Darul Islam (DI) was an armed revolutionary movement led by S. M. Kartosuwiryo (1905–62), which began in West Java (Indonesia) in 1947–8, with the dual goals of defending the area against the returning Dutch colonial power and establishing an Islamic state (Negara Islam Indonesia, NII) in independent Indonesia. DI emerged from intellectual and militant circles surrounding the Islamic organisations Masyumi, Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia (PSII), and Persatuan Islam (Persis). It also won support am…

Dāʿī (s), in Ismāʿīlī Islam, were the agents of the daʿwa (the mission appealing for adherence and support), the earliest records of which date from about 261/875, in Iraq, concerning the activities of the Qarāmiṭa, led by Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ (d. 321/933) and his brother-in-law ʿAbdān (d. 286/899). It is likely, however, that the movement had already been in existence for some time. Somewhat later, we begin to find names of dāʿīs, many of whom were converted by a certain al-Ḥusayn al-Ahwāzī, who was apparently acting on instructions from a central headquarters in Salami…

Islam has a longstanding presence in Greece, often attached to the country’s Ottoman past. Today, Muslims represent a minority in Greece, with the vast majority of the country Christian Orthodox. The Muslim population is divided into two distinct categories: “Old Islam,” or the Muslims of Greek citizenship who live predominantly in Thrace and enjoy a special legal status of minority protection; and “New Islam,” comprising Muslim immigrants who settled in Greece after 1985, coming from Asia and Africa and belonging to at least fifteen different communities. 1. Introduction Muslims o…

Inspired by ideas of public consultation and bureaucratic institutionalisation, the Majlis Ugama Islam Brunei (Islamic Religious Council of Brunei) was established in 1955 under the Religious Council, State Customs, and Kadis Courts Act. The Council derives its authority from the fact that the sultan is the highest authority on all Islamic religious matters, and it holds extensive executive powers. Brunei was made a British protectorate in 1888 and gained its independence in 1984. Following the introduction of the British residency in Brunei in 1906, va…

Islam is the religion of the majority of the Arab citizens in Israel. According to the 2019 Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, there are just over 1.6 million Muslims in the State of Israel, comprising about 82 percent of the Arab population of about 1.9 million, residing in four geographical areas recognised as part of the State of Israel under international law: the Galilee, the Triangle (Arab towns and villages adjacent to the Green Line, the de facto borders of the State of Israel before the Six-Day …

Islam is an officially recognised religion in Belgium, with a Muslim presence in the country dating from the nineteenth century. 1. History and demography The number of Muslims in Belgium increased significantly following bilateral agreements, in 1964, between Belgium and Muslim-majority countries of the Mediterranean basin (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Turkey), which facilitated the arrival of young, marginally skilled workers, often coming from rural areas, who were allowed into the country in hopes that they would…

In the Islamic lunar calendar, the crescent of the new moon (hilāl) defines many aspects of Muslim religious life, ranging from the date of the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (ḥajj), to the beginning and end of Ramaḍān, the month of fasting (ṣawm). Apart from its calendrical importance, the new moon progressively came to be viewed as one of the distinctive symbols of Islam. It frequently appears on top of the domes found in Muslim religious architecture and on flags and military banners in the Islamic world. In some sense, the symbolic use of the crescent i…

The anthropology of Islam has an early history in colonial-era compendia of practices and politics by administrators and scholars (Lane; Snouck Hurgronje), but the systematic anthropological study of Islam dates from the second half of the twentieth century. The history of that study can be seen as an effort to articulate two contrary emphases—that of social or cultural anthropology, with its focus on distinctions between societies or cultures and its concentration on everyday life, and that of Isl…

Lembaga Dakwah Islam Indonesia (LDII, the Indonesian Islamic Proselytisation Institute) is a controversial and, in the eyes of its opponents, an extremist and deviant Islamic organisation. It has changed its name several times after being banned under previous names and was known serially as Darul Hadis, Islam Jamaah, Yayasan Karyawan Islam (YAKARI), and Lembaga Karyawan Islam (LEMKARI) before adopting the name Lembaga Dakwah Islam Indonesia in 1990. After living for ten years in Mecca, H. Nurhasan Ubaidah Lubis (d. 1982), the founder of this organisation, retu…

Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM, the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia), was established on 6 August 1971, but its registration was only officially accepted on 17 August 1972. Anwar Ibrahim was ABIM's best-known president, serving from 1974 to 1982, when he resigned to join the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), one of the parties in the ruling coalition. Since its establishment, ABIM has experienced smooth leadership transitions and continuity in its activities. ABIM's membership, which has surpassed 150,000, consists largely of civil servants, profess…

