research methods within the discourse of critical inquiry on the basis of shared concerns between the Islamic worldview and that of critical theorists (Denzin et al., 2008 ; Reagan 2005 ; Connell, 2007 ; Al-Zeera, 2001 ; Ahmed, 2017 ).

While there are recognised philosophical tension between the Islamic and critical paradigms, research based upon Islamic epistemological principles has tended to be concerned with a desire to change social situations (Kazmi, 2000 ; Bahi, 2008 ; Sadek, 2012 ); a desire shared by the critical theorist. In its linguistic disjuncture from traditional theory (Jay, 1973 ), critical theory points towards a critique of, and desire to change, rather than simply describe, the social situation (Bohman, 1996 ). Thus, both Islamic research paradigms and critical research paradigms tend to adopt a concern for less enfranchised peoples (Freire, 1972 ; Gilani-Williams, 2014 ), harbouring a theoretically rooted mistrust of the socially constructed meanings provided to us (Vandenberg, 2011 , p. 26). Both paradigms proceed from an acknowledgement that our social world is fraught with injustices and inequalities. Both call into question commonly held values and the assumptions which reinforce them. It is in this vein that the theoretical dialectic described in this article is well suited to problematising commonly held assumptions found in previous studies into the experiences of convert Muslims.

The points of confluence mentioned do not, I concede, resolve the philosophical tensions that exist between critical theory and the theological perspective of the Islamic paradigm. Indeed, an obvious quandary surfaces when describing a faith-based epistemological approach as ‘critical’: How does such an approach retain its faith-based foundations in the widely cast shadow of the anti-religious sentiment of Marxism, which is so often associated with critical theory? In answer to this, I suggest that Marxism has no monopoly over the critical posture in social science research, nor is it, by necessity, secular (Asad et al., 2013 ). Additionally, the lack of internal consistency within critical perspectives (Crotty, 1998 ) discounts any claim to a methodological orthodoxy that disbars my faith perspective. Crotty’s ( 1998 : 13–14) vision of the process of crafting a research methodology becomes relevant here:

In a very real sense, every piece of research is unique and calls for a unique methodology. We, as the researcher, have to develop it… We acquaint ourselves with the various methodologies… We weigh their strengths and weaknesses. Having done all that and more besides, we still have to forge a methodology that will meet our particular purposes in this research .

It is this understanding of the process of negotiation between ‘various methodologies’, as a weighing of strengths and weaknesses in pursuit of a way towards extending knowledge that justifies this new approach to researching contemporary Muslim converts.

6 Beyond the theory

The dialectical thinking outlined thus far moves me beyond a mere reconciliation of paradigmatic tensions, towards a deeper consideration of the methods that will allow me as an insider researcher to hear and see the narratives and experiences of converts in ways that ‘outsiders cannot’ (Flanagan, 2008 : 258). Much like the paradigmatic tensions, however, there may, at first, appear to be a degree of incompatibility between the lineaments of ethnographic and narrative inquiry that I shall advocate and expound upon in this section of the paper. Given the fact that ethnography has been noted as ‘a genre that discredits or discourages narrative, subjectivity, confessional, personal anecdote, or accounts of the ethnographers’ or anyone else’s experience’ (Tyler, 1987 : 92), the application of this element within my proposed methodology requires further examination. It is useful to begin this examination with a look at the historical development of the ethnographic methodology and, in so doing, highlight the features of the methodology which are uniquely placed to redress some of the limitations found in previous studies.

6.1 Ethnography

With the earliest ethnographies being the informal, amateur accounts of eighteenth and nineteenth century ‘explorers, travellers, medical doctors, colonial officers [and] missionaries’ (Tedlock, 1991 :69), it was not until around the First World War that the ‘academic orthodoxy’ of ethnography began to develop into the research methodology it is widely known as today (Firth, 1985 ; Stocking, 1982 ); one in which epistemic value is placed upon conducting fieldwork through extended immersion into cultural groups. And while differences in approach amongst ethnographers persisted (Kirsch, 1982 ), the overarching enterprise was the same; a marrying of the affectional, psychological attachment that cultural participation entails, and the scientific detachment that observation of cultures entails (Tedlock, 1991 : 69). The result was the production of data that purported to reflect the ‘native’s’ point of view’ (Malinowski, 2017 : 25) and bring about knowledge and understanding.

It is to be noted that this form of participatory immersion into the field sometimes resulted in accounts of what ethnographers have called ‘going native’ (Given, 2008 ), a situation in which the researcher becomes so immersed within the cultural group under investigation that she loses a sense of the ‘scientific objectivity’ (Paul, 1953 : 441). Within anthropological conceptualisation of ethnography, this represents an untenable threat to ethnographic fieldwork (Tyler, 1987 ; Devereux, 1967 ); a perceived unbridgeable gap between the objectivism required for the science of ethnography and the subjectivism of the participants under observation. Nestled within such a position, I contest, is the assumption of the superiority of objectivity; the position that reality can only be known by the outsider, and that the participants ‘way of knowing’, therefore, is of lesser value. My own epistemological sensibilities reject these early anthropological understandings of ethnography and instead encourage a reconsideration of the objectivist position in ethnographic research through what Tedlock ( 1991 ; 2004) describes as ‘narrative ethnography’:

The author of a narrative ethnography also deals with experiences, but along with these come ethnographic data, epistemological reflections on fieldwork participation, and cultural analysis. The world, in a narrative ethnography, is re-presented as perceived by a situated narrator, who is also present as a character in the story that reveals his own personality.’ (Tedlock, 1991 : 77 − 8).

In this description, a form of ethnography which is aligned to the acceptance of the value-laden researcher takes shape. The ‘situated narrator’ in narrative ethnography must centre reflexivity and participant subjectivity, leaving epistemological space for the emergence of newer types of ethnographers from different cultures, genders, races and religions that bring with them new perspectives and critical awareness which should be valued as a ‘democratisation of knowledge’ (Tedlock, 1991 : 80). The criticality underpinning this particular way of being ethnographic is intended to ‘help researchers understand relations of power by merging a critical stance with a complex and dynamic qualitative strategy of enquiry’ (Vandenberg, 2011 : 25). In seeking to explore convert experiences in a post-9/11 socio-political landscape, and in the face of what has been referred to as ‘epistemic injustice’ (Scott-Baumann et al., 2020 : 39) perpetrated against Islam in British educational settings, narrative ethnography, I postulate, can provide ‘a more direct style of thinking about the relationships among knowledge, society, and political action’ (Thomas, 1993 : vii).

6.2 Narrative

Another important lineament of my proposed methodology is the feature of narrative. Here, a clarification of the term ‘narrative’ is in order. It is necessary to differentiate narrative inquiry, the qualitative research genre which has been growing in popularity (Dhunpath, 2000 ; du Preez, 2008 ), from the term ‘narrative’ as it has been understood linguistically. This clarification will serve to illustrate how narrative inquiry can provide intimate, complex social insight. It will also make plain, not only the suitability of narrative inquiry for engaging with convert Muslim participants, but also the synergy between the ethnographic and narrative elements of the dialectical approach outlined in this paper.

6.3 Narrative inquiry

At times referring to the mere expression of qualitative research (Miles & Huberman, 1994 ), the term ‘narrative’ has been deployed equivocally in social science literature (du Preez, 2008 ). However, in my use of the term ‘narrative’, I am concerned with the more limited definition used by qualitative researchers (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990 ; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000 ); ‘research designs in which stories are used to describe human action… and happenings are configured into a temporal unity by means of a plot.’ (Polkinghorne, 1995 : 5). The linguistic form of story has historically proven to be well suited to conveying human experience as situated in the lived world (Kenyon & Randall, 1997 ; Ellis & Bochner, 1992 ; Ricoeur, 1991 ), justifying its growing popularity as a qualitative research methodology. However, with the visceral association of story and fiction in literature (Polkinghorne, 1995 : 7), the concept of story has unavoidably been associated with pure subjectivity and considered an afront to traditional empiricist notions of knowledge. It is important then to reiterate that the Islamic epistemological position is comfortable with subjectivity in social science and, therefore, gives currency to the tendency of stories to disrupt the dominance of purely objectivistic approaches by bringing to light the relativistic truths embedded in individuals’ narratives. As Dhunpath ( 2000 ) notes, narrative research can act ‘as a counterculture’ to the ‘dominance of empirical tradition’ (p. 543).

The intimate understanding of the lived experiences of convert Muslims, which narrative inquiry and insider ethnography may yield, has the potential to shed further light upon the aforementioned dissonance between converts’ perspectives and the ways in they are represented in academic literature. In turn, this may bring into sharp relief the epistemic injustices that they face. Narratives are, after all, inherently, situated in political contexts, unavoidably entrenched in dynamics of power and politics and able to make heard ‘the voices of the silenced’ (Dhunpath, 2000 : 550).

