The Malê Uprising was a slave revolt in Salvador, Bahia, organized by Muslims—known as Malês—during the last ten days of Ramadan in January of 1835. Captured rebels wore Muslim dress, including head coverings and long white tunics, and carried prayer beans as well as Qur’anic amulets on their bodies for protection. The revolt was organized primarily by Hausa and Nagô (...

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Shi’ism in Turkey is represented by the large Alevi minority and the smaller Ja’afari community. Outside of Turkey, Ja’afaris (a reference to the role of Jafar al-Sadiq in developing Shi’a jurisprudence) are called Ithna’asharis or “Twelvers” for their belief that twelve imams succeeded the Prophet Muhammad. Twelver Shi’a Muslims make up the largest group within global Shi’ism. The Turkish Ja’afari community is concentrated in Eastern Turkey and in Istanbul, and originates from Azerbaijan, having fled from the 1878...

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Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905) was an Islamic reformist, jurist, and eminent scholar whose influence substantially altered the course of contemporary Islamic thought. He graduated from Al-Azhar University, where he encountered and became a student of reformist theologian and activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. ‘Abduh was employed as a teacher through the Ministry of Education, and, following Afghani’s political exile from Egypt, was himself sent into early retirement before being hired to edit ...

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Fethullah Gülen (b. 1938) is a prominent Turkish Islamic scholar and founder of the international Gülen Movement, which evolved from the Nur Movement in the 1960s. Gülen stresses education as the vehicle for transforming the contemporary world. Where Said Nursi emphasized personal transformation as a means to effect social change, Gülen looks both to personal transformation and social and political activism, and fully embraces Turkish nationalism—the defining characteristic of which is Islam, not nationality—...

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Abul A’la Maududi (1903–1979) was an influential Islamic revivalist, Islamist thinker, prolific author and political activist, and founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist political organization that has profoundly shaped the Islamic character of Pakistan. Among Islamists globally, Maududi was one of the first to articulate a modern Islamic political vision and to forge a path independent of both traditional Islamic leadership (the ‘Ulama) as well as nationalist leaders. His writing and political life had an important impact on global Islamism, inspiring others across the Muslim world...

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A dhimmi refers to a non-Muslim subject of the Ottoman Empire. Derived from Islamic legal conceptions of membership to society, non-Muslims ‘dhimmis’ were afforded protection by the state and did not serve in the military, in return for specific taxes. The dhimmi status was legally abolished in 1839 with the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane and was formalized with the 1869 Ottoman Law of Nationality as part of wider Tanzimat Reforms. Regardless of these official changes, in...

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The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB) was established in 1945-46 by Mustafa al-Sibai, who had studied in Egypt in the 1930s where he grew close to Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and had participated in Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood political activities. The SMB was an...

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Said Nursi (1876-1960) was a Kurdish Islamic modernist who founded the nondenominational Nur Movement (Nurҫuluk), which advocated for a reinterpretation of Islam according to the needs of a modern society, a legacy of attempts by the Young Ottomans to reconcile Islam with constitutionalism. He was strongly opposed to positivism, and believed that change would only come through the cultivation of a new mindset, not through transforming institutions themselves.

Nursi was born in...

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Shi'ism in Turkey is represented by the large Alevi minority and the smaller Ja'afari community. Outside of Turkey, Ja'afaris (a reference to the role of Jafar al-Sadiq in developing Shi'a jurisprudence) are called Ithna'asharis or "Twelvers" for their belief that twelve imams succeeded the Prophet Muhammad. Twelver Shi'a Muslims make up the largest group within global Shi'ism. The Turkish Ja'afari community is concentrated in Eastern Turkey and in Istanbul, and originates from Azerbaijan, having fled from the 1878 Ottoman-Russian war as well as the Bolshevik Revolution in the 1920s. The Ja'... Read more about Shi'ism in Turkey

The 'Ulama (sing. 'alim) is the body of Muslim religious scholars and chief religious authorities, members of which often serve as teachers, judges, jurists, preachers, urban and rural imams, market inspectors, and advisers in various capacities.

Turkey is a predominantly Islamic country, where up to 99% of Turks are Muslim. Turkish Muslims are largely Sunni, and follow the Hanafi school of legal jurisprudence. Alevi Muslims make up anywhere between 15-20%, and smaller Ja’afari Shi’a Muslim communities are present. Sufism has had a long presence and a profound impact on...

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Sufism (tasavvuf) is an Islamic modality that emphasizes self-discipline and personal reform through spiritual practices beside the essential practices that comprise Islamic orthopraxy. These spiritual practices include dhikr, individual or collective recitation of litanies composed of supplicatory prayers, Qur’anic passages, and the names of God. Despite reforms that dissolved Turkish Sufi orders and banned Sufi practices in 1925, Sufism survived through underground networks and flourishes in Turkey today.

Though only a minority of Turks belong to Sufi...

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Muslims make up about 90% of the Syrian population, including Sunnis and Shi’a Muslims, and encompass a wide variety of beliefs and practices, including varieties of Sufism. The Syrian Constitution requires that the President be Muslim, although there is no official religion of the Syrian state. As of 2004, Sunni Muslims made up about 74%, while Shi’a groups constituted about 16%. The Syrian government recognizes the ...

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Muhammad Amin al-Husayni (1895-1974) was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (1921-1948) and a Palestinian nationalist leader who worked to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Al-Husayni attended the 1919 Pan-Syrian Congress in Damascus, where he supported the creation of a nationalist Syrian Arab state that would encompass Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine, then later went on to support an individual Palestinian state.

Sources

Michael Hall, “Haj Amin al-Husseini,” The Encyclopedia...

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Nigeria’s Muslim population continues to grow. Estimates suggest 80-85 million Nigerians identify as Muslim (roughly 50% of the total population), of which the majority are probably Sunni (60 million), though this is not a unified identity and includes a wide variety of different viewpoints. For example, members of Sufi orders, members of the Jama‘atul Izalatul Bid’ah Wa’ikhamatul Sunnah (or Izala) movement, and members of Boko Haram might all identify as Sunni, but the Izala and...

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