Muslim World

To be a “Shi‘at Ali” means to follow closely in the footsteps of ‘Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad. For Shi‘is, ‘Ali was the rightful successor of Prophet Muhammad and the first Imam. Shi‘ism is the second largest denomination in Islam after Sunnism. Shi‘is constitute roughly 10–20% of all Muslims in the world. This chapter provides an overview of contemporary Shi‘is doctrines, bodily pious habits, as well as quotidian and annual rituals.

Globalisation is a multidimensional process, involving both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, playing out simultaneously within the domains of economy, politics, technology—particularly media and information communication technology (ICT)—culture and environmental change. By contrast, the spread of knowledge that transforms global Islamic authority in heterogeneous forms, challenging conventional understandings, location and modeof articulation of authority, is considered to be a distinct process. This paper attempts to investigate the role of knowledge in the construction of globalised Islamic authority in Islam. It explores the evolution of Islamic authority vis-à-vis the rapidly developing network of interconnections and interdependencies. Focusing on identifying the element of consensus (ijmā) in sustaining and upholding religious authority in Islam, the paper examines how modernist critiques of consensus take various forms in light of what modernists consider to be “true” and how they see the challenges and opportunities of global transformations. While shedding light on agrowing fragmentation and decentralisation of religious authority in the Muslim world, this paper argues that the authoritative religious knowledge was established and sustained down to 18th century when new methods of interpretation emerged challenging the authoritative corpus of religious structures. Consideration is also given to the causes, spectrum, and effects of increasingly diverse, and disjointed transformationsof religiousauthority in Muslim societies, the outcome of which is a spectacularly wild growth of interpretation.

In the mid-90s, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and the Iranian Ayatollah Khamene’i both banned bloody forms of self-flagellation such as tatbir (cutting the forehead with a sword), calling them backward and un-Islamic. They argued that Shi‘a Muslims ought to imitate Husayn by actively fighting against oppressors rather than passively mourning Husayn’s martyrdom. This prohibition has not been unanimously applied in all Muslim
countries, including Syria, where such practices persisted until the Arab Spring (when virtually all Shi‘a Muslims left the shrine-town where these practices were performed). By closely reading the linguistic, conceptual, and juridical discourses that circulated in Syria in order to justify this position, the paper shows that the performers of tatbir conceived of these rituals in revolutionary, rather than reactionary, terms. By examining the performance and reception of flagellation processions in terms of differing modalities of affect, the paper opens up spaces for rethinking ‘revolution’ and ‘redemption’ in contemporary Twelver Shi‘ism.

This research examined and outlined some of the challenges facing Islam and Muslims in the 21st century, considering global Islamic representation and knowledge acquisition as key objectives. It was observed that the Western media misrepresentation of Islam and the Western ethos embodied by the acquisition of western civilisation are major challenges faced by Islam and Muslims today. The problem of sectarianism, decline in the socioeconomic power of Muslim communities and the archaic nature of the Islamic creed were recorded as major actors to the evolving global Islamic issues. It was therefore concluded that Islam is not the reason for these challenges, rather the action of some Muslims and non-Muslims were the contributing factors to the pandemics faced by Islam and Muslims. Some relevant recommendations were made to the Islamic world that could serve as effectual solutions to these lingering problems.

In this paper, I outline the history of Pakistan's experience with "Islamic" laws and their impact on women. I also trace the links between the state, nationalism, religion, and women's organizations, and demonstrate how they have shaped women's lives in Pakistan. I focus ...

This paper will discuss the following heads;

What is Islamic Criminal Law?
Classification of Crimes
Purpose of harsh punishments: An analysis
Application of Islamic Criminal Law in the Muslim Countries
Pakistan Hudood Laws: To what extent they are applied?
Why Islamic punishments are rarely applied in Pakistan and other Muslim
world?

Mencari Film Madani: Sinema dan Dunia Islam merupakan kumpulan tulisan Ekky Imanjaya dengan tema khusus tentang seluk-beluk “film Islam”. Ekky Imanjaya sejak awal 2000-an berkarier sebagai wartawan dan kritikus film, lalu menekuni studi film hingga meraih gelar master di Universitat van Amsterdam (Belanda) dan doctoral di University of East Anglia (Norwich, Inggris). Kumpulan ini menjadi unik sekaligus penting dalam konteks tumbuhnya genre film religious di dalam perfilman kita dari masa ke masa. Ekky menawarkan perspektif yang berpijak dari pengalamannya aktif di dunia dakwah semasa mudanya.

