ISIM Papers
Local Contexts of Islamism in Popular Media
1st Edition
By Lila Abu-Lughod
October 01, 2025
After the events of 9/11, media representations of Muslims in the West—never known for their accuracy—becameeven more stereotypically negative. Few of us realize, however, the profusion of similar sentiments that existedwithin Arab Muslim media outlets ten or even fifteen years earlier. Lila Abu- ...
Islam and Democracy: What Is the Real Question?
1st Edition
By Asef Bayat
March 27, 2007
Is Islam compatible with democracy? The text examines one of the most frequently-asked and yet misguided questions. Democratic ethos should not and cannot be deduced from some essence of religions supposedly inscribed in the scriptures. Rather, they are the outcome of political struggles that push ...
The Ayatollahs and Democracy in Contemporary Iraq
1st Edition
By Juan Cole
September 19, 2006
Iraqi Shiism is undergoing profound changes, leading to new elaborations of the relationship between clerics and democratic principles in an Islamic state. The Najaf tradition of thinking about Shiite Islam and the modern state in Iraq, which first developed during the Iranian constitutional ...