Islamic Studies Series – serie

Identity, Education and Belonging examines the social and educational experiences of Arab and Muslim Australian youth against a wider political backdrop.Arab and Muslim Australian youth have long faced considerable social obstacles in their journey towards full integration, but as the discourse of insecurity surrounding these conflicts intensifies, so too do the difficulties they face in Australian society. Events such as the war in Iraq, Australia's presence in Afghanistan and perceptions of Iran as a nuclear threat-together with domestic events such as the Cronulla riots-place Arabs and Muslims at the centre of global instability and exacerbate feelings of tension and anxiety.At a time when fear and confusion permeate their experiences, Identity, Education and Belonging is an all-important study of the lives of Muslim and Arab youth in Australia.

Based on extensive research of Australian media coverage, public opinion, interest groups as well as in-depth interviews with current and former diplomats and politicians, this book provides a unique insight into the policy making process in regards to one of the world's most enduring and volatile dilemmas.Making Australian Foreign Policy on Israel-Palestine is a must read for anyone concerned about how social forces influence policy making and the impact this has on Australia's response to world affairs.

The central focus of this volume is to explore and highlight the nexus between the ideology of Islam and social and cultural milieus with the aim of reconceptualising the sacred as a socially constructed reality and not a transcendental supernatural phenomenon. From this perspective, human agency and society become the main focus for shaping, perpetuating and institutionalising religious beliefs, ideas and practices, opening up space for empirical and sociological analyses of religious phenomena.The seven essays in this volume seek to explore and examine some of the key debates in contemporary sociology of Islam. The topics explored are: • social factors in the origins of Islam• social theory and Muslim society• Islam and politics in South Asia• Muslim piety• anti-Semitism• the social foundations of Muhammad's prophetic mission, with a special reference to Arab historical memory and the role of his first wife Khadija bint Khuwaylid• and the barriers to social inclusion of Australian Muslims in Australian society.

In recent years, all over the western world, a conversation has begun about the role of Islamic law or Shariah in secular liberal democratic states. Often this has focused on the area of family law, including matters of marriage and divorce. Islamic Family Law in Australia considers this often-controversial issue through the lens of multiculturalism and legal pluralism. Primarily, its main objective is to clarify the arguments that have been made recently.In both Australia and overseas, debates have occurred which have been both controversial and divisive, but have rarely been informed by any detailed analysis of how Muslim communities in these countries are actually dealing with family law issues. Islamic Family Law in Australia responds to this need for accurate information by presenting the findings of the first empirical study exploring how Australian Muslims resolve their family law matters. Through the words of religious and community leaders as well as ordinary Australian Muslims, the book questions the assumption that accommodating the needs of Australian Muslims requires the establishment of a separate and parallel legal system.

This lucid and timely volume sheds a sober and thought-provoking light on the immense social and political changes that have taken place in the Middle East and North Africa over recent years. A range of emerging scholars and established academics at the cutting edge of their fields provide interpretations challenging conventional assumptions relating to governance, social placidity, the use of social media, state-driven reform, and the role of traditionally marginalised groups in these strategically vital regions.This volume offers a strong response to the often misinformed and underdeveloped mainstream conceptions of revolutionary change and reform in the Middle East and North Africa. Seeking to recast and re-evaluate the paradigms used to interpret change in the Arab, Persian and Turkish worlds, the chapters in this volume will spark debate and provide much needed clarity to the current issues rocking the Middle East and North Africa.

From late 2010 a series of dramatic and unprecedented events swept across the Middle East and North Africa, toppling several autocratic regimes that had held power for decades and ushering in a new climate of dissent and democratisation. The Arab Revolutions in Context seizes a unique opportunity to reflect on these seismic events, their causes and consequences, and the core issues facing the region as it moves forward. This volume is more than a collection of detailed thematic essays.It situates the Arab Revolutions within their broader contextual backgrounds - showing that a unique set of historical events, as well as local, regional and global dynamics, has converged to provide the catalyst that triggered the recent revolts-and also within a new conceptual framework. The argument here is that the Arab Revolutions pose a very specific challenge to conventional wisdom concerning democracy and democratisation in the Middle East. The Arab Revolutions in Context is the first volume of its kind to address the Arab Revolutions and the varying analyses, debates and discussions that they have stimulated.

What happens when Somalis find themselves in countries with which they have few obvious cultural links? In Australia, where a majority of Somalis are Australian citizens, this absence of cultural connection is only partly remedied within an official multicultural model. To understand the mechanics of contemporary belonging and the challenges faced by Western societies as they attempt to “integrate” Somali migrants, this book explores representations of Somali resettlement. How do particular representations contribute to or detract from Somali settlement and belonging in their host countries? What kinds of representations help Somalis to feel at home in their new contexts? In the contexts of Australia and Italy—taken as case studies—Somalis are marginalised in different ways. This book considers representations as “possible spaces” that may counter reductive anti-African and anti-Muslim stereotypes that still condition public perceptions of Somali settlement. Approaching the question of belonging from a variety of disciplines, representations that embody Somali subjectivities and enable movement beyond exclusive paradigms of Italian or Australian nationhood are taken into account. Each representation is assessed for its ability to invite new forms of identification that lead to a process of “taking place”.

Why did Imam Samudra explode bombs in Balinese nightclubs? It is not possible to answer this question regarding the Bantenese Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra, “field commander” of the Bali bombing of 12 October 2002, without paying due attention to the social and political context provided by his experiences as a youthful member of Darul Islam both in Indonesia and Pakistan, where he studied at the Akademi MiliterMujahidin Afghanistan, and by the outbreak of religious violence in Indonesia from 1999. Yet these same factors also influenced his colleagues within Jema’ah Islamiyah(JI), and most of them strongly disapproved of what he did in Bali. The failure of these contextual factors to fully explain his behaviour encouraged this writer to introduce the personality of Imam Samudra as relevant to the question posed above, not in place of the abovementioned factors, but in interaction with them.

Why has the relationship between the state and the Islamic revivalist movement known commonly as 'Wahhabism' persisted under Saudi rule since 1744? In Securitising Identity Ben Rich traces the symbiosis between these two entities across three distinct periods of Saudi rule over the past four centuries, showcasing the consistent conditions, patterns of behaviour and political logics that surround their interplay. Collectively, these reveal a recurrent tendency in which the state paradoxically offers protections to the preservation of revivalism while generating threats against this same religious identity in order to ensure its hold on power. Such a pattern, he argues, not only transcends all discrete periods of Saudi rule, but also manifests regardless of the conservative or progressive nature of a particular administration. Understanding such a pattern not only helps to explain why Saudi Arabia today remains a source of regional sectarianism, but also how such an idiomatic ideology has endured in the face of high modernity and why the state it is likely to struggle in its ongoing quest to open itself further to a diverse and pluralistic world.