The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change » (1st Edition)

Muhammad Qasim Zaman is Robert H. Niehaus '77 Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Religion at Princeton University. He is the author of "Religion and Politics under the Early Abbasids" and the editor, with Robert W. Hefner, of "Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education" (Princeton).

"Long before 11 September, the 'ulama were regarded as the ubiquitous agents of Islamic authority throughout the Muslim world. Yet until Muhammad Qasim Zaman, no scholar has attempted a fine-grained, comparative analysis of their multiple roles and adaptive views. This book will change the way that both scholars and observers of Islam think about contemporary Muslim societies."--Bruce Lawrence, author of Shattering the Myth

"This highly original book offers fresh insight into the role of Islamic religious scholars in the modern world. It will shape how we understand religious tradition, sectarianism, religious knowledge and its carriers, and the diverse ways in which religious arguments are created and disseminated. The book's accessible style and persuasive comparison of religious developments in South Asia with other parts of the Muslim world make it a significant port of entry for anyone wishing to understand Islamic religious tradition and the modern social and political contexts in which it is elaborated and reproduced."--Dale Eickelman, Dartmouth College

"Zaman's work is a convincing study of religious and social change. The rise of 'ulama as important political and social factors in various Muslim countries has come as a surprise to many scholars, who still find phenomena such as the Taliban puzzling. This book explains this missed perspective on modernity and shows that the 'ulama have not been oblivious to modern challenges."--Muhammad Khalid Masud, International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, Leiden

Mahmood Ibrahim - Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies

Muhammad Qasim Zaman dispels any notion of the homogeneity of Muslim thought in The Ulama in Contemporary Islam, a masterly study of the role of the 'ulama' in India and, after 1947, in Pakistan.