The Publications Programme at AKU-ISMC responds to an urgent need for representative scholarship about Muslim societies and cultures.

Our publications hope to function as effective vehicles for disseminating alternative perspectives about Muslim societies from those prevailing in the larger academic community and mainstream media. The books generate new ways of thinking about Muslim civilisations by bringing to the fore, representative points of view from various Muslim contexts.

The Institute’s publications consist of three series of academic publications that illustrate the dynamism of scholarship taking place in Muslim contexts. Much of this new scholarship testifies to the rethinking and rewriting about the heritage.

The first of the 3 series, In Translation: Modern Muslim Thinkers aims to broaden current debates about Muslim realities by bringing to light seminal works that have escaped the attention of scholars, media and civil society institutions. By identifying and translating critical and innovative thinking that deserves to be better known, the series hopes to introduce new perspectives to the discussions about Muslim civilisations occurring on the world stage.


In the first volume of this series, entitled Islam Between Message and History, Abdelmadjid Charfi confronts with great lucidity the difficult questions faced by contemporary Muslims; attempting to reconsider Islam from a moral and political perspective that is independent of the frameworks produced by traditions.




The second series of academic publications, Exploring Muslim Contexts, seeks to address the salient and urgent issues faced by Muslim societies as they evolve in a rapidly globalising world. It brings together the scholarship of leading contemporary specialists from various academic fields, representing a wide range of theoretical and practical perspectives.


The Institute has published two volumes in the second series, the first, Development Models in Muslim Contexts: Chinese, ‘Islamic’ and Neo-liberal Alternatives, considers the recent discussion of the ‘Chinese economic development model’, the emergence of an alternative ‘Muslim model’ over the past quarter century and the faltering globalisation of the ‘Washington Consensus’.



The second volume, The Challenge of Pluralism: Paradigms from Muslim Contexts is set within the context of current popular and academic discussions regarding Islam and diverse notions of pluralism. Bringing clarity to some key suppositions and conjectures, this book engages in a direct debate that explores various notions of pluralism and the broad spectrum of their relevance and application to modern day societies.



Finally, the Muslim Civilisations Abstracts series is an innovative reference catalogue of annotated bibliographies and abstracts that showcases the dynamic diversity of scholarship taking place in Muslim societies, whilst also making accessible to scholars, students and the public at large the plethora of existing scholarship about Muslim civilisations.


The first volume in the series, Encyclopaedias about Muslim Civilisations, catalogues annotated bibliographies of encyclopaedias concerning the Muslim world, published in any part of the world and in any language, during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. This first reference volume contains 200 abstracts published in English, Arabic and Turkish.




AKU-ISMC, while primarily a facility for original academic research, is also a hub for intellectual exchange and dialogue about and between Muslim societies and cultures. The Institute’s mandate, implemented in part by its publications programme is unique in its attempt to respond to current trends of thought about Islam, Muslims and Muslim societies.

Published in partnership with Edinburgh University Press, these four volumes are available across the United Kingdom in all major bookstores and can also be accessed online.

AKU-ISMC plans to expand its Publications Programme to include a range of publications which will seek to act as a forum for discussions about Muslim cultures.

Previous Publications

Further Information

For further information about the AKU-ISMC Publications Programme please contact Sikeena Karmali Ahmed, Manager, Publications and Editing.