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Abstract: Some scholars have suggested a paradigm that the process of conversion to Islam in the Malay community was spread by Sufis. Historical reconstruction in this region is always associated with the teachings, rituals and religious behavior of Sufis. This research was conducted to describe the process of conversion to Islam in three paradigms, namely, political economy, history, and religion. This study found that the conversion of religion in Malay society was mostly played by economic actors. To facilitate this conversion, economic agents married local women and negotiated with the ruling sultans. From the existing sources (manuscripts and archives), economic actors had a significant role in Islam conversion for Malay society. Economic actors, in the 17-18 century AD, consisting of traders, were connected with countries in the Indian Ocean. Some of them came to the West Coast of Sumatra to trade spices. The traders who came were Muslims. Their arrival brought two purposes at once, namely the teachings of religion in the right hand and trading commodities in the left hand. Both of these goals were the driving force of traders to spread Islam in every visited region. This study has proven correlative with the condition of the Islamic community in the current Malay community, which is more engaged in the trade than other sectors. At the same time, the community becomes devout Muslims.الملخص: اقترح بعض الباحثين أن التحويل المتكامل إلى الدين الإسلامى فى المجتمع الملاوى نتيجة من جهود المتصوفين الكتابة التاريخية عن هذه المنطقة دائما متعلقة بالتعاليم، الطقوس، والأنشطة الدينية لهذه الفرقة يحاول هذا البحث تصوير وتفصيل عملية التحويل إلى الدين الإسلامى فى المجتمع الملاوى من جهة ثلاث: السياسى والاقتصادى، التاريخى، والدينى حصل البحث إلى النتيجة التالية أن العامل الاقتصادى له دور أهم فى التحويل الدينى فى المجتمع الملاوى تسهيلا لهذا التحويل، التجار يتزوجون المواطنات ويتفاوضون الملوك يمكن إدراك هذا الرأى من الأرشيف والمخطوطات لدينا كان التجار فى القرنى السابع والثامن عشر الميلادى مترابطين مع أنهم منتشرون عبر المحيط الهندى. عدد منهم ، معظمهم مسلمون، زار الساحل الغربى لسومطرة لتجارة التوابل والدعوة الإسلامية. هما، التجارة والدعوة، عاملان رئيسيان فى نشاطهم الاقتصادى والدينى كانت نتيجة هذا البحث توافق بأحوال المجتمع الملاوى فى زماننا الحاضر الذى يشتغل بالتجارة أكثر من اشتغالهم فى المهن الأخرى، بالاضافة إلى كونهم مسلمين متدينينAbstrak: Sebagian kalangan, selama ini membangun paradigma, bahwa proses konversi ke agama Islam pada masyarakat Melayu disebarkan oleh para sufi. Rekonstruksi sejarah di wilayah ini selalu dikaitkan dengan ajaran, ritual dan perilaku keagamaan para sufi. Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk menggambarkan dan mendeskripsikan proses konversi ke agama Islam dalam tiga paradigma, ekonomi politik, sejarah, dan keagamaan. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa konversi agama pada masyarakat Melayu lebih banyak diperankan oleh aktor ekonomi. Untuk mempermudah konversi tersebut, para pelaku ekonomi menikahi wanita setempat, dan melakukan negosiasi dengan sultan yang berkuasa. Dari sumber yang ada (manuskrip dan arsip), para pelaku ekonomi memiliki peran signifikan dalam mengkonversi agama Islam pada masyarakat Melayu. Aktor ekonomi, pada abad ke 17-18 masehi, yang terdiri dari para pedagang terkoneksi dengan negeri-negeri yang ada di Samudra Hindia. Sebagian dari mereka datang ke Pantai Barat, Sumatera untuk berdagang rempah-rempah. Para pedagang yang datang tersebut adalah pemeluk agama Islam. Kedatangan mereka membawa dua tujuan sekaligus, ajaran agama di tangan kanan dan komoditas perdagangan di tangan kiri. Kedua tujuan tersebut yang menjadi daya penggerak para pedagang untuk menyebarkan Islam di setiap wilayah yang disinggahi. Penelitian ini berkorelasi dengan kondisi masyarakat Islam pada masyarakat Melayu saat ini, yang lebih banyak menekuni sektor perdagangan dibanding sektor lain. Pada saat yang sama juga menjadi pemeluk Islam yang taat.

