This book explores the public role of Islam in contemporary world politics. “Public Islam” refers to the diverse invocations and struggles over Islamic ideas and practices that increasingly influence the politics and social life of large parts of the globe. The contributors to this volume show how public Islam articulates competing notions and practices of the common good and a way of envisioning alternative political and religious ideas and realities, reconfiguring established boundaries of civil and social life. Drawing on examples from the late Ottoman Empire, Africa, South Asia, Iran, and the Arab Middle East, this volume facilitates understanding the multiple ways in which the public sphere, a key concept in social thought, can be made transculturally feasible by encompassing the evolution of non-Western societies in which religion plays a vital role.
Armando Salvatore is Reader in Comparative Historical Sociology and Social Theory at Humboldt University, Berlin. His recent books include
Religion, Social Practice, and Contested Hegemonies (2005, coedited with Mark LeVine),
Islam in Process: Historical and Civilizational Perspectives (2006, coedited with Johann P. Arnason and Georg Stauth), and
The Public Sphere: Between Tradition and Modernity (2007).
Dale F. Eickelman is Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of Anthropology and Human Relations at Dartmouth College (USA). His recent books include
The Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach, 4th ed. (2002) and, coauthored with James Piscatori,
Muslim Politics, new ed. (2003). He also coedited with Jon W. Anderson
New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, 2nd ed. (2003).