Books & ideas

The Urban Condition of Muslims in India

Jules Naudet — 2025-09-12T09:03:01Z

According to Thomas Blom Hansen, Indian cities have become spaces of exclusion, fear, and sharpened enmity. He describes how Muslims are victims of an entanglement of communal violence, state complicity, and systemic discrimination.

Minority identification between affiliation and ascription

Margot Dazey — 2025-01-21T06:30:00Z

Contemporary uses of the word “Muslim” in France illustrate the variety of ways in which minorities identify themselves. In a book that straddles semantics and ethnography, Marie-Claire Willems sheds light on the diversity of forms of belonging available to populations exposed to exclusion.

The Many Facets of Islam

Steven Duarte — 2024-05-16T06:50:00Z

Both as a religion and as a civilisation, Islam is currently beset by a cacophony and a worrying erosion of plurality by its apologists as well as its detractors. The “clash of ignorances” is much more real than the so-called “clash of civilisations”.

Andalusia: political decline, cultural flourishing

Alexandre Giunta — 2024-03-28T08:35:00Z

At the beginning of the eleventh century, the collapse of the Umayyad caliphate coincided with political fragmentation. It was in this unusual context, soon to be exacerbated by Christian incursions from the north and Berber incursions from the south, that this part of the Muslim world experienced a flourishing culture.

Organising a Muslim Society

Arthur Asseraf — 2023-09-21T09:00:00Z

The Association of Algerian Ulema played an important role in the process of decolonisation. Its goal: making Algeria into a Muslim society.

Quran & Scholars

Matteo Bächtold — 2020-11-16T08:00:00Z

The three large volumes of Le Coran des historiens (The Historian's Quran) revolutionises the reading of this text, much as the historical-critical exegesis of the Bible did in the 19^th century. It does this by carefully situating the Quran in its historical, political religious and legal context and at the crossroads of the civilisations that engendered it.

Islam and Politics in Indonesia

Tuty Raihanah Mostarom — 2019-07-08T07:00:00Z

Indonesia is known to be the most-populated Muslim-majority country in the world. With an interdisciplinary perspective, Delphine Allès' book highlights the roots and continuities of the influence of Islam in political and foreign policy developments of contemporary Indonesia.

Gods and Rupees

Smriti Sharma — 2019-05-16T06:00:00Z

What can economics teach us about belief systems? As an institution, religion has implications for education, social cohesion, and politics, all of which are linked to economic growth and inequality. Sriya Iyer uses the tools of economics in an expansive study of one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world— India.

Fragile States: Nation-building in Sudan

Christopher Tounsel — 2018-10-25T07:00:00Z

Was nation-building in Africa destined to fail? The question is particularly important for one of the most fragile states in the world—Sudan. Set in a period that straddles the late colonial and early independence era, Alden Young's book addresses the auspices of postcolonial nation-building.

Halal Cool

Leyla Arslan — 2018-07-12T07:00:00Z

How to live one's Muslim faith in a context of growing Islamophobia? John O'Brien explores the multiple ways in which young American Muslims manage to reconcile their beliefs with their national belonging.