Ethnographic and sociological studies of Muslim societies have acquired considerable prominence and salience in the past few years. The literature on Muslim societies and the sociology of Islam is steadily growing. Many universities in Europe, USA and Canada as well as in some Muslim countries have introduced courses on contemporary Muslim societies. Scores of doctoral dissertations and research projects are being carried out at leading universities in the West.

A few Muslim sociologists have focused attention on the restructuring of sociology in an Islamic framework and on formulating the principles and premises of Islamic sociology. The material in this area is rather sketchy and scattered and is not easily accessible to students and researchers. This volume seeks to fill in this lacuna by putting together a set of important papers on the subject. An extended Introduction by the editor sets out the wider historical, political, social and cultural context in which the issue of conceptualising an Islamic sociology in particular and the restructuring of social science knowledge in general can be located.

Sociology in Islamic Perspective: Selected Readings may be considered a companion volume to Introduction to Sociology: An Islamic Perspective, published by the Institute of Objective Studies in 2017.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Contemporary Sociology: An Islamic Critique
Ilyas Ba-Yunus

2. Sociological Realism: An Islamic Paradigm
Ilyas Ba-Yunus

3. Restructuring Sociology in an Islamic Framework
A. R. Momin

4. Towards an Islamic Sociology
Jamil Farooqui

5. Islamic Perspectives on Theory-Building in the Social Sciences
Ibrahim A. Ragab

6. Islam, Gender and Muslim Women in India
Bashir A. Dabla

7. Science and Islamic Civilization: An Essay in the Historiography and Sociology of Science
A. R. Momin

8. Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities
A. R. Momin

9. Ibn Khaldun’s Theory of Social Change
Fida Mohammad