Muslim-majority Societies Research Articles

Introduction

Miller-Idriss, C., Siddiqui, S. (2019). Introduction. Journal of Education in Muslim Societies, 1(1), 1–2. DOI 10.2979/jems.1.1.01 • Copyright © 2019 International Institute of Islamic Thought Introduction W elcome to the first issue of the Journal of Education in Muslim Societies (JEMS), which is being published as part of the International Institute of Islamic Thought’s new Advancing Education in Muslim Societies (AEMS) initiative in partnership with Indiana University Press. JEMS aims to contribute original scholarly research to debates, practices, policies , and reforms affecting education in Muslim societies in an attempt to link the academic and theoretical domains with policy and practice. By casting light on the state of education and educational reform in these societies, we seek to interrogate their core problems, needs, reform objectives, approaches and perspectives, crosscutting trends, innovations, opportunities, and other education-related challenges. Some clarification of terms is important. First, we reject the notion that the world is divided into Muslim and non-Muslim societies. Thus, the journal examines education in any society in which Muslims are present. In Muslim-majority societies, for example, our examination may focus on nationwide systems (secular as well as religious), while in Muslim-minority societies, we may study the educational activity of the indigenous Muslim populations. Second, our definition of education is broad and inclusive. It includes, but is not limited to, religious education, PreK-12, higher education, parenting, nonformal education, youth development, and adult learning over the course of one’s life. Within formal educational systems, we seek scholarly contributions related to education policy, curriculum, pedagogy, governance and leadership, and assessment and evaluation. Outside of formal educational systems, we aim to publish original research on early childhood development and parenting, non-formal and alternative education, after-school programs and summer camps, and continuing education programs. JEMS also encourages scholarship in the areas of educational equity; the context of education; the role of philanthropy in education; and the relevant philosophical, epistemological, and theoretical underpinnings. We seek articles by researchers from across disciplines (for example, history, political science, religious studies, sociology, public affairs, nonprofit management, business, and philanthropy) and from policymakers and practitioners throughout the world working in this emerging field. This first issue focuses on the role of what we call “third space reform” in education. Most existing approaches to global educational reform frame education in utilitarian and transactional terms, viewing it as a means to strengthen democracy (the first space) or as an engine for a nation’s economic development (the second space). These are not unworthy goals, of course. However, the AEMS initiative starts from the premise that the purpose of education is both utilitarian and transformative. In this framework, education is not only a transaction through 2 JournalofEducationinMuslimSocieties · Vol. 1, No. 1 which degree attainment leads to a life of accomplishments, but also a lifelong process through which individuals experience meaning and fulfillment. Responding to a need for highlighting socio-emotional learning and holistic learner development, AEMS represents a potential “third space” in global educational reform efforts—one that blends and expands the civic education and human capital approaches toward overall student and human well-being. This is a key philosophical difference with existing approaches to education reform. Given its strong research and evidence base, AEMS will ensure that all children have access to education for a meaningful life—namely, one that offers psychological and emotional stability; social and relational fulfillment; and purposeful and impactful economic, community, and political engagement. This first issue consists of a report of the Symposium on Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society held at Indiana University in Indianapolis during October 2018, which analyzed issues related to education in Muslim societies, three peerreviewed research articles, and four book reviews. In the flagship article for this premiere issue, Ilham Nasser, Cynthia MillerIdriss , and Ahmed Alwani present the conceptual research framework underpinning AEMS, an empirical initiative that seeks to contribute evidence-based knowledge on the state of education and, more specifically, the well-being of students in an authentic and context-sensitive manner. While prior educational research and interventions have emphasized education for employment or citizen development, the authors argue for a broader and more holistic approach to young people...

Whatever Happened to Civil Islam? Islam and Democratisation in Indonesia, 20 Years On

ABSTRACTAs the hopeful dreams of the 2011 “Arab spring” have given way to anti-democratic repression in most Arab-majority nations, the question of Islam and democracy in Indonesia has been thrust to the centre of policy and research attention once more. With some 260 million people, 87 per cent of whom are Muslim, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-majority society in the world and the third-largest democracy. Analysts disagree as to whether Indonesia offers an example of a successful democratic transition in a Muslim-majority country. This debate serves as the background to this article’s revisiting of a book written almost 20 years ago, Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia. The article opens with a discussion of the personal and theoretical preoccupations that informed the approach adopted in Civil Islam. It then addresses the broader question of the degree to which the promise of the 1998 transition has been fulfilled. The article ends by examining Civil Islam’s core conclusions in light of recent developments in Indonesia. These include a “conservative turn” in Islamist circles committed to the creation of a religiously differentiated citizenship. The results of the April 2019 elections suggest, however, that the supporters of a religiously inclusive Islam have by no means been vanquished.

