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Die Reihe Islamkundliche Untersuchungen wurde 1969 im Klaus Schwarz Verlag begründet und hat sich zu einem der wichtigsten Publikationsorgane der Islamwissenschaft in Deutschland entwickelt. Die über 330 Bände widmen sich der Geschichte, Kultur und den Gesellschaften Nordafrikas, des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens sowie Zentral-, Süd- und Südost-Asiens.

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Since the 1920s, the so-called "return to the roots", has become a hegemonic discourse in Iran. Whereas the Pahlavi regimes (1925-1979) propagated the myth of the lost idyll of pre-Islamic Iran representing themselves as the true inheritors of those monarchies, the Islamists adopted a respective approach in regard to Islam.
As a result, a similar fairytale was made about the early Islamic community. Such claims, as it were, are not so much about the past as they are about the present.
So is this study.
By delving into the past, it questions the widespread nostalgic notions considering the pre-Islamic era as a lost utopia, wherein women were free from the restrictions "imposed by Islam". In point of fact such past is a fabrication. In the majority of cases, therefore, the revival projects invent traditions to legitimize current political agendas.

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