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Starting from the report of an incident occurred in Tehran in 2018, which triggered a wave of repression and resistance involving members of a popular Iranian Sufi order, the Nematollāhī-Gonābādī, this article explores the ways and forms in which modern Shi'i Sufism articulates its identity at the social and political level and vis-à-vis the authorities of the Islamic Republic if Iran. In doing so, this essay tackles the ways in which this identity is voiced and how individual members of the mystical order manifest their proximity to some areas of the reformist camp. This political vitality and outspokenness, along with forms of resistance adopted by the members of the brotherhood in the face of the increasingly pronounced aggressiveness of the Islamic Republic towards Sufism, testifies the complexity of the nature of the order's relationship with the political sphere. The analysis of the texts and the praxis of the order's notables and their disiples shows that the oft-repeated declaration of distance from politics are genuine but far from simplistic, a far cry from unconditional political quietism Sufism is often accused of. By addressing this complexity, in this article the author sets out to address the many paradoxes inherent in this clash and the battle for the appropriation of the legacy of mysticism in contemporary Iranian Twelver Shi'ism, which is grafted onto a broader discourse on political authority in Shiism and revolutionary Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history of political aspects of Sufism in relation to the poet Jalal al-din Rumi. Topics include the notion of spiritual authority held by Sufi mystics, the notion of sincerity in relation to the study of Sufi mysticism, and the importance of sociopolitical context in the historiography of Sufi mysticism.

The article discusses the Qur'anic story of Moses and Khidr in relation to Islamic law. Topics include the roles of esoteric knowledge and mysticism in the text, the relation of Khidr's actions in the text to discretionary authority, and the role of doctrine in the text in relation to Islamic mysticism.

Copyright of Media Syari'ah: Wahana Kajian Hukum Islam dan Pranata Sosial is the property of Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh, Fakultas Syariah dan Hukum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Revisiting the debate on how Islam's 'learned men' ('ulama) have sustained their religious authority through changing historical circumstances, this article offers a longue durée account of the so-called 'Khandan-i-Ijtihad': a family of renowned scholars and jurists who have held scholarly and popular precedence within South Asia's Shi'i clerical networks for some 250 years. Instead of analysing the 'ulama as a corporate group or a class of religious professionals, this article examines the 'ulama as members of households (khandan, khanwadah) and emphasizes the important role of family lineage and inherited social influence as conduits of clerical leadership. Tracing both the genealogical succession and the vocational enterprises of this family over several generations, the article proposes a framework for understanding an individual scholar's relationship with the collective household, arguing that a cleric's own reputation (hasab-va-nasab) rests on a mingling of ancestral pedigree and personal achievement, with the stature of individual and household perpetually affirming and reinforcing each other in the making of Islamic clerical authority. Furthermore, the article establishes the importance of the 'ulama-biography (tazkirah) as itself a mechanism for actively sustaining the relevance of contemporary 'ulama, by perpetually memorializing their ancestors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do women gain authority in the public sphere, especially in contexts where patriarchal norms are prevalent? I argue that the leaders of patriarchal social movements face pragmatic incentives to expand women's authority roles when seeking new movement members. Women authorities help patriarchal movements by making persuasive, identity‐based arguments in favor of patriarchy that men cannot, and by reaching new audiences that men cannot. I support this argument by examining the rise of online female preachers in the Islamist Salafi movement, using interviews, Twitter analysis, and automated text analysis of 21,000 texts by 172 men and 43 women on the Salafi‐oriented website saaid.net. To show the theory's generality, I also apply it to the contemporary white nationalist movement in the United States. The findings illustrate how movements that aggressively enforce traditional gender roles for participants can nevertheless increase female authority for pragmatic political reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qur'an and Ḥadith as fundamental and primary sources of Shariah stand as hall mark of Islam. Ḥadith called traditions as the second fundamental source of Islam embodies sayings, actions and expressions of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) explicit or implicit. Mainly there have been two trends of rejecting the status of Ḥadith. One is rejecting the authority of Ḥadith and other rejects the authenticity of Ḥadith especially “Khabar-al-wahid” or solitary tradition. Other group does not completely reject the authority of Ḥadith rather text of Ḥadith especially in case of weak traditions. This paper discuss the opinion of rejecters of Ḥadith and contribution of Muslim scholars along with their arguments from Qur'an and Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to highlight the importance and significance of authority and authenticity of Ḥadith in all disciplines of Islamic thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a fatwa written in the late nineteenth century by Jaʿfar b. Idrīs al-Kattānī, a distinguished Moroccan legal scholar. The issue that gave rise to the fatwa