Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2014 -

Focusing on the critical question of how current attitudes toward Muslims in the Western imagination emerged, Arjana (PhD, Iliff School of Theology) traces the historical evolution of the imaginary Muslim monsters that have determined the construction of Muslims in Western thought.  Contrasting the history of Muslim monsters (male, racialized, and nonhuman) with Islamophobia (anxiety of Islam that defines current Western attitudes toward Muslims), Arjana explores the Westsimaginaire of the Islam," the perception of Muslims as uncivilized, hyper-violent enemies who developed as a standard contrary to the normative humanity established by white Christianity.  The book follows the development and metamorphosis of the Muslim monster from the Middle Ages to the Elizabethan Age (predominantly Turkish representations and Jewish-Muslim monsters in the context of Orientalism) to historical development and cultural representations in the Americas, including contemporary post-9/11 images.  Well-written and intellectually stimulating, the book provides an insightful and complex account of the historical development of imaginary Muslim characters and their relationships to existing human beings.  A must read for anyone interested in Western representations of Islam and its followers.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers and faculty; general readers.

This substantial volume is hardly a handbook in the sense of fitting in ones hand, at least not in the hardcover edition.  But it is an invaluable multivocal guide to contemporary Islam in the US, a collection of 30 essays written by leading Muslim and non-Muslim scholars and teachers such as Liyakat Takim, Marcia Hermansen, Muzammil Siddiqi, Ihsan Bagby, and Asma Afsaruddin.  The first section (eight essays) takes up the formation of Islam in North America, not only immigrant and African American involvement but also Sufism and "Muslim minority groups."  In the ten essays in the next section, "Institutionalization of Islam in North America," the authors discuss Islamic practices, law, marriage, women, education, youth, prisons, and volunteerism.  The final dozen essays appear under the title Integration and Assimilation of Muslims but belong to two distinct groups.  In the first nine, contributors tackle politics, scholarship, interfaith, media, art, architecture, fashion, health, and film.  The final three are sensible introductory essays on explosive topics: global Islam, terror, and Islamophobia (written by, respectively, Peter Mandaville, Charles Kimball, and Peter Gottschalk).  All essays include up-to-date bibliographies and references and offer clear reviews of major personalities, events, ideas, and studies, providing rich conceptual frameworks, useful overviews, and starting points for those seeking deeper understanding or starting research projects.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

Jackson (Univ. of Gloucestershire, UK) considers philosophy the "love of wisdom" in search of knowledge in its various forms across many fields of inquiryfrom art to science.  He proceeds with critical and rational arguments beginning with the origins of philosophy in ancient Greece.  His aim is to show that Islamic philosophers' contributions have been largely ignored in the Western tradition.  As he indicates, however, from the beginnings of Islam, Muslim thinkers have focused on topics and problems similar to those at the center of Western philosophic interests; indeed, many ancient Greek philosophical texts owe their transmission to Muslim sources.  Early Muslim theological disputes quickly displayed philosophic underpinnings and problems, and Muslim philosophers addressed philosophic questions in diverse ways.  In more recent times, Islamic political issues of the state and ethical issues have come to the center of analysis and action, particularly the concepts of jihad and just war theory.  Jackson presents the arguments of Islamic philosophers in careful, non-polemic fashion, providing faculty an exciting intellectual opportunity to acquaint themselves with the richness of Islamic thought and students an excellent text that rewards close reading.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; general readers.

In this original and educational book, Lawrence (emer., Islamic studies, Duke Univ.) surpasses standard approaches to the subject by explaining Islam to a broader audience.  The book offers a rich mélange of historical examples of how Muslims express (and experience) their understanding of the singularity of God through an incredible diversity of traditions.  As such, the seemingly impertinent question in the book's title sets the stage for Lawrences innovative treatment of Muslim practices of reverence, which spans the entire spectrum of religious thought, ceremony, and performance.  Indeed, offering corrective insights into crude stereotypes found in Western media, Lawrence also clarifies how the principal tenet of Islamthe indisputable unity and exclusivity of Godhas enriched the cultural lives of so many.  With great ethnographic skill, Lawrence demonstrates how Muslims express this devotion through a variety of rituals that often include dance, philosophic disputation, music, poetry, anddhikr(an act of remembrance).  More still, the author reveals the dynamic use of different media in his chapter titled "Allah Online: Practices in Cyberspace."  The result is a valuable fusion of emblematic quotes from devotional poetry to a cataloging of seemingly un-Islamic practices, making this book both fascinating to and educational for very diverse audiences.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers.