Contributors

Abdullahi Ahmed An Na'im is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at the Emory School of Law. His publications include Toward an Islamic reformation: Civil liberties, human rights and international law (Syracuse, 1990); African constitutionalism and the role of Islam (Philadelphia, 2006); and Islamic constitutionalism and the future of Shari‘a (Cambridge, MA, 2008).

Jon W. Anderson is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the Catholic University of America. He is the author of 'Vers une theorie techno pratique d'internet dans le monde Arabe' (2004); Arabizing the internet (Abu Dhabi, 1998); and 'Globalizing politics and religion in the Muslim world' (1996); and co editor of New media in the Muslim world: The emerging public sphere (Bloomington, 1999); and Reformatting politics: Networked communication and global civil society (New York, 2006).

Walter Armbrust is the Albert Hourani Fellow of Modern Middle East Studies, St Antony's College, and University Lecturer, University of Oxford. He is the author of Mass culture and modernism in Egypt (Cambridge, 1996) and the editor of Mass mediations: New approaches to popular culture in the Middle East and beyond (Berkeley and London, 2000).

Said Amir Arjomand is Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is the founder and president (1996 2002, 2005 8) of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies. His books include The shadow of God and the hidden imam: Religion, political organization and societal change in Shi’ite Iran from the beginning to 1890 (Chicago, 1984); The turban for the crown: The Islamic revolution in Iran (Oxford, 1988); and Rethinking civilizational analysis (London, 2004) (co edited with Edward Tiryakian).

Ami Ayalon is Professor of Middle Eastern History, Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University. His publications include Language and change in the Arab Middle East (New York, 1987); The press in the Arab Middle East: A history (New York, 1995); and Reading Palestine: Printing and literacy, 1900 1948 (Austin, 2004).

John R. Bowen is the Dunbar Van Cleve Professor in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St Louis. He studies problems of pluralism, law and religion, and in particular contemporary efforts to rethink Islamic norms and law in Asia, Europe and North America.

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His most recent book on Asia is Islam, law and equality in Indonesia: An anthropology of public reasoning (Cambridge, 2003), and his Why the French don’t like headscarves (Princeton, 2006) concerns current debates in France on Islam and laicite. Forthcoming are Shaping French Islam (Princeton) and The new anthropology of Islam (Cambridge).

L. Carl Brown is Garrett Professor in Foreign Affairs Emeritus at Princeton University and a historian of the modern Middle East and North Africa. His works include Religion and state: The Muslim approach to politics (New York, 2000); International politics and the Middle East: Old rules, dangerous game (Princeton, 1984); and a recent translation from the Arabic with commentary and notes entitled Consult them in the matter: A nineteenth century Islamic argument for constitutional government (Fayetteville, 2005).

Ahmad S. Dallal is Chair and Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. His publications include Islam without Europe: Traditions of reform in eighteenth century Islamic thought (forthcoming); 'The origins and objectives of Islamic revivalist thought, 1750 1850' (1993); 'Appropriating the past: Twentieth century re construction of pre modern Islamic thought' (2000); and 'Yemeni debates on the status of non Muslims in Islamic law' (1996).

R.  Michael Feener is Associate Professor in the Department of History, Asia Research Institute, at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Muslim legal thought in modern Indonesia (Cambridge, 2007); 'Muharram observances in the history of Bengkulu' (1999); and 'Hybridity and the "Hadhrami Diaspora" in the Indian Ocean Muslim networks' (2004); and is the co editor with Mark Cammack of Islamic law in contemporary Indonesia: Ideas and institutions (Cambridge, MA, 2007).

Jens Hanssen is Assistant Professor of Middle East and Mediterranean History, University of Toronto. He is the author of Fin de siecle Beirut: The making of an Ottoman provincial capital (Oxford, 2005); co author of History, space and social conflict in Beirut: The quarter of Zokak el Blat (Beirut, 2006); and co editor of The empire in the city: Arab provincial capitals in the late Ottoman Empire (Beirut, 2002).

S.  Nomanul Haq is on the faculty of the School of Humanities and the Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and is General Editor of the Oxford University Press monograph series, 'Studies in Islamic Philosophy'. Until recently he remained Scholar in Residence at the American Institute of Pakistan. His first book, Names, natures, and things: The alchemist Jabir ibn Ilayyan and his Kitab alAlrjar (Book of Stones) (Boston, 1994), was a textual study of an enigmatic medieval Arabic alchemical school. Since then he has published widely in multiple fields of the history of Islamic philosophy and of science, religion, cultural studies and Persian and Urdu literature.

Robert W. Hefner is Director of the Program on Islam and Civil Society at the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, at Boston University. His recent works include Schooling Islam: The culture and politics of Muslim education (with Muhammad Qasim Zaman) (Princeton, 2007); Remaking Muslim politics: Pluralism, contestation, democratization (Princeton, 2005); The politics of multiculturalism: Pluralism and citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia (Hawaii, 2001); and Civil Islam: Muslims and democratization in Indonesia (Princeton, 2000).

