About the Author

Scott S. Reese is Professor of Islamic History at Northern Arizona University

Reviews

In Imperial Muslims, the author's ingenious use of British archival sources and Arabic contemporary publications make 19th and early 20th century Aden come alive in front of the readers' eyes. His assertion that at the turn of the century Britain ruled over forty percent of the global Muslim population is enough to explain why Aden is an important case study in providing a window into the social and spiritual life of a Muslim community within the British Empire.--THANOS PETOURIS "BYS newsletter"

A community that was the offspring of empire, the Muslims of Aden gave voice to the competing religious currents at the confluence of Africa and Asia. By depicting a 'multiverse' shaped by rival cosmologies, legal pluralism, and the metaphysical unseen as well as the visible flows of finance, Scott Reese succeeds splendidly in revealing a microcosm of the Indian Ocean's heterogeneous umma.-- "Nile Green (UCLA), author of Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean"

In Imperial Muslims we have a tremendously valuable and highly readable contribution, one that has filled a serious gap in our reading of modern Indian Ocean history, and that has also added significant depth to our understanding of Muslim religious life under colonial rule. This is a book that will find a wide readership in Middle Eastern and Islamic history, colonial history, and especially the history of the Indian Ocean. It is beautifully written, deeply textured, and eminently accessible... Moreover, it is organized in a way that allows for a classroom instructor to assign individual chapters as well as the whole book.--Fahad Ahmad Bishara, University of Virginia "Die Welt des Islams"