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This chapter analyses the causes of the civil war sparked off by the deposing of Imam al–Salt in 272/886 and which ended up with the collapse of the First Imamate in a Caliphate invasion. It was not really Yaman versus Nizâr conflict, but an increasing marginalization of the northern tribes in manoeuvres over power and patronage in the Imamate system. The actual deposing and replacement of the Imam led to a growing dispute between the so-called Rustâq and Nizwâ parties, which is examined and shown as less to do with politics than principles in the early days of its formulation by Abû Sa'îd al–Kudami and Ibn Baraka. An attempt is made to resolve the confusion over dating events and personalities involved in the complex relationship between interior Oman and the occupying powers on the coast (Saffarids, Bûyids, Qarâmita and their Omani vassals) in the ensuing period, to understand how the (Second) major Imamate was re-established, Rustâq party dogma declared official, causing the Hadrami Imam Abû Ishâq Ibrâhîm b. al–Qays to break away as well as finally alienating the northern Omanis.

This chapter examines the opinions of Islamic religious leaders based on a sample of 90 sermons in on contested social issues in Dutch mosques during the early 1990s. The chapter’s analytical approach takes into account the personal characteristics, life histories, and the power of the imams in the context of the politics of their mosques, as well as how the Muslim communities are in fact confronted with a new interpretation of Islam in Europe, in which the imam is the holder of symbolic capital. He defines the normative rules of behavior. Moroccan imams in Amsterdam generally stayed away from using the word integration and instead used the term cohabitation or coexistence. They consequently prompted parents to send their children to exclusive Islamic schools. The number of such schools multiplied during the mid-1990s.

This chapter analyzes the characteristics of Islamic religious leadership in the 90’s. At that time, the early to mid-1990s, what was said in the mosques was of little or no interest in the Dutch public arena. With the import of Islam came the import of imams, community leaders from Muslim countries, most without any significant history of democracy, elections, or a free press. This does not mean that there were never any critical voices from the pulpit, but those voices were ultimately silenced. Imams in Muslim countries are fully aware of the constrained conditions under which they work. Two properties based on their personal qualities or characteristics can be used to classify imams in the religious field. One is religious capital and the other is economic capital. This chapter gives one of the only published, scholarly typologies of the imams.

This chapter focuses on processes of stigmatization and mobilization, with three case studies, and the consequences of this for identity politics. The shift from an emphasis on a particular immigrant group, the Moroccan minority, to Islam as a religion and its followers came about well before 9/11 in the the Netherlands. A case study explores the causes and consequences of the conflict that erupted between imams and homosexuals in May 2001. This provided fertile territory for the development of public support for Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch populist who emerged as a successful local politician in Rotterdam in November 2001 and an even more successful national politician in spring 2002.

This chapter contemplates developments in ethnic political leadership, and the internal and external effects this is having on contested issues in wider European and transnational contexts, as well as the emergence of ethnic political leadership that had never before been so visible in the public arena. The chapter focuses on two outspoken social critics, both people of color with Muslim backgrounds who are political asylum seekers turned European citizens with major political ambitions. But the similarities end there. Dyad Abou Jahjah and Ayaan Hirsi Ali differ fundamentally in their political orientations and positions: one is against the political establishment and the other is a celebrated member of the political establishment. They also differ fundamentally in their perspectives on Islam. And, because of their genders, they also differ dramatically in their life experiences.

This chapter focuses on Islam in the aftermath of the killing of Theo van Gogh. The Dutch print media, as well as Dutch public and commercial broadcasters, have openly admired the heirs of the anti-Islam discourse broached by Pim Fortuyn, Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders. Their respective movies/ documentaries, “Submission” and, more recently, “Fitna” garnered intense media attention, especially in Europe. The prevalent lens of secularism in the media distorts the condition of faithfulness and alienates those who might otherwise be more inclined to seek greater assimilation.

The concluding chapter assumes that it is possible to dismantle the trifecta of coercion, and if we’re going to save the individuality that our rapidly developing world will so desperately need in order to escape fascism, violence, and inequality, we have to alleviate the pressures that perfect that trifecta. Only an inclusive “we” can lead to higher levels of integration without destroying the individual. Europe has to transgress the religious, philosophical, cultural, and political boundaries that are now paradoxically trapping it due to political reasons that have more to do with exclusion than inclusion. Europe can save the democratic state through a new civilizing process that gives the political and scientific means for the emergence of a modern European Islam that fits harmoniously with the grand secular design of Europe while maintaining its faith.

