The chapter offers an analysis of two sources. The first follows the personal testimony of the conversion of an Argentine middle-class man, Matías Fernández Quinquela, an accountant for the Argentine National Congress. This account was originally published in English in the journal of the Anglican South American Missionary Society and contains a very typical exposition of the personal reflections of doubt and dissatisfaction with Catholicism as well as the atheistic positivist freethinking that led educated people, like Quinquela, to look for an alternative in Protestantism. The second offers an account of the proselytizing activities of M. F. Quinquela's wife, Carlota Lubin, and her arrest by order of a Catholic priest in a suburb of Buenos Aires. The story was published in a local magazine, La Reforma. The story demonstrates the active and provocative militancy with which these converts spread their message, the irritation they provoked in the Catholic Church, and the informal power ties between priests and local government office. The Quinquelas were convinced of the possibilities of moral and social renewal that evangelical Protestantism could offer Argentine society.

The chapter analyzes the history of the first Pentecostals in Puerto Rico through the memoir of Juan L. Lugo. This document, published by Lugo circa 1950, recounts his memories as an immigrant in Hawaii, his initial experience with Pentecostal faith, and details his eventual development as a minister ordained by the council of The Assemblies of God Church in the United States. Based on his account, this chapter will address several historiographical considerations about the relationship between forced migration and the exponential growth of Pentecostal movements, particularly in the transition from the nineteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth. It is no coincidence that this religious current found fertile ground among the most vulnerable and marginalized populations. As such, the socioeconomic and political panorama in which the birth of Pentecostalism in Puerto Rico took place will also be explained. Finally, the discursive and doctrinal trends emblematic of the founding period of Pentecostalism on the island will be highlighted.

Arguments that are put forward against pardah are not merely negative in nature but have a positive and affirmative basis. These arguments are founded not just on a dislike for restricting women’s mobility and veiling as an unnecessary imprisonment, both of which should be done away with. Proponents of these arguments have in mind a totally different way of life for women. They also have an altogether different concept of the relationships between the male and the female. They want women to follow one particular way and not the other. Thus, their main objection against pardah is that if the woman remains confined to the house and veiled, she cannot follow that particular way, nor can she do anything else that is expected of her.

This chapter contains excerpts from Maududi’s immensely influential text Al Jihad fil Islam. Refuting colonial pressures to decry violent resistance, Maududi built a philosophical and historial argument regarding the specific conditions, modes and methods of war permissible in Islam. Several abridged English translations exist but are highly selective in foregrounding parts that press the necessity of violence in particular contexts. Many were published by activists who were attracted by the unapologetic tone of Maududi’s justifications of violence as part of a political struggle. However, Maududi had constructed a much more complicated argument, with comparisons across religious traditions (Buddhist, Hindu, Judaic, Christian), as well as empires in different times and regions (Roman, Sassanid, Islamic and Modern European) to frame his reading of the ethics and norms of war in the Islamic tradition. This text also contains the first articulation of some key ideas and concepts that Maududi continued to develop over the course of his career. Methodologically, too, it signposts his use of broad historical generalizations, as well as a systematic breakdown of arguments that remained central to his thinking.

A career-long project for Emerson was the attempt to understand and seize upon the historical moment, or what he often called “the present hour,” in which he lived. But Emerson’s interest in “the Times” was also, fundamentally, an interest in time. This chapter examines “Emerson’s times” in this dual sense: his abiding investments, philosophical, social, and political, in the historical present – the time of now – and in its temporalities – the time of now. Emerson’s commitment to the present as the bedrock of historical experience and the sphere of ethical action was shaped by the new conceptions of time and the new temporal experiences afforded by the technological, scientific, and political developments of his era. Thus, if the “practical question” with regard to “the times” was, as Emerson states it in “Fate,” an immediate one – “how shall I live?” – that question was complicated by the heterochronicity of the times.

Although basic freedoms (such as freedom of thought) in Nicaragua were decreed in 1869, their implementation did not have major repercussions until 1893 with the approval of La Liberrima – an important transformation in the country. Its introduction reflected a great change in the relationship of religion and the Constitutions of 1838 and 1858. An analysis of La Liberrima is necessary to study the original development of Protestantism as a social phenomenon within modern Nicaragua. Following the irruption of radical liberalism at the end of the nineteenth century, Protestantism expanded and developed new forms of association. In this context, the emergence and meaning of the phenomenon can be linked to modernizing forms of civil participation that created local bases and fomented its expansion including churches, schools, health-related projects, and publications. The chapter also includes an examination of a Protestant publication, principally the magazine Antorcha, to highlight the evolution of Protestantism as a historical process. Based on these documents, this work aims to broadly assess the emergence of local Protestant actions that developed in a less than welcoming environment.

Maududi’s ideas on Islamic economics have also been very influential across the Muslim world, and some argue that he should be recognized as the father of the contemporary Islamic finance sector, valued at roughly $3.5 trillion today. Arshad Zaman has rightly argued that Maududi’s insistence on using the term ma‘ashiyyat, which carries the meaning of ’provision of livelihood’, rather than iqtisādiyyat, which is more readily translated as ’economics’, is significant . Maududi was making an explicit statement against the centrality of wealth acquisition and generation associated with the term iqtisādiyyat. This collection of essays was first published in 1969, and the writings included range over the thirty years preceding its publication.