Motivated by the need to inform the enduring and unresolved debates about religion and politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, this report focuses on the relation between social change and religious diversity and the challenges this poses for the state–religion relationship. It also draws attention to the pluralization of the religious sphere, the individualization of religion and the unlikely return of a state monopoly of Islam. In a context marked by growing instability (coups d'état, popular uprisings, conflicts, political uncertainty), this report examines the future of political Islam, a major ideological trend in the region. It aims to offer a detailed historical and sociological analysis of the different trajectories of moderate political Islam movements, the emerging processes of doctrinal transformation, electoral and governmental participation and the extent to which they have challenged both Islamist organizations (Muslim brotherhood-affiliated organizations, Salafi movements) and jihadi movements (ISIS, al Qaeda). Ultimately, the report analyses the relations between religion and politics within Shiism (one of the two major branches of Islam), within Christian communities and finally within the major non-Muslim majority society in the region, Israel. Strongly objecting to prevailing reductionist and essentialist misrepresentations of the region and their sweeping doom-mongering generalizations, the report sheds light on the distinct dynamics of local histories, inter-organizational competition, the arising ideological tensions and geopolitical rivalries.

Amidst the global religious resurgence in the post-secular world, the field of international relations finds itself unwilling or unable to situate religion back to theoretical paradigms subject to the Westphalian–Enlightenment prejudice. Advocates of religion's theoretical and empirical significance often turn to religious soft power, a burgeoning theory that gradually becomes the anchorage of discussion but still suffers from conceptual ambiguity and limited explanatory capacity. This essay endeavors to fill in this lacuna by presenting the interdisciplinary attempt to integrate soft power in IR with the three dimensions of power in sociology, which results in a typology of performative, discursive, and relational dimensions of religious soft power. The explanatory and predictive capacity of this model is tested in the empirical case of the evangelical group's influence on US foreign policy of the post 9/11 Global War on Terror. A process-level historical account based on archival sources furthers scholars' knowledge of transnational religious actors' ability to seize both systematic transformations at the international level and contentious dynamics in the domestic environment, which generates a reorientation in norms, identities, and values that contributes to the outcome of foreign policy, thereby answering the un-addressed question of how religion influences domestic and international politics. The bridging of IR, sociology, and historical sociology, three fields often intertwined, suggests a future direction for not only the religious return to IR but also the overcoming of the "intellectual autism" of this discipline, which needs to be better prepared for continuous challenges of soaring populism, nationalism, and clash of civilizations in the twenty-first century.

Although modern scholars tend to be sceptical of the role of religion in the formation of ethical and political thought in the Būyid period (334/945–440/1048), this article argues that both philosophy and religion, as envisioned by al-Tawḥīdī and his contemporaries, played an integral role in its creation. The analysis shows that modern concepts such as 'humanism' and 'political philosophy,' as applied to these authors and their texts, are not felicitous to the social and intellectual contexts in which they were produced. Through analysing al-Tawḥīdī's ethical and political thought, certain modern assumed dichotomies, including scientific enquiry versus religious teaching, theoretical ethics versus practical ethics, and the social versus the personal, are reconsidered. The article argues that a contextual approach to al-Tawḥīdī and his peers should consider the encyclopaedic system of knowledge that shaped their thought and the interdisciplinary nature of their work where religious, philosophical, and literary elements are intertwined. The article highlights al-Tawḥīdī's political thought, his active role as an intellectual and his attempt to disseminate knowledge based on two main beliefs: the role of knowledge linked to action in social life and reform, and a solid sense of the religious and moral responsibility of the scholar to offer advice to the leaders of the community. The concepts that he uses, such as maḥabba (love) and ṣadāqa (friendship) with its four foundational components, namely the soul (nafs), intellect (ʿaql), nature (ṭabīʿa), and morals (khulq), addressed social and political challenges in Būyid society and produced alternative moral and intellectual responses to sectarianism, social disintegration and the decline in morality, which were characteristic of the Būyid era. Keywords: Ethical political thought, Būyid, Humanism, Political philosophy, ʿIlm (Knowledge), ʿAmal (action), Ṣadāqa (friendship), al-Tawḥīdī, Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ

