bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology
Authors: Whittingham Martin
Published: October 2020

This work of historical theology is essential reading for those wanting tounderstand with new depth and clarity the life and teachings of al-Ghazali(d. 505/1111). It is sometimes maintained that he contributed significantly toMuslim scholars’ ending of scientific inquiry and the use of reason. Thisview has recently been promoted afresh by Robert Reilly’s The Closing ofthe Muslim Mind (Wilmington, DE: 2010). Griffel extensively discusses twofactors contributing to this general perception: al-Ghazali’s opposition to thephilosophers in Tahafut al-Falasifah (see M. Marmura, ed and tr. The Incoherenceof the Philosophers [Provo, UT: 1997]) and his endorsement of occasionalism,the idea that events do not occur because of their inherent properties, such as fire’s ability to burn cotton, but instead God creates each individualevent with no reference to causes and effects in the physical world.Thus there is, at least in theory, no predictable causality in the world. Thiswould seem to render scientific inquiry, which relies on predictable processes,theoretically impossible. Scholars have differed over whether al-Ghazali is indeed an occasionalist (Marmura) or in fact endorses causality inline with the philosopher Ibn Sina (Richard Frank).In contrast, Griffel sets out to demonstrate that al-Ghazali “is the firstMuslim theologian who actively promotes the naturalization of the philosophicaltradition into Islamic theology” (p. 7) and that his writings are ‘aparticular kind of Avicennism’ (p. 14). His central argument is that al-Ghazali remained uncommitted throughout his career as to whether Godbrings about events in this world through occasionalism or via secondarycausality. Griffel contends that his consistent position was to regard eachposition as possible, developing “something like a synthetic positionbetween these two poles” (p. 12). In arguing for this, the author presents ahighly persuasive reading of al-Ghazali’s principal texts, which presents himas avoiding self-contradiction on this issue ...
Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle, Homosexuality in Islam
Authors: Rahemtulla Shadaab
Published: October 2020

Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle’s Homosexuality in Islam: Critical Reflectionon Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims is a comprehensive, engaging,and original rereading of the formative Islamic texts and traditions. Targetedat both academic and popular readers, the book has two prime objectives:to push heterosexual Muslims to confront their own prejudices abouthomosexuality within the Muslim community, and to give lesbian, gay, andtransgender Muslims greater confidence and the ability to speak about theirsexual realities in regard to the Islamic intellectual tradition ...
Religion and Politics in the Middle East
Authors: Kersten Carool
Published: October 2020

In the final decades of the twentieth century, a new strand of Islamic intellectualismbegan inserting itself into contemporary Muslim discourses onpolitics, law, and human rights. Not fitting into existing neat categoriessuch as traditionalist, revivalist, and modernist-liberal Islam, its promotersoperate on the interstices of established traditions and practices within theMuslim world, as well as the liminal spaces between cultures and civilizations.With the advent of the new millennium, the impact of their alternative, cosmopolitan or culturally hybrid ways of engaging with the Islamicheritage, or turath, is receiving increasing recognition.In his latest book, Religion and Politics in the Middle East, which examineswhether religion has primacy over politics or the other way around,Robert D. Lee’s focus has shifted from individuals (Muhammad Iqbal,Sayyid Qutb, Ali Shariati, and Mohammed Arkoun) to a quartet of countries(Egypt, Israel, Turkey, and Iran). At the same time, he continues toacknowledge the significance of maverick thinkers such as the EgyptianNasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Turkey’s Said Nursi and Fethullah Gülen, and theIranian Abdolkarim Soroush and Mohsen Kadivar in questioning, challenging,and transforming the intellectual and political scenes in their respectivecountries and beyond—although often forced to do so from abroad asexilic intellectuals ...
Earth Empire and Sacred Text
Authors: Mirza Mahan
Published: October 2020

