Encounters with Islam : studies in the anthropology of Muslim cultures

Too often, Western encounters with the Islamic world commence with stereotypes and end with a renewed distance.

Drawing from decades of experience studying the Muslim world, Lawrence Rosen challenges these narrow understandings.

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Rosen shows the wide-ranging significance of Muslim art, culture, and law around the world.

Exploring political, economic, and social encounters within and with the Muslim world across the eras, he considers a wide range of contexts – from fifteenth-century mosaics in Central Asia that reveal a complex understanding of mathematics, to the political choices available to the youth of modern-day Morocco and Cairo.

With in-depth analyses of art, law, and religion, and how they informed one another, Rosen develops a vibrant, nuanced portrait of the Islamic world.

Drawing linkages across time, regions, and cultures, this is a significant anthropological study of the Islamic world from a seasoned scholar.