STATE-NGOS RELATIONSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES: A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS ON POLITICAL SPACE FOR NGOS IN MALAYSIA

Development of a country is a significant marker of the successful planning and implementation of policies by the government. It also shows the government’s ability to manage the country’s resource and wealth efficiently and effectively. The study on development has shown that the underlying perspectives that dominate the discussions on economics also determine the meaning and indicators for development. This article discusses the two central actors in development by looking at the relationship between state and NGOs in a Muslim majority society i.e. Malaysia. It looks at the pattern of the relationship through the political space allowed for NGOs to operate. An analysis on this suggests that political orientation of the NGOs and importance of state political survival shape the pattern of state-NGO relationship especially during the era of the government under Barisan Nasional (BN). This article argues that despite the legalistic and restrictive structure imposed on NGOs to mobilise, they are still considered the best partners for the government in meeting the goals of state development agenda.

Rent-seeking behaviour and ẓulm (injustice/exploitation) beyond ribā-interest equation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of rent-seeking behaviour and rentier state in the context of ẓulm (injustice and exploitation), which is one of the key concerns in Islam in general and Islamic economics and finance in particular. Design/methodology/approach As a conceptual paper, it draws on the literature of rent-seeking as part of public choice theory and examines the potential vulnerabilities as well as existence of rent-seeking in Muslim-majority countries, where Islamic finance industry primarily operates. Findings The paper identifies several areas where both actual and potential rent-seeking exists. Research limitations/implications The paper is conceptual. Based on the analysis presented here further studies can be undertaken to determine the scope of rent-seeking and their impact in Muslim-majority societies. Practical implications Incorporating rent-seeking in the theoretical and conceptual framework of Islamic economics and finance can enhance understanding about ẓulm and its ubiquitous presence, as Islam has a firm stance to aspire to have a ẓulm-free society. Social implications Understanding rent-seeking behaviour can help appreciate why corruption, inequality and poverty are so entrenched, and why limiting the discourse to ribā (interest) ignores the broader scope of injustice and exploitation. Originality/value This might be the first focused paper that conceptually deals with rent-seeking behaviour, connecting the discourse about ribā-interest equation.

Avoiding the “F” word: feminist geography in Iran

Little attention has been given to how feminist geography is defined, applied, and taught in non-Anglophone countries, especially in Muslim majority societies where Women’s Rights are quite different from the western world. The case of Iran among other Middle Eastern countries becomes even more isolated due to the several political, linguistic, and cultural limitations opposed on Iranian academics and international collaborations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women make half of Iran’s 80 million population, 63% of university graduates, almost half of informal workers, 30% of Iranian professors, 13% of high level management position holders, and under 5% of the Islamic Majlis (Iran’s Parliament). However, feminist geography, the sub-discipline that has been traditionally dedicated to the inclusion of gender as an analytical lens within Geography, is not a recognized field at any departments in Iran. This essay aims to present the current status of feminist geographic research and teaching at selected Iranian Universities. My goal is to offer a better understanding of how the local social and political context affect what constitute feminist geographic work and how geographers navigate the political and hierarchal university systems to engage in gender studies. Through informal interviews via emails and Skype with several Iranian geographers, I illustrate why Iranian geographers often avoid using “feminist” terminology in recognizing their work, even though their work is feminist.

Islam, Social Justice, and Democracy

AbstractEgalitarian preferences and benevolence are significant elements of Islamic social justice, which is one of the main pillars of Islam's ethico-political system. Surprisingly, empirical investigations about attitudinal implications of Islamic social justice values are rare. This is one of the first studies examining the correlations between Islam, social justice values, and regime preferences. It proposes that benevolence and egalitarian distributive preferences will induce democratic support and mediate the effect of religiosity on democratic orientations. Seemingly unrelated regression estimations using a Muslim-only sample from the sixth wave of the World Values Surveys support these hypotheses. The effects of social justice values are exclusive to support for democracy and not to support for authoritarian systems. Furthermore, religiosity increases support for democracy through intermediate mechanism of social justice values. These results imply that, next to principles ofijtihad,ijma, andshura, Islamic social justice values can induce pluralistic ideas in Muslim majority societies.

