Stefan Reichmuth - Böcker

This book provides a comparative history of Islamic education in the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet countries. Case studies on Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan and on two regions of the Russian Federation, Tatarstan and Daghestan, highlight the importance which Muslim communities in all parts of the Soviet Union attached to their formal and informal institutions of Islamic instruction. New light is shed on the continuity of pre-revolutionary educational traditions – including Jadidist ethics and teaching methods – throughout the New Economic Policy period (1921-1928), on Muslim efforts to maintain their religious schools under Stalinist repression, and on the complete institutional breakdown of the Islamic educational sector by the late 1930s. A second focus of the book is on the remarkable boom of Islamic education in the post-Soviet republics after 1991. Contrary to general assumptions on the overwhelming influence of foreign missionary activities on this revival, this study stresses the primary role of the Soviet Islamic institutions which were developed during and after the Second World War, and of the persisting regional and even international networks of Islamic teachers and muftis. Throughout the book, special attention is paid to the specific regional traditions of Islamic learning and to the teachers’ affiliations with Islamic legal schools and Sufi brotherhoods. The book thus testifies to the astounding dynamics of Islamic education under rapidly changing and oftentimes extremely harsh political conditions.

Murtada al-Zabidi was a Humanist scholar and a Muslim, whose twelfth-century writings are here examined in the context of their geographical and historical setting. The period when Zabidi was writing saw a shift in the balance of power from the Muslim empires to the Western world, reflected in the stories he told of his travels from India on to Cairo, across vast distances and coming across an extraordinary range of people. The five chapters in this work look at various aspects of Zabidi's life and times, the first one focusing on his life and career and forms a background to studies of his work. The second looks at Zabidi's writing and publishing and the third at his notes on his friends, teachers, students and acquaintances. Chapter four assesses his two largest works; his Arabic lexicon and his commentary on Gazzali's Ihya . Finally, chapter five explores his second major literary achievement, his large commentary on Gazzali's Ihya ulum al-din .

This book provides a comparative history of Islamic education in the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet countries. Case studies on Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan and on two regions of the Russian Federation, Tatarstan and Daghestan, highlight the importance which Muslim communities in all parts of the Soviet Union attached to their formal and informal institutions of Islamic instruction. New light is shed on the continuity of pre-revolutionary educational traditions – including Jadidist ethics and teaching methods – throughout the New Economic Policy period (1921-1928), on Muslim efforts to maintain their religious schools under Stalinist repression, and on the complete institutional breakdown of the Islamic educational sector by the late 1930s. A second focus of the book is on the remarkable boom of Islamic education in the post-Soviet republics after 1991. Contrary to general assumptions on the overwhelming influence of foreign missionary activities on this revival, this study stresses the primary role of the Soviet Islamic institutions which were developed during and after the Second World War, and of the persisting regional and even international networks of Islamic teachers and muftis. Throughout the book, special attention is paid to the specific regional traditions of Islamic learning and to the teachers’ affiliations with Islamic legal schools and Sufi brotherhoods. The book thus testifies to the astounding dynamics of Islamic education under rapidly changing and oftentimes extremely harsh political conditions.

The three-volume series titled The Presence of the Prophet in Early Modern and Contemporary Islam, is the first attempt to explore the dynamics of the representation of the Prophet Muhammad in the course of Muslim history until the present.This first collective volume outlines his figure in the early Islamic tradition, and its later transformations until recent times that were shaped by Prophet-centered piety and politics. A variety of case studies offers a unique overview of the interplay of Sunnī amd Shīʿī doctrines with literature and arts in the formation of his image. They trace the integrative and conflictual qualities of a “Prophetic culture”, in which the Prophet of Islam continues his presence among the Muslim believers.ContributorsHiba Abid, Nelly Amri, Caterina Bori, Francesco Chiabotti, Rachida Chih, Adrien de Jarmy, Daniel De Smet, Mohamed Thami El Harrak, Brigitte Foulon, Denis Gril, Christiane Gruber, Tobias Heinzelmann, David Jordan, Pierre Lory, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Samuela Pagani, Alexandre Papas, Michele Petrone, Stefan Reichmuth, Meryem Sebti, Dilek Sarmis, Matthieu Terrier, Jean-Jacques Thibon, Marc Toutant, Ruggiero Vimercati Sanseverino.

This second collective volume of the series The Presence of the Prophet explores the growing importance of the figure of the Prophet Muhammad for questions of authority and power in early modern and modern times.The authors provide a rich collection of case studies on how Muhammad’s material, spiritual, and genealogical heritage has been claimed for the foundation of Muslim empires, revolutionary movements, the formation of modern nation states and ideologies, as well as for communal mobilization and social reform.This novel comparative, and diachronic study, which is unique for its wide coverage of regional cases and perspectives, reveals diverse political representations of the Prophet in an increasingly globalised struggle over the control of his image between secularization and sacralization.ContributorsGianfranco Bria, Rachida Chih, Christoph Günther, Gottfried Hagen, Jan-Peter Hartung, David Jordan, Soraya Khodamoradi, Jamal Malik, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Alix Philippon, Martin Riexinger, Stefan Reichmuth, Dilek Sarmis, Renaud Soler, Jaafar Ben El Haj Soulami, Florian Zemmin.