An insightful examination of how general global processes are affecting Muslims everywhere, and the way in which these processes are moulded by particular local cultural, political, and economic configurations.

This book examines the cultural responses of Muslims to the transformations, contradictions and challenges confronting contemporary Islam as it moves towards the twenty-first century. The diffusion of populations, the globalization of culture and the forces of postmodernity have shaken the world like never before. These developments have generated a debate among Muslims which, as the contributors to this volume show, will have far-reaching consequences not just for the Muslim world, but for relations between Islam and the West more generally.

`It will be seen that there is material for divers tastes in this unusual, if eneven, contribution to Islamic Studies aka Social Anthropology, whether modern or postmodern. Your reviewer found it enjoyable and stimulating, and a good deal less opaque than its editors' introduction foreboded.' - Asian Affairs`Including a Foreword by Ernest Gellner, this interesting volume contains 12 articles - two of them by Muslims - on various aspects of Islam, at a point where Muslims everywhere seem to face the peculiar risks and opportunites of what is considered the `post-modern' age.' I Muslim World Book Review`this book describes both the general global processes now affecting Muslim communities and the ways those processes are shaped by specific cultural, political, and economic configurations.`... gives essential insights into the complex marriage between Islam, state and society in an age of instant communications. Issues of race prejudice, gender, space, fundementalism and migration are all skilfully presented to give a new and enlightened perspective on Islam in the post modern age.' - Times Higher Educ Supplement