was the subject of heated debates among Moroccan Muslims at the time: the legality of using goods manufactured by non-Muslims. New historical conditions brought by Moroccan modernity eroded religious and communal boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims and accentuated concerns about the integrity of Islam. Suspicion and anxiety of the population found expression in widespread rumors about impurities in products manufactured by non-Muslims. By analyzing al-Kattānī's fatwa, this article aims to offer insights into the relationships between the ʿulamāʾ, Islamic tradition, and modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the understanding of Islam of nine young adult Muslims living in the Malmö and Copenhagen region.1 Throughout the interviews with the young adults, they mark their distance from what they perceive as unacceptable forms of Islamic ideas and practices, labeling these ideas as extremist and inconsistent. They develop discursive techniques of distancing themselves from the mediated Islam of radicals and the often negative rendering of Islam that they encounter in daily life and in the media. By negotiating with the dominant discourse on what a "respectable religion" should look like, the young adults construct a religiosity that shares much of the form prescribed by mainstream society, but is different in content. The theoretical framework is drawn from the study of sociology of religion and, in particular, from Beverley Skeggs' theories on respectability (1997). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the concept of Islamic authority in relation to early twentiethcentury Protestant missionary writings on Islam and Muhammad Rashid Rida's commentaries on mission publications in his Cairo-based journal, al-Manar. While Rida's Salafi reformism has been the subject of much discussion, scholars have given little attention to the content of the missionary writings Rida engaged. Treatments of Rida's work have also neglected to address the vision of Islamic authority that emerges from his responses to Christian polemics. This paper gives both subjects further consideration as it discusses Protestant missionary approaches to Islam, examines Rida's writings on Christianity, and assesses his response to a widely circulated article on Islam by Temple Gairdner, a prominent British missionary with the Church Missionary Society in Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia's democratic reform and decentralization after the fall of authoritarian President Soeharto has brought both painful transformations and the potential of new beginnings. This is also the case for the island of Lombok where political changes have affected not only obvious political players, but also local Muslim religious leaders (Tuan Guru). These religious leaders wield a high level of socio-political and religious authority. Their significant social standing is largely due to the central role of Islam across Lombok which not only relates to people's spiritual lives, but is also identified in long established local forms of governance that are focused upon Tuan Guru and their organizations. This article will seek to understand how to delineate their religious authority and conceptualize its application in these fast changing circumstances. In doing so I argue that the complex and unstable times that have occurred alongside the transition to democracy are transforming the potent authority of Tuan Guru. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political wisdom in Indonesia has long held that its large mass-based Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU ) and Muhammadiyah, are politically influential. Within the current democratizing environment ulama have faced many challenges to their social standing and it is our contention in this article that their socio-political role has been diminished in this environment. In order to gauge this situation, the Asia Foundation, working with Indonesian research organizations, conducted a nation-wide survey to explore the changing ways that these Muslim organizations wield political influence, especially at the local level. The survey results confirm that religious figures, or ulama, within n u and Muhammadiyah, do not wield the same kind of direct political influence as they have historically, but this article also highlights how these leaders are still important power brokers at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to interpret religious authority and its historical contours in Indonesia this article considers Sufi associations (Ind. tarekat) and the way that their religious leaders and followers understand their authority and the challenges to it. Particularly, this article will focus on the history of the Khalwatiah Sammān tarekat in South Sulawesi. Over the past two centuries the Khalwatiah Sammān and its growing membership have faced a long running opposition from formalist ulama whom take exception to their Islamic practices and interpretations. The opposition mounted against this tarekat and its adherent's response to these attacks allows us to review the diverse ways that religious authority is understood and practiced in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role and status of religious authority needs to be read into Malaysian political history over the past fifty years. During this period as the Malaysian state constructed its national identity and plotted its policy course, the role of Islam and religious leaders became an important point of debate. It is within this context that this article considers the independence and autonomy of Malaysian Muslim religious leaders. Traditional religious authority in Malaysia finds its underpinnings largely in the institutions of Islamic learning locally known as pondoks, which are a community of students of Islam under the directions of a religious leader, ulama (also often known as a Tok Guru). However as the state consolidated their