7 Conclusion

This article is, in many ways, a reflection of and upon my own positionality as a Muslim convert researcher. It is born of the inability to see my own story and self in the current body of literature. It is also, in some ways, a response to the developing literature surrounding the reframing of Religious Education in Britain (Miedema, 2014 ; Teece, 2017 ; CoRE, 2018 ; Everington 2018 ; Freathy & John, 2019 ). With a growing number of scholars advocating the shift towards the study of Worldviews (Cush, 2021 ; Cooling, 2019 , 2020 , 2021 ; Cooling et al., 2020 ; Shaw, 2020 ; Freathy & John, 2019 ), an examination of how the subject might prise religious identity apart from ethnic and cultural identity may be valuable. By highlighting the tendency of Western scholarly voices to distort the religious voice of Muslim converts in search of secular rationalisations, this paper argues for the foregrounding of an Islamic epistemology. By describing the methodological undergirding of my own doctoral research, I tentatively assert the value of insider research as a way of recovering the theological voice. It is important to note, however, that my advocacy of insider research is not to indicate a belief that ‘insider’ research is, by necessity, more valuable than the research data and insight gleaned by researchers on the ‘outside’. Rather, my proposition is that the type of insider research described here offers a ‘different’ (Twine, 2000 ) source of knowledge and insight which is ‘no less true’ (Gunaratnam, 2003 : 92).

Inevitably, a significant deliberation that surfaces as a result of this positionality is the primacy of reflexivity as a tool with which to problematise the relationship between researcher and researched. In recognising that the researcher is situated within a context and possessing of a history, there must come recognition that the researcher is a part of the project. This requires, not only that they discuss their own beliefs and values in a broad sense, but also that they interrogate their own interpretations of the literature surrounding the topic, the data that comes from participants and ultimately the knowledge that the study produces. This process of acknowledgment and self-interrogation (Nixon et al., 2003 : 102) constitutes a foregrounding of reflexive practice in the proposed methodology. I conclude this article by making a case for the dialectical model of thinking that combines lineaments of ethnography and narrative inquiry together with a critical posture. In adding momentum to the growing number of Muslim researchers asserting Islamic conceptualisations of knowledge and research design within intellectual spaces (Niyozov & Memon, 2011 ; Memon & Zaman, 2016 ; Ahmed, 2012 , 2016a , b , 2017 ; Merry, 2007 ; Rasiah, 2016 ; Shah, 2015 ; Al-Zeera, 2001 ; Lawson, 2005 ), this paper is intended to be a theoretical contribution to the study of religion in Britain.

Adebolajo, J. O. (2022). [Review of the book Religiosity and recognition: Multiculturalism and British converts to Islam: By Thomas Sealy, cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, ix + 233 pp., £99.99 (hardback), ISBN 978-3-03-075126-5; £94.96 (ebk), ISBN 978-3-030-75127-2. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2022.2027179

Adler, P., & Adler, P. (1987). Membership roles in field research . Newbury Park, CA: Sage

Book   Google Scholar  

Ahmed, F. (2017). Pedagogy as Dialogue between Cultures: Exploring Halaqah: an Islamic dialogic pedagogy that acts as a vehicle for developing Muslim children’s shakhsiyah (personhood, autonomy, identity) in a pluralist society (Doctoral thesis). https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.25849

Ahmed, F. (2016a). Principles of Shakhsiyah Education . London, UK: Shakhsiyah Research and Resources

Google Scholar  

Ahmed, F. (2016b). An exploration of Naquib al-Attas’ theory of Islamic education as ta’dīb as an ‘indigenous’ educational philosophy. Educational Philosophy and Theory , 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2016.1247685

Ahmed, F. (2014). Exploring halaqah as research method: A tentative approach to developing islamic research principles within a critical ‘indigenous’ framework. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education , 27 (5), 561–583. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.805852

Article   Google Scholar  

Ahs, V., Poulter, S., & Kallioniemi, A. (2019). ‘Preparing for the world of diverse worldviews: parental and school stakeholder views on integrative worldview education in a Finnish context.’. British Journal of Religious Education , 41 (1), 78–89

Allen, C. (2010). Islamophobia . Farnham: Ashgate

Ahmed, F. (2012). Tarbīyah for shakhsiyah (educating for identity): seeking out culturally coherent pedagogy for Muslim children in Britain. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education , 42 (5), 725–749. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2012.706452

Al-Qwidi, M. (2002). Understanding the stages of conversion to Islam: the voices of British converts. (PhD thesis, University of Leeds, UK). Retrieved from: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/485/1/uk_bl_ethos_250876.pdf

Al-Zeera, Z. (2001). Wholeness and Holiness in Education an Islamic Perspective. Herndon, VA: IIIT

Alyedreessy, M. (2016). British Muslim Converts: An Investigation of Conversion and De-conversion Processes to and from Islam. PhD Thesis. Kingston University

Ansari, H. (2002). Muslims in Britain . London: Minority Rights Group International

Asad, T., Brown, W., Butler, J., & Mahmood, S. (2013). Is Critique Secular?: Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech . New York: Fordham University Press

Back, L., Keith, M., Khan, A., Shukra, K., & Solomos, J. (2002). New Labour’s White Heart: Politics, Multiculturalism and the Return of Assimilation. The Political Quarterly , 73 (4), 445–454

Bahi, R. A. 2008. Networking for power and change: Muslim women activism and the transformation of Muslim public sphere . https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:1886/fulltext.pdf

Berger, P. (1969). The Social Reality of Religion . London: Faber and Faber

Bohman, J. (1996). Critical Theory and Democracy. In D. M. Rasmussen (Ed.), The handbook of Critical Theory (pp. 190–215). Oxford: Blackwell

Brice, K. (2011). A Minority within a Minority: A Report on Converts to Islam in the United Kingdom . Swansea: Swansea University

Clandinin, J. D., & Connelly, M. F. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: the global dynamics of knowledge in social science . Cambridge, UK: Polity

Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative enquiry. Educational Researcher , 19 (5), 2–14

Commission on Religious Education [CoRE]. (2018). Religion and Worldviews: The Way Forward. A national plan for RE (Final Report) . London: Religious Education Council of England & Wales

Crotty, M. (1998). The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process . London: Sage Publications

Cush, D. (2021). Religion and Worldviews: the further adventures of the first recommendation of the Commission on RE in England . ISREV conference paper unpublished. July 2021, Gothenburg, Sweden (online)

Cooling, T. (2019). The return to worldview: Reflections from the UK. International Journal of Christianity and Education , 23 (1), 3–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056997118818402

Cooling, T. (2020). Worldview in religious education: Autobiographical reflections on The Commission on Religious Education in England final report. British Journal of Religious Education , 42 (4), 403–414. https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2020.1764497

Cooling, T. W., Bowie, B., & Panjwani, F. (2020). Worldviews in Religious Education . Theos

Cooling, T. (2021). ‘The commission on religious education – a response to L Philip Barnes.’. British Journal of Educational Studies . https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2021.1954142

Davie, G. (2015). Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox (2nd Edition). Oxford: Blackwell

Denzin, N. K., Lincoln, Y. S., & Smith, L. T. (2008). Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Devereux, G. (1967). From Anxiety to Method in the Behavioral Sciences . The Hague: Mouton

Dhunpath, R. (2000). Life history methodology: “narradigm” regained. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education , 13 (5), 543–551. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390050156459

Duncan, C. (1987). Understanding Multicultural/Anti-Racist Education for Practice. In T. S. Chivers (Ed.), Race and Culture in Education: Issues Arising from the Swann Committee Report (pp. 78–95). Windsor: NFER-Nelson

du Preez, J. (2008). Locating the researcher in the research: Personal narrative and reflective practice. Reflective Practice , 9 (4), 509–519. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14623940802431499

Duderija, A. (2013). Critical-progressive Muslim thoughts: Reflections on its political ramifications. The Review of Faith & International Affairs , 11 (3), 69–79

Dwyer, C., & Meyer, A. (1995). The institutionalisation of Islam in The Netherlands and in the UK: The case of Islamic schools. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies , Voolume 21 (1), pp. 37–54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.1995.9976471

Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (1992). Telling and performing personal stories: The constraints of choice in abortion. In C. E. a. M. Flaherty (Ed.), Investigating subjectivity: Research on lived experience (pp. 79–101). Newbury Park, CA: Sage

Everington, J. (2018). ‘Including nonreligious worldviews in religious education the views and experiences of English secondary school teachers.’. British Journal of Religious Education , 41 (1), 14–26

Finney, N., & Simpson, L. (2009). Sleepwalking to segregation? challenging myths about race and migration . Bristol: Policy Press

Firth, R. (1985). Degrees of Intelligibility. In Reason and Morality. by J. Overing (ed). Association of Social Anthropologists Monograph no. 24. London: Tavistock

Flanagan, K. (2008). Sociology into theology: The unacceptable leap. Theory Culture & Society , 25 (7–8), 236–261. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276408097806

