The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and Civility

The Sociology of Islam provides an introduction to the sociology of Islam as a strategic field of inquiry, teaching and debate located at the crucial intersection between sociology, Islamic Studies, comparative religion and comparative civilizational analysis. The volume is an interpretive account of the place of Islam as a religion and civilization in world history and global society. The Sociology of Islam develops a narrative and analytic thread that makes the dual role of Islam – as religion and civilization – comprehensible to non–specialists of Islamic studies. At the same time, the work approaches the study of Islam from a comparative perspective with the help of simple yet rigorous conceptual tools drawn from sociology and social theory.

The Sociology of Islam deals both with conceptual questions and historical interpretations, with a focus on the notions of knowledge–culture, power and civility to provide key interpretive and analytic tools to the practitioners of the sociology of Islam. 

Armando Salvatore is Professor of Global Religious Studies and Keenan Chair of Interfaith Studies at McGill University. His most recent publications are Rethinking the Public Sphere Through Transnationalizing Processes (edited withOliver Schmidtke and Hans–Jörg Trenz, 2013), Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates (edited with Muhammad Khalid Masud and Martin van Bruinessen, 2009), The Public Sphere: Liberal Modernity, Catholicism, Islam (2007, pb 2010), Islam in Process: Historical and Civilizational Perspectives (edited with Johann P. Arnason and Georg Stauth, 2006), and Religion, Social Practice, and Contested Hegemonies (edited with Mark LeVine, 2005).