Islam and the European Empires

At the height of the imperial age, European powers ruled over most parts of the Islamic world. The British, French, Russian, and Dutch empires each governed more Muslims than any independent Muslim state. European officials believed Islam to be of great political significance, and were quite cautious when it came to matters of the religious life of their Muslim subjects. In the colonies, they regularly employed Islamic religious leaders and institutions to bolster imperial rule. At the same time, the European presence in Muslim lands was confronted by religious resistance movements and Islamic insurgency. Across the globe, from the West African savanna to the shores of Southeast Asia, Muslim rebels called for holy war against non-Muslim intruders.

Islam and the European Empires presents the first comparative account of the engagement of all major European empires with Islam. Bringing together fifteen of the world's leading scholars in the field, the volume explores a wide array of themes, ranging from the accommodation of Islam under imperial rule to Islamic anti-colonial resistance. A truly global history of empire, the volume makes a major contribution not only to our knowledge of the intersection of Islam and imperialism, but also more generally to our understanding of religion and power in the modern world.

David Motadel is a Research Fellow in History at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge. A graduate of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar, he has held visiting fellowships at Harvard, Yale and Oxford.

Introduction, David Motadel
I. Islam and Imperial Rule
1. The Russian Worlds of Islam, Robert Crews
2. British Imperial Rule and the Hajj, John Slight
3. The Dutch Empire and the Hajj, Eric Tagliacozzo
4. Islam and the French Empire in North Africa, Julia Clancy-Smith
5. Islam and Imperialism in East Africa, Felicitas Becker
II. Islam and Anti-Colonial Resistance
6. Anti-Imperialism and the Pan-Islamic Movement, Umar Ryad
7. Islam and Resistance in the British Empire, Benjamin D. Hopkins
8. Religious Revolts in Colonial North Africa, Knut S. Vikor
9. Mobilisation of Muslims in the Caucasus, Michael A. Reynolds
10. Islamic Resistance in the Dutch Colonial Empire, Gerrit J. Knaap
III. Islam and Colonial Knowledge
11. Debates on Islam in Imperial Germany, Rebekka Habermas
12. Islam in British Imperial Thought, Faisal Devji
13. French Colonial Knowledge of Maraboutism, George R. Trumbull
14. Islam and the European Empires in Japanese Imperial Thought, Cemil Adyin