Flower, S. (2013). Muslim Converts and Terrorism. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses , 5 (11), 6–9. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26351197

Freathy, R., & John, H. C. (2019). Religious Education, Big Ideas and the study of religion(s) and worldview(s). British Journal of Religious Education , 41 (1), 27–40

Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed . Penguin: London

Gilani-Williams, F. (2014). Islamic critical theory: A tool for emancipatory education. International Journal of Islamic Thought , 5 (1), 16–27. doi: https://doi.org/10.24035/ijit.05.2014.003

Given, L. M. (Ed.). (2008). The Sage encyclopedia of qualitative research methods . Sage publications

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1981). Effective Evaluation: Improving the Usefulness of Evaluation Results Through Responsive and Naturalistic Approaches . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers

Guillemin, M., & Gillam, L. (2004). Ethics, reflexivity, and “ethically important moments” in research. Qualitative Inquiry , 10 (2), 261–280

Gunaratnam, Y. (2003). Researching ‘race’ and ethnicity: Methods, knowledge and power . Sage

Hansen, R. (1999). The Politics of Citizenship in 1940s Britain: The British Nationality Act. 20th Century British History , 10 (1), 67–95. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/10.1.67

HM Government (HMG) (2015). Prevent duty guidance: For England and Wales . London: HM Government. Retrieved from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/439598/prevent-duty-departmental-advice-v6.pdf

Home Office. (2001). Report of the Independent Review Team: Community Cohesion . London: TSO.

Hussain, A. (1999). Köse, Ali, "Conversion to Islam: A Study of Native British Converts" (Book Review). In Journal of the American Academy of Religion (Vol. 67 , Issue 1, p. 221).

Imtiaz, A. (2011). Wandering lonely in a crowd: reflections on the Muslim condition in the west . Leicestershire, U.K: Kube Pub

James, W. (2015). The varieties of religious experience. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/worcester/reader.action?docID=1952721

Jawad, H. A. (2013). T owards building a British Islam: new Muslims perspectives . London: Bloomsbury.

Jay, M. (1973). The dialectical imagination: A history of the Frankfurt school & the institute of social research 1923-1950 . Heinemann: London

Kazmi, Y. (2000). Historical consciousness and the notion of the authentic self in the Qur’ān: Towards an Islamic Critical Theory. Islamic Studies , 39 (3), 375–398

Keenan, W. J. F. (2003). Rediscovering the Theological in Sociology: Foundation and Possibilities. Theory Culture Society , 20 (1), 19–42

Kenyon, G. M., & Randall, W. L. (1997). Restorying our lives: Personal growth through autobiographical reflection. Ebrary collection . Westport, Conn: Praeger

Khan, Z. (2000). Muslim Presence in Europe: The British Dimension-Identity, Integration and Community Activism. Current Sociology , 48 (4), 29–43

Kirsch, A. T. (1982). Anthropology: Past, Present, Future: Toward an Anthropology of Anthropology. In E. A. Hoebel, R. Currier, & S. Kaiser (Eds.), Crisis in Anthropology by (pp. 91–108). New York: Garland

Lander, V. (2019). Fundamental British Values . London: Routledge

Lawson, I. (2005). Leading Islamic Schools in the UK: A challenge for us all (Full Practitioner Enquiry Report). London, UK: National College for School Leadership. Retrieved from http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/5353/1/media-7a6-c0-leading-islamic-schools-in-the-uk.pdf

Levey, G. B., & Modood, T. (Eds.). (2009). Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship . Cambridge: Cambrdige University Press

Lewis, P. (2007). Young, British and Muslim . London: Continuum.

Liddicoat, A. J., & Zarate, G. (2009). La didactique des langues et des cultures face à la circulation internatio- nale des idées. Le Français dans le Monde . Recherches et Applications , 46 , 9–15

Lofland, J., & Stark, R. (1965). ‘‘Becoming a World-Saver: A Theory of Conversion to a Deviant Perspective’’. American Sociological Review , 30 (6), 862–875

Lynch, M. (2000). Against reflexivity as an academic virtue source of privileged knowledge. Theory Culture & Society , 17 (3), 26–54

Malik, K. (2015). The Failure of Multiculturalism. Pandemonium , 2015. Retrieved from: https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/the-failure-of-multiculturalism/

Malinowski, B. (2017). Argonauts of the western pacific an account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagoes of melanesian new guinea.Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55822/55822-h/55822-h.htm#pl04

Marshall, H. (2010). The Prevent Strategy and Controversies. In J. Schmack, M. Thompson, D. Torevell, & C. Cole (Eds.), Engaging Religion . Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Martin, D. (1967). A Sociology of English Religion . London: SCM Press

McLoughlin, S. (1998). Reviews: Conversion to Islam: A Study of Native British Converts by Ali Köse, Journal of Semitic Studies, XL, 401–404, 1998

Memon, N., & Zaman, M. (Eds.). (2016). Philosophies of Islamic Education: Historical Perspectives and Emerging Discourses . London, UK: Routledge

Merry, M. (2007). Culture, Identity, and Islamic schooling . New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Miah, S. (2015). Muslims, schooling and the question of self-segregation . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Miah, S. (2017). Muslims, Schooling and Security - Trojan Horse, Prevent and Racial Politics . London: Palgrave Macmillan, Springer

Miedema, S. (2014). ‘From Religious Education to Worldview Education and Beyond: The Strength of a Transformative Pedagogical Paradigm. ’ Journal for the Study of Religion , 27 (1), 82–103

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Modood, T. (1994). Muslim Identity: Social Reality or Political Project. In J. Rex, & T. Modood (Eds.), Muslim Identity: Real or Imagined . Birmingham: Selly Oaks Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

Modood, T., Berthoud, R., Lakey, J., Nazroo, J., Smith, P., Virdee, S. and Beishon, S. (1997) Ethnic Minorities in Britain: Diversity and Disadvantage. Series: PSI report (843). Policy Studies Institute: London.

Modood, T. (2004). Multiculturalism, Muslims and the British State’, in Religion: Empirical Studies - A Collection to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the British Association for the Study of Religions , pp. 245–58

Modood, T. (2010). Moderate Secularism, Religion as Identity and Respect for Religion. The Political Quarterly (London 1930) , 81 (1), 4–14. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2010.02075.x

Modood, T. (2013). Muslims, Religious Equality and Secularism. In A. Berg-Sørensen (Ed.), Contesting secularism (1st ed., pp. 69–86). Routledge

Moosavi, L. (2014). The Racialization of Muslim Converts in Britain and Their Experiences of Islamophobia. Critical Sociology , 41 (1), 41–56

Moosavi, L. (2015). White privilege in the lives of Muslim converts in Britain. Ethnic and Racial Studies , 38 (11), 1918–1933

Neitz, M. J. (2013). Insiders, outsiders, advocates and apostates and the religions they study: Location and the sociology of religion. Critical Research on Religion , 1 (2), 129–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050303213490311

Nielsen, J. S. (1986). A Survey of British Local Authority Response to Muslim Needs. Research Papers. Muslims in Europe, no.30/31 . Birmingham: Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian- Muslim Relations

Nielsen, J. S. (2004). Muslims in Western Europe. (The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys) (3rd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Nixon, J., Walker, M., & Clough, P. (2003). Research as thoughtful practice. In P. Sikes, J. Nixon, & W. Carr (Eds.), The moral foundations of educational research: Knowledge, inquiry, and values . Buckingham, England & Philadelphia: Open University Press

Niyozov, S., & Memon, N. (2011). Islamic Education and Islamization: Evolution of Themes, Continuities and New Directions. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs , 31 (1), 5–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2011.556886

Panjwani, F., & Moulin-Stożek, D. (2017). Muslims, schooling and the limits of religious identity. Oxford Review of Education , 43 (5), 519–523. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2017.1354585

Parker-Jenkins, M. (1995). Children of Islam: A Teacher’s Guide to Meeting the Needs of Muslim Pupils . Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham

Parekh, B. (2008). A New Politics of Identity: Political Principles for an Interdependent World . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Parker-Jenkins, M., Hartas, D., & Irving, B. (2005). Good Faith: Schools, Religion, and Public Funding . Aldershot: Ashgate

Peach, C. (1990). The Muslim Population of Great Britain. Ethnic and Racial Studies , 13 (3), 414–419

Paul, B. D. (1953). Interview Techniques and Field Relations. In Anthropology Today. by A.L. Kroeber (ed). Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Pędziwiatr, K. (2015). Islamophobia as a New Manifestation of Polish Fears and Anxieties. In R. Kusek, J. Purchla, & J. Santera-Szeliga (Eds.), ”Nations and Stereotypes Twenty Five Years After (pp. 132–150). New Borders, New Horizons”, International Cultural Centre

Pędziwiatr, K. (2017). Conversions to Islam and identity reconfigurations among poles in great britain. Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego Studia Religiologica , 50 (3), 221–239