Clement M. Henry is Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. His most recent books are Globalization and the politics of development in the Middle East (Cambridge, 2001), with Robert Springborg; The politics of Islamic finance (Edinburgh, 2004), co edited with Rodney Wilson; and The Mediterranean debt crescent: Money and power in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey (Gainesville, 1996). Under the name of Clement Henry Moore he has also written Images of development: Egyptian engineers in search of industry (Cambridge, 1980), Politics in North Africa (Boston, 1970); and Tunisia since independence (Berkeley, 1965).

Nikki R. Keddie is Professor Emeritus, Department of History, UCLA. The recipient of lifetime awards and prizes from the International Balzan Foundation, Encyclopedia Iranica and MESA, and a past president of MESA, she has written extensively on Iranian history and the history of Middle Eastern women. Her publications include Modern Iran: Roots and results ofrevolution, new edn (New Haven, 2006); Women in the Middle East: Past and present (Princeton, 2007); and Iran and the Muslim world: Resistance and revolution (London, 1995).

Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science and Gorter Family Professor in Islam and the Social Sciences at Duke University. His works include Private truths, public lies: The social consequences of preference falsification (Cambridge, MA, 1995), which deals with the repercussions of being dishonest about what one knows and wants, and Islam and Mammon: The economic predicaments of Islamism (Princeton, 2004), which critiques attempts to restructure economies according to Islamic teachings. He is also the author of numerous articles exploring why the Middle East, once wealthy by global standards, fell behind in various realms, including production, organisational capability, technological creativity and democratisation.

Robert Launay is Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University. His publications include Traders without trade: Responses to change in two Dyula communities (Cambridge, 1982) and Beyond the stream: Islam and society in a West African town (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992).

Bruce B. Lawrence is Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Professor of Religion and Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. He is currently the Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center. His publications include Muslim networks from Hajj to hip hop, co edited with miriam cooke (Chapel Hill, 2005); Messages to the world: The statements ofOsama bin Laden (London and New York, 2006); and The Qur’an: A biography (London, 2007).

Karen Isaksen Leonard is Professor of Anthropology in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Locating home: India’s Hyderabadis abroad (Palo Alto, 2007); Muslims in the United States: The state ofresearch (New York, 2003); and South Asian Americans (Westport, CT, 1997). She has also written numerous articles on American Muslims.

Peter Mandaville is Associate Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University. His publications include Global political Islam (London, 2007); Transnational Muslim politics: Reimagining the umma (London, 2001); and 'Sufis and Salafis: The political discourse of transnational Islam' (2005).

Venetia Porter is Curator, Islamic and Contemporary Middle East Collections, Department of the Middle East, the British Museum. She is the author of Word into art: Artists of the modern Middle East (catalogue of an exhibition at the British Museum 18 May to 3 September 2006) (London, 2006); Mightier than the sword: Arabic script beauty and meaning (catalogue of exhibition at the Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne, 2003, and the Islamic Arts Museum, Kuala Lumpur, 2004) (Parkville, Vic., 2003); and Islamic tiles (London, 1995). Her Catalogue ofthe Arabic seals and amulets in the British Museum is forthcoming.

Frank E. Vogel is Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Adjunct Professor of Islamic Legal Studies, Harvard Law School. His publications include Islamic law and legal system: Studies of Saudi Arabia (Leiden and Boston, 2000); Islamic law and finance: Religion, risk, and return (The Hague, London and Boston, 1998) (co authored with Samuel L. Hayes, III); and 'The public and the private in Saudi Arabia: Restrictions on the powers of Committees for Ordering the Good and Forbidding the Evil' (2003).

John O. Voll is Professor of Islamic History and Associate Director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. He is the author of Islam: Continuity and change in the modern world, 2nd edn (Syracuse, 1994); Islam and democracy (New York, 1996) (with John L. Esposito); and Makers of contemporary Islam (Oxford, 2001) (with John L. Esposito).

Lynn Welchman is Senior Lecturer, School of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). She is the author of Women and Muslim family laws in Arab states: An overview ofcontemporary textual development and advocacy (Amsterdam, 2007) and Beyond the code: Muslim family law and the shari'a judiciary in the Palestinian West Bank (The Hague, 2000). She is the editor of Women’s rights and Islamic family law: Perspectives on reform (London, 2004) and with Sara Hossain of ‘Honour’: Crimes, paradigms, and violence against women (London, 2005).

Muhammad Qasim Zaman is Robert H. Niehaus '77 Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Religion at Princeton University. He is the author of Religion and politics under the early 'Abbasids (Leiden and New York, 1997); The ulama in contemporary Islam: Custodians of change (Princeton, 2002); and Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi: Islam in modern South Asia (Oxford, 2008).

Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck College, University of London. His publications include Law and power in the Islamic world (London, 2003); Islam, the people and the state: Political ideas and movements in the Middle East, 2nd edn (London, 1993); and Mass culture, popular culture and social life in the Middle East (co editor with Georg Stauth) (Frankfurt, 1987).