control over these religious leaders whom were co-opted into the state apparatus, by employment and education at state universities, their social significance has been destabilized. In the wake of this compromised sociopolitical and religious position alternative sources of authoritative Islamic teachings have emerged in recent years such as the Tablighi Jama'at discussed in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan's religious leaders, ulama, have been put under significant strain in relation to how deal with questions about the political tensions and violence over the past decade flowing from the Taliban's role in conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The effects of this fraught environment on religious authority can be seen through the way that religious leaders have issued contradictory and opaque fatwa (non-binding, but highly influential, legal opinions). This article particularly considers the way that different falwa-giving religious groups, such as Deobandis, Brevalis, and Ahl-i-Hadith, have dealt with these problems. The violence, which has struck the heart of Pakistan civil society, has led to a confusing array of fatwa from these religious elites. These opinions have sought to categorize violence as either legitimate or to be condemned. This article therefore shows how these fatwa and the conflicting positions they taken have compromised religious authority in contemporary Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a common perception that Muslim religious leaders (ulama) in Singapore do not play any political role for the local Muslim community. Due to the seemingly close relationship between the government and grassroots Muslim organisations it is unsurprising that many presume that the activities of organisations such as the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) and the Singapore Islamic Scholars and Religious Teachers Association (PERGAS) are closely monitored by the government. As a result of this environment, the ulama in Singapore do not enter into the political arena. This article argues that the very act of keeping religion out of formal political life in Singapore is a conscious position taken by the local ulama and that in itself is a form of politics. Choosing not to do something is a political choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern Islamic world, increased literacy rates, mass education, print and the new media have all contributed to the systematization of Islamic thought and the democratization of access to sacred texts, thus intensifying the process of pluralisation of religious authority. Information and communication technology have brought changes in the construction of religious authority, threatening to undermine the authority of traditional religious figures. New Muslim intellectuals have emerged who, despite the lack of formal religious education, have increasingly claimed the right to speak for Islam. Recent studies show that 'ulamā' and Sufis continue to play a vital role in contemporary societies; however, the developments in the construction of the authority of Sufi masters still deserve further investigation. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of the issue by focusing on the masters of two Qādirī lineages in Hyderabad, India. In an age of intense competition among Muslim religious groups, Sufis have acknowledged the importance of building broader constituencies. However, unlike many renowned Sufis in modern India, the Qādirī in Hyderabad have not enthusiastically embraced new initiatives aimed at rooting authority in society at large. Rather, the ways in which their authority has been constructed, perceived, and legitimised are consistent with pre-modern patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first decades of the twentieth century, classically trained Muslim scholars (`ulama) of the influential Deobandi school of North India issued a number of immensely popular, mass-printed ‘primers’ on Islamic belief and ritual practice. Now ubiquitous in the Islamic bookshops in South Asia and elsewhere, these primers sought to summarize the rudiments of an Islamic education for a nascent lay Muslim reading public. Focusing on three Deobandi `ulama—Ashraf `Ali Thanvi (d. 1943), Mufti Muhammad Kifayatullah (d. 1952), and Muhammad Manzur Nu`mani (d. 1997)—this paper explores how their primers advanced the Deobandi school's well-known critique of popular piety even as they claimed to address Muslims generally, and how their authors negotiated the subtle dynamics of print. Understanding the potentially subversive power of print to open a space for readers to form their own interpretations of minute doctrinal matters and the threat of mass-printed religious texts to their own authority, these `ulama implored readers to refrain from forming their own opinions of the primers’ content and to consult the `ulama throughout the reading process. Thus, even as they took advantage of print's possibilities, they remained deeply suspect of its ramifications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Niger, Izala is a well established Islamic reform movement that is known for its strategic use of small media. The author investigates how these media are produced and circulated during the Wa’zin kasa, a three-day international preaching rally, and how they play an active role in popularizing Izala’s discourses and practices and in shaping a moral community. The author illustrates that the mobility of these small media has instigated a media dynamic that has transformed the mediascape in Niger and produced new actors and new religious discourses. These ‘Sunna media’ have played an important role in the spread of the reformist movement, and in the establishment of new forms of authority. In the case of the Izala movement, they have also generated a specific religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The uses of sound reproduction among Mauritian