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This article draws on theoretical insights from Foucault, Rose and the new sociology of childhood to critically examine the development and use of counter-extremism policies and practices in English schools. In particular, the article focuses on the introduction of Learning Together to be Safe: a toolkit to help schools contribute to the prevention of violent extremism and its implications for the rights of British Muslim children and young people. It is argued that this initiative contributes to a process of disciplinary normalisation of young British Muslims, with the intention of producing governable subjects. The analysis reveals a contradictory relationship between the commitment of the British State to upholding and implementing children's social and political rights (as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) whilst simultaneously pursuing policies and practices that constrain and undermine the social and political agency of British Muslim children and young people.

The revolution of information and communication technology has transformed the world into different shape, including Muslim world. This technology in the form of internet does not merely have the democratizing potential for Muslim world, but also has created a new public sphere and new Islamic authority. This paper discusses the role of internet as played by Muslim religious movement, especially Salafism in Indonesia. Using textual analysis of data collected from their websites, this article argues that the internet as modern technology of information and communication has helped Salafism rise to the public to show their ideological and doctrinal stances as well as to challenge their enemies such as Liberal Islam Network (Jaringan Islam Liberat), Shiah, and so on. Through the internet too, this movement respond to such contemporary issues as terrorism, earthquake and others. This means that although orthodox in doctrine and attitude, this movement can benefit from the internet very much for its missionary purposes.

Am 9. Juni 2014 drangen Kämpfer des Islamischen Staates im Irak und in Großsyrien (ISIS) von Syrien kommend weit in den Irak ein. Innerhalb weniger Tage eroberten sie den gesamten Westen des Landes und stießen bis kurz vor Bagdad vor. Am 29. Juni 2014 riefen sie einen "Islamischen Staat" und ein Kalifat aus. Erstmals kontrollieren Dschihadisten ein zusammenhängendes, grenzüberschreitendes Territorium im Nahen Osten. Mit der Ernennung ihres Anführers, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, zum Kalifen, das heißt zum religiösen und politischen Oberhaupt aller Muslime, dürften sie sich allerdings ideologisch und politisch übernommen haben. Der schnelle Erfolg des ISIS im Irak hat mehrere Ursachen: Der Irak ist politisch und ethnisch fragmentiert und in Teilen ohne zentralstaatliche Macht. ISIS verfügte bereits über eine territoriale Basis in Syrien, enorme Ressourcen an Waffen, Geld und Kriegern sowie irakische Bündnispartner im Kampf gegen die unpopuläre Regierung von Ministerpräsident Nuri al-Maliki in Bagdad. Mit der Übernahme des frühislamischen Konzeptes vom Kalifat appelliert ISIS an die Sehnsucht vieler Muslime nach kultureller Authentizität, religiöser Reinheit und politischer Einheit. Diese Versprechen erfüllt er jedoch nicht, da sein brutales Vorgehen selbst viele sunnitische Muslime verschreckt, die zu verteidigen er vorgibt. Das Kalifat beinhaltet einen politischen und religiösen Alleinvertretungsanspruch, den weder die bestehenden muslimischen Staaten noch die meisten sunnitischen religiösen Autoritäten akzeptieren werden. Der ISIS-Vormarsch hat die Fragmentierung des Irak verschärft, und er könnte das Ende des Einheitsstaates beschleunigen. Eine Aufspaltung in ethnisch-konfessionelle Einzelstaaten wird die strukturellen Probleme des Landes jedoch nicht lösen, sondern sie nur multiplizieren.

This article draws on theoretical insights from Foucault, Rose and the new sociology of childhood to critically examine the development and use of counter-extremism policies and practices in English schools. In particular, the article focuses on the introduction of Learning Together to be Safe: a toolkit to help schools contribute to the prevention of violent extremism and its implications for the rights of British Muslim children and young people. It is argued that this initiative contributes to a process of disciplinary normalisation of young British Muslims, with the intention of producing governable subjects. The analysis reveals a contradictory relationship between the commitment of the British state to upholding and implementing children's social and political rights (as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child), whilst simultaneously pursuing policies and practices that constrain and undermine the social and political agency of British Muslim children and young people.

