Afghanistan's Islam From Conversion to the Taliban [Paperback]

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This book provides the first overview of the history and development of Islam in Afghanistan. Written by leading international experts, chapters cover every era from the conversion of Afghanistan through the medieval period to the present day. Based on primary sources in Arabic, Persian, Pashto, Uzbek, and Urdu, its depth of coverage is unrivalled in providing a developmental picture of Afghanistan’s Islam, including such issues as the rise of Sufism, women’s religiosity, state religious policies, and transnational Islamism. Looking beyond the unifying rhetoric of theology, the book reveals the disparate and contested forms of Afghanistan’s Islam.

 

Nile Greenis Professor of South Asian and Islamic History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author ofSufism: A Global HistoryandTerrains of Exchange: Religious Economies of Global Islam.

List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction. Afghanistan’s Islam: A History and Its Scholarship Nile Green

Part one. from conversions to institutions (ca. 700–1500)
1. The Beginnings of Islam in Afghanistan: Conquest, Acculturation, and Islamization Arezou Azad
2. Women and Religious Patronage in the Timurid Empire Nushin Arbabzadah
3. The Rise of the Khwajagan-Naqshbandiyya Sufi Order in Timurid Herat Jürgen Paul

Part two. the infrastructure of religious ideas (ca. 1500–1850)
4. Earning a Living: Promoting Islamic Culture in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries R.D. McChesney
5. Transporting Knowledge in the Durrani Empire: Two Manuals of Naqshbl4