Muslim Spaces of Hope

Debates about contemporary Islam and Muslims in the West have taken some negative turns in the depressing atmosphere of the war on terror and its aftermath. "Muslim Spaces of Hope" argues that we have been too preoccupied with problems, not enough with solutions. It acknowledges but challenges what has come to be viewed as the 'Islamic problem' - the widespread perception or construction of Muslims as a troubled and troublesome minority - by asking what Muslims have to be hopeful about today, and how others might share this hope. It argues that there are grounds for hope in many areas of everyday life, and challenges many of the assumptions and assertions that have been made about Muslims in the West. The increased scrutiny of Muslim identities has taken place in the context of a more general recasting of racial ideas and racism, while the targeting of Muslims has been associated with new forms of an older phenomenon: imperialism. New divisions between Muslims and others echo colonial ideas of black and white, colonised and coloniser, within practices of divide and rule. "Muslim Spaces of Hope" speaks to others who have been marginalised and colonised, and to wider debates about social difference, oppression and liberation.