There is a new trend in the progressive quarter of American EvangelicalChristianity to form common bonds with Muslims. From this impulsestem books such as Miroslav Volf’s Allah: A Christian Responseand Carl Medearis’ Muslims, Christians, and Jesus: Gaining Understandingand Building Relationships, as well as organizations such as RickLove’s Peace Catalyst and Yale Divinity School’s Reconciliation Program.David Johnston’s robust Earth, Empire and Sacred Text falls withinthis trend (although these are by no means monolithic attempts and each must be evaluated on its own terms). As an Evangelical Christianwith an academic streak and extensive international experience, Johnstonis uniquely positioned to not only reach out to Muslims but alsoto educate his fellow American Christians. The book is an extraordinaryundertaking and may be considered a three-volume work collapsedinto one. Devout yet pragmatic, Johnston is prepared to engagethe reality of the world in order develop a theology that acknowledgesits own limitations. Johnston combines intellectual rigor with politicalactivism, while remaining theologically inclusive yet authentic ...
Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism
Authors: Sinanović Ermin
Published: October 2020

These three books cover the common themes of the last century and ahalf of Muslim activism ‒ reform, radicalism, and the role of Islam inmodern societies. Each book covers a different phase in the history ofIslamic revivals and their interactions with modernity. John Calvert’sbook is a study of Sayyid Qutb’s work during the phase of the heightenedCold War ideological contestations in the postcolonial period, bothin the Muslim lands as well as globally. Kai Hafez’s book focuses largelyon the last several decades when the study of democracy and democratizationcame to the forefront of the academic/policy scene in the West‒ but also among the Muslim activists. Finally, John Esposito’s book spotlightsthe Muslim present and its possible futures. Combined, the booksprovide an overview of the important issues surrounding Muslim activismand possibilities for political and religious reform among the Muslims ...
Questions about Roger Scruton
Authors: Butterworth Charles E.
Published: October 2020

Roger Scruton, known for his good-natured conservatism and general attemptsto defend traditional Western life, seems blind to the novelty ofour globalized world as he conflates Islam with radical Islam and attacksMuslims as though all were Islamists. Genial style notwithstanding,his indictment of Islam and Muslims is inaccurate and his desire todeny Muslims the right to live as Muslims in their own or Western politiesanything but good-natured. Alas, until Muslims become secular andagree to imbibe alcohol, Scruton will reject them as impossibly asocial.He ignores that there are many faces of Islam varying in place andtime as well as social milieu. That meshes with his devotion to viewingreligious conviction through the lenses of bourgeois Western mores andderiding piety. Though appealing to populist sentiment, it does not rise tothe standard of serious criticism or come near the scholarly obligation togive the arguments and the actions we oppose their strongest defense andthen probe for what is weak ...
Interfaith Dialogue
Authors: Johnston David
Published: October 2020

Interfaith Dialogue: A Guide for Muslims is certainly that – a practicalguide to help local Muslim leaders navigate the tricky waters of interfaithdialogue. More than that, however, it is a document intended to persuadeMuslims, who on the whole are reticent and even staunchly opposed inmany cases, to engage in interfaith dialogue in the first place.This is evident in the preface of the second edition, which begins witha 2010 incident at the Islamic Center of Rochester, New York. A scholarvisiting from the Middle East was speaking on the necessity for Muslimsto talk to people of other faiths. When he had finished, one person in theaudience strongly objected, even warning the speaker that he was in dangerof hellfire for suggesting such things. Despite the watershed initiative bySaudi Arabia King Addullah in calling together the 2008 Madrid InterfaithConference, “many Muslims who attend the mosque for daily worship areopposed or have negative opinions of interfaith dialogue” (xi). So whatneeds to happen first is an “intra-Muslim dialogue . . . that will educateworshippers on the meaning, scope, and the contemporary use of moderninterfaith dialogue from Islamic perspectives” (xi‒xii). Apparently, authorsMuhammad Shafiq and Mohammed Abu-Nimer encountered more resistanceto the idea than they first thought would happen ...
Ghosts of Revolution
Authors: Goldin Farideh
Published: October 2020