The Politics of Christian Love: Shaping Everyday Social Interaction and Political Sensibilities Among Coptic Egyptians

Christian love has historically been subject of extensive theological study but has rarely been studied within anthropology. Contemporary Coptic society receives growing attention over the last two decades as a minority in Egyptian Muslim majority society. An important bulk of this scholarship involves a discussion of the community’s sometimes self-defined and sometimes ascribed characterization as a persecuted minority. Particular attention has gone to how social and political dimensions of minority life lead tochanges in Christian theological understandings This paper builds on these insights and examines how Christian love is experienced, and shapes feelings of belonging, everyday morality and political sensibilities vis-à-vis Muslim majority society. It draws from ethnographic observations and meetings with Copts living in Egypt between 2014–2017. It focuses on three personal narratives that reveal the complex ways in which a theology of love affects social and political stances. An anthropological focus reveals the fluid boundaries between secular and religious expressions of Christian love. Love for God and for humans are seen as partaking in one divine love. Practicing this love, however, shapes very different responses and can lead to what has been described as Coptic ‘passive victim behaviour’, but also to political activity against the status-quo.

Womenless Space: The Islamist Exclusion of Women from Public Space

This article problematizes the exclusion of women from Islamist public space, situating it within a cycle of sexual suppression. To this end, I analyze some of the immediate consequences of Islamists' extreme obsession with controlling the fetishized female body. From the outset, I want to make clear that the arguments advanced in this article are not necessarily applicable to all or even most Muslim-majority societies. My focus is on Islamism, what Bassam Tibi defines as a form of “religionized politics.”1 While Islamism has been on the rise for decades, it is by no means the dominant ideology in most Muslim-majority…

Embedded diasporas: ethnic prejudice, transnational networks and foreign investment

Ethnic diasporas are important actors in the global economy. Thanks to their transnational networks and cultural skills, migrants help to deepen economic ties between nations. Existing research, however, overlooks that diaspora communities are ethnic minorities embedded in potentially hostile social environments, as they often face social exclusion and discrimination. This article studies the economic implications of international migration by focusing on the relationship between migrant minorities and indigenous majorities. It argues that ethnic prejudice against entrepreneurial diasporas may constrain their ability to foster international economic integration, as it lowers public support for international flows. Empirical support for this hypothesis is found in a survey experiment leveraging on the case of Indonesia, a Muslim-majority society in which a small Chinese minority has long played a key role in domestic and international business. The findings have implications for research on migrant networks, international political economy and diaspora policy.

Critical Issues in Islamic Education Studies: Rethinking Islamic and Western Liberal Secular Values of Education

This paper examines two sets of interrelated issues informing contemporary discussions on Islam and education that take place within both Muslim majority and minority contexts. The first set of issues concerns the academic conceptualisation of the study of education within diverse historical and contemporary Islamic cultural, intellectual, political, theological and spiritual traditions. After a critical examination of the current literature, the paper suggests that ‘Islamic Education Studies’ offers a distinctive academic framing that incorporates an interdisciplinary empirical and scholarly inquiry strategy capable of generating a body of knowledge and understanding guiding the professional practice and policy development in the field. Lack of conceptual clarity in various current depictions of the field, including ‘Muslim Education’, ‘Islamic Pedagogy’, ‘Islamic Nurture’ and ‘Islamic Religious Pedagogy’, is outlined and the frequent confusion of Islamic Education with Islamic Studies is critiqued. The field of Islamic Education Studies has theological and educational foundations and integrates interdisciplinary methodological designs in Social Sciences and Humanities. The second part of the inquiry draws attention to the lack of new theoretical insights and critical perspectives in Islamic Education. The pedagogic practice in diverse Muslim formal and informal educational settings does not show much variation and mostly is engaged with re-inscribing the existing power relations shaping the society. The juxtaposition of inherited Islamic and borrowed or enforced Western secular educational cultures appears to be largely forming mutually exclusive, antagonistic and often rigid ‘foreclosed’ minds within contemporary Muslim societies. The impact of the educational culture and educational institutions on the formation of resentful Islamic religiosities and the reproduction of authoritarian leadership within the wider mainstream Muslim communities have not been adequately explored. The study stresses the need to have a paradigm shift in addressing this widely acknowledged educational crisis. The formation of a transformative educational culture remains the key to being able to facilitate reflective and critical Muslim religiosities, and positive socio-economic and political change in Muslim majority and minority societies. This inquiry explores a significant aspect of this crisis by re-examining the degree to which Islamic and Western, liberal, secular conceptions and values of education remain irreconcilably divergent or open to a convergent dialogue of exchange, reciprocity and complementarity. The originality of the paper lies in offering a critical rethinking of Islamic Education through mapping the main relevant literature and identifying and engaging with the central theoretical issues while suggesting a new academic framing of the field and its interdisciplinary research agenda.

