CHAD. Comprising more than 1,284,000 square kilometers between the northern and southern edges of the central Sahara, Chad lies at the crossroads of the dar al-Islam and black Africa. About four-fifths of its territory-the entire area north of the tenth parallel-is under the sway of Islam. Sizable Muslim minorities are also found in many southern
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CENTRAL ASIAN LITERATURE. Central Asia is understood to include the territories of present Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, the native population of which is Turkic in race and Muslim in religion. The Turkic peoples of Central Asia had a state structure and a rich literary tradition long before the Russian conquest of the region.
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CASSETTES. Since the 1970s, the “little medium” of the audio cassette has become an important means of communication with a sociopolitical impact reaching far beyond the boundaries of the nation states. This medium differs in significant ways from the “big media,” particularly television and radio, which in much of the Islamic world have been a
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CARPETS. The weaving of carpets is one of the most distinctive and characteristic of Islamic art forms, whether manifested in the more familiar pile carpets or the various flat-woven types. Found in a “rug belt” characterized for the most part by a dry and temperate climate, an abundance of marginal grazing land, and nomadic or
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CAPITULATIONS. Commercial privileges called capitulations were granted by Muslim states, especially the Ottoman and Persian Empires, to Christian European states desiring to carry on trade in what was technically enemy territory. These capitulations set customs rates, established security of life, property, and religion, and set up channels for dealing with problems and legal disputes. As
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CAPITALISM AND ISLAM. Debates over Islam’s economic implications are even more heated and inconclusive than debates over its social and political implications. Traditional texts and authorities provide countless blueprints for an ideal Muslim family and polity but not for an Islamic economy. The Qur’an explicitly endorses few economic values beyond private property, commercial honesty, and
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CANADA. Muslim immigration to Canada began in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but the great majority of Canadian Muslims are recent immigrants. For most, emigration from their ancestral lands involved dramatic changes from hegemonic to minoritarian status and from a setting where Muslim religious values are reinforced to a predominantly Christian country that
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CAMEROON. The Republic of Cameroon in West Central Africa is a microcosm of African diversity. Inhabited by some 12 million people in 1993, it has a Muslim population of about 21 percent, most of whom live in the northern part of the country. Islam was introduced in this region earlier than the nineteenth century, although
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CAMBODIA. The great Angkor civilization that began in the eighth century and survived until the seventeenth was centered in present-day Cambodia. It was followed by incessant wars with neighboring Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam until Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863. French rule lasted until 1953, when an independent Cambodia was once again established. However,
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CALLIGRAPHY AND EPIGRAPHY. The art most cherished by Muslims throughout history has been calligraphy. A saying attributed to the Prophet claims that a person who writes beautifully the Basmalah, the formula “In the name of God the Merciful the Compassionate,” will enter paradise. The feeling that the Qur’an, being God’s own word, should be written
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