Polkinghorne, D. E. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. In J. Amos, Hatch, & R. Wisniewski (Eds.), Life History and Narrative . Taylor & Francis Group. ProQuest Ebook Central. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/worcester/detail.action?docID=167247

Race, R. (2005). Analysing the Historical Evolution of Ethnic Education Policy-Making in England, 1965–2005. Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung, 30 (4 (114)), 176–190. Retrieved November 23, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20762082

Ramahi, D. A., & Suleiman, Y. (2017). Intimate strangers: Perspectives on female converts to Islam in Britain. Contemporary Islam , 11 (1), 21–39. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-016-0376-0

Rambo, L. (1993). Understanding Religious Conversion . New Haven: Yale University Press

Rambo, L. (2003). Afterword. In A. Buckser, & S. D. Glazier, S. D. (Eds.), The anthropology of religious conversion (pp. 190–200). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Rasiah, A. (2016). Revisiting the Orientalist Seminary: Other Accounts of Rationalism. Presented at the Symposium on the Comparative Study of Religious Seminaries. Oxford Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies and University College London Institute of Education

Raskin, M. G., & Bernstein, H. J. (1987). New Ways of Knowing: The Sciences, Society, and Reconstructive Knowledge . Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield

Reagan, T. G. (2005). Non-Western educational traditions: Indigenous approaches to educational thought and practice . Abingdon: Routledge

Reinharz, S. (1992). Feminist method in social research . New York: Oxford University Press

Revell, L. (2012). Islam and Education: The manipulation and misrepresentation of a religion . London: Trentham Books

Ricoeur, P. (1991). In J. B. .Thompson (Ed.), From text to action: essays in hermeneutics, II . Trans.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (Original work published 1986)

Roald, A. S. (2004). New Muslims in the European Context: The Experience of Scandinavian Converts . Leiden: Brill

Roald, S. A. (2012). The Conversion Process in Stages: New Muslims in the Twenty-First Century. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations , 23 , 347–362

Rose, P. (1985). Writing on women: Essays in a renaissance . Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press

Runnymede Trust. (1997). Islamophobia: a challenge for us all . n.p: Runnymede Trust

Runnymede Trust. (2008). The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. The Parekh Report . London: Profile Books Ltd.

Sadek, K. (2012). Islamic Democracy: The struggle for and the limits of recognition . Washington DC: Georgetown University

Said, E. (1985). Orientalism Reconsidered. Cultural Critique , (1), 89–107. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/1354282

Scott-Baumann, A., Guest, M., Naguib, S., Cheruvallil-Contractor, S., & Phoenix, A. (2020). Islam on Campus: Contested Identities and the Cultures of Higher Education in Britain . Oxford University Press

Sealy, T. (2017). Making the “other” from “us”: The representation of British converts to Islam in mainstream British newspapers. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 37(2) , 196–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2017.1339500

Sealy, T. K. (2019a). British converts to Islam: continuity, change and religiosity in religious identity . Journal of Contemporary Religion

Sealy, T. K. (2019b). Identity, Difference, Religion: Multiculturalism and British Converts to Islam. (PhD Thesis, University of Bristol, UK). Retrieved from: https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/183771033/Final_Copy_2019_01_23_Sealy_T_PhD.pdf )

Sealy, T. K. (2021a). Religiosity and Recognition: Multiculturalism and British Converts to Islam. (Politics of Identity and Citizenship) . Palgrave Macmillan

Sealy, T. (2021b). The betweenness of the double stranger: British converts to Islam and patterns of belonging. Social Compass . https://doi.org/10.1177/00377686211018436

Sealy, T. (2021c). British converts to islam: Continuity, change, and religiosity in religious identity. Journal of Contemporary Religion , 36 (3), 421–439. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2021.1965746

Shah, S. (2015). Education, Leadership and Islam: Theories, discourses and practices from an Islamic perspective . London, UK: Routledge

Shaw, A. (1988). A Pakistani Community in Britain . Oxford: Basil Blackwell

Shaw, M. (2020). Towards a religiously literate curriculum – religion and worldview literacy as an educational model. Journal of Beliefs & Values , 41 (2), 150–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2019.1664876

Spoliar, L., & van den Brandt, N. (2020). Documenting conversion: Framings of female converts to Islam in British and Swiss documentaries. European Journal of Women’s Studies . https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506820920912

Sprague, J. (2005). Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers . Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press

Starbuck, E. D. (1897). A study of conversion. The American Journal of Psychology, 8(2) , 268–308. https://doi.org/10.2307/1410942

Stocking, G. W. Jr. (1982). In E. A. Hoebel, R. Currier, & S. Kaiser (Eds.), Anthropology in Crisis? A View from between the Generations. Pp. 407 – 19 in Crisis in Anthropology . New York: Garland

Swann Report (1985). Education for all: the report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups . London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

Taylor, C. (2009). A Good School For Every Child: How to Improve Our Schools . London: Routledge

Tedlock, B. (1991). From Participant Observation to the Observation of Participation: The Emergence of Narrative Ethnography. Journal of Anthropological Research , 47 (1), 69–94. Retrieved March 31, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3630581

Teece, G. (2017). ‘Religious education needs a rebrand – it should be fascinating, challenging and hard.’ Times Educational Supplement . 20 September 2017. Available online at: https://www.tes.com/news/religious-education-needs-rebrand-it-should-be-fascinating-challenging-and-hard

Thomas, J. (1993). Doing critical ethnography . Newbury Park, CA: Sage

Twine, F. W. (2000). Racial ideologies, racial methodologies, and racial fields. In F. W. Twine, & J. W. Warren (Eds.), Racing research, researching race . New York University Press

Tyler, S. A. (1987). The Unspeakable: Discourse, Dialogue, and Rhetoric in the Post- modem World . Madison: University of Wisconsin Press

Underwood, A., & Clair (1925). Conversion: Christian and non-Christian: a comparative and psychological study . London: G. Allen & Unwin ltd. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003564385

Vandenberg, H., & Hall, W. (2011). Critical ethnography: extending attention to bias and reinforcement of dominant power relations. Nurse Researcher , 18 , 3, 25–30

Verma, G. (1989). Education for all: A landmark in pluralism . London: Falmer Press

Vertovec, S. (1993). Annotated bibliography of academic publications regarding Islam and Muslims in the United Kingdom, 1985–1992 . Coventry: University of Warwick Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations

Wasserfall, L. (1997). Reflexivity, feminism, and differences. In R. Hertz (Ed.), Reflexivity and voice (pp. 150–168). Newbury Park, CA: Sage

Wahhab, I. (1989). Muslims in Britain: profile of a community . London: Runnymede Trust

Wilson, B. (1976). Contemporary Transformation of Religion . Oxford: Clarendon

Download references

The author did not receive support from any organisation for the submitted work.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of Worcester, Worcester, United Kingdom

Jeremiah Adebolajo

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeremiah Adebolajo .

Ethics declarations

Disclosure statement.

The author declares that he has no conflict of interest. The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Ethics approval

Ethics was approved by University of Worcester Ethics Committee.Protocol number CAHE21220014-R1

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Adebolajo, J. Reading an Islamic epistemology into research: Muslim converts and contemporary religion in Britain. j. relig. educ. 70 , 397–411 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-022-00183-9

Download citation

Accepted : 15 September 2022

Published : 26 October 2022

Issue Date : November 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-022-00183-9

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Islamic Studies Research Databases & Reference Sources: Home

• Middle East & Islamic Studies: a Research Guide

Major Online Reference Sources -- Accessible

Islamic studies research  databases & online reference sources.

(Access may require CU log-in and is restricted to the CU community )

Research Tools & Methods  

• Library Research at Cornel l   [Stepwise guides to efficient research using the Cornell University Library]
• Encyclopedias Online: Use Subject Encyclopedias to Understand Your Topic   [Use encyclopedias to understand the  context and background for your research using articles written by scholars and experts].
• Distinguishing Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Periodicals: A Checklist of Criteria   [Cues for recognizing scholarly  journals, news sources, popular magazines, and sensational periodicals].
• Citation Styles: Handbooks, Resources, and Guides   [ Advice about proper citation with a list of print titles and links to  online guides,  manuals, and handbooks for MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian, CSE, ACS, and more].
• Critically Analyzing Information Sources   [Ten things to look for when you evaluate an information source].
• Dissertations and Theses: A Finding Guide [Where and how to look for Cornell and non-Cornell dissertations and theses].

