Books in the Public Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa series

Examines the many ways in which music has been a force of representation, nation building, and social action.

Examines the many ways in which music has been a force of representation, nation building, and social action.

The sacred calls that summon believers are the focus of this study of religion and power in Fez, Morocco. Focusing on how dissemination of the call through mass media has transformed understandings of piety and authority, Emilio Spadola details the new importance of once-marginal Sufi practices such as spirit trance and exorcism for ordinary believers, the state, and Islamist movements. The Calls of Islam offers new ethnographic perspectives on ritual, performance, and media in the Muslim world.

Reveals the historical links between these two world regions, describes the emergence of South-South solidarities, and offers methodologies for the study of transnationalism, global culture, and international relations.

With its new political and cultural affiliations with the Middle East and the renewed visibility of the country's millions of practicing Muslims and those with Middle Eastern roots, Brazil may offer useful lessons for countries transformed by the "Arab Spring." This collection reveals the historical links between these two world regions.

Mara A. Leichtman offers an in-depth study of Shi'i Islam in two very different communities in Senegal: the well-established Lebanese diaspora and Senegalese "e;converts"e; from Sunni to Shi'i Islam of recent decades. Sharing a minority religious status in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, each group is cosmopolitan in its own way. Leichtman provides new insights into the everyday lives of Shi'i Muslims in Africa and the dynamics of local and global Islam. She explores the influence of Hizbullah and Islamic reformist movements, and offers a corrective to prevailing views of Sunni-Shi'i hostility, demonstrating that religious coexistence is possible in a context such as Senegal.