Da'wa: A Global History of Islamic Missionary Thought and Practice(The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys)

In this engaging study, Matthew J. Kuiper tells the fascinating story of how Islam became a world religion and cultural phenomenon of immense scale, astonishing diversity and global impact. His starting point is the dramatic upsurge in Islamic missionary activism and widespread Muslim recovery of the classical concept of da‘wa (‘inviting’ to Islam, or Islamic mission) in recent times. Going back to Islam’s origins, Kuiper then carefully chronicles 14 centuries of history, from the 7th-century da‘was of the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad to diverse da‘wa initiatives in today’s global religious marketplaces. Paying attention to changing contexts, and to themes like the interplay between the religious and the political, Islamic relations with other religions, and the transformations of modernity, he develops a nuanced and original portrait of the past, present and future of Islamic missionary thought and practice.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures; List of Boxes; Dedication; Preface and Acknowledgments; Note on Transliteration and Dates; Introduction; Part I: The Pre-Modern Missionary History of Islam; 1. The First Invitation to Islam: Da‘wa in the Qur’an; 2. The Best Inviter: Da‘wa in Prophetic Sira and Hadith; 3. Da‘wa after the Prophet, c. 632-1100 CE; 4. Da‘wa in Medieval and Early Modern Islamic History, c. 1100-1700 CE; Part II: The Modern Missionary History of Islam; Introduction to Part II; 5. Contextualising Modern Da‘wa, Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries; 6.The First Phase of Modern Da‘wa, c. 1850-1950: A Survey; 7. The Second Phase of Modern Da‘wa, c. 1950-2020: A Survey; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Matthew J. Kuiper is Assistant Professor of Religion at Hope College, and author of Da’wa and Other Religions: Indian Muslims and the Modern Resurgence of Global Islamic Activism (Routledge, 2018).

Review :
Kuiper presents a carefully contextualized survey of the complex history of ‘calling’ others to Islam.　From deliberate proselytization to almost incidental Islamization, Kuiper shows the variety of mechanisms by which Islam became a global religion, while highlighting important distinctions between the spread of Islam in medieval times and the modern emergence of formal missionary movements. This is a lucid, judicious and much-needed overview of a key dimension of Muslim religious history.