Rethinking Islamic Studies

"The essays of this volume have taken up precisely the challenge to redefine Islam apart from both fundamentalists/Islamists and their statist/nationalist opponents. Collectively, the contributors try to project a larger cosmopolitan canopy for Islam beyond the iterations, at once local and ideological, of several Muslim actors."—Bruce B. Lawrence, Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Professor of Religion, Duke University, from the Afterword

"Offering a fresh approach to the sophisticated state of contemporary studies on Islam, this collection from some of the best scholars writing today undermines entrenched and outdated views that have previously served to stagnate and distort the fruitful place of Islamic Studies in the broader academic discourse."—Brannon Wheeler, director, Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, United States Naval Academy

"This is the first sustained and theoretically exciting consideration of the academic study of Islam to appear in a quarter century. The essays explore Islamic approaches to modernity, probe the relevance of new perspectives on religion to Islam and examine Asian Muslim subjectivities in innovative ways. Bookending these chapters are an inviting historiographical introduction by Ernst and Martin and a characteristically searching conclusion by Lawrence highlighting the theme of cosmopolitanism. This is an elegant testimony to the vibrancy of Islamic studies."—Ahmet T. Karamustafa, professor of history and religious studies, Washington University in St. Louis