Varieties of Muslim Experience: Encounters with Arab Political and Cultural Life - Softcover

Rosen, Lawrence

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226726177 ISBN 13: 9780226726175

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2011

Synopsis

In Varieties of Muslim Experience, anthropologist Lawrence Rosen explores aspects of Arab Muslim life that are, at first glance, perplexing to Westerners. He ranges over such diverse topics as why Arabs eschew portraiture, why a Muslim scientist might be attracted to fundamentalism, and why the Prophet must be protected from blasphemous cartoons. What connects these seemingly disparate features of Arab social, political, and cultural life? Rosen argues that the common thread is the importance Arabs place on the negotiation of interpersonal relationships—a link that helps to explain actions as seemingly unfathomable as suicide bombing and as elusive as Quranic interpretation.

Written with eloquence and a deep knowledge of the entire spectrum of Muslim experience, Rosen’s book will interest not only anthropologists and Islamicists but anyone invested in better understanding the Arab world.

About this title

About the Author

Lawrence Rosen is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Princeton University and adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School. He is the author of The Culture of Islam; Varieties of Muslim Experience; Bargaining For Reality; and Two Arabs, a Berber, and a Jew; all also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Review

"Rosen tackles such issues as Arab ideas of justice, human rights, reading the Koran in the West, representations of the Prophet.... A provocative, elegantly written book on which to ponder." (Choice)"

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0226726177
• ISBN 13: 9780226726175
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 278