Zareena Grewal’s book traces the hopes, debates, accomplishments, and disappointmentsof American Muslim students who travel to the Middle East inpursuit of Islamic knowledge. As Grewal discovers through her interviewswith over 100 students and teachers, the impetus behind many of their journeysis a desire to find a solution to the “crisis” of Islamic authority in theUnited...Read More

Edited by Masooda Bano and Hilary Kalmbach, Women, Leadership, andMosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority is a compilation ofpapers presented at a 2009 conference of the same name. The book’s twentychapters represent a diverse range of geographic, thematic, and methodologicalapproaches to questions of female leadership within mosques, religiousscholarship, education, Muslim organizations, and other Islamic spaces....Read More

Islamic political thought remains the most debatable field of knowledge in the present day world both in East and the West. Authority which is generally considered to be the central aspect of Islamic political thought remains more contentious field among the scholars both within and outside Muslim academia. The fact is that some out rightly...Read More

Media representations of Muslims in Britain have often disappointed both faith practitioners and scholars. Imputed failings include distorting beliefs or practices, essentialising the faith, and amplifying voices that are not representative of Islam. This last factor hinges on questions of authority: what journalists and Muslims recognise as authority can differ in important ways. Drawing on...Read More