Results by title
54 books match the query 'Islamic Studies' and 3 start with f
Fatwas and Court Judgments
A Genre Analysis of Arabic Legal OpinionAhmed Fakhri
The Ohio State University Press, 2014
Fatwas and Court Judgments: A Genre Analysis of Arabic Legal Opinion uses a genre analysis approach to investigate how Arabic legal opinion is linguistically and rhetorically constructed in two culturally significant types of texts: secular court judgments and fatwas, the Islamic edicts based on sharii’a law. Ahmed Fakhri’s analysis shows that the court judgments exhibit several Western-inspired features, particularly the complexity of syntax and the rhetorical moves utilized to construct arguments. But the fatwas maintain conventional Arabic patterns of persuasion, such as citing religious texts, relying on affective appeal, and offering moral advice. Showing how these two radically different rhetorical traditions coexist, Fatwas and Court Judgments totally re-conceptualizes Arabic legal argumentation by highlighting its diverse sources and hybridity.
The differences between the two genres stem from elements of their socio-cultural context, such as the role relations of the participants and the characteristics of the institutions to which the genres belong. Moving beyond these contexts, Fatwas and Court Judgments reveals generic practices that have broad implications for understanding various aspects of wider Arab culture, including the tension between modern secular ideologies and traditional religious beliefs, the male-dominated access to discourse, and the prevalence of utilitarian attitudes exhibited in “fatwa shopping.”
The differences between the two genres stem from elements of their socio-cultural context, such as the role relations of the participants and the characteristics of the institutions to which the genres belong. Moving beyond these contexts, Fatwas and Court Judgments reveals generic practices that have broad implications for understanding various aspects of wider Arab culture, including the tension between modern secular ideologies and traditional religious beliefs, the male-dominated access to discourse, and the prevalence of utilitarian attitudes exhibited in “fatwa shopping.”
[more]
Forever Suspect
Racialized Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the War on TerrorSelod, Saher
Rutgers University Press, 2018
The declaration of a “War on Terror” in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks brought sweeping changes to the American criminal justice and national security systems, as well as a massive shift in the American public opinion of both individual Muslims and the Islamic religion generally. Since that time, sociologist Saher Selod argues, Muslim Americans have experienced higher levels of racism in their everyday lives. In Forever Suspect, Selod shows how a specific American religious identity has acquired racial meanings, resulting in the hyper surveillance of Muslim citizens. Drawing on forty-eight in-depth interviews with South Asian and Arab Muslim Americans, she investigates how Muslim Americans are subjected to racialized surveillance in both an institutional context by the state and a social context by their neighbors and co-workers. Forever Suspect underscores how this newly racialized religious identity changes the social location of Arabs and South Asians on the racial hierarchy further away from whiteness and compromises their status as American citizens.
[more]
Fraternal Critique
The Politics of Muslim Community in FranceKirsten Wesselhoeft
University of Chicago Press, 2025
An exploration of ways that discord binds rather than divides communal life, through an ethnography of French Muslim activism.
The conversation about Islam in France is framed by the presumption that Muslim communities are a threat to secular solidarity or fraternité. In the face of state repression, French Muslims have not closed ranks around a narrow range of voices; instead, Kirsten Wesselhoeft finds that young Muslim activists have continued to purposefully spark debate about the values that anchor community life. Wesselhoeft argues that such disagreements, far from dividing communities, actually constitute a form of belonging. Some activists call this ethic “fraternal critique,” and Wesselhoeft finds in it profound insights about the place for critique in civic life. The French state has reacted to Muslim solidarity with repression, but Wesselhoeft argues that unity need not come at the expense of dissent. Instead, fraternal critique can teach us how to build communities that are worth fighting over and fighting for.
The conversation about Islam in France is framed by the presumption that Muslim communities are a threat to secular solidarity or fraternité. In the face of state repression, French Muslims have not closed ranks around a narrow range of voices; instead, Kirsten Wesselhoeft finds that young Muslim activists have continued to purposefully spark debate about the values that anchor community life. Wesselhoeft argues that such disagreements, far from dividing communities, actually constitute a form of belonging. Some activists call this ethic “fraternal critique,” and Wesselhoeft finds in it profound insights about the place for critique in civic life. The French state has reacted to Muslim solidarity with repression, but Wesselhoeft argues that unity need not come at the expense of dissent. Instead, fraternal critique can teach us how to build communities that are worth fighting over and fighting for.
[more]