In 2015, the Islamic State released a video of men smashing sculptures in Iraq's Mosul Museum as part of a mission to cleanse the world of idolatry. This book unpacks three key facets of that event: the status and power of images, the political impor...

For sale in CIS only! Western Christians in the twentieth century viewed Islam through a lens of social and political concerns that would have appeared novel to their medieval and early-modern predecessors. Concerns about the predicament of secular...

Despite the intense media focus on Muslims and their religion during the agitated years following the tragedy of 9/11, few Western scholars or policy makers today have a clear idea of the distinctions between Islam and Islamism. In this important and...

Fundamentally different from other more prominent, Jewish traditions and experiences, the Sephardic tradition has long served to bind together the various Jewish communities of the Mediterranean basin. In "The Sephardic Legacy", Henry Toledano immers...

The relationship between Western democracies and Islam, rarely entirely comfortable, has in recent years become increasingly tense. A growing immigrant population and worries about cultural and political assimilation – exacerbated by terrorist attack...

In the Middle Ages, Muslim travelers embarked on a rihla, or world tour, as surveyors, emissaries, and educators. On these journeys, voyagers not only interacted with foreign cultures – touring Greek civilization, exploring the Middle East and North...

For sale in CIS only! Religion is central to any religious discourse, but religion as an analytical category that facilitates the reexamination and reinvention of a particular religious tradition is more difficult to locate. This task is made partic...

For sale in CIS only! Branded as terrorist by Israel and the West, Hamas won an overwhelming electoral victory in January 2006. This book charts the origins of Hamas among the Muslim Brotherhood, details the influence of its exiled leadership in Syr...

The city of Amritsar stands on the volatile border between India and Pakistan. It has been a focus for political and religious conflict since the partition of 1947. "Amritsar" brings together 25 first-hand accounts of life in a city at the epicentre...

A century that began with modernism sweeping across Europe is ending with a remarkable resurgence of religious beliefs and practices throughout the world. Wherever one looks today, from headlines about political turmoil in the Middle East to pop musi...