From investigations of consumerism and Islam on the Internet to changing attitudes towards sex, gender and homosexuality, shifting family patterns, religion and rituals, the new Arab media, and transnational Islam, this collection assesses the impact of increasingly global and mobile lifestyles on family structure, public space and private life.

The texts brilliantly bring together empirical explorations of the social sciences and intuitive sensibilities of the literary imaginations.

Authors included are Nawal El Saadawi, Suad Joseph, Amin Maalouf, Orhan Pamuk, Tariq Ramadan and Edward Said, among others.