This article focuses on the use of force under Islamic law, i.e., jus ad bellum. Islamic law allows the use of force in self-defence and in defence of those who are oppressed and unable to defend themselves. In contrast, the offensive theory of jihad is untenable. Muslim states follow the defensive theory of jihad. Islamic law also allows, under certain conditions, anticipatory self-defence. Only the head of a Muslim state (a ruler or caliph) is allowed to declare jihad. Most of the current so-called declarations of jihad have been issued by non-state actors, e.g. Al-Qaeda, who have no authority to declare jihad. These declarations thus have no validity under Islamic law and, indeed, Muslim states are fighting these armed groups. Islamic law imposes certain restrictions on the use of force in self-defence, i.e., military necessity, distinction, and proportionality. Accepting an offer of peace and humanity are also relevant conditions.

Philosophical legacy of ancient Greeks greatly influenced the shaping of Medieval Islamic thought. Especially popular were writings of Aristotle, particularly his logical works. Muslims very quickly noticed that logic is a very practical tool, both in discussions with non-Muslims, as well as polemics within Islam itself. This article focuses on three thinkers:Al-Ghazali, Averroes and Ibn al-Munajjim.Al-Ghazali's ideas exemplify how logic was used in theological disputes within Islam itself. Averroes , in turn, in one of his major works "The Decisive Treaty", tries to refute accusation aimed at impiety of philosophers. Ibn Rushd shows that philosophy is not contrary to the principles of faith but just opposite. He states that The Quran encourages to learn and deepen the philosophy, because it is the best way to cognition of the truth and it based on syllogistic deduction. Concluding, the article presents how logic was used in disputes with non-Muslims by referring to Ibn al-Munajjim letter.

Under the auspices of the 'war against terrorism', New Labour's period of political governance in the UK was characterized by an activist, pre-emptive approach to (inter)national security. This approach was domestically embedded in specific counter-terrorism measures such as extensions to detention without charge, the expansion of stop and search measures and the deployment of control orders. Situated in this context, this article analyses the reflections of a group of young British Pakistani Muslims living in the north-west of England. First, we detail the process of risk subjectification through which institutional labelling narrowly defines Muslims as threatening and dangerous. Second, we consider the consolidation of practices of self-surveillance through which young Muslims seek to protect themselves and deflect stigmatization. In conclusion, we suggest that counter-terrorism policies have succeeded in reproducing a state of partial securities in and through which certain groups are protected and 'others' exposed to scrutiny and hostility.

What happens to the religious identity, belief, and practice of Muslims who settle in Western countries? Do they, or their children and subsequent generations, gradually become more secular? Or do they react against the dominant ethos and perceived prejudice by becoming more religious? We review recent research that touches on these questions. Most Muslim immigrants outside the United States come from rural areas of less developed countries where religiosity is higher than in the receiving societies. Residence in areas of high coethnic concentration, support from religious communities, and religious endogamy help to maintain religious commitment. The situation is more complicated for the second generation. Western culture has an influence, but structural integration does not necessarily reduce religiosity. Some children of immigrants try to follow a "real" Islam that has been purified of culturally specific practices. Hostility toward Muslims may lead some to react by increasing their own religious involvement.

As rental markets move online, techniques to assess racial/ethnic rental housing discrimination should keep pace. We demonstrate an audit method for assessing discrimination in Toronto's online rental market. As a multicultural city with less segregation and more diverse visible minorities than most US cities, Toronto lends itself to multiname audit studies. We sent 5,620 fictitious email inquiries to landlords offering apartments on Craigslist, a popular Internet classifieds service. Each landlord received one inquiry each from five racialized groups—Caucasian, Black, E/SE Asian, Muslim/Arabic, and Jewish. In our experiments, "opportunity denying" discrimination (exclusion through nonresponse) was 10 times as common as "opportunity diminishing" discrimination (e.g., additional rental conditions). We estimate Muslim/Arabic–racialized men face the greatest resistance, with discrimination occurring in 12 percent of experiments. The level of discrimination is modest but significant for Asian men (7 percent), Blacks (5 percent), and Muslim/Arabic women (5 percent). Discrimination was evenly spread throughout the city.

