New Books in Global Islam: Education, State, and Society in Egypt, France, and Tanzania

This proposed 2-hour roundtable session will explore diverse facets of Muslim intellectual culture, social action, and identity through critical engagement with three forthcoming books (all to appear in 2024 or early 2025) by emerging scholars of contemporary Islam. The works offer fresh understandings of contested Muslim social and political organizing, while remaining attentive to how Muslim groups navigate issues of identity, community formation and preservation, and relations with states and wider society. Each book draws on rich qualitative research as well as historical study to explore the complex dynamics of Islamic education and community politics in distinct social contexts: Egypt, France, and Tanzania. The three books examine the significance of Islamic discourse and practice in everyday life by showing how different social groups interact with educational reforms, grassroots mobilizations, transnational connections, and debates surrounding communal belonging. The authors underscore strategies employed by Muslim communities to enhance both themselves and their societies through charitable endeavors and collective mobilization. Together, the works address the role of education in redefining Islamic traditions in the contemporary era, as well as in articulating religious and civic identities and responsibilities. On a broader scale, the works explore the significance of debate, critique, discussion, and disagreement, highlighting the multifaceted and dynamic nature of Muslim communities around the world.

Each of these new works individually could be the centerpiece of a rich panel discussion; we believe that bringing them together in conversation will be even more fruitful. By reworking a now familiar AAR structure of author-meets-critics, we will come together in creative collaboration. The three scholars share some theoretical frameworks and methodologies, but each bring unique perspectives. Collectively, these works promise to chart new directions in the study of global Islam in the contemporary world.

Objectives:

• Introduce important works in Islamic studies to a broad interdisciplinary audience.
• Foster dialogue and collaboration among scholars working on Muslim life and culture.
• Encourage participants and audience members to reflect on the wider implications of the featured works for understanding global Muslim communities and their diverse socio-political contexts.

Session Overview:

The roundtable session will begin with the authors briefly introducing one another’s books and central arguments, with particular attention to common themes across the three projects. (30 minutes total; 10 per book) Following the introductions to each of the works, two discussants will respond. The respondents are themselves experienced ethnographers of Islam who work in different regions from the three under discussion in this roundtable. (30 minutes total; 15 per response) Their remarks will then open onto an open conversation amongst the authors and respondents. (30 minutes) Questions we will explore together include:

1. How is civil society significant in articulating Islamic ideals within your context?
2. What role does the state play in your study and narrative? How significant is its influence and does it promote its own version of Islam? How is this national interpretation of Islam contested both locally and trans-locally?
3. How do you situate education and Islamic intellectual life within your work, considering its relationship with broader social changes and political projects?
4. How do gender dynamics feature in your study? Specifically, how do women engage with the major social interventions you are tracing, and what are the impacts on them?

Finally, we will open the floor to Q&A with the audience and further conversation (30 minutes).

The books:

1. Read in the Name of your Lord: Islamic Literacy Development in Revolutionary Egypt (Indiana University Press)

This book delves into Islamic literacy development in (post)revolutionary Egypt, revealing how literacy became a technique to remake Quranic hermeneutical practices, and more ambitiously, as a way to make reading and writing virtuous acts of the liberal state. The ethnography brings together timely questions of revolution with longstanding questions about religious reform. It sketches how literacy activists propagate distinct notions of cognitive understanding and semantic meaning in relation to conceptions of revelation, and how literacy became a site to negotiate social class and political belonging. The book questions prominent development paradigms through a critique attuned to both the political ramifications of literacy development, and its epistemological stakes when the lines between secular and religious education are blurred.

2. Fraternal Critique: The Politics of Muslim Community in France (The University of Chicago Press)

This book offers a critical examination of Muslim community formation and regulation in France, providing fresh perspectives on civil society, class, urban space, and Muslim youth cultures. Combining fine-grained ethnography with analysis of recent laws and policies managing Islam, the author explores the dynamics of intra-Muslim debates, highlighting the role of both critique and kinship in shaping collective belonging and political mobilization. Furthermore, they unpack why French state actors tend to see the very idea of “Muslim community” as a particular threat. In the process, the book challenges views of French Muslims that continue to be framed in terms of French understandings of republicanism and secularism.

3. Society of the Righteous: Ibadhi Muslim Identity and Transnationalism in Tanzania (Indiana University Press)

This book explores aspects of the understudied Ibadhi Muslim community in Tanzania, examining how their distinct identity shapes their engagement with transnational religious networks. Drawing primarily from interviews and observations within the Istiqaama Ibadhi community, the author elucidates the complexities of belonging, religious authority, public diplomacy, and social engagement within the context of transnationalism and diaspora. By doing so, they challenge conventional notions of Muslim identities and highlights the nuanced ways in which the Ibadhis navigate these complexities. Furthermore, this work underscores that Ibadhis cannot be neatly categorized within Sunni/Shia divides.

Conclusion: Our roundtable will contribute to a deeper understanding of Muslim life in diverse cultural and political landscapes. We are confident that this session will enrich scholarly conversations across a range of subfields and inspire further research on the complexities of Islamic revivalism, transnationalism, and intra-Muslim and national politics.