The Edge of Islam

“The Edge of Islam offers rare appreciation of the ways Islam, as a faith and practice, coheres across deeply fraught ethnic boundaries that inform the daily lives of Swahili and Giriama communities. . . . The Edge of Islam deftly navigates questions of Islamic authority, including distinctions between scripturalism and bodily practice, virtuous inwardness and pragmatic communalism, rationalism and madness.”
-- Flagg Miller * American Anthropologist *
“[A] sophisticated discussion of theories of spirit possession, identity, ethnicity, hegemony and ideology. . . . The book is beautifully written in a precise, clear and engaging style, and is of importance for anthropologists and political scientists as well as for students of religion.” -- Kevin Ward * Leeds African Studies Bulletin *
“This is a very good book, which I would strongly recommend, offering an effective and constructive critique of existing scholarship and a sobering insight into tensions which are very real and current" -- Justin Willis * Journal of Islamic Studies *
“It is extremely hard to do justice to this remarkable book, which is filled with excellent analysis and narratives.” -- Cynthia Brantley * African Studies Review *
"[A book with] rich and wide-ranging ethnographic knowledge [and] sophisticated theoretical ambitions. . . provocative and analytically rigorous." -- Simon Hawkins * Journal of Religion in Africa *
“Janet McIntosh's The Edge of Islam is one of the very best ethnographies of East Africa to emerge in the past ten years. . . . [T]hought-provoking, interesting, and original.” -- James Smith * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
"[A] highly welcome contribution. This innovative and invigorating book provides invaluable insights to the highly complex interplay between religion and ethnicity." -- Terje Østebø * African Studies Quarterly *
“McIntosh’s account has a sharpness of focus and forcefulness of approach that is an improvement over much that has been published on religion andvalues in this area. . . . [T]his is a book well worth reading. . . . [An] excellent study, a valuable contribution to our understanding of the East African coast.” -- T. O. Beidelman * Anthropos *
"[A]n exhilarating ethnography. . . [which] reconfigures our understanding of Islam on the Swahili coast.” -- Kate Kingsford * African Affairs *
“Very original…very skillful…likely to inspire many other anthropologists working on religion, [and] a ‘must read’ for anthropologists of religion in Africa.” -- Ramon Sarro * Islamic Africa *
"The 2010 winner of the Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion was The Edge of Islam: Power, Personhood, and Ethno-religious Boundaries on the Kenya Coast . . . a sophisticated and highly accessible analysis [that] infuses fresh insight into such well-worn concepts as hegemony, ideology, syncretism and personhood, while at the same time rethinks questions relating to conversion, possession, and the margins of Islam. . . . Commented one member of the jury, McIntosh was the most subtle and engaging study of the entanglements of categories of ethnic and religious identifications that I've read. . . . Clifford Geertz would have approved of this choice for many reasons, but perhaps most of all because it is written in such elegant but straightforward prose." -- Sue Kenyon * Anthropology News *