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The task confronting the person who seeks to survey the current state of the literature dealing with Islam as a religion is both enormous and complex. Since Muslims have traditionally considered themselves to be a religious commonwealth whose very identity is fixed by a shared religious commitment, it follows that virtually every writing on any subject whatsoever having to do with Muslims might be considered to fall within the field of religion. Even if one restricts his attention, as we propose to do here, to a more narrow view of religion, the task is still formidable. Muslims have been no less prolific than other major religious communities in producing dissident opinions from within their own fold. The history of Islamic sects, each with its own peculiar thought system and religious practice, is a field of study in itself and one that might well challenge the most energetic scholar. Far from being monolithic, as many of the scholarly cliches about Islam presuppose (e.g. Islam is a religion of Law, Islam is a religion of the Book, etc.), the religious experience of Muslims is diverse and multiform, defying the most sophisticated attempts to reduce it to order and system. No informed approach to the religiousness of Muslims can deal solely with a narrowly marked out "normative Islam". The deviations from the norm are also part of the reality of historic Islamic experience and cannot be set aside in favor of what one may prefer as religiously or conceptually pure. It quickly becomes clear to the perceptive inquirer that the meaning of Islam is an historical phenomenon cannot be stated in terms of a unified doctrinal system, a universally accepted set of rites, or common institutions.

"The construction of collective identity among the Muridiyya abroad is a communal but contested endeavor. Differing conceptions of what should be the mission of Muridiyya institutions in the diaspora reveal disciples' conflicting politics and challenge the notion of the order's homogeneity. While some insist on the universal dimension of Ahmadu Bamba Mbakke's calling and emphasize dawa (proselytizing), others prioritize preserving Muridiyya identity abroad by consolidating the linkages with the leadership in Senegal. Diasporic reimaginings of the Muridiyya abroad, in turn, inspire cultural reconfigurations at home. Drawing from a wide array of oral and archival sources in multiple languages collected in five countries, The Muridiyya on the Move reconstructs over half a century of the order's history, focusing on mobility and cultural transformations in urban settings. In this groundbreaking work, Babou highlights the importance of the dahira (urban prayer circle) as he charts the continuities and ruptures between Muridiyya migrations. Throughout, he delineates the economic, socio-political, and other forces that powered these population movements, including colonial rule, the economic crises of the postcolonial era, and natural disasters"--

Islam and politics; Arab countries; Islamic sects

Alevis societies; Islamic sects; Turkey; history; social survey

'Sectarianism' is one of the most over-discussed yet under-analysed concepts in debates about the Middle East. Despite the deluge of commentary, there is no agreement on what 'sectarianism' is. Is it a social issue, one of dogmatic incompatibility, a historic one or one purely related to modern power politics? Is it something innately felt or politically imposed? Is it a product of modernity or its antithesis? Is it a function of the nation-state or its negation? This text seeks to move the study of modern sectarian dynamics beyond these analytically paralyzing dichotomies by shifting the focus away from the meaningless '-ism' towards the root: sectarian identity.

This article seeks to address the problem of historiography and perspective in Middle East studies concerning dominated ethno-nations, especially the Kurds, while examining the religio-political confrontations between the Islamic empires and their significant socio-political consequences in Kurdistan through a historical study (primarily) based on secondary sources. With the dominance of the early Islamic Caliphate from the 7th century, the political powers of the Kurds' ancestors were removed and the non-Muslim population severely declined. From the middle of the Abbasid Caliphate period (750-1258) Kurdish governments grew again. After the Abbasids, various Islamic sects gained power and Kurdistan gradually becoming the battlefield of various political powers. With the emergence of two empires, the Sunni Ottoman and Shiite Safavid (and its successors) in the 16th century, the internal conflicts in the Islamic world culminated and lasted until the early 20th century. Between the 7th and the early 20th century religio-political confrontations converging in Kurdistan have severely affected the land's socio-political situation. This article examines how the Islamic empires used religion politically as a means to fight each other, as well as engage with the Kurdish revolts.

This chapter addresses the designation of Ṣūfi Master Javād Nūrbakhsh (1926–2008) and the Niʿmatullāhī 'Khaniqahi' Order or Khāniqāh-i-Niʿmat Allāhī as sectarian. Within the field of Islamic Studies, or even the broader scope of the study of Islam, there is no sufficient term that equates with 'sect' or 'sectarian'. Generally, Islamic history—from early on—is replete with examples of divisions between political alliances/parties (for example, shīʿat ʿAlī or shīʿat Muʿāwiya) pertaining to leadership (imāma) and schools of thought (madhhab) and to methods of reading and practicing the religion. Yet it has to be cautioned that none of these are tantamount to the 'church-sect typology' as set out in the sociology of religion for the Western Christian context. Max Weber (1922) and Ernst Troeltsch (1912) used the typology as a heuristic tool. In their theorising, the church was equated with the larger bureaucratic state-sponsored organisation that ministered to the general population, whilst the sect was the smaller evangelical group that adopted a radical stance towards the state. Bryan R. Wilson (1959, 1992) later modified the typology to define sects by the way in which they positioned themselves in opposition to social values or demonstrated their indifference to societal norms. In this sense, it has been more about a study that assists in the categorisation of dissention and along with it claims about the return to true religion. As such, and despite my own reservations about the application of 'sectarian' to groupings within Islam, one point of entry into the debate might very well be the combined issue of the interpretation of religion and legitimation of rule that both dominated early debates and forced Muslims to pick sides. Obviously, Muslims gradually became aware of partisanship, dissention, apostasy (ridda), and secession (khawārij), although more sharply once a sense of orthodoxy had begun to take shape.

Following the Arab Uprisings, new ways of understanding sectarianism and sect-based differences emerged. But these perspectives, while useful, reduced sectarian identities to a consequence of either primordial tensions or instrumentalised identities. While more recently 'third way' approaches addressed the problems with these two positions, the complexity of secatarian identities within and across states remains unexplored. This book fills the gap in the literature to offer a more nuanced reading of both sectarian identities and also de-sectarianization across the Middle East. To do so, the volume provides a comparative account, looking at Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It examines the ways in which sect-based difference shapes regional politics and vice versa. The book also contributes to burgeoning debates on the role of protest movements in sectarianism. Chapters are split across three main sections: the first looks at sects and states; the second traces the relationship between sects and regional dynamics; and the third examines de-sectarianization, that is, the contestation and destablization of sectarian identities in socio-political life. Each section provides a more holistic understanding of the role of sectarian identities in the contemporary Middle East and shows how sectarian groups operate within and across state borders, and why this has serious implications for the ordering of life across the Middle East.