This book, by a collection of distinguished post-colonial critics, acknowledges but challenges the contemporary "Islamic problem" by asking the ways Muslims experience hope and share it with others. Assertions of difference are put on hold, suggestions of compatibility entertained. Assumptions that Muslims are non-liberal and anti-modern are challenged with evidence about their negotiations of liberalism and modernity. The increased scrutiny of Muslim identities replaces overtly racist ideas with ostensibly ethnic, cultural and religious categories within discourses of social difference. New divisions between Muslims and others echo colonial binaries of black and white, colonized and colonizer, within practices of divide and rule. this book speaks in the context of wider debates about social difference, oppression and liberation.

Introduction: Muslim Geographies: Spaces of Hope? - Richard Phillips and Tahir Abbas Part 1: Spaces of Hope? 1. Spaces of Hope: Interventions - Ziauddin Sardar 2. Muslims in the West: Deconstructing Geographical Binaries - Peter Hopkins 3. The Hopeful and Exclusionary Politics of Islam in Australia: Constructing Alternative Geographies of Western Islam - Kevin Dunn Part 2: Convivial Cities 4. Veils and Sales: Muslims and the Spaces of Postcolonial Fashion Retail - Reina Lewis 5. Citizenship and Faith: Muslim Scout Groups - Sarah Mills 6. The Utopian Space of the Islamic Bathhouse or Hammam - Magda Sibley and Fodil Fadli 7. Making space for Muslims: Housing for Bangladeshis in London - Ayona Datta Part 3: Economic and Political Empowerment 8. Muslim Economic Initiatives: Global Finance and Local Projects - Jane Pollard, Hilary Lim and Rajeswary Ampalavanar Brown 9. Muslims and the Anti-War Movements - Richard Phillips and Jamil Iqbal 10. Liberalising Islam: Creating Brits of the Islamic Persuasion - Sarah Glynn Part 4: Integration and Resistance 11. British Muslims and 'Community Cohesion' Debates - Claire Dwyer and Varun Uberoi 12. Residential Integration: Evidence from the UK Census - Kevin Brice 13. Muslim-American Hyphenated Identity: Negotiating a Positive Path - Selcuk R. Sirin and Selen Imamo? 14. 'After 7/7': Challenging the Dominant Hegemony - Tahir Abbas