Muslims illustrate the links between public religion and religious mediation. These two dimensions of religion rely on material objects and media technologies, coalescing in what are frequently the same media practices. In this essay I investigate the ambiguous relationships between these two mediated forms of religion, tracing their mutually supporting and conflictual relationships. Their articulations also provide insights into questions of religious authority and authenticity that are prominent in a diasporic location such as Mauritius, as well as into the constitution of the boundary between religion and non-religion through media practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines several fatwās by the important Muslim reformer Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā. It treats these fatwās as part of a broader Arabic debate on “materialism” at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. In this context, Riḍā's fatwās on materialism illustrate the changing nature of Islamic religious authority in this period, as new kinds of knowledge became available to new kinds of readers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article compares the democratic thought and practice of two influential Shi’i Muslim theologians in Iran and Iraq. It argues that a new conception of Shi’i traditional authority has been developed by senior clerics Hussain Ali Montazeri and Ali Sistani offering a new model of clerical authority closely connected to the democratic values of popular sovereignty and accountability: ‘democratic Usulism.’ Such a new paradigm envisions a form of religious legitimization that is led by elected rulers who are ultimately ‘guided’ by the sacred law of Islamic legal norms, while being held accountable to the people. The paradigm operates either as a counter-discourse to theocratic authoritarianism, currently prevalent in Iran, or as a democratic theology of citizenship and electoral participation, as in the case of Iraq. In broad terms, the two cases represent a major trend in Shi’i political theology that can be viewed as part of the global upsurge of public religions, some of which serve to counter authoritarianism (both secular and theocratic) and promote democratic rule. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the divine will and its relationship with the creation through addressing three major aspects. First, it explains the two opinions of the mainstream Sunni Islamic view about how God's will allows evil and prevents it. The second aspect is dispelling the Mu'tazila's misconception that the divine will is conditional and is based on the interpretation of some Qur'anic verses. Third, this paper addresses numerous questions related to the subject, and provides answers to them. The paper's purpose is to eliminate any doubts that the divine will encompasses all that is possible. One of the most important results of the paper is that it shows and proves the unanimous consensus of the mainstream Islam "Ahlu Assunnah" that the divine will is connected with all of the creation. Also, it shows that there are disagreements on the nature of the divine will's details and function. The paper dispels the proofs of the Mu'tazila that support the above argument. The paper illustrates a distinction between the divine will and the command, satisfactory and love. It concludes and affirms that whatever God wills will happen and whatever he does not will, it will not occur and it does not need for an explanation. This is simply because God's actions are the core of wisdom and He is not questioned about what He does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines ("CMPL") was established in 1977 as part of an effort to quell longstanding violence between Christians and Muslims in the predominantly Christian country. This codification of Islamic laws in the areas of marriage, divorce, and inheritance provided for a system of Shari'a courts that would operate within the larger framework of the legal system of the Philippines. Three and a half decades later, the CMPL has had little effect. The Shari'a courts are understaffed and underutilized, accounting for less than 0.1% of the caseload in the Philippines. The CMPL is plagued by a series of practical and procedural shortcomings. More significantly, it limits the use of customary law and excludes or marginalizes familiar sources of Muslim authority, minimizing its appeal for Muslims who had hoped that the CMPL would provide greater rights and freedoms. In order to revitalize the CMPL and further engage Muslim citizens in the Philippines, this comment argues for a variety of practical and procedural changes to increase knowledge of and access to the CMPL, an increase in the use of customary law, and for the creation of more leadership roles for Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the author's ideas about a possibility of questioning consensus (ijmā') of Islamic scholars, validity of those consensuses and authenticity of statements found in Islamic writings. In that sense, broad guidelines are presented at the end of the paper. Those guidelines can be of great help to contemporary Islamic scholars for building their relationship with the third source of Shari'ah and for using that source in a quality manner for argumentation and solving contemporary legal issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Societes Contemporaines is the property of Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the religious activities organized by the women members of the Naqshbandiyya-Kuftariyya Muslim group in Damascus, Syria. The author discusses how Muslim women open possibilities for the development of female religious authority, through their religious movements such as teaching and learning Islamic religious subjects. She also discusses the continuing growth of female religious knowledge and activism in the local religious politics in Damascus and the entire Syrian nation.