In the early days of the twentieth century, missionaries from the United States were in a spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of Brazilians. As a result, in 1901, the Baptists founded “O Jornal Batista.” Four years later, the Catholic Church established its first paper, “A União.” In their pages, these papers reflected the spiritual battle that was being fought. A significant part of the struggle focused on the idea that the United States was either a civilizing agent (“O Jornal Batista”) or an agent of barbarism (“A União”). Social and political topics gripping the northern country, such as lynching, racism, and prohibition law, were regular topics of discussion in both papers. This chapter aims to provide a brief discussion of the significance of these debates and their meaning in the context of North American missions in Brazil, especially in the northeastern part of the country. The sources highlight how locals used religion to understand and articulate changes in local political dynamics as well as the various ways Protestantism changed the parameters of local political debates.

In mid-twentieth-century Iraq, with the British installed Hashemite monarchy in 1921, many Shi‘i communities experienced exclusion from the state. As ideological politics intensified, disenfranchized Shi‘i communities – notably in the shrine city of Najaf – were drawn to Marxism and communism as vehicles of social justice and empowerment. Shi‘i intellectuals of this period absorbed Western philosophical and socialist ideas, fueling new debates on religion and society. A young Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr began engaging with Marxist thought as he formulated a Shi‘i response to contemporary injustices. In his early treatise, Fadak fi al-Tarikh (1955), Sadr reinterpreted the Fadak inheritance dispute of early Islamic history as an overtly political and revolutionary struggle. Adopting Marxist-influenced language and a historical materialist lens, he analyzed the episode’s underlying power dynamics and socio-economic stakes, arguing that Fatima al-Zahra’s challenge to the first caliph constituted revolutionary action against unjust authority. Sadr transformed Fatima into a symbol of resistance – a model for revolutionary Shi‘i political engagement in the modern era. Sadr’s initial flirtation with Marxist concepts catalyzed a new Shi‘i intellectual current that fused class-conscious social critique with Islamic theological principles, laying the groundwork for an indigenous Shi‘i paradigm of political activism.

In 1902, shortly after Pastor Willis Hoover took charge of the Valparaíso Methodist Church, an intense revival began that eventually gave rise to the Chilean Pentecostal movement. The Valparaíso revival reached its climax in 1909, but in August of that year, the sudden charismatic leadership of “Sister Elena” (Nelly Laidlaw) attracted the attention of the pastors of the First and Second Methodist churches in Santiago (Rice and Robinson). On September 12, when Elena visited both churches, the pastors refused her request to address the congregations, becoming a pivotal moment in the history of the movement. According to local accounts, Chilean Pentecostalism was born that day. Juan Kessler (1967) offers the most rigorous and influential academic reconstruction of the events of that day, although he provides a very negative evaluation of Sister Elena as well as the reasons for the Pentecostal schism. However, Kessler did not consider the story or the reflections put forth by Enrique Jara in the newspaper Chile Evanjelico (Concepción, November 19, 1909), published under the title “Echoes of awakening in Santiago.” This chapter will introduce and revisit Jara’s account of the events of that fateful day.

The magazine Renacimiento was one of the most important periodical publications in the evangelical world during the first decades of the twentieth century. Founded in 1921 by missionary Juan Ritchie, it became the voice of the Peruvian Evangelical Church (Iglesia Evangélica Peruana – IEP), the first national denomination in Peru. The magazine was part of initial efforts to develop Protestant journalistic work, in which other Protestant missionary agencies also participated. However, the influence of the Renacimiento was decisive in creating a Protestant consciousness and developing reactions to various social and religious topics based in a nascent evangelical identity. This chapter will focus on selections from the first years of the magazine (1921–1930), paying close attention to the political and social dimensions of faith in its articles as well as the construction of evangelical identity. Its aim is to contribute to our understanding of this crucial period of evangelical history by analyzing a forum in which the voices of missionaries and national leaders converged.

This extensive introduction presents Maududi’s anti-colonial concerns, cosmopolitan sources and conceptual innovations, while also providing an overview of existing scholarship on his thought. Will be of particular interest to scholars of political theory, history, politics, Islamic studies and South Asian studies.

To clearly distinguish the second type of evil, against which Islam calls its followers to raise their swords, from the first type and to make its nature more explicit, God describes it with the terms fitnah and fasād. Therefore, all the verses that permit or prescribe fighting against evil or command its removal through the use of force invariably employ the terms fitnah and fasād instead of munkar, evil.

This chapter presents El Evangelista (1877–1886), the first Protestant, Spanish-language newspaper in the Río de la Plata region of Argentina as well as two articles that appeared in El Estandarte (1883–1901) and El Atalaya (1901–1909). These publications were among the most influential journalistic organs that Protestants used for the initial dissemination of their ideas in the port cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario de Santa Fe, and Montevideo in the period 1870–1900. Using these sources, this chapter analyzes how the anti-Catholic discourse wielded by Protestantism contributed to a growing crisis of meaning by questioning Catholic society, its mediations such as the miracle of the mass, prayers for the dead, relics, the cult of saints, the monastic way of life, and its agents. This challenge aimed to establish a religious reformation that would introduce a new moral order to the society and culture of the region.