Shahla Talebi’s memoir, Ghosts of Revolution: Rekindled Memories of Imprisonmentin Iran, is painful to read; it is hard to read. The book, a recollectionof Shahla Talebi’s years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, is jail-likeitself ‒ unrelenting in stark accounts of torture, murders, madness, andmayhem. From the very start, the prologue, until the very last words of theepilogue and even its twelve pages of acknowledgements, the agony goeson. Every chapter, every paragraph, and every line stabs the readers withthe hopelessness of Iranian citizens caught in the murderous, diabolicalschemes of the uncontrolled, unethical, and ruthless government, whichhas ruled Iran since the Revolution of 1979 ...
Islam and the Constitutions in Newly Reformed Countries in the Middle East
Authors: Hummel Daniel
Published: October 2020

The revolutions that started in Tunisia and spread to other countries in the Middle East have been dubbed the “Arab Spring.” Many countries in theMiddle East have been under the thumb of an oppressive dictator. After several decades of this oppression, the people in these countries have resistedthe continuance of this rule.As the smoke clears, the task of rebuilding and reforming the institutionsof government is the most important task ahead for those who demandedchange. The most important aspect of this change is the country’s constitution. The constitution of these countries must play the same role as the constitution in the United States. These constitutions must embody the change the reformers desire and be as inclusive as possible to be legitimate.One of the concerns of some international observers is the rise of theprominence of Islamic conservative parties. Another concern is the inclusionin the articles of the proposed new constitutions of these countriesarticles that declare Islam and Islamic law as the foundation of the constitutions ...
IIIT Intellectual Panels at the ISNA 49th Annual Convention
Authors: Willoughby Jay
Published: October 2020

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) organized a two-day seriesof intellectual panels at the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA)49th annual convention, held in Washington, DC over the Labor Day weekend.These events, hosted in the institute’s hospitality suite on the main floorof the Washington Convention Center, took place during 1-2 September 2012.Recently published IIIT books and other selected Arabic and English publications,as well as special collections of the late Ismail Al Faruqi’s works andmany of Ali Mazrui’s books, journal articles, and personal items, were alsoprominently displayed. At the beginning of each session, a documentary onIIIT and its goals was shown ...
The Origins of the Shi‘a
Authors: Lawson Todd
Published: October 2020

This book will be of interest to scholars in a variety of fields and disciplines:Islamic studies (history, thought, institutions, and modern developments), history,religion, anthropology, and sociology, to name a few that immediatelycome to mind. The book’s great virtue lies in its bringing together two heretoforesomewhat antagonistic or apparently mutually exclusive scholarly temperamentsto focus on a problem (or rather a cluster of problems) of the very first importance, articulated as the title of a seminal article by one of the greatminds of the last century engaged in the academic pursuit of Islamic history:How did the early Shi‘a become sectarian?Marshal Hodgson’s interest and task in that complex and erudite study(published in 1955) has been admirably continued and, in a real sense, consummatedin this excellent book. One of the many reasons the question aswell as the answers it may generate are so important (even urgent, one mightadd) is because to ask how the early Shi‘a became sectarian is also to askhow Sunni Islam eventually came to be configured in its classical and enduringform, how Sufism arose, and how Islam acquired its singular cosmopolitanprofile frequently characterized by the perhaps spurious prophetichadith: ikhtilOEf ummati raúmah (Disagreement in my community is a divinemercy) ...
The Emergence of a Muslim Minority in the Ado-Ekiti Kingdom of Southwestern Nigeria
Authors: Olawale Sulaiman Kamal-deen
Published: October 2020

This paper seeks to provide a sociological reinterpretation ofIslam’s presence in the Ado-Ekiti kingdom by unraveling the variousessentially sociopolitical and economic factors that, alongwith religious factors, account for its emergence and growth. Ihave adopted a historical methodology (narrative) to understandand explain its appearance, functions, and contributions in thekingdom. This will be supplemented with material found in publicand private libraries, archives and museums, and artifacts.The paper reveals that the exact date of Islam’s introduction remainsunknown and that local Muslims worshipped in secret until1836, when a Muslim named Ali Atewogboye ascended thethrone. He and his successor gave Islam a strong foundation dueto their sociopolitical and economic motivations. The paper closeswith an account of the factors that facilitated Islam’s spread, theproblems faced by local Muslims, and how they have tried to resolvethese problems.
The Qur’anic Worldview
Authors: Rufai Saheed Ahmad
Published: October 2020

The thesis of this sophisticated book is that the rebirth of an Islamic identity

can only be realized through a decisive replication of the Muslim community

created through strict adherence to and implementation of the Qur’anic worldview.

