Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in Global Contexts

The term 'local Islam' has been coined to describe local responses to the effects of globalisation in the Islamic world. All contributions to this volume present cases of 'local Islam' as well as discussing the term itself. But what all of this group of anthropologists and historians convey is a feeling of dissatisfaction with the very term. Their uneasiness relates to the conceptual problems arising from seeing Islam as either local or global. Rather, the authors argue in favour of a focus not on Islam but on the lives of Muslims, putting their lives into the context of complex historical developments. Ranging across much of the vast extent of the Islamic world - from West Africa and the Near East…