Global Islam: A Very Short Introduction

"Global Islam-A Very Short Introduction looks at the methods used by individuals, organizations, and states to spread multiple versions of Islam around the world. Since the late nineteenth century, publications, missions, congresses, and pilgrimages havecontributed to the communication and evolution of Islam. At the start of the twentieth century, the infrastructure of the European empire allowed for the widespread communication of Islamic beliefs. During a period of secularism in the mid-twentieth century, global Islam became more accessible and, in some cases, more political. How have today's broadcasting and smartphone technologies changed the face of global Islam? Will communication technologies reconcile the contradictions between variations of thefaith, or will they create new ones?"--
This book presents the first comprehensive survey of the multiple versions of Islam propagated across geographical, political, and cultural boundaries during the era of modern globalization. Showing how Islam was transformed through these globalizing transfers, it traces the origins, expansion and increasing diversification of Global Islam - from individual activists to organizations and then states - over the past 150 years. Historian Nile Green surveys not only the familiar venues of Islam in the Middle East and the West, but also Asia and Africa, explaining the doctrines of a wide variety of political and non-political versions of Islam across the spectrum from Salafism to Sufism. This Very Short Introduction will help readers to recognize and compare the various organizations competing to claim the authenticity and authority of representing the one true Islam.