Some conception of consensus is essential for ascertaining the bedrock teachings of the Islamic faith. There is an operative presumption that the normative tradition was defined by such a notion. This presumption, however, is complicated by the fact that historical discussions of the scholarly concept of legal consensus (ijma') can be traced roughly to the 2nd century subsequent to the advent of Islam, more than a century after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Shiite rejection of the legal concept further vitiates Sunni claims of the authoritativeness and binding yields of unanimous consensus. Sunni jurists and legal theorists themselves from the earliest of times have also casts aspersions on the validity of claims of unanimous consensus while generally acknowledging its theoretical possibility. Despite these considerations, many significant scholarly personalities throughout Islamic history have claimed unanimous consensus on a number of legal and theological matters. When a ruling is the result of unanimous consensus it is deemed to be binding upon the Muslim populous to accept it as the revelation of a divine standard whose import must not and cannot be contravened if one wishes not to risk being anathematized. This particular fear for long has functioned as a tool for maintaining cultural and religious uniformity in Islamic societies. But it has also been utilized at times by scholars and governors as a political tool to silence dissident religious voices. If claims of unanimous consensus are flimsy, what principle determines Islamic normative doctrine and morality? This particular treatise suggests that the early community relied on a far less specialized principle in distinguishing orthodoxy from heterodoxy/orthopraxy from its opposite. It was a broad religio-cultural concept later known as 'al-ma'lum min al-din bi al-darura' ([the non-negotiable] commonly acknowledged matters of the religion known by rational necessity). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Asian Muslim American (SAMA) girls studied ethnographically in Chicago and more broadly in the United States negotiate these three components (South Asian, Muslim, and American) of identity across the spheres of home, Islamic institutions, and the public "American" realm. . Drawing on interviews and fieldwork at an Islamic school and within South Asian families and mosques, the authors illustrate how nascent "girl" power is evidenced in these contexts drawing on media representations, academic sources, and data drawn from participant observation. Sources of SAMA girls' expressions of confidence and power are selective use of identity markers, increased mastery of Islamic knowledge, and various subtle acts of resistance to norms imposed upon them within home and family interactions, Islamic spaces, and the American public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present article, Fazlur Rahman's understanding of the sunnah/hadīth will be discussed in comparison with Schacht's views on the same subject. That the views of Schacht and Fazlurrahman on Hadīth literature revolve around the term „living tradition/sunnah leads the comparison between the two and the idea of influence. It is intended to give examples which will hopefully help for better understanding of their positions. Besides the similarities, the differences between them will be noted with special emphasis on the possible reasons for them, and their effect on the dating of the traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to examine the nature of some prohibitions in the Quran. In generally the authority of prohibiting belongs to Allah. This authority doesn't be shared with anybody else. For this reason, people who prohibit something by themselves are criticized in the Quran by exceeding their own authority. Using some objects or eating some foods are forbidden in the history. Especially, those prohibitions are concerned with Jews. The aims of the prohibitions in the Quran are punishing or testing. However some prohibitions aim to strengthen the religious identity of the believers and separate them from other religious groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the article by Mona Siddiqui on her account of the development of understandings of political authority within Islam, and the controversies surrounding this area, which has huge resonances with Christian experience, different though our stories are. The challenge of modernity lies in keeping alive a meaningful interface between the Divine and the secular, according to her.