The specific details provided by AbdulHamid AbuSulayman in his attempt

to present this thesis as credible and worthy of merit invariably expose

the work as one of synthesis and the lifetime project of an intellectual who is

being propelled by his wanderlust for paving the way for the Muslims’ return

to the golden age of the Islamic heritage. For instance, he describes this book

as his “extended reflection on the Islamic worldview” (p. xv), around which

his scholarship and personal experience have revolved. He also cites this reflection

as the reason why he has “grappled with … issues” relating to it from

his early days and has continued to promote the same line of thought throughout

his “writing career that extended half a century” (p. xx).

The book is divided into five chapters. In chapter 1, the author discusses

the relationship between the Qur’anic worldview and human nature. He bases

his argument on the premise that “every cultural system is associated with an

underlying worldview which is translated into action by means of a particular ...
The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History
Authors: Ebrahimian Mojtaba
Published: October 2020

Narrating the history of a nation from approximately 1,000,000 BCE to 2009

CE in 389 pages is a daunting and noteworthy task undertaken by the scholars

who have contributed to The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History. This collection

of sixteen short essays by distinguished anthropologists, archaeologists,

historians, and philologists of the Iranian world divides Iranian history into

three general periods: ancient, medieval, and modern. Chapters 1 to 7 address

the ancient Iranian dynasties, chapters 8 to 13 talk about medieval Iran, and

the last three focus on modern Iran. In the words of editor Touraj Daryaee,

each chapter has been written in a way to provide “comprehensive information

for students at the university level and for the uneducated layperson” (p. ii).

Therefore, the book is intended to be more of an introduction rather than a

reference book for scholarly research ...
The Islamic Scholarly Tradition
Authors: Correa Dale J.
Published: October 2020

This collection comprises fourteen papers delivered at a December 2010 conference

held at Princeton University in honor of Michael A. Cook, as well as

a preface and an introduction. Its four sections are designed to reflect the prin-

cipal areas of Near Eastern and Islamic studies to which Cook has contributed:

“Early Islamic History,” “Early Modern and Modern Islamic History,” “Juridical

and Intellectual History,” and “Reinterpretations and Transformations.”

The papers cover a broad geographic range from al-Andalus to Central Asia,

and an extensive disciplinary range, with studies of calendars, conquest,

fatāwā, tafsīr, and logic, among other subjects.

Part 1 begins with Michael Bonner’s “‘Time Has Come Full Circle’:

Markets, Fairs, and the Calendar in Arabia before Islam,” which addresses

the intercalation of Arabia’s pre-Islamic calendar and the utility of sources

for social history in dealing with this topic. He extends his confirmation of

intercalation to a discussion of trade and social activity, noting that the shift

to the Islamic lunar calendar indicated a shift to a new moral and social order

and a true “revolution” in breaking with the past. In “The Wasiyya of Abū

Hāshim: The Impact of Polemic in Premodern Muslim Historiography,”

Najam Haider focuses on reports of the alleged testament (in 98/716-17) of

Abu Hashim in which, written just before his death, he transferred his imamate

and leadership to the Abbasid Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abdullah. Relying

primarily on Jacob Lassner’s approach to early material of this kind,

which focuses on political propaganda and ideological debates, the author

highlights the competition among reports of this testament and, later on in

the Mamluk period, the processes of crafting a historical narrative that removed

the polemical aspects. His study exemplifies the use of an alternative

approach to early Islamic history, one that focuses on what compilations of

historical reports tell us about contemporaneous political situations and religious

doctrine, as well as about the historiographic methods of pre-modern

historians ...
Women in Morocco
Authors: El Haitami Meriem
Published: October 2020

