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Category=QRP
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forthcoming
Product details
- ISBN 9780197821312
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 25 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Drawing on over two years of relational ethnography, featuring real-life case studies, interviews, and observations in mosques and madrasahs, The Neoliberal Turn in Regulating Islam explores the transformation of mosques and Islamic institutions in France and the UK under the pressures of neoliberal bureaucratisation.
El Yousfi's analysis of the neoliberal turn-the importation of formalities, rules and procedures, and the development of manuals, toolkits and guidelines derived from private enterprise into the traditional religious sphere-foregrounds the intertwinement of state policies and the efforts of local Muslim leaders. Documenting these top-down and bottom-up processes reveals two paradoxes: the paradox of neutrality and the paradox of legitimacy. The first one refers to the state's claim of neutrality despite its constant regulation of the socio-religious field. The second paradox lies in local Muslim leaders' efforts to acquire legitimacy through neoliberal bureaucratisation whilst simultaneously resisting state attempts to control mosques and madrasahs. Through an exploration of these paradoxes, this monograph offers a compelling narrative about the challenges and strategies of Muslim communities in navigating faith, identity, and bureaucracy in two distinct yet interconnected contexts.
Muhammad Amin El-Yousfi is a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge where he completed a PhD on how everyday Muslim pieties encounter and operate through processes of secularisation and neoliberalisation. His dissertation won the BRAIS Prize in 2021. In addition to studying privately a traditional curriculum of Islamic sciences with 'ulama around the world, El-Yousfi completed an MPhil in Economics and a second MPhil in the Social Sciences. He also co-founded the Moroccan Centre for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (MCISE) before joining the University of Cambridge as the first Moroccan pursuing a PhD with a full Cambridge Trust scholarship. His work has been published in various journals such as: Religion, State and Society, Religions, the Journal of Islamic Studies and Contemporary Islam.