The paper looks at the genealogical preface to an early nineteenth century Javanese historical text known as the Serat Sajarah Leluhur. The preface contains two genealogies for the central Javanese Sultans of Yogyakarta, one that contains figures from Muslim and biblical accounts of sacred descent from Adam, and a second that refers to Hindu cosmological entities. The paper argues that both genealogies were written by Muslim scholars but that the ‘Hindu’ section uses Hindu terminology because it represented the lingua franca of religious language during the early Islamization of Java. The “Hindu” section thus charts the descent of God’s mystical knowledge from Adam through his ‘grandson’ Anwar and on through a chain of ‘descendants’ using figures from the Hindu purāa tradition as well as the Mahābhārata and the Javanese Wayang Kulit. The genealogy argues that the central Javanese Sultans of Yogyakarta are the recipients of God’s mystical knowledge, thereby investing them with spiritual authority and power that is designed to augment their political authority. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper attempts to demonstrate that it is not only the universal principles of Islam that ground our everyday actions, but also the practical and immediate issues which we confront. Although Islam provides a universal set of principles to make life meaningful, I shall argue that these principles are vernacularized and localized in specific narratives. By offering seven diverse zones of Islam, I seek to bring this critical and dynamic distance into the forefront to understand that there is no universal model or a single highway to salvation but, instead, there are multiple ways of being and becoming a Muslim. In the first part of the paper, I seek to disaggregate the concept of ‘Islamic or Muslim world’ by identifying seven diverse competing and conflicting ‘zones’ of political Islam, each characterized by their conversion pattern, colonial legacy, type of nationalism and by the state-society relations and political economy that factor into these evolving separate zones. At the same time and under certain political conditions, one also sees the emergence of consensus and similar ‘public opinion’ across zones on various issues. After identifying the features of three of the seven zones (Arab, Persian and Turkish), the paper focuses on Sufism, the frontier legacy of the Ottoman state, and on the tax-based economy and the expanding political opportunity spaces, to account for the construction of Islamic knowledge and practices in the Turkish zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue here that an epistemological shift has taken place in twentieth century usul al-fiqh: away from the classical/orthodox Ash'ari position in which the human mind simply discovers the divine law and extends it to new cases on the basis of consensus (ijma) and analogical reasoning (qiyas); and toward a position in which reason is empowered to uncover the ratio legis behind the divine injunctions --a distinctly Mu'tazili approach. This shift has been accompanied by a privileging of universal ethical principles (kulliyyat), now identified as the aims of the Law (maqasid al-sharia), over the specific injunctions of the texts (juz' iyya;t)--a hermeneutic strategy that has often favored public interest (maslaha) as the chief criterion for developing fresh legal rulings in the light of new sociopolitical conditions. The main theoreticians discussed here are Muhammad 'Abduh, Muhammad Rashid Rida, 'Abd al-Razzaq Sanhuri, "Abd al-Wahhab Khallaf, Muhammad Abu Zahra, and Muhammad Hashim Kamali. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented that discusses cultural aspects of political authority in the Middle East in relation to the notion of a monarch. Topics include the opinions of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak regarding political leadership, the role of the state in the context of Islamic societies, and Greek influences on Islamic cultures.

Discusses social differentiation, moral and Islamic authority in Egypt. Original path to Islamic authority; Impact of Moslem Mustafa Mahmud on the way Islam is publicly communicated; Mahmud's confrontation with religion; Transformations and contradictions of Egyptian society in its republican era.

Analyzes the establishment of women authority in the Kano Tijaniyya. Contributions of Hajiya Iya and Umma Makaranta; Assistance from male patrons in raising both women to the position of muqaddama; Achievement of spiritual and personal authority without sacrificing respectability; Limitation of female participation in the Tijaniyya.

The article discusses the socio-religious aspects of Muslims in the Hindu kingdom of Nepal. Regarding the rights given to the followers of those non-Hindu religions and especially Muslims, according to the code, they are allowed to perform all acts considered as duty in their own religion, according to the tradition of their family. In fact no restrictions are placed on religious practices. Muslims can freely perform all private and public ceremonies. In the field of personal law, some usages, either Islamic or customary, are recognized by the code. But these clauses concern only minor points, on other matters, especially inheritance, they have to follow Hindu law and all cases, even those where only Muslims are involved, are tried by state courts presided over by Hindu judges. But, in the eye of the law, all religions are not equal, Hinduism ism is the dharma, the religion par excellence, and enjoys complete freedom and protection. Islam, which represents a challenge to the beliefs and social order of the Hindus, is tolerated with restrictions.

Reports that terrorist organization Al-Qaeda's ideology originates from Wahhabism, the revivalist movement founded by Muhammad Ibn'Abd al-Wahhab calling for a return to a purer form of Islam closer to the ideals of the Prophet. Inability to tolerate any dissent; Rejection of the principle of consensus or "ijma'" and analogy or "qiyas".

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 studies of journalism practice, prior professional experience, and ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews in Scotland, I discuss the conventional preference among journalists for "official sources" and the problems this can present in terms of hierarchy in Islam. I contrast this with a less-studied imperative, also present in newsrooms, for "real people". This category matches well with Islam's decentralised tradition and presents an opportunity to understand how different kinds of sources are presented in media coverage. It is possible for journalists to ensure that these differing claims to authority are represented properly, though this requires knowledge and responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]