The recent political upheavals in the Arab world were marked by

women’s significant presence in struggling for democracy alongside

men. Muslim women activists in Morocco have particularly gained

legitimacy in the context of the Arab Spring, which has brought the

Justice and Development conservative political party to power. This

has contributed to a shift from the elite liberal state feminism to a

more legitimate religious activism. This introduces new spaces for

contention, taking into consideration that following the 2003

Casablanca bombings, Morocco has taken a series of measures to

absorb the growing momentum of political Islam. One such measure

has been to restructure the religious field by means of reforming

and controlling the dynamics of religion in Morocco; this was primarily

marked by the significant entry and deployment of women

in the religious field as religious leaders and scholars. These statetrained

female religious authorities offer spiritual counseling and

religious instruction to different social segments. Therefore, they

redefine parameters of religious authority and define a new model

of activism that seeks to cultivate collective pious conduct within

society and thus contribute to a comprehensive social reform.

Therefore, this article explores the dynamics of female religious

authority in Morocco in light of the current social and political

changes. I examine how these women construct authority as religious

leaders and how they endorse the state’s authority to control

the dynamics of religion in Morocco and curb the voices of individuals

or groups that operate outside of official Islam. I argue

that despite the fact that these female religious authorities are

viewed as instruments of state propaganda, they are gaining wider

legitimacy and contributing greatly to the social welfare of their

communities, which makes their “official” entry into the religious

domain a serious step toward democracy and positive change.
American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism
Authors: Riley Krista
Published: October 2020

In American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than aPrayer, Juliane Hammer traces recent conversations around gender and religionwithin American Muslim communities. Taking as a starting point the mixedgenderFriday prayer led by Amina Wadud in 2005, the author examines howquestions of gendered religious authority have been negotiated through interpretationsof scripture and religious laws, challenges to constructions of traditionand community, contestations surrounding prayer spaces, and representationsof Muslim women in the media and autobiographical narratives.100 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 31:1The result is a valuable and insightful mapping of some of the majorscholars, activists, and public figures engaged in work related to women, gender,and Islam in North America. Based on an analysis of texts produced byfemale American Muslim scholars and writers since the 1980s and especiallywithin the past decade, the book highlights women’s contributions to debatesaround women-led prayer, Qur’anic interpretations, women’s spaces inmosques, and women’s leadership within Muslim communities, among otherissues. Hammer acknowledges that of many of the texts she studies have a“progressive” leaning, but frames this as itself a research finding that reflectsthe perspectives and voices most likely to be published or otherwise highlightedwithin an American context ...
Between Reason and Revelation
Authors: Richmond Joel
Published: October 2020

Nasir-i Khusraw (d. 469/1077), who was appointed by the Fatimid imam al-Mustansir bi’llah (d. 487/1094) as the ḥujjat and chief dā‘ī for the region ofKhurasan, lived the later period of his life exiled in Badakhshan due to religiouspersecution. This treatise, a virtual summa of eleventh-century Ismailiphilosophical theology put forth in a question-and-answer format, deals withalmost all of the scientific and philosophical issues that occupied the mindsof the Isma‘ili mission of his time. The context is a reply to the amīr ofBadakhshan, Abu al-Ma‘ali ‘Ali ibn al-Asad (reign 462/1069), who had requestedNasir to explain Abu al-Haytham Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Jurjani’s (d.10th century) philosophical qaṣīdah. The text itself, originally edited by HenryCorbin and Mohammed Mu‘in in 1953, offers an alternative reading to LatimahParvin Peerwani’s clear but partial English translation, which was recentlypublished in the second volume of An Anthology of Philosophy ofPersia. Ibrahim al-Dasuqi Shata had translated the 1953 edition into Arabicin 1974, and Isabelle de Gastines’ French translation was made available in1990.Although the majority of the text is written in prose and not poetry, itwould still be pretentious in this short review to focus too critically on possiblealternative readings. Any reader with competence in the original language anda concern for specific passages now has several translations, along with theedited text, from which to make a critical comparison. The fact remains thatOrmsby has rendered a fluid and accurate translation that maintains the simplicityrequired to enable a broader audience to follow the complexity ofNasir’s ideas. An additional aid is also found in the copious footnotes, introductoryessay, index, and bibliography, all of which not only explain themany obscure points in Nasir’s treatise, but also suggest many areas for futureresearch.There is one question regarding the Persian text that does need additionalclarification: Ismail K. Poonawala pointed out in his review of Faquir M. Hunzai’sedition and translation of Nasir’s Gushāyish va Rahāyish (translated asKnowledge and Liberation: A Treatise on Philosophical Theology) that the ...
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. On the Natural Sciences
Authors: Rizvi Sajjad
Published: October 2020

