Focus areas
Islamic governance in a comparative perspective broadly examines the institutional forms, mechanisms, requirements, and challenges related to the formation and maintenance of a unified ummah polity.
This area investigates questions of regional diversity, non-Muslim relations, federalism, legal pluralism, sectarianism, politics, economics, and many more as they relate to the application of models of unity. In addition, various related topics related to development studies and Sharia studies will be considered.
Transformation Studies takes an Islamically informed approach to the contemporary and historical study of sociopolitical change in Muslim societies.
Political and social change, both gradual and sudden, occurs more commonly than we may realize. Contemporary social and historical studies shed considerable light on how and why major political and social changes occur. Drawing on the Islamic historical and doctrinal tradition as well as the wealth of modern contemporary scholarship, these studies explore how collective sociopolitical change can occur in Muslim societies today. This allows us not only to anticipate but also to move beyond seemingly complex Muslim discourses that construct an idealized mechanism of change, and to challenge false dichotomies (such as tradition-based nostalgia versus future change).