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and indexes 

• Encyclopaedia of Islam [Online] Current—     (EI Online) sets out the present state of knowledge of the Islamic World and is a unique reference tool, an essential key to understanding the world of Islam. It includes biographical articles on distinguished Muslims of every age and land, on tribes and dynasties, on the crafts and sciences, on political and religious institutions, on the geography, ethnography, flora and fauna of the various countries and on the history, topography and monuments of the major towns and cities. In its geographical and historical scope, it encompasses the old Arabo-Islamic empire, the Islamic countries of Iran, Central Asia, the Indian sub-continent and Indonesia, the Ottoman Empire and all other Islamic countries.  
• Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World  Looks at Islam's role in the modern world, doing so in context of the religion's history and development over the last 13 centuries. Contains thematic articles, biographies of key figures, definitions, illustrations, maps and more.
• Encyclopaedia Islamica Based on the abridged and edited translation of the Persian Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī , one of the most comprehensive sources on Islam and the Muslim world. A unique feature of the Encyclopaedia lies in the attention given to Shiʿi Islam and its rich and diverse heritage; offers the Western reader an opportunity to appreciate the various dimensions of Shiʿi Islam, the Persian contribution to Islamic civilization, and the spiritual dimensions of the Islamic tradition. (Projected 16-volume. New content will be added every year in alphabetical order, with an expected completion in 2023.)
• Index Islamicus 1906- present- An international bibliography of publications in European languages covering all aspects of Islam and the Muslim world, including history, beliefs, societies, cultures, languages, and literature. The database includes material published by Western orientalists, social scientists, and Muslims.
• Oxford Bibliographies Online: Islamic Studies   Offers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on the range of lived experiences and textual traditions of Muslims as they are articulated in various countries and regions throughout the world. Bibliographies are browseable by subject area and keyword searchable. Contains a "My OBO" function that allows users to create personalized bibliographies of individual citations from different bibliographies. [In Persian, Arabic, Urdu, English, Turkish English, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu.]

Qur’an Research Sources

• Blackwell Companion to the Qur'an [Online]  A reader’s guide to read and understand the Qur’an as a text and as a vital piece of Muslim life.  Comprises over 30 original essays by leading scholars. Provides exceptionally broad coverage - considering the structure, content, and rhetoric of the Qur’an; how Muslims have interpreted the text and how they interact with it; and the Qur’an’s place in Islam. Features notes, an extensive bibliography, indexes of names, Qur’an citations, topics, and technical terms.
• Dictionary of Qurʾanic Usage is the first comprehensive, fully-researched and contextualized Arabic-English dictionary of Qur'anic usage. The work is based on Classical Arabic dictionaries and Qur'an commentaries with cross-references. This online version full-text searchable in Arabic and English.
• Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān is an encyclopaedic dictionary of Qur’ānic terms, concepts, personalities, place names, cultural history and exegesis extended with essays on the most important themes and subjects within qur’ānic studies.
• Qurʾān Concordance is a unique finding aid which allows users to identify and localize text fragments, or even snippets, of the Qurʾān. The use of the Qurʾān Concordance (QC) requires some understanding of its underlying concepts, as described in the “How To.”
• Early Western Korans Online This collection contains all Arabic Koran editions printed in Europe before 1850, as well as all complete translations directly from the Arabic (until about 1860). Among the secondary translations, only those into German and Dutch are offered completely. Of the partial editions, only the typographically or academically most interesting ones are presented here. This collection includes Korans and Koran translations in eight languages.
• Encyclopedia of Canonical Ḥadīth Online Work on the earliest development of the religion and cultures of Islam comprises English translations of all canonical ḥadīths (oral traditions of or about the Prophet Muhammad), complete with their respective chains of transmission (isnāds). The work is organized in alphabetical order based on the names of the transmitters. Each of them is listed with the tradition(s) for the wording of which he can be held accountable, or with which he can at least be associated.
• Concordance et Indices de la Tradition Musulmane Online Wensinck’s  Condordance  is an essential research tool for those who are interested in Islam’s Tradition ( ḥadīth ) literature. This body of texts is a major source for Islamic theology and law and forms an important source for historians of early Islam. The  Concordance  offers an index of all words found in traditions included in the six canonical  ḥadīth  collections of Sunni Islam, complemented by Mālik ibn Anas’s  Muwaṭṭaʾ  and the  Musnads  of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and al-Dārimī.

Subject Reference & Research Guides

• Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology [ Olin Library BP166.1 .C36 2008. ( PRINT )].  Critical reflections on the evolution and major themes of pre-modern Muslim theology begins with the revelation of the Koran, and extends to the beginnings of modernity in the eighteenth century. Devoting especial attention to questions of rationality, scriptural fidelity, and the construction of 'orthodoxy', this volume introduces key Muslim theories of revelation, creation, ethics, scriptural interpretation, law, mysticism, and eschatology.
• Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought Reflects the variety of trends, voices, and opinions in the contemporary Muslim intellectual scene . It challenges Western misconceptions about the modern Muslim world, demonstrating that it is far from being a monolithic religious, cultural and intellectual phenomenon. The companion consists of 36 essays written by contemporary Muslim writers and scholars. These essays revolve around such issues as Islamic tradition, modernity, globalization, feminism, the West, the USA, reform, and secularism. They explore the history, range, and future of these issues in contemporary Muslim societies. Furthermore, they help readers to situate Islamic intellectual history in the context of Western intellectual trends and issues.
• Conflict and conquest in the Islamic world : a historical encyclopedia Documents the extensive military history of the Islamic world between the 7th century and the present (wars, revolutions, sieges, institutions, leaders, armies, weapons, and other aspects of wars and military life). Includes over 600 A–Z entries, many with accompanying images. Provides a convenient glossary of commonly used Islamic military terms. This reference work covers relevant historical information regarding Islam in Middle Eastern regions and countries, North Africa, Central Asia, Southeastern Asia, and Oceania.
• Twentieth century religious thought : Volume II, Islam .  Multivolume, cross-searchable online collection that brings together the seminal works and archival materials related to worldwide religious thinkers from the early 1900s until the first decade of the 21st century. Focuses on modern Islamic theology and tradition and details Islam's evolution from the late 19th century by examining printed works and rare documents by Muslim writers, both non-Western and Western voices.
• World Almanac of Islamism 2014-- American Foreign Policy Council.  The first comprehensive reference work to detail the current activities of radical Islamist movements world wide. The contributions, written by subject experts, provide annual updates on the contemporary Islamist threat in all countries and regions where it exists.  
• Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures [Online] [Print: Olin Library Reference (Non-Circ.) HQ1170 .E53 2003+]  An interdisciplinary, trans-historical, and global project embracing women and Islamic cultures in every region where there have been significant Muslim populations. It aims to cover every topic for which there is significant research, examining these regions from the period just before the rise of Islam to the present. The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures Online crosses history, geographic borders and disciplines to create a groundbreaking reference work reflecting the very latest research on gender studies and the Islamic world. v. 1. Methodologies, paradigms and sources for studying women and Islamic cultures. v. 2. Family, law, and politics. v. 3. Family, body, sexuality, and health. v. 4. Economics, education, mobility, and space.

Online Collections & Aggregated Sources

BRILL Collections:   Middle East and Islamic Studies E-Books Online, Collection

Series in Islam - Oxford University Press:

• The Oxford Encyclopedias of the Islamic World: Digital Collection
• The Oxford handbook of Islamic theology
• Makers of Contemporary Islam
• The Islamic World: Past and Present   
• The Oxford History of Islam
• Islam in Transition
• Modernist Islam
• Teaching Islam
• Liberal Islam
• Islamic Library  "Worlds Largest Free Online Islamic Books Library."
•   المكتبة الشاملة – Maktabah Shamilah – Islamic Library  A library on the various Islamic sciences [Arabic only]
• Islamic Library | Shia Islamic PDFs * Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books * مكتبة الشيعة *  Shia Library (A Great Collection Of Books From Shia Sect)

More Resources for Research from the Cornell University Library

    middle east & islamic studies: a research guide.

[http://guides.library.cornell.edu/MideastIslamStudies]

General Introductions and Terminology -- Accessible

What is Islam?  Check the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary  for a definition and the Encyclopedia Britannica for information on the history, principles and practices of Islam.

Sunnis and Shia: Islam's ancient schism - BBC, UK.

Islam vs Muslim: When and why do we use the different terms?   

Muslim vs Moslem: Why do people say Muslim now instead of Moslem?

'Muslim' vs 'Islamic' -   DAWN.COM

Muslims vs. Islamists Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies - Taylor & Francis Concepts in Islamic Studies series spans a number of subject areas that are closely linked to the religion.

More Concepts @ Cornell University Library

Intro to Islam Research Paper                 /  Lynette White,                   ....

Islam (religion) -- Encyclopedia Britannica

American Religion Data Archive  The ARDA collection includes data on USA religious groups (individuals, congregations and denominations). The collection consists of individual surveys covering various groups and topics.

Religions of the book - faculty.fairfield.edu Three world religious traditions have their origins in the Middle East-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-but there are also a number of more highly localized traditions. These include Zoroastrianism (primarily in Iran); the Druze of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel; and the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi-s of northern Iraq, each with their own traditions of religious identity and practice. [ WORLD RELIGIONS -The Middle East and Central Asia: an anthropological approach ].

