This open access book draws the big picture of how population change interplays with politics across the world from 1990 to 2040. Leading social scientists from a wide range of disciplines discuss, for the first time, all major political and policy aspects of population change as they play out differently in each major world region: North and South America; Sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA regio…
The attitude of Jews living in the medieval Christian world to Jews who converted to Christianity or to Christians seeking to join the Jewish faith reflects the central traits that make up Jewish self-identification. The Jews saw themselves as a unique group chosen by God, who expected them to play a specific and unique role in the world. This study researches fully for the first time the vario…
This book examines the significant role that memory failures play in early rabbinic literature. The rabbis who shaped Judaism in late antiquity envisioned the commitment to the Torah and its commandments as governing every aspect of a person’s life. Their vision of a Jewish subject who must keep constant mental track of multiple obligations and teachings led them to be preoccupied with forget…
This book explores the relationship between transnational and local Islam as expressed in public discourse and policy-making, as represented in the local press. It does so against the background of local governments in majority Muslim regions across Indonesia promoting and passing regulations that mandate forms of social or economic behaviour seen to be compatible with Islam. The book situates …
This book discloses the spiritual dimension in business ethics and sustainability management. Spirituality is understood as a multiform search for meaning which connects people with all living beings and God or Ultimate Reality. In this sense, spirituality is a vital source in social and economic life. The volume examines the spiritual orientations to nature and business in different cultural t…
This edited volume offers a collection of papers that present a comparative analysis of the development of Shari’a in countries with Muslim minorities, such as America, Australia, Germany, and Italy, as well as countries with Muslim majorities, such as Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Tunisia. The Sociology of Shari’a provides a global analysis of these important legal transformations a…
Borrowing from a range of theories on spacemaking and material religion, and with contributions from anthropologists working in the United Kingdom, Mali, Brazil, Spain, and Italy, this fascinating and comprehensive study develops an anthropological perspective on modern religious architecture including mosques, churches, and synagogues. Religious Architecture examines how religious buildings ta…
This scholarly study throws a new light on the Roman impact on religious structures in Republican Italy. In the last four centuries BC, Italy went through immense changes. The Apennine and Adriatic areas were originally inhabited by various 'Italic' tribes and characterised by a specific non-urban societal organisation, in which cult places had a pivotal function. From the fourth century BC onw…
In the 1990s, Los Angeles was home to numerous radical social and environmental eruptions. In the face of several major earthquakes and floods, riots and economic insecurity, police brutality and mass incarceration, some young black Angelenos turned to holy hip hop—a movement merging Christianity and hip hop culture—to “save” themselves and the city. Converting street corners to open-ai…
Hijab: Unveiling Queer Muslim Lives is the first known collection of South African Muslim stories relating to Islam and sexual diversity. This anthology shares reallife stories of people that have struggled, or may still be struggling, to reconcile their spirituality and their sexuality. These are stories that illustrate the oneness of being and reflect on how some interpretations of the script…