The Prospects and Problems of the Marrakesh Declaration on the Rights of Religious Minorities in Muslim Majority Communities

The aim of the Marrakesh Declaration is to tackle discriminatory practices against religious minorities living under Muslim majority rule through the promotion of religious pluralism. Nevertheless, the realization of this aim continues to generate debate among scholars. This paper raises and analyzes the following questions. Who are the religious minorities in Muslim majority states? What is the cause of their persecution? What theories explain the problem? How unique is this approach to human right norms, and how different is the Marrakesh Declaration compared to similar initiatives like the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights 1990? The paper finds that the Marrakesh Declaration focuses on one aspect of religious pluralism to the exclusion of others. The paper argues that human rights norms viewed through the framework of Islam and presented as tools for negotiation instead of norms that are universal, and by extension higher than sharia norms, in Muslim majority societies are more appropriate than the Medina Charter as framework for the achievement of the objectives of the Marrakesh Declaration.

Africa’s Muslim Authorities and Ahmadis: Curbed Freedoms, Circumvented Legalities

The Ahmadiyya Community (hereafter Ahmadis) encountered difficulties to freely express their beliefs and creeds in both Muslim majority societies and Muslim minority communities. Since the Ahmadis are among those communities that departed from the traditional Muslim theological position, the traditional Muslim authorities curbed their beliefs and practices through the issuing of fatwas. In response the Ahmadis tried to avoid being harassed and persecuted by seeking ways of circumventing the legalities. This article evaluates the theological clashes that occasionally occurred between the Ahmadis and these Muslim authorities in African settings where religious communities have generally experienced relative religious freedom.

“Free Hair”: Narratives of Unveiling and the Reconstruction of Self

AbstractVoluntary unveiling by Muslim women has largely been overlooked within the context of Islamization. In Muslim-majority societies where the hijab is not legally imposed on women, Muslim wome...

Installing Islamic Art: Interior Space and Temporal Imagination

Abstract This special issue challenges the anachronistic image of Islamic art galleries that dominated the museum field worldwide during the twentieth century and seeks alternative modes of display to suit current sociopolitical circumstances. Entitled ‘Installing Islamic Art: Interior Space and Temporal Imagination’, the present issue gathers articles dealing with multifaceted topics that address the issue of display and curation of ‘Islamic art’. While the term itself requires further critical reassessment, each author offers an innovative approach and methodological proposition in an effort to recontextualize the current exhibitory trends in the public presentation of material remains from Muslim-majority societies, including the Arab lands, Iran, Turkey, and South Asia. Taken together, this collection of articles reveals many possibilities, rather than limitations, regarding how to thoughtfully showcase Muslim cultural heritage, representing a positive indication of future of curating Islamic art.

Culturalizing religion in Western Europe: Patterns and puzzles

The relationship between culture and religion in Western Europe is marked by opposite, if not contradictory trends. One is the rise of ‘pure’ religion, abstracted from ethnicity and culture, which is registered particularly among immigrant minorities. This article focuses on an opposite trend of ‘culturalizing’ religion, which has occurred on the part of majority society. A prominent actor driving this trend is the high courts, which try to square the circle of living up to liberal state neutrality and acknowledging a privileged position for majority religion in society. However, the privileging of Christianity in Europe is light and largely symbolic, as I show in a contrast with the substantive privileging of Islam in Muslim-majority societies. If applied to immigrant Islam, culturalization still has exclusive implications, as it removes the respective practices from the ambit of religious liberty protections.