Access our Library Anywhere -- Accessible

Middle East & Islamic Studies Curator

Spotlight -- General Interest Sources

Essential Readings on Political Islam (by Peter Mandaville)

As befits a topic that is global in scope, increasingly controversial in nature, and the focus of academic inquiry for more than half a century, the literature on political Islam is voluminous. The readings presented here represent some of the most important efforts to study contemporary Islamism using the tools, methodologies, and academic rigor associated with the humanities and social sciences. Though hardly exhaustive, this list will provide the reader with a sense of how the study of political Islam—in major publications either written or available in English—as an object of academic inquiry has evolved over the years.

Islamic Painted Page database - a huge free database of references for Persian paintings, Ottoman paintings, Arab paintings and Mughal paintings. This site enables you to locate printed reproductions, commentaries and weblinks for thousands of Islamic paintings, including illuminated "carpet" pages, decorated Quran pages, and book bindings from over 230 collections all over the world.

Manuscripts | Digital Resources and Projects in Islamic Studies

 The Maydan is proud to introduce a new initiative highlighting digital resources and projects in the field of Islamic Studies. Included in this roundup are manuscripts collections, digitized manuscripts, and manuscripts catalogues from universities and libraries around the world. *This is an ongoing project*

• Next: Middle East & Islamic Studies: a Research Guide >>
• Last Updated: Oct 17, 2023 1:18 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/IslamicStudiesResearch

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

THE RISE AND SPREAD OF ISLAM IN INDIAN SUBCONTINENT (711-1526 A.D

Related Papers

Mohammad Yusuf Siddiq

Muhammad Furquan

3rd Aicollim UIN Maliki

Muhammad Faiz

During the Middle Ages, Islamic rule was concentrated in three prominent kingdoms, the Ottoman Dynasty in Turkey, the Safavid Dynasty in Persia and the Mughal Dynasty in India. This paper will explore the history of Islam that developed in India in three periods, first from the period before the Mughal Empire came to power, the second when the Mughals ruled India and the third when British imperialism began to dominate India. This research is carried out using the historical writing method (historiography) on literature sources relevant to the theme of the study. The stage of this research is to collect data (heuristics) that support the study of the development of Islam in India from 705 to 1947 AD. The next stage is source criticism by sorting out the data that has authenticity and credibility that are directly related to the research as well as data processing and interpretation to narrate history of Islam in India during these three periods. The results of this study found that Islam developed rapidly in India when the religious conditions of the people competed with each other between Hindus and Buddhists which weakened their influence at that time. When the Mughals came to power, Islam grew by applying Islamic teachings and high values of tolerance even though the Muslim population was still a minority compared to Hindu-Buddhist. When Britain entered India, the condition of Islamic government continued to weaken, including the weak of leadership after the Aurangzeb era, the struggle for power between regional Muslim leaders at the central level and the emergence of separatist movements from Hindu groups in several areas to facilitate the British invasion of India. Keywords: Islam, Dynasty, Mughal.

Prashant .Keshavmurthy

Islamic and Islamicate legacies from the millennium of Muslim presence in South Asia before English colonialism have never been more imperilled than today. Modern nationalisms in the region have transformed and threatened public memories of Islamicate legacies from pre-colonial India and have impeded public access to serious scholarship on them. This course aims to help you to authoritatively answer four questions relevant to these legacies today: what were the beginnings of Muslim political power in India? What did it mean to convert to Islam before English colonialism? What can we accurately say about Muslim interactions with India’s non-Muslim majority during the approximately thousand years of Muslim presence in pre-colonial India? And, given the abiding popular association of South Asian Islam with certain genres of poetry (e.g. ghazal), painting (e.g. miniature) and architecture (e.g. mosque, tomb, tomb garden), what have been Islamicate aesthetic legacies in the subcontinent?

Yohanan Friedmann

Research Article

Saima Perveen

The paper aims to explore, analyze and investigate the relation between the Sufi shrines and religious transformation of medieval India as conversion or reversion. The religious conversion of South Asia particularly the Indian subcontinent has been associated with agricultural economy by Richard M. Eaton. For Eaton it was the agrarian economy which motivated or influenced the regional population of Multan and Pakpattan to transform religiously. Diego Abenante argued against Eaton's idea about Islam as the religion of plough with the facts about the Multan region revealing agricultural development much later than the religious transformation of the local population. Through studying Indian Islam as a social reflection (as per Emile Durkheim's theory) this paper tries to analyze the religious transformation of Medieval India under the theoretical model of Al-fiÏrah by Ibn-i-Khaldun. Al-fiÏrah (reversion or self-amendment) is a five step process including: (a) Umranic (social) association with community, (b) Cooperation or support of the community, (c) Communication through soft skills like language etc., (d) Competition or prevention between communities, and (e) Self amendment or Reversion. It was not the agrarian economy but the vernacularization of Islam under the Sufi shrines which made Islam less Brahmanized for the local people and allowed them to adopt it firstly according to their convenience and later on adapt according to the religion's limits. To explain the course of religious reversion of medieval India, analytical and descriptive method has been used.

فهيمة عبدالرزاق

Die Welt des Islams

David Lelyveld

Page 1. ISLAM IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL EJ BRILL / LEIDEN-KOLN / 1980 Page 2. Das ,,Handbuch der Orientalistik" erscheint in Heften verschiedenen Umfangs in zwangloser Folge. Separatbande sind erhaltlich. Page 3. ...

hussain Randathani kallen

The paper describes, how Islam had influenced India in a historical perspective. It brings out the role of the rulers and Sufis in spreading the Islamic culture in India.

Tanvir Anjum

RELATED PAPERS

Alexis Ferrand

Benthos Research

hideo sekiguchi

Minhee Hyun

Turkish Journal of Anaesthesiology and Reanimation

Faisal Shamim

Catalina Bolancé

Fábio Alexandre dos Santos

Advanced Materials

Andac Armutlulu

Gabriel Zepeda Martínez

Holly Shiels

Zona Franca

Nemesia Hijós

International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics

Journal of Visualized Experiments

Jeffrey Varner

Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association

TL Feenstra

Optics Express

James Lowery

Journal of Biological Chemistry

Edith Heard

Pharmaceutics

Hamdy Mohamed Mahmoud Dawaba

International Journal of Intelligent Systems and Applications

Muazzam Siddiqui

Journal of Development Economics

Donald Dutkowsky

Linear Algebra and its Applications

Tatjana Petek

Springer eBooks

Marijn Brummer

Comprehensive Psychiatry

Greta Mooreem Rodriguez Guevara

Tomasz Tobola

O Mundo da Saúde

Alba Vilela

Sharmin Akhtar

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Islam Research Paper

View sample Islam research paper. Browse other  research paper examples and check the list of religion research paper topics for more inspiration. If you need a religion research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Feel free to contact our custom writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

Islam is both a worldwide community of believers and a major world belief system based on submission to one God, Allah. In the twenty-first century there are almost a billion and a half Muslims (people who accept Islam as their faith) in more than two hundred countries.

Academic Writing, Editing, Proofreading, And Problem Solving Services

Get 10% off with 24start discount code.

Although Islam was initially historically identified with Arabs, today only around 15 percent of the world’s Muslims (the people who accept Islam as their faith) are Arabs, with the largest national communities of Muslims being in southern and southeastern Asia. The historic Islamic community began in the seventh century CE in the western part of the Arabian Peninsula; within two centuries the Muslim world stretched from Central Asia to northern Africa and Spain. The term Islam refers to a worldwide community of believers and to one of the major belief systems in the world.

The core of the belief system of Islam is the affirmation that one God (Allah) exists. The word Allah means in Arabic “the divinity.” The word Islam means “submission,” and the belief system is based on submission to the one God, with the person engaging in submission being called a “Muslim.” Muslims understand their faith to be a continuation of the message of God presented to humanity through a series of messengers and prophets, including Abraham and Jesus. In the Islamic belief system the final presentation of the message of God was made through the Prophet Muhammad, who lived in Mecca and then Medina in modern Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the seventh century CE. The revelation was recorded and preserved in the Qur’an, the holy book of Islamic faith.

The basic requirements of the Islamic belief system are frequently called the Five Pillars of Islam. The first pillar (shihadah) is bearing witness publicly to the belief that “There is no divinity but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Praying (salat) is the second pillar. Praying involves performing five prescribed prayers daily. The third pillar (zakat) is taking the responsibility to contribute alms to provide assistance to the poor in the community. Undertaking the fast during the month of Ramadan is the fourth pillar. The fifth pillar is performing the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca at least one time during the believer’s lifetime, if possible. Each of the pillars is a responsibility for the individual believer, and no priesthood or clergy is required to fulfill any obligation. Although “striving in the path of God” (jihad) is an expected part of the life of faith for Muslims, jihad defined as “holy war” is not one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

The Formation of Community and Faith

Muhammad was born in Mecca around 570 CE. He was part of an active merchant community that was involved in trade between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to being a commercial center, Mecca was a religious center with a shrine that housed important religious relics from many of the tribes in the region. Muhammad’s own family was influential in both religious and commercial activities, but his father died before he was born, and his mother died when he was still young. As a young man he gained a reputation for reliability and married a prosperous widow, Khadijah, whose affairs he managed. His life was transformed when he experienced his first revelations around 610 CE.