One does not need to repeat the oft-stated observation that editing and translatingthe epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa’) will greatly enhanceour understanding of the pre-Avicennan period’s intellectual history ofthe philosophical sciences. Carmela Baffioni, senior research fellow at the Instituteof Ismaili Studies, which sponsors this project, is a leading specialiston the Brethren, having spent an illustrious career at Naples – twenty-fiveitems in the bibliography constitute her major contributions, alongside the editionsand translations she has contributed to this series. She has already editedand translated the epistles on logic in an earlier volume of this series – thoseepistles come immediately before the seven that are published here (out ofthe seventeen epistles that comprise the second section on the natural sciences)and are the culmination of the first section on the mathematical sciences. Thevolume immediately after on epistle 22 on animals has been published manytimes and is arguably one of the most famous of the Epistles: The Case of theAnimals versus Man before the King of the Jinns (published in this series inthe translation of Lenn Goodman and Richard MacGregor).With this highly useful and impressive volume, she has made a majorcontribution. This large volume (around 1,000 pages of English and Arabic)comprises a foreword by Nader el-Bizri (the project’s general editor); an ...
The Islamic Utopia
Authors: Sabet Amr
Published: October 2020

This book is an interesting exposition of the reform discourse and reformironies in the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia ... a country ambivalent in itssense of security and insecurity, content in its presumed “orthodoxy,” uncertainabout where it fits in this world and about its future, and unsure as to whatextent it can continue to linger in its self-imposed cocoon – and yet, by thesame token, how far it can go in opening up to a perceived threatening world.All of this ambivalence, as one senses while reading the book, hinders, obstructs,and consequently undermines King Abdullah’s alleged attempts at reform.In fact, as Hammond points out, many of these reforms have beennothing but “window dressing … driven entirely by the desire to protect theextraordinary powers of the Saudi royal family,” as well as by a felt necessityto appease the Americans (p. 150).Despite the king’s efforts to project the image of himself as a reformist,one “religious reform” (ṣaḥwah) figure describes him as simply being “outof the arena” (p. 137). Reforms, particularly judicial reforms, which Hammonddescribes as Abdullah’s “central plank,” are defined by a Najdi contextas well as in Najdi terms (Najd is the central region of the Arabian Peninsula).The result has been a polity “trapped” within a pre-modern framework and ...
The Comfort of the Mystics
Authors: Khalil Atif
Published: October 2020

The early period of Sufism still remains insufficiently explored within westernscholarship. Despite the contributions of a range of academic authorities overthe past two centuries, stretching back to the publication of Lt. Graham’s 1819essay, “A Treatise on Sufism, or Mahomedan Mysticism,” followed by the firstmajor European study of the subject two years later by the young Friedrich A.Tholuck, Ssufismus, sive Theosophia Persarum Pantheistica (Sufism, or thePantheistic Theosophy of the Persians), there still remains a great deal of workto be done in order to better understand the complex, embryonic stages of theIslamic mystical tradition. In this light, The Comfort of the Mystics is a welcomecontribution to our growing but still inadequate knowledge of the first few centuriesof taṣawwuf.The present work is a critical edition of Abu Khalaf al-Tabari’s (d. 1077)Salwat al-‘Ārifīn wa Uns al-Mushtāqīn (The Comfort of Those Knowing Godand the Intimacy of Those Longing for God), a Sufi manual authored in themiddle of the eleventh century, shortly after Qushayri’s (d. 1072) famousRisālah. Gerhard Böwering and Bilal Orfali are to be credited with publishingthe Salwat for the first time through a close study of the Cairo manuscript(MS Tal‘at Tasawwuf 1553) which was transcribed a decade before Qushayri’sdeath. While they were unable to access the only other existing manuscript ofthe entire version of the Salwat, located in Iraq, due no doubt to the politicalinstability of the region and the post-war destruction of the country’s infrastructure,they did manage to compare the work against two later abridgedversions. Along with the text, they provide a meticulously referenced introductionwhich situates the treatise within its broader historical and religiouscontext. The Arabic text is also accompanied by exhaustive indices (127pages) for Qur’anic verses, hadiths, key figures, locations, technical terms andpoetic verses which will be of particular use for researchers.With respect to the author of this little known work, Böwering and Orfalinote that the primary sources do not provide us with a great deal of informationabout his life. On the basis of a well-researched analysis of the medievalsource material, they conclude that Tabari was known for his contributionsnot to the field of Sufism but Shafi‘i law, having studied under some of theleading representatives of the school, including ‘Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi(d. 1038), well known for his Al-Farq Bayn al-Firaq, a heresiological survey ...
Modest Fashion
Authors: Bullock Katherine
Published: October 2020