‘Good Muslim women’ at work: An Islamic and postcolonial perspective on ethnic privilege

AbstractWithin sparse studies available on ethnic privilege at work, the emphasis is dominantly on ethnic privileges available to white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, heterosexual men and to a lesser extent white women. This paper presents and develops an Islamic and postcolonial perspective on ethnic privilege, which is unique not only due to contextual and cultural differences but also due to its postcolonial nature and composition. By postcolonial, the paper refers to cultural legacies of Arab colonialism and ideology in South Asia and elsewhere. Drawing on a qualitative study of Muslim female employees in Pakistan, the paper shows that religio-ethnic privilege represents postcolonial influences of a foreign (Arab-Salafi, ultra-orthodox Islamist) culture on a (non-Arab Muslim) society, and as such does not represent ethnic norms of a local mainstream society. The paper investigates the case of religio-ethnic privilege and female employment in Pakistan and examines how a foreign-influenced stereotype of female modesty is used to benchmark and preferentially treat ‘good Muslim women.’ The analysis shows that an Islamic and postcolonial lens may be needed to understand the nature and implications of religio-ethnic privilege at work in Muslim majority countries and societies.

Moderating role of religiosity on Zakat compliance behavior in Nigeria

PurposeThis paper examines the moderating effect of religiosity in the theory of reasoned action (TRA) on intention to comply with the Zakat on employment income (ZEI).Design/methodology/approachA survey of civil servants in Kano State, Nigeria was carried out and 474 valid observations were retrieved from the 700 distributed questionnaires. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to validate the instrument that measures the variables, examined the structural model and the predictive relevance of the study’s model.FindingsThe results revealed the suitability of both the TRA and the PLS-SEM in the study of ZEI behavioral intention in a developing country. All the hypothesized direct relationships were supported on the one hand. On the other hand, one of the two indirect relationships, subjective norm and behavioral intention moderated by religiosity was supported, but the other tests for moderating effects of religiosity on the relationship between attitude and behavioral intention was not.Practical implicationsPublic and private Zakat institutions in Muslim majority societies in Nigeria and in other Muslim countries may use the findings to focus their attention on the formulation of policies based on the findings of the study to strengthen eligible Zakat payers’ intention to comply to further boost their Zakat collections.Originality/valueThis study extends the TRA in the context of ZEI by proposing religiosity as a moderator in the predictive capacity of TRA on ZEI. Moreover, the suitability for the use of PLS-SEM as a statistical tool in investigating the extended TRA with religiosity as a moderating variable as well as its implications for theory and practice were also discussed.

Gendering ‘Everyday Islam’: an introduction

ABSTRACTIn this introductory paper, we contribute to the important debate on 'Everyday Islam' by thinking about ways in which the everyday constitutes a useful analytical category in relation to Islam, not in contrast to studies of Islamic piety and normativity, but as co-constituted with (Islamic) morality. Secondly, drawing on a feminist critique in anthropology that is intricately linked to the discussion of the everyday in the wider Mediterranean, we seek to insert 'gender' as an analytical category into the debate on everyday Islam and quotidian life in the region, focusing on norms of femininity and the particular experiences of women. The focus on women, we argue, is especially suited to analyse the gendered dynamics in Muslim-majority societies and indeed an almost revolutionary process within Islam in recent years, namely that of women becoming knowledgeable, self-reflective and 'literate' in reference to the hermeneutics and rhetorics of Islamic texts.The main research question that this introduction, as well as the entire special issue raises is whether we are witnessing a new kind of gendered 'everyday Islam,' one in which Muslim women claim leadership roles, not in spite of their everyday modes of living, but through their mastery of the minutiae of everyday life as part of a deeper ethical project of self-transformation. The question pays tribute to Saba Mahmood's work, to whom this special issue is dedicated. We argue that it needs to be investigated empirically on the background of the fact that there is no longer any simple ‘doxa’ or taken-for-granted assumptions for many actors in the wider Mediterranean, whether these be secular, Islamic or Christian norms and doctrines.