The Meccan belief system at that time was basically polytheistic, but Meccans were familiar with Christianity and Judaism. Muhammad preached a message of strict monotheism and soon aroused the opposition of the Meccan merchant elite. After many struggles he and his small community of followers moved to Yathrib, a neighboring oasis community whose leaders invited Muhammad to come and be the arbitrator and judge in its disputes. The oasis became known as Medina, or “the city [Medina] of the Prophet.” This migration in 622 CE is called the Hijra and marks the beginning of the Islamic community as a distinct entity. Muslims date the years of the Islamic era from the Hijra, with 622 CE being year 1 in the Islamic calendar. This calendar is based on a lunar year of approximately 354 days or twelve lunar months.

During the next ten years most of the people in the Arabian Peninsula became Muslims or were allied in some way with the new Islamic community. The defeat and conversion of Mecca was an important step in this process. The shrine of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure at the center of Mecca, was purified of polytheistic relics and recognized as the altar of Abraham. In the prescribed prayers Muslims were to face the Kaaba (for a short time they faced Jerusalem), and the building became the center of pilgrimage rites. The basic foundations of the Islamic belief system and the Islamic community were laid.

The Era of the Caliphs

The Islamic community was dynamic by the time of Muhammad’s death in 632 CE. Some confusion existed about the transition to a community without Muhammad. The majority of the community accepted the idea that the successor (khalifah or caliph) to Muhammad as leader would be one of his close companions, Abu Bakr. A minority within the community came to believe that the idea was an error and argued that the first successor should have been the son-in-law and cousin of Muhammad, Ali. In later tradition this minority group came to be identified as the faction (Shiah) of Ali (Shi’as), whereas the majority were called “Sunni” (those who follow the Sunnah or precedents of the community).

The first four caliphs were all close associates of Muhammad (two were the fathers of wives he married after Khadijah died), and their rule is identified by Sunni Muslims as the era of “the Rightly-Guided Caliphs” (632–661 CE). Under their leadership Islamic armies conquered all of the Sasanid Empire and most of the Middle Eastern territories of the Byzantine Empire. Through these conquests the Islamic community became the heir of the great imperial traditions of Persia and Rome as well as the Middle Eastern monotheistic traditions. In structure and administrative practices the emerging caliphate resembled the older empires that had been conquered.

The political history of the Islamic community during the early centuries involves the rise and fall of dynasties controlling the caliphal state, and the political experiences of the community shaped the belief systems that developed. Civil war brought an end to the era of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, and the new political community was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty (661–750 CE) and then by the Abbasid dynasty (749/750–1258).

Early Abbasid caliphs built a new capital at Baghdad, not far from the location of ancient imperial capitals. Although the Abbasid state was strong, it never established control over all of the territories of the Islamic world. Umayyad princes continued to rule in the Iberian Peninsula, and gradually independent Islamic states were established across North Africa. By the end of the tenth century CE three caliphs claimed authority in parts of the Islamic world—an Umayyad ruler in Spain, a Shi’i ruler in Egypt, and the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Local military rulers, who came to take the title of “sultan,” increasingly dominated political affairs. The Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258 CE brought an end to the Abbasid caliphate. Although the concept of the caliphate as a symbol of Islamic unity continued, basic Islamic political organization took the form of sultanates, representing rule by military commanders. This transformation was possible because of the evolution of the nature of the Islamic community itself.

The Faith-Based Community

During the early centuries of Islamic history the caliphate was the most visible aspect of the new Islamic community. However, the development of the Islamic belief system provided the basis for a faith-based community that involved more than an allegiance to a particular ruler or political system. The definition of a legal and normative framework that shaped politics but that was independent of the state helped to create a sense of community identity. The development of popular devotional organizations associated with the growing importance of Sufi (Islamic mystic) brotherhoods strengthened this identity.

The Islamic belief system initially developed within the framework of the caliphate but was not tied to the specifics of the political system. Scholars, not political leaders, undertook the important functions of interpreting the Qur’an and organizing the traditions (hadith) of Muhammad as basic sources for law and guidance. These scholars, literally the “learned people” (ulama), never became an ordained clergy and maintained independence from rulers. However, the political and legal dimensions of the Islamic faith were an important part of the belief system. These dimensions were the primary area of disagreement among Sunnis and Shi’as. The Sunnis believed that the historic caliphate was Islamically legitimate, whereas the Shi’as insisted that the only legitimate ruler would be the divinely designated imam (an Islamic leader) who would be a descendant of Muhammad. Most Shi’as are called “Ithna Ashari” or “Twelvers” because they believe that the twelfth imam in the series was taken into divine seclusion and will return at some future time to establish God’s rule.

The ulama during Abbasid times developed a framework of legal concepts and precedents that provides the foundation for the legal and normative structures of the sharia (Islamic law). No single system of canon law developed. Instead, among the Sunni majority, four schools of legal thought, each identified with a major early scholar—Hanafi(Abu Hanifa, d. 767), Maliki (Malik ibn Anas, d. 796), Shafi’i (Muhammad Shafi’i, d. 819), and Hanbali (Ahmad ibn Hanbal, d. 855)—were accepted as authoritative. Among the Shi’as most recognized the legal thought of Jafar al-Sadiq (d. 765), the sixth imam. In these schools the fundamental sources of the sharia were agreed to be the Qur’an and the traditions or Sunnah of Muhammad. Although theology was important, the core intellectual disciplines for Muslims became legal analysis (fiqh) and collection and analysis of the hadith (reports of the words and actions of Muhammad). Differences arose regarding analogical reasoning and consensus of the community. Use of independent informed judgment in analysis was called ijtihad. In later centuries Sunnis limited its scope more than did Shi’as.

The content of this legal structure emphasized the universality of law based on God’s revelation and the equality of all believers. It was not strictly speaking a code of law; it was rather a framework for a just and virtuous society. The sharia defined both the duties to God and social responsibilities. It covered commercial practices, family life, and criminal behavior. This vision of society did not depend upon a particular state structure and could be presented by scholars rather than rulers and soldiers.

The faith of the majority of the population was also shaped by popular preachers and teachers whose devotional life was an inspiration. The development of special devotional paths or tariqahs is associated with what came to be called “Sufism,” the mystical piety of early inspirational teachers. By the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE social organizations associated with these devotional paths became an increasingly important part of Islamic societies. The devotional paths emerged as brotherhood organizations that were instrumental in the Islamization of societies in central and southeastern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Expanding Community and the Great Sultans

The Islamic world virtually doubled in size between the tenth and the eighteenth centuries. Great trade networks brought Islamic merchants to most regions of the Eastern Hemisphere. Islamic scholars and Sufiteachers followed, and dynamically growing communities of believers developed as interactions with local people set in motion activities that resulted in the gradual Islamization of societies.

By the sixteenth century the great central states of the Islamic world represented a commanding dynamism. In the eastern Mediterranean the Ottoman Empire began during the thirteenth century in the Aegean area, conquered Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) in 1453, and, by the eighteenth century, controlled much of the Balkan Peninsula, the Arab world, and North Africa. In southern Asia the smaller Islamic sultanates of medieval times were replaced by the Mughal Empire, which dominated virtually the entire Indian subcontinent by the seventeenth century. In western Africa a series of increasingly Islamized states beginning with medieval Ghana and Mali and ending during the sixteenth century with the Songhai Empire established Islam as a major historic force in the region. Similar developments took place in southeastern and Central Asia.

A dramatic change occurred in the Persian-Iranian heartland. Iran had long been an important part of the Sunni world, with some Shi’a minority groups. However, around 1500 a militant popular religious group called the “Safavids” conquered much of modern-day Iran and beyond. During the next century the Safavid rulers declared Ithna Ashari Shi’ism to be the religion of the state, and most Iranians converted. Shi’i scholars came to the Safavid Empire, especially from the Arab world, and received privileges that gave the ulama in Shi’i Iran a special influence that has continued to the present.

Challenges of the Modern Era

This powerful and expanding Islamic world had long interacted with western European and Christian-majority societies. These interactions entered a major new phase during the eighteenth century with the transformation of western European societies, especially through the Industrial Revolution, and the beginnings of European imperialist expansion. Throughout the Islamic world Europeans came to dominate Islamic lands, and Muslims responded in many ways. Muslims mounted major efforts to fight European expansion, as in the wars led by the emir (ruler) Abd al-Qadir in Algeria after the French invasion of 1830. Most military opposition failed.