The Persatuan Islam ( Persis, Islamic Union), an Indonesian Islamic educational organisation founded in 1923, concentrated on elucidating Sunnī teachings, Islamic logic, and the use of a simple Indonesian vocabulary. Originating as a study group in Bandung, it evolved into a centre of Islamic propagation (tablīgh) and later founded a private Islamic school system in West Java. In the 1930s one group of its scholars left for Bangil, in East Java, where a boarding school (pesantren) and university were established. The Bandung centre always regarded the Sundanese populat…

The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a uniquely American form of Islam that began amongst African Americans in Detroit and Chicago in the early 1930s. Members were fascinated by Wali Fard Muhammad’s novel understanding of the relationship between Whites and Blacks, his critique of Christianity, and his perceived knowledge of their ancestors’ customs and religious practices. His mysterious disappearance in 1934, a few years after his ministry began, did not signal the end for the NOI. Indeed, the group grew…

The Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN, State Institute for Islamic Studies) is an institution of Indonesian Islamic higher education. It plays a major role in advancing Islamic education, not only at the tertiary level but also at primary and secondary levels. The IAINs are a barometer of the development and dynamics of Islamic studies in the Indonesian academic world. The IAIN is a product of Indonesian Muslims’ efforts since the early twentieth century to establish a modern system of Islamic tertiary education. The IAIN had its origins in two academie…

The Fidāʾiyyān-i Islām (usually spelt Fadāʾiyyān-i Islām in Persian) group was a radical Islamist movement in twentieth-century Iran. It was founded in March 1946, largely in response to Aḥmad Kasravī’s (1890–1946) critique of Shīʿī Islam. Its founder and leader was the young cleric Sayyid Mujtabā Mīrlawḥī, otherwise known as Navvāb-i Ṣafavī (1924–55). The group’s aim was to establish an Islamic government in Iran within the existing constitutional monarchy, and it had some affinities and contacts…

Scientology claims continuity or analogies with various religious traditions, including Islam. Its founder, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911–86), generally referred to in Scientology literature as L. Ron Hubbard, began propagating such claims through the organisation’s publications in the 1970s, but other works by Hubbard, as well as texts currently disseminated by the Scientology organisation, also contain remarks about Islam. In 1950 L. Ron Hubbard, an American pulp fiction writer, claimed the discovery of Dianetics, a “science” of the human mind. Dian…

Muslims in twenty-first century Germany form an integral part of German society, and a vibrant process of establishing a religious infrastructure has begun on all societal levels, mirroring the diversity and richness of Islam in Germany. Nevertheless, widespread fears of Islam persist in the broader society. 1. History The presence of Muslims in Germany is largely a result of the immigration of “guest workers” and asylum seekers beginning in the 1960s. Certainly Muslims were present in the country long before. In the seventeenth and early eig…

Islam in Croatia has a very long but interrupted and fragmented history going back to the Middle Ages. The first record of Muslims in the region dates back to a Hungarian royal decree of 592–3/1196, which mentions the existence of “Ismaelites” in Osijek, a town in the easternmost part of Croatia. During the Middle Ages this area was an integral part of Hungary, and the Muslim inhabitants were descendants of immigrants of different ethnic origins who had come from the Volga, Bulgaria, and Khwārazm.…

The history of Islam in premodern Italy (here, understood as the area covered by the modern state of Italy) is closely associated with Muslim settlement in the region between the ninth and fourteenth centuries CE. Its impact was strongest in Sicily (Ṣiqilliyya), where large Muslim communities persisted for around 400 years. Notable, but of far less importance, were Islam’s occasional interactions with the Italian Peninsula (Īṭāliyā), notably in the Byzantine provinces of Puglia and Calabria (Qillawriy…

The relationship between Islam and capitalism is not straightforward. Long before Muslim intellectuals began to formulate distinctively Islamic responses to capitalism, capitalist practices and associated ideas and institutions had already had powerful, transformative effects on Muslim societies. These processes were both cause and effect of the variety of responses that emerged, creating a landscape in the twenty-first century that is marked by contrasting forms of engagement with global capitalism …

The formation of the Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia (IKIM, Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia) in 1992 was part of a state-directed agenda to moderate the influence of a global Islamic resurgence. The vision of a modernising Islam in accord with Malaysia’s goals of economic development and multiculturalism was expected to be realised through the founding of IKIM as a research and policy institute by Malaysia’s fourth prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who assumed the premiership in 1981. …