Anything but Orthodox: Anthropological Observations of Islam in the 21st Century - Jack David Eller

The book is a study of the dynamic, multi-faceted, and even unorthodox things that are happening within Muslim-majority societies. The mission is to bring together in a single volume an array of anthropological observations of individuals, groups, and movements in contemporary Islamic settings, focusing neither primarily on religion nor on nonreligion or secularism but on the range activities that people engage in under the umbrella of Islam.

The volume includes 14 chapters by anthropologists on and in a wide array of Muslim-majority countries, from Morocco to Turkey, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, and Indonesia. It features explorations of unorthodox piety (including “algorithmic faith” and ex-Muslim “digital migration”), economics (Islamic currencies and “market Islam” in the form of Gülen movement), gender (online female entrepreneurship, heavy metal women, queer-feminist pilgrimage, and transgender and anti-transgender movements), and arts and environments (eco-Islam, modernist Islamic art, and Ottoman objects and authority). The collected essays illustrate clearly that Islam is much more than “Islamism” or, worse, Islamic terrorism and that contemporary Muslims are creative makers of their own forms of modernity, usually respectful of but also actively reimaging the “discursive tradition” that is Islam.

The volume should be of interest to scholars and students of Islam (and other religions), as well as general readers, who want to see beyond the stereotypes of Islam and appreciate today’s Muslims as makers of their own, often unorthodox, cultural realities.