Jack David Eller, Natalie Khazaal (editors)
Paperback, 284 pages
9781032484785

 

Nonbelievers, Apostates, and Atheists in the Muslim World offers a contemporary, cross-cultural look at nonbelief and nonreligion in Islam. Providing historical, conceptual, statistical, and ethnographic data on nonbelievers from Morocco to Egypt, Turkey, and Bangladesh, it explores the unique nature and challenges of nonreligion for Muslims.

 

It includes 11 chapters by experts on nonbelief, nonreligion, and atheism in an array of Muslim-majority countries. The book features multiple disciplines and offers both ethnographic and statistical information on this important, growing, but neglected population. It explores the unique nature of nonreligion in Islam, illustrating that nonbelief is specific to a particular religious tradition. It also examines how ex-Muslims navigate complexities and dangers of their societies—especially for women—and how nonbelief and nonreligion do not equate to atheism or the total repudiation of religion or of Muslim identity.

 

Contents
Introduction: On Being a Nonbeliever in a Muslim Society by Jack David Eller

1. Patterns of Disbelief: Anti-Religious Discourse in the Heartlands of Islam, Past and Present by Brian Whitaker 

2. Mapping the Landscape of Non-belief, Freethinking and Secular Muslimness in the Arab World by Sebastian Elsässer

3. Once a Muslim, always a Muslim? By Lena Richter

4. A Critical Juncture? Atheism in Bangladesh and its (Dis)connections by Mascha Schulz

5. The Secular-Religious Divide in Iran: An Analysis of GAMAAN’s Online Surveys by Pooyan Tamimi Arab and Ammar Maleki 

6. The Cognitive Landslide: Pathways of Egyptian Atheists by Anthon Jackson 

7. Impious Camouflage: Egyptian Atheists Posing as Negligent Muslims by Wael Al-Soukkary

8. Impoliteness and Religionormativity: Arab Atheists on Talk Shows by Natalie Khazaal

9. Shoe-ing the Atheist: Emotional Responses towards Nonreligion in Egypt by Karin van Nieuwkerk

10. Leaving a Home that Won’t Leave Her: A Mētic Understanding of Ex-Muslim Women’s Experiences  by Dania Ammar

11. Did Political Islam Fail? The Discursive Construction of Atheism and Nonreligion in Turkey by Pierre Hecker