This chapter explains how the tribal rivalry of the Julandâ feud was exploited by the Ibâḍi missionaries to win victory at the battle of Majâza (177/793) and establish the Imamate. It analyses the basic balance of power between various potential factions and how and why the first main Imams were selected, along with a brief description of their rule. The chapter ends with Omani overseas expansion, showing how an Omani navy was organized, the piratical menace of the bawârij who had menaced Indian Ocean trade since the collapse of Sasanid power were dealt with, and Sohar became a major entrepôt.

This chapter aims to situate the early Ismailis and the initiation of their movement or da'wa within the broader context of the formative period of Shī'ī Islam. In the event, it sheds light on the Imāmiyya heritage of the Ismailis, who separated from the rest of the Imāmī Shī'īs on the death of Imam al-Ṣādiq in 148/765. It then focuses on the opening phase of Ismaili history and the spread of the da'wa which culminated in the establishment of the Fatimid caliphate. The chapter also investigates an important schism in the Ismaili da'wa which separated the loyal Ismailis from the dissident Qarmaṭīs. The doctrines elaborated by the early Ismailis, including their cyclical conception of history and their cosmological doctrine, are also covered here.

There is a strong impulse within Islamic family culture to maintain a marriage whenever possible. Attitudes towards ending a marriage are affected by interpretations of religious law—which permits divorce on a range of grounds—cultural and family attitudes, and individual aspirations and values. Respondent stories illustrate the interaction of these factors in decision making over staying married. Reconciliation is an important value and is actively sought in most circumstances. This approach is promoted by the imams, some—but not all—of whom continue to work towards reconciliation when there is evidence of domestic violence, and resistance from one or both parties. There is limited recourse to professional marriage counselling because of a widespread scepticism about paying for this type of assistance.

This chapter describes the steps taken and processes employed when North American Muslims seek a religious divorce. In the absence of Muslim courts, and because Islamic divorce in North America has no force of law, almost all respondents obtained a civil divorce as well as sought religious approval. Some of those who sought religious divorce did so because of a sense of religious duty, but many others described their motivation in different terms—as an important affirmation of their cultural identity as a Muslim, or as meeting their needs of their family or community, or as a means of personal closure at the end of a marriage. This chapter describes the most common features of the highly informal process of religious divorce, usually overseen by an imam. The most common experiences described by respondents are a process of dialogue, often facilitated by an imam (26 percent); and divorce initiated by the wife and approved by an imam, in the absence of the husband’s agreement (36 percent). Twenty percent of respondents sought but failed to obtain a religious divorce, usually because they were unable to find an imam willing to overrule their husband’s refusal to agree to divorce.

As in nineteenth-century Morocco, Jews in other Muslim lands were either victimized by certain stringent aspects of Islamic jurisprudence or sought to benefit from its contents that proved advantageous to them. This appears to have been the case for Yemen in the 1930s, where issues concerning both Islamic Law and Halakha emerged. This chapter is a case in point. In 1935, Jews in San'a were in conflict over whether the Kuhlani Synagogue was private property or within the domain of a pious endowment. The Jews enlisted the ruling Imam to help resolve the crisis and prominent Muslim jurists also became involved. What was the decision adopted by the Imam? Did it differ from the recommendations offered by the Muslim jurists? To what extent were non-Muslim legal systems regarded as legitimate in post-Ottoman Islamic Yemen? This chapter addresses these and other intriguing issues.

Except for Aden, Yemen was an independent entity beginning in 1918 under the Imamate. This chapter analyzes the striking resemblance of tribal dissension in Yemen to Arab–Berber unrest in southern Morocco, where local chieftains were resentful of the Sharifian Sultanate and central authorities. In both Yemen and Morocco there existed a sizable Jewish minority that benefited from Muslim protection yet maintained a precarious existence. The partial exposure of Yemen to Europe in the twentieth century—similar to the Moroccan situation—helped connect the population to the world economy but weakened the economic foundation of the tribes, Jews included. The chapter elaborates on the dhimmi status of the Jews, their response to tribal customary law, and the Muslims' attitude toward Jewish religion and custom.

This chapter looks at judgeship. It further develops the ideal of presence as it relates to shari'a court processes and to governmental practice under the imams. The vocabulary of zulm is precisely that utilized in shakwas. Proper conduct of the muwajaha style of government depended on the elimination and avoidance of barriers between ruler and ruled. A judge's personal knowledge of particular people and their affairs constituted an important and recognized basis for judicial action. A judge had to concern himself mainly with 'urf that was relevant to the applied shari'a. For judges as for ruling imams, the basic public muwajaha, the open court encounter, implicitly required the acquisition of a spectrum of informal knowledge. A further assessment of changes and continuities in the shari'a courts must take account of innovations introduced in the Ottoman period.