Finally it seems the academic study of hijab has come of age. The contributorsto this collection neither treat it as an object of curiosity or derision, nor wonderat Muslimahs’ “false consciousness”; rather, they treat this “piece of cloth” andthe accompanying dress code as a “normal” object of academic enquiry. Forexample, they expand the investigation to include attire for modest Jewish andChristian women, as well as for secular women who dress in similar ways albeitfor different reasons. The title captures this broad focus by using modest, ratherthan limiting the focus to the hijab. While some Jewish and Christian womenalso dress modestly, discursive politics only label the hijab as oppressive.It is refreshing to read academic studies that treat the hijab with the samerespect that they do modest Jewish or Christian dress codes. This is not to saythat the book necessarily endorses or advocates modest dress, which it mostcertainly does not, but only that its contributors (e.g., a journalist and a paneldiscussion with bloggers, designers, and entrepreneurs) study in a sociologicalway the different meanings behind religious dress while maintaining respectfor those they study. Even Elizabeth Wilson’s “Can We Discuss This?,” whichfinds secular women’s recourse to modest dress depressing (“the human body,clothed or unclothed, is a cause for celebration” [p. 171]) and asks secular feministsto “fight their corner” (p. 171), respectfully summarizes the rationale behindmodest dress in order to argue against that very rationale.The contributors also link the study of modest dress with the concept of“fashion,” which is a matter of women who want to dress modestly but haveto look long and hard for nice, fashionable clothing that meets their standards.But as Lewis (“Introduction”) and others, like arts journalist Liz Hoggard(“Modesty Regulators: Punishing and Rewarding Women’s Appearances inMainstream Media”) note, the mainstream fashion industry does not treatmodest dress as “fashion.” Therefore, some Jewish, Christian, and Muslimwomen entrepreneurs have opened stores as well as designed and sold theirown creations to those who want to dress modestly and yet be stylish and fashionable.By investigating the link between fashion and modest dress moreclosely, the book provides a very refreshing analysis of modest dress. Afterall, we receive the obfuscations of “oppressed” or “false consciousness”through the mainstream fashion lens.Lewis argues that the Internet has allowed this niche market to blossom ...
The International Kâtip Chalabi Symposium
Authors: Haron Muhammed
Published: October 2020