"Rosy, White, and Clean Pages of History": Jojo Eskenazi's "Moiz Plays" and the Politics of Contemporary Jewish Theatre in Turkey

"Rosy, White, and Clean Pages of History":Jojo Eskenazi's "Moiz Plays" and the Politics of Contemporary Jewish Theatre in Turkey İlker Hepkaner (bio) Introduction Approximately 18,000 Jews currently live in Turkey, comprising one of the largest Jewish populations living within a Muslim majority society.1 In this community, there are multiple amateur theatre groups, either housed in clubs open only to Jewish community members based in İstanbul or staging their plays under the auspices of the Jewish Community of Turkey (Türkiye Musevi Cemaati)2 and the Chief Rabbinate. Despite its popularity among members of the community, contemporary Jewish theatre in Turkey has received little attention from scholars working on theatre in Turkey or on Jewish identity in theatre in national and transnational contexts. Among the Jewish theatre groups' activities, Jojo Eskenazi's comedic "Moiz plays" stand out for their consistent performance schedule and the support they receive from Turkey's Jewish community leaders and members, particularly for their political messages and community-building function.3 These plays are centered around İstanbullu Manifaturacı Moiz (Moiz the Draper from Istanbul), played by Eskenazi himself, and Moiz's wife Kleret, played by Fani Bonofiyel. Analysis of the texts, recorded performances, playbills, and introductory remarks by the organizers before performances of these plays unravels their wider functionality within the Jewish community and the theatre scene in Turkey.4 Moiz plays staged in the last twenty years crystallize [End Page 323] how Jews of Turkey engage with international Jewish, Turkish-national, and communal identity discourses; partake in the contemporary efforts of preserving Judeo-Spanish through bilingual performances; and contribute to transnational connections among Jews of Turkey in Turkey and Israel.5 When Moiz plays are analyzed in relation to the cultural context in Turkey and not as isolated cultural products only by/about/for the Jewish community in Turkey, the contemporary Jewish amateur theatre proves to be an important part of Turkey's theatre scene, a scene which needs reframing outside mainstream institutions and practices—that is, only consisting of performances in the Turkish language or staged by state institutions. Focusing on Jews' transition from an Ottoman millet (confession-based community) to a modern Turkish minority or their emigration to Europe, the Americas, and Israel, contemporary studies have investigated Jews' self-positioning within the modern Turkish context from a state-minority relations perspective. Jews' cultural production in Turkey has been analyzed only as those of a minority, almost completely isolated from the majority cultural context, not in relation to and as part of the context that is dominated by the Sunni-Turkish majority's cultural conventions.6 Discussing the political repercussions of studying "Arab-Jews," Shohat argues that segregating Middle Eastern Jewish cultures from their local contexts has served Eurocentric and Zionist interpretations of history, especially in the light of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East. By selectively reading Judeo-Muslim histories through a "pogromatic" discourse which only focuses on contentions and not on collaboration between Jews and Muslims, the Euro-Israeli historiography has subsumed the Jewish histories in the Muslim lands to a "universal" Jewish experience defined by the European Jews' history.7 Such discourse rejects "an Arab and Muslim context for Jewish institutions, identities, and histories."8 Instead of these deliberate distortions, Shohat argues for investigating Jewish history and culture in the Middle East in relation to their Muslim majority contexts. Such an approach based on relationality resists glorifying Judeo-Muslim history, which whitewashes Jewish-Muslim relations and is often used for nationalistic interpretations of history.9 Not dismembering Jewish culture and history from its Muslim contexts reveals this community's own positionality in Turkish culture, which needs to be analyzed apart from Eurocentric imaginations or nationalistic impulses projected onto it. [End Page 324] In this light, contemporary Jewish theatre should be considered as part of Türkiye Tiyatrosu (Theatre of Turkey) a theatre scene which includes more than plays and performances staged only for the Turkish-speaking majority. There are multiple examples of "Theatre of Turkey" which are multilingual and multiethnic yet engaged with the mainstream Turkish theatre scene. In the late 2000s, the Istanbul cultural scene witnessed the blooming of theatre companies and performances outside the...

Expectations and Realities in the Study of Enslavement in Muslim-Majority Societies

The global understanding of enslavement owes a great deal to the efforts of scholars who research its history in non-Atlantic societies, including Muslim-majority ones. In recent years, the study of enslavement in the Middle East and North Africa has achieved a volume, a dynamic, and a maturity that make it one of the leading, cutting-edge subfields in studies encompassing that part of the globe. Reilly’s Slavery, Agriculture, and Malaria in the Arabian Peninsula is a worthy contribution to this growing literature, covering a significant lacuna in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Arabia with extensive and often innovative research.