This article surveys Chinese Muslim intellectuals at the turn of the 21^st century, dividing them into three sociological categories: (1) officials and state-approved scholars; (2) religious clerics (imams); and (3) unofficial scholars, headmasters or laoshi (teachers) in private institutions, writers, journalists, webmasters, and more. It focuses on the divide between advocates of a culturally Chinese Islam, the “Liu Zhi tendency,” as opposed to those who view Islam as a holistic, universal religion, the “‘Abd al-Wahhab tendency.” These definitions distinguish between a national, local expression of religion and an ahistorical, non-national one. In the 1990s, the latter—sometimes called “Salafi” or “Wahhabi”—rejected the Liu Zhi defenders as acculturated non-believers, distant observers rather than members of the umma. All of these participants make use of new media on the Internet as well as print publications and electronic broadcast formats. In the new century, Chinese Muslim intellectuals have sometimes had to compromise, some of them concluding that the core of Islam must remain inviolate while its national expression can be culturally Chinese. These various tendencies are illustrated with multiple biographies of exemplary thinkers, concluding with the striking intellectual evolution of Zhang Weizhen, a charismatic headmaster and teacher.

This chapter extends the discussion of manuals to a second major highland school of shari'a thought, that of the former ruling imams. The late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century highland history is the back-drop for a discussion of differing shari'a conceptions of the state. However, the Yemeni nation-state required and eventually adopted an entirely new form of law with the 1962 Revolution. The distinctiveness of the Zaidi school in connection with shari'a interpretation went beyond the credentials of the imam. Muhammad b. 'Ali al-Shawkani was the towering intellectual figure of early-nineteenth-century Yemen. By the Revolution of 1962, madhhab distinctions had come to represent the divisive subversions of national fulfillment and the true shari'a under the old regime.

This chapter investigates critically the Treatise on Rights (Resalat al-Huquq) of the fourth Shi‘a Imam ‘Ali b. al-Husain Sajad (48–94 h/658–713 ad), which is mostly ethical teachings and in fact, was a letter he wrote to one of his companions. The chapter includes the following: first, a brief consideration of the sources of the treatise, assessing the documents of the treatise, determining the most accurate text of the treatise among differing versions, and a general review of the introduction and categorization of the fifty-one rights listed in the treatise. Following this, the chapter addresses the meaning of “rights” in the Treatise of Rights. To do so, the chapter will distinguish various terminologies of right in the Qur’an, the hadith as well as in philosophy, theology, ethics and fiqh, and compare Imam Sajjad’s notion of “right” with the concept as it appears in the philosophy of law, political philosophy and law. Finally, and as an example, the chapter analyses the section on political rights (al-huquq al-asasi), that is, the rights of the sultan and the people (the ruler and the ruled) in relation to one another.

This chapter is the fifth section of Kadivar’s ‘Treatise on Refuting the Punishment for Blasphemy and Apostasy’. It discusses the subject in four periods: No one during the time of the Prophet was killed solely on the charge of apostasy. Rather, it was for some other transgression. The Ahl al-Bayt did not endorse those killed during the reigns of the first three caliphs (632–656) under the title of ahl al-ridda (the people of “apostasy”). No reliable evidence indicates that Imam Ali executed anyone for apostasy during his caliphate. The other Imams never ordered anyone to be executed for abandoning Islam. No one disputes that the Umayyad and ‘Abbasid caliphs sentenced people to death for apostasy. However, no reliable proof substantiates that these executions were carried out in accord with the Imams’ instructions or implicit consent. The author concludes: No reliable evidence proves that the Prophet, Imam Ali or the other Imams ordered people to be executed solely for apostasy. The death penalty meted out to the apostates under the first three caliphs, as well as under the Umayyads and the ‘Abbasids, cannot be advanced as proofs in the school of Ahl al-Bayt.

This chapter focuses on dialogue between women in the Nation of Islam (NOI) and those in the Warith Deen Mohammed (WDM) community. It explores the two groups' levels of engagement with mainstream Islam, engagement with concerns in the Black community, and conceptions of gender equality, especially as it relates to women's leadership in mosques. Having found that encounters and conversations between women of the two groups are few and far between, the chapter proposes what women of the two groups would want the other to know about their practice and understanding of Islam in light of mutual misconceptions. It highlights women's voices as they might respond to these misconceptions, providing women's views on various topics, including the continued relevance of the NOI in a context in which Sunni Islam prevails as the version of Islam practiced by most African Americans and the controversial practices of female imams and polygyny.