Beyond Islam a new understanding of the Middle East

Zubaida, Sami 1937- (Author).

Summary: In this magisterial work, Sami Zubaida draws on a distinguished career's worth of experience trying to understand the region to address the fundamental question in Middle East studies: what is the Middle East? He argues, controversially, that to see it through the prism of Islam, as it is conventionally viewed, is to completely misunderstand it. Many of what we think of as the 'Islamic' characteristics of the region are products of culture and society, not religion.To think of Islam itself as an essential, anti-modern force in the region rather than something shaped by specific historical-econ

Record details

ISBN: 9780857718648 (electronic bk.)
ISBN: 0857718649 (electronic bk.)
ISBN: 9781848850699
ISBN: 1848850697
ISBN: 1848850700
ISBN: 9781848850705
Physical Description: electronic resource
remote
1 online resource (viii, 232 p.)
Publisher: London ; New York : I.B. Tauris, 2011.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-224) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Is there a Muslim society? : Ernest Gellner's sociology of Islam -- Political modernity in the Middle East -- Shifting social boundaries and identities in the modern Middle East -- Cosmopolitans, nationalists and fundamentalists in the modern Middle East -- The public and the private in Middle Eastern history and society -- Islam and nationalism : continuities and contradictions.
Source of Description Note:	Description based on print version record.