AbstractThis paper analyzes the political project of secular Islam as outlined by the Indian political and religious leader, Muhammad Shah—also known as Aga Khan III (1877–1957). As first president of the All India Muslim League, Muhammad Shah facilitated the installation of separate electorates for Muslims as well as the call for Partition. The reformist notion of Islam he invoked for this separatist programme was informed by the secular and modernizing projects of the colonial public sphere. Simultaneously, however, Muhammad Shah claimed a divine role as Imam of the Ismaili Muslim community—a position validated by Ismaili beliefs and teachings of messianic Islam. The paper engages Muhammad Shah's writings and the devotional texts of the Ismailis to illustrate how the heterogeneous forms of practices peculiar to the vernacular history of Islam in early modern South Asia were displaced by the discourse of religious identity in the colonial period.

Do ethnic minority populations cope better with the transition from socialism and subsequent economic decline than Russian majority populations in post-communist Russia?
Using multivariate and random-effects models for the 1994–2004 panel data and adjusting for income, urbanization, and crime, this paper demonstrates that the long-standing pattern of Muslim mortality advantage continued to persist during the post-Soviet mortality crisis in Russia. This study suggests that in the ethno-territorial federative system of Russia belonging not to autonomous republics, but to the Muslim ethno-religious communities was significant in resistance to cumulative death crisis during a period of dramatic societal changes. In fact, both living in the Caucasus environment and in the Muslim ethno-religious communities appeared to be significant factors. This study suggests that not only religion, but cultural practices based on ethno-religious and environmental prescriptions may account for collectively healthier practices and, therefore, advantageous mortality outcomes.

This article probes the link between anti-colonial nationalist thought and a theory of jihad in early twentieth-century India. An emotive affinity to the ummah was never a barrier to Muslims identifying with patriotic sentiments in their own homelands. It was in the context of the aggressive expansion of European power and the ensuing erosion of Muslim sovereignty that the classical doctrine of jihad was refashioned to legitimize modern anti-colonial struggles. The focus of this essay is on the thought and politics of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. A major theoretician of Islamic law and ethics, Azad was the most prominent Muslim leader of the Indian National Congress in pre-independence India. He is best remembered in retrospectively constructed statist narratives as a "secular nationalist", who served as education minister in Jawaharlal Nehru's post-independence cabinet. Yet during the decade of the First World War he was perhaps the most celebrated theorist of a trans-national jihad.

The goal of this research is to examine how Arab women newly emigrated to the United States struggle to decide how to blend with or into the fabric of this country while still retaining their culture, language and religion in a manner that is comfortable and acceptable to them. All the interviewees were Arab/Muslim women from the countries of Iraq and Lebanon. The research also examines the conflict among Muslim women over the decision as to whether or not to wear the hijab or veil covering their heads.
This research is important in creating an understanding of the needs and differences, as well as the desires and similarities, of Arab/Muslim women and American women. It is also important for differentiating between assimilation, multiculturalism and selective acculturation. Any research and analysis that works to emphasize common values and acceptance of differences also works toward the building of a peaceful community.

American foreign policy will more effectively counter Islamist terrorism if it more effectively counters the terrorists' invocation of Islam. The indirect promotion of religious tolerance in the Muslim world, rather than direct promotion of Western-style democracy, is the key. To that end, the United States must cultivate Muslim human-rights activists and intellectuals as assiduously as it did their Soviet counterparts during the Cold War. First, however, it must reassert the constitutional separation of church and State that some Americans seem eager to blur. No velvet revolution impends in any case: the Muslim political future will probably look more like Yugoslavia than Czechoslovakia. But long-running internecine conflicts may have left the umma in a state of exhaustion analogous to Europe's at the end of the Thirty Years War. Ihere is, in short, a moment to be seized if American diplomacy can muster the cultural sophistication to seize it. (Survival / SWP)