Unduh e-book-nya: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FRtP6s_YfFVx1ExyQoFW18K1NDq5qLus

The Identity of the  Ṣābi'ūn: An Historical Quest
by Christopher Buck.

The Muslim World 74.3/4 (July/Oct. 1984): 172–186.

[Published online 3 April 2007, Wiley Online Library.]
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-1913.1984.tb03453.x.
Electronic Database (full text available): ATLA Religion Database; Wiley.

ABSTRACT

One of the mysterious and unsolved Qur'anic problems surrounds the identity of the Sabians, al-Ṣābi'ūn. As Jane McAuliffe has shown in her study published in an earlier volume of this journal, Muslim exegetes reflect uncertainty on this point from the very start. Over time the term so diversified in meaning that it became even more difficult to determine to whom it referred. Yet one would assume that in the Qur'ān al-Ṣābi'ūn denotes a specific historical community. Placed alongside Jews, Christians, and "the Believers" (Muslims) in Q. 2:62, one is tempted to regard the Sabians as a fourth monotheistic community. This association is all the more inviting when once again, in Q. 5:69, the same four religions are distinguished following an address to the "possessors of scripture" several verses earlier. This sense of parallelism would appear in Q. 22:17 to extend to the Majūs—who are called into question by the obtrusion into the context of "those who associate" (gods with God). Whatever the solution, these groups constitute a significant internal witness to the religious demography, so to speak, within the Qur'anic universe.

To make sense of the demographic puzzle in which the Sabians figure as the least familiar piece, a fresh methodological "angle" is suggested by the inconclusive data obtained from the study of Muslim commentators. Their indecisive witness is itself a problem which may need to be explained in other ways than simply as resulting from educated speculation. Complementary to McAuliffe's illustrative exegetical survey, the present study employs, therefore, an historical methodology which enables us to place history alongside tradition. A comparison will be drawn between the prominent religious communities Islam encountered during its first two centuries of expansion and the groups identified as Ṣābi'ūn by Arabic and Persian authorities, primarily of the tenth century. Moreover, data gleaned from pre-Islamic sources will offer an independent witness, especially crucial for determining who the Qur'anic Sabians originally were.

The hypothesis we want to test in this article is that the tenth-century identifications of the Ṣābi'ūn which will be considered here reflect the first wave of Muslim expansion after the Prophet's death, especially the encounter with the groups listed by Waardenburg under numbers 5–9. In the case of the Sabians, an interpretation which accounts for diverse identifications would show the validity of data which otherwise would simply be dismissed as contradictory and therefore wrong.

It was natural in the course of time for Muslim authors to extend the application of the term Sabian to cover not only communities from a far distant past, but also contemporary communities with which they themselves came in contact, including some in Africa. Clearly, the term Sabian had by now proved to be the most meaningful and attractive nomenclature for comprehending foreign religiosities within what could still be considered a Qur'anic worldview.

Our study has shown that the issue of the apparent confusion among Muslim exegetes over the identity of the Sabians is resolved once the historical circumstances are grasped. Exactly because it was imprecise, the word Ṣābi'ūn functioned as a term of great legal importance by contributing to an attitude of toleration towards minority religions under Muslim rule. The term evolved from a once-specific designation to a classification which, adapted to ever new historical contexts, expanded its meaning to embrace peoples of otherwise uncertain standing, giving them a place of security within a Qur'anically sanctioned framework.

As far as the original Qur'anic Ṣābi'ūn are concerned, special attention was paid to the Cologne Mani Codex (CMC) which confirms the assertion found in the Fihrist that Sabians were Elchasaites, an identification which may also be implied in Hippolytus. On the basis of evidence to date, it seems justifiable to reaffirm Chwolsohn's conclusion that the Qur'anic Sabians were persons known for their emphasis on ritual purifications, predominantly Mandaeans and Elchasaites.