Leaders in major Islamic countries introduced programs of reform to reshape their societies and states using Western models. Early reformers included Muhammad Ali in Egypt (reigned 1805–1849) and the Ottoman sultan Mahmud II (reigned 1808–1839), whose programs laid the foundations for the emergence of modern-style secular states. Later other reformers emphasized intellectual and religious dimensions. By the end of the nineteenth century efforts to create an effective synthesis of Islam and modernity resulted in the movement of Islamic modernism. Major figures are Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905) and Jamal al- Din al-Afghani (1839–1897), whose ideas influenced groups as diverse as the Muhammadiyya movement established in Java in 1912 and intellectuals in India and North Africa. A different emphasis in reform is provided by more puritanical movements that seek a “return” to a more strict adherence to Islamic norms interpreted in a relatively literalist manner. This mode of reform has deep roots in Islamic history and can be seen in the premodern movement of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), whose ideas have been an important part of modern Islamic revivalist movements.

The broad spectrum of responses to the challenges of modernity in the nineteenth century extended from the Westernizing programs of state reform to the explicitly Islamic modernists and fundamentalists. The work of all of these people set the framework for the developments of states and societies in the Muslim world during the twentieth century. By the end of the nineteenth century few groups could be considered purely non-modern (or, in the terminology of twentieth-century social scientists, “traditional”), since even the most conservative were interacting with the modernity of the time. That era was still largely defined by Western European experiences, so that modernization tended to be viewed as a process of Europeanization or Westernization. But by the end of the nineteenth century, distinctive non- European modes of modernity were beginning to be visible, and the emergence of these different styles of modernity would play an important role in shaping the history of Muslim societies and thought in the twentieth century.

Twentieth-Century Modernity

Global Muslim communities experienced important transformations during the twentieth century. At the beginning of the century, most of the Muslim world was under direct or indirect European imperialist control, and the emerging political systems were primarily conceived as Western-style nation states. Explicitly Islamic movements and organizations were often viewed, even by “modern” Muslims, as anachronisms and obstacles to modernization. By the end of the twentieth century, however, virtually every Muslim majority society was politically independent, and classical European imperialism was an image from a seemingly distant past. An explicitly Islamic republic was created by a revolution that overthrew a Westernizing autocracy in Iran in 1979, and the new Islamic republic was sufficiently strong at the beginning of the twenty-first century to be viewed as a potential nuclear power and as an important major regional power. Muslims and Islamic movements became major influential agents in global affairs.

This transformation involved three broad historical phases, which can be defined in terms of the evolution of modernity itself during the twentieth century. In the era of domination by European imperial powers during the first half of the century, most new movements followed European-style patterns of political development. Resistance to European rule took the form of nationalist movements, and social and political reforms were generally secular in orientation. Modernity was defined in Western European terms. The most successful of these movements was led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who built a secular nationalist state in Turkey after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

In the middle of the century, following World War II, the second phase was shaped by the experience of newly-achieved political independence. Most Muslim states became politically independent, and various forms of secular and radical nationalism dominated the intellectual and political scene. Leaders such as Gamal Abd al-Nasir in Egypt and Ben Bella in Algeria incorporated Islamic themes into their radical nationalist programs, but these programs were not primarily Islamic in orientation or identification. By the 1960s, it appeared that the most important political developments and reform movements in the Muslim world represented radical programs of modernity that competed with older visions of modernity. Competing definitions of modernity—or multiple modernities—shaped Muslim policies and visions. An important culmination of this development was the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, when radicalism was defined in explicitly Islamic terms, and the older more secular forms of radicalism became marginalized.

By the final quarter of the twentieth century, distinctively Islamic modernities were articulated as the bases for social visions and political programs. The new movements in the third era of twentieth-century Muslim history had some roots in earlier organizations that were modern in organization but more puritanical in terms of intellectual content. The most important of these groups are the Muslim Brotherhood, established in Egypt by Hasan al-Banna in 1928, and the Jamaat-i Islam, established in 1941 in India by Abu al-Ala Mawdudi.

In the final decades of the century, the major signal that the radical and the secularist nationalist movements had failed to bring the expected prosperity and freedom to Islamic peoples was the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which brought to power a regime dedicated to a full implementation of Islamic rules and norms. During the early 1980s many other movements with strongly defined Islamic goals and agendas came to prominence. These movements represent the emergence of what came to be called “political Islam” because the primary focus of the programs was the control of the state. Some movements, such as the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, contested elections, whereas others, such as the Mujahidin in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, engaged in violent opposition defined in its terms as jihad. These movements of jihad became a significant part of the Islamic experience of the 1990s. In the context of globalization, militant global networks such as al-Qaeda represented an important part of Islamic interaction with the world. However, such movements remained only a small part of Islamic life and often were in conflict with the mainstream Islamic organizations and sentiments that reflected the views of the majority of Muslims.

Although the movements of political Islam attracted the most attention, other important trends also developed during the 1980s. Intellectuals gave increasing attention to the definition of the place of women in Islamic society, and by the beginning of the twenty-first century, an “Islamic feminism” had emerged. This feminism involved a reexamination of the Qur’an, noting the Qur’an’s emphasis on the equality of all believers and then noting the influence of more patriarchal perspectives in the way that the Islamic tradition was historically defined. Similarly, some intellectuals have emphasized pluralistic dimensions of the Islamic worldview and tradition and have also drawn back from the emphasis on political activism as a means for imposing Islamic norms.

Some of the impetus for these developments has come from the emergence of minority Islamic communities in Western Europe and North America as important parts of the broader Islamic world. In those regions issues of gender equality and religious pluralism have great importance for Islamic community life.

New Twenty-First Century Realities

The continuing significance of religion at the beginning of the twenty-first century confirms the development of forms of modernities that are different from the definitions of modernity popular during the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century. Contrary to the expectations of theories of modernization in those periods, modernization did not mean the inevitable nonreligious secularization of state and society. In the Muslim world, new movements develop that are not simply continuations of old-style movements from premodern times or even twentieth century modern movements in some slightly different form.

The new movements that get the most attention are the militant movements like al-Qaeda. These are clearly different from the early Sufi movements of resistance to European imperialist expansion in the nineteenth century, and from the activist radical nationalist movements of the twentieth century. Globalization and the new electronic media of communication transform the nature of organization and shape the way that the messages of the movements are framed.

The largest of the new movements are not, however, the terrorist organizations. Throughout the Muslim world, new popular preachers and teachers have millions of followers in many countries. Islamic television ministries like that built by the Egyptian Amr Khaled are reshaping the ways that many Muslims participate in the sense of belonging to a global community of believers. Analysts speak of “iMuslims” and “e-jihad” in ways that illustrate the new modernities of Muslims in the world of the twenty-first century. The long history of the flexible adaptations of the Islamic community and belief system to changing historic conditions suggests that new forms of Islamic institutions and perspectives will continue to be defined by believers.

Bibliography:

• Ahmed, A. S. (1999). Islam today: A short introduction to the Muslim world. London: I. B. Tauris.
• Ali, A. (Trans.). (1988). Al-Qur’an: A contemporary translation by Ahmed Ali. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Al-Tabari, A. J. M. b. J. (1985–1999). The history of al-Tabari (E. Yar-Shater, Ed.). Albany: State University of New York Press.
• Barlas, A. (2002). “Believing women” in Islam: Unreading patriarchal interpretations of the Qur’an. Austin: University of Texas Press.
• Eaton, R. M. (1990). Islamic history as global history. Washington, DC: American Historical Association.
• Esack, F. (2002). The Qur’an: A short introduction. Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld.
• Esposito, J. L. (1998). Islam, the straight path (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Esposito, J. L. (Ed.). (2000). The Oxford history of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Hodgson, M. G. S. (1977). The venture of Islam: Conscience and history in a world civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Knysh, A. (2000). Islamic mysticism: A short history. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
• Kurzman, C. (Ed.). (2002). Modernist Islam, 1840–1940: A sourcebook. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Lapidus, I. (2002). A history of Islamic societies (2nd ed.). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
• Lewis, B. (2001). The emergence of modern Turkey (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
• McCarthy, J. (1997). The Ottoman Turks: An introductory history. London: Longman.
• Nasr, S. H. (2004). The heart of Islam. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.
• Peters, F. E. (1994). A reader on classical Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Rahman, F. (1984). Islam and modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Ramadan, T. (2003). Western Muslims and the future of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Schulze, R. (2002). A modern history of the Islamic world. New York: New York University Press.
• Sonn, T. (2004). A brief history of Islam. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Publishing.
• Voll, J. O. (2000). Islam as a special world system. Journal of World History, 5, 213–226.
• Watt, W. M. (1974). Muhammad: Prophet and statesman. London: Oxford University Press.

ORDER HIGH QUALITY CUSTOM PAPER

521 Islam Essay Topics & Examples

On this page, see Islamic essay topics for a variety of tasks. Anything from challenging titles to simple issues to talk about – find something that suits your assignment!