Westliche Demokratien erleben derzeit eine Renaissance sozialer Identitäten. Die Aufwertung religiöser Identitäten in Öffentlichkeit und Politik kann als der vielleicht prominenteste Ausdruck der wachsenden gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung sozialer Identitäten gesehen werden. Groß ist zudem die öffentliche Verunsicherung über den Umgang mit religiösen Zugehörigkeiten und speziell mit Muslimen. Trennt oder fördert Religion den Zusammenhalt demokratischen Gesellschaften? Der neue Forschungsansatz des KONID-Projekts, dessen erste Ergebnisse im vorliegenden Bericht präsentiert werden, zielt darauf, religiöse Identitäten im Kontext ihrer gesellschaftlichen Bezüge differenziert und damit präziser als bisher zu erfassen. Das von DFG und SNF geförderte Forschungsprojekt "Konfigurationen individueller und kollektiver religiöser Identitäten und ihre zivilgesellschaftlichen Potentiale (KONID)" will die Bedeutung von religiösen Zugehörigkeiten und von Zuschreibungen auf religiöse Gruppen (wie etwa "die Katholiken", "die Juden", "die Muslime" etc.) beim Einzelnen sowie in der Gesellschaft und ihren Gruppen beschreiben und die Effekte religiöser Identitäten im gesellschaftlichen Miteinander analysieren und erklären. Dazu werden religiöse Identitäten mit anderen sozialen Identitäten, die Menschen wichtig sind bzw. anhand derer sie in Gruppen eingeteilt werden, in Beziehung gesetzt und in einem Ländervergleich Deutschland-Schweiz untersucht. Der KONID Survey 2019 hat die Bedeutung von Religion für soziale Identitäten in einer multithematischen, ländervergleichenden Repräsentativbefragung der Bevölkerung in Deutschland und der Schweiz ab 16 Jahren unter besonderer Berücksichtigung muslimischer Minderheiten erhoben. In beiden Ländern wurden dazu von Frühjahr bis Sommer 2019 jeweils über 3.000 Menschen befragt. Der KONID Survey 2019 hat nicht weniger als 21 mögliche soziale Identitäten erfasst und in ihre gesellschaftlichen und religiösen Kontexte gestellt. Die zentralen Befunde sind folgende: Religion ist auch in den komplexen ...

In this paper, I examine the book "Relations: Ontology and Philosophy of Religion" which is a collection of invited and selected papers dealing with both ontology and the philosophy of religion. It aims at showing how the two disciplines can fruitfully interact and provide useful tools for philosophical investigation. The background is relational ontology and analytical philosophy.

Internationally recognized scholars from many parts of the world provide a critical survey of recent developments and achievements in the global field of religious studies. The work follows in the footsteps of two former publications: Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Jacques Waardenburg (1973), and Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Frank Whaling (1984/85). New Approaches to the Study of Religion completes the survey of the comparative study of religion in the twentieth century by focussing on the past two decades. Many of the chapters, however, are also pathbreaking and point the way to future approaches.

How do Kurdish Islamists navigate the dilemma of having to relate to Islamism and nationalism at the same time? And why have Kurdish authorities in Iraq taken steps to centralise control over religious activities since 2014? These two questions are linked, because nationalism and Islamism have a long history of being intertwined in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), a de facto state. The paper argues that Kurdish Islamists, even Salafis, must relate to Kurdish nationalism to keep their followers. But Kurdish Islamists also believe in the specificity of Kurdish culture and identity, and support Kurdish statehood. The hybridisation of Islamism and nationalism in KRI has gone further since 2014, attributable to new political pressures in the religious field after Daesh. Kurdish political authorities intervene in the religious field by bureaucratising Islam, co-opting Islamic figures and promoting Kurdish Islam. Our argument is that state co-optation of religion is a step in the process towards state- and nation-building, but it is also a way of taking greater control of society. Analysing the Kurdish case, our paper takes an empirical approach informed by contextual and case-sensitive knowledge. ; The hybridisation of religion and nationalism in Iraqi Kurdistan: the case of Kurdish Islam ; publishedVersion

"In this book, essayists investigate fan activities connected to books, film, and online games, such as Harry Potter-themed weddings, using The Hobbit as a sacred text, and taking on heroic roles in World of Warcraft. Popular culture is revealed to be a fertile source of religious and spiritual creativity in the contemporary world"--