Global Islamic Cultures

This series aims to provide a new perspective for the study of Muslim societies; one that focuses on the socio-cultural context in which they were formed through a creative interaction between the new religion and the cultural and religious heritage of each society. Thus, the gradual historical formation of each society was carried out independently and along a different path determined by the nature of the interaction between the values of the new religion and its general frameworks on one hand and the established culture and traditions of the society on the other.

Through a historical survey of the formation of Muslim societies in South Asia, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Southeast Europe, this series concludes that each of them represents an indigenous and unique model of Islam that diverges significantly from the one understood and practiced in the Middle East. This diversity and pluralism happened within the same religious and legal frameworks and with their higher purposes and governing values of the religion. Each model was faithful to the heritage of its society and reconciled with it, which preserved the stability and continuity of these societies within the larger cultural frameworks in which they exist. Architecture and the arts were the most visible manifestations of the diversity and pluralism of these societies, which have been integral to global cultural diversity and creative civilization.