Muslim Preaching in the Middle East and Beyond

Simon Stjernholm is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. He publishes in both Swedish, Danish and English and his research has previously appeared in a number of key Anglophone journals, including the Journal of Muslims in Europe and the Journal of Contemporary Religion. He has also contributed to a number of edited volumes, including Francesco Piraino & Mark Sedgwick’s Global Sufism (Hurst & Co, 2019) and Ron Geaves & Theodore Gabriel’s Sufism in Britain (Bloomsbury, 2013). This is his first edited volume in English.. Elisabeth Özdalga is a retired senior researcher, and before that director, of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. She was professor of sociology at the Middle East University in Ankara 1994-2009 and visiting chair of the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Ankara 2011-13. She is the editor of several anthologies, among others Late Ottoman Society (RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), Novel and Nation in the Muslim World (with Daniella Kuzmanovic) (Palgrave 2015), Muslim Preaching in the Middle East and Beyond (with Simon Stjernholm) (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), and author of ‘Islamism and Nationalism as Sister Ideologies: Reflections on the Politicization of Islam in a Longue Durée Perspective,’ Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 407-23, May 2009.

[This book presents] a global picture of Islamic preaching in various contexts, from early Islam to Swedish suburbs. This testifies to the lively tradition of Islamic rhetoric beyond time and space. Here, the chapters on rhetoric situated in Swedish and Egyptian contexts make the most solid contribution. As a whole, the book could be useful to scholars and students of Islamic Studies, anthropology and Arabic literature.

• IntroductionPart I. Ritual and Performance1. The Framework of Islamic Rhetoric: The Ritual of the Khuṭba and its Origin2. The Khuṭba Scene in Arab Religious Films and TV Dramas3. Instructive Speech among Bosnian Muslim Women: Sermons, Lessons, or Guidance?Part II. Power and Authority4. Preaching and the Problem of Religious Authority in Medieval Islam5. Friday Sermons in a Secular State: Religious Institution-building in Modern TurkeyPart III. Mediation6. Going Online. Saudi Female Intellectual Preachers in the New Media7. Brief Reminders: Muslim Preachers, Mediation, and TimePart IV. Identities8. Advising and Warning the People: Swedish Salafis on Violence, Renunciation and Life in the Suburb9. Discourses on Marriage, Religious Identity, and Gender in Medieval and Contemporary Islamic Preaching: Continuities and Adaptations