The Constantinople-born Mustafa bin Abdullah Kâtip Chalabi (popularlyknown as Haji Khalifa [1609–57]) was one of the most notable Muslim scholarsof his time. Kâtip Chalabi, as he is known as in Turkish circles, was a reformistscholar known for his intellectual contributions to the social sciences(viz., [Ottoman] history, geography, and economics) and his invaluable biobibliographicaltext Kashf al-Zunūn, which contains over 14,000 entries. Heis generally considered as one of Ottoman Turkey’s most productive authors,for his writings provided an invaluable input to “the classification of knowledge”systems. For this reason, the Istanbul Foundation for Research and Education(ISAR; http://isar.academia.edu), the Turkish Centre for IslamicStudies (ISAM; http://english.isam.org), and the Cairo-based Institute of ArabicManuscripts (MSC; www.manuscriptcenter.org) decided to co-host aMarch 6-8, 2015, symposium to celebrate and address his contributions.The joint Committee for the International Kâtip Chalabi Symposiumchose “Bibliography and the Classification of Knowledge in Islamic Civilization”as its main theme and set numerous goals, among them to (a) raise basicissues related to the Islamic classification of knowledge and bibliography, (b)reveal how this tradition can be reconsidered with respect to the discipline ofbibliography, which has shifted into a new phase due to theoretical and practicaldevelopments in today’s world; (c) provide the necessary basis for discussinghis scholarly achievements; and (d) offer foundations for futureresearch that would build upon his bibliographic encyclopedia Kashf al-Zunūn‘an Asāmī al-Kutub wa al-Funūn (The Removal of Doubt from the Names ofBooks and the Arts).Since it is beyond the scope of this brief report to comment on each presentation,most of which were delivered in Arabic and Turkish with simultaneoustranslations, I have decided to provide a general overview of a selectionof papers from each thematic session.Ahmad Shawqi Benbin (Al-Khazanat al-Malakiyyah al-Hasaniyyah, Morocco),one of the first speakers, addressed “Kashf al- Zunūn and InternationalBibliography,” which related directly to the symposium’s general theme of“Kâtip Chelebi: Philosophy of the Sciences of Bibliography and Classification.”While offering a historical context within which to view Chalabi’s intellectualoutput, he traced the science of bibliography back to Abu al-Faraj ...
Pious Practice and Secular Constraints
Authors: Forte Alaya
Published: October 2020

A research study grounded in both anthropology and ethnography, the aim ofJeanette S. Jouili’s Pious Practice and Secular Constraints: Women in the IslamicRevival in Europe is threefold: (1) to explore how women cultivate Islamicsubjectivities in secular European contexts that stigmatize and politicizesuch religious practices; (2) reveal the practical and discursive techniques theyhave devised to deal with the difficulties that emerge from engaging in piouspractices; and, finally, (3) attempts to show how living as a religious minorityin a secular-majority society can reshape traditional Islamic discourse and providean alternative to the dominant language of autonomy, individual rights,and equality. Since the early 2000s, Jouili has come into contact with a widerange of practicing Muslimahs attending courses in various Islamic centersof learning, specifically in Paris and the region around Cologne. These centersare distinctive for their willingness to explore a multiplicity of doctrinal lineagesand attempt to transcend cultural and ethnic traditions.In the case of this most recent publication, there is the added value of amuch-needed overview of pious women who have been active in Islamic revivalcircles in Europe, together with perceptive insights into their daily lives.This book, therefore, contributes to a high-profile body of work by Talal Asad(1993, 2003), Saba Mahmood (2005), and Charles Hirschkind (2006) aroundethics and ethical self-cultivation, which explores contextual power relationsat play in the construction of religious discourses and practices, as well as ArmandoSalvatore’s work on the public sphere (2007). Jouili’s findings shedlight on the incompleteness and unlinearity of these Islamic moral codes, aswell as demonstrate how “[t]he individual’s work on herself [is] significantlyand long-lastingly complicated by prior habits and by the availability of othersets of moral codes” (p. 15).Drawing on Aristotelian ethics, with its insistence on practice rather thanreason, and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, Jouili investigates how theembodied/practical ethical process molds an Islamic modernity within a secularEuropean context (chapter 1). The subsequent chapters provide an indepthstudy of these practices, which are aimed at strengthening through theinternalization of an “authenticated” knowledge of Islam learned within formalsettings (chapter 2) and the specific techniques of self-cultivation, specifically118 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33:2Book ...
Mumtaz Ahmad
Authors: Sonn Tamara
Published: October 2020

Wise, kind, humorous, humble, profoundly honorable and dignified– these are just some of the words that describe our beloved MumtazAhmad, whose passing we mourn. A great scholar, mentor, friend,and family man, he will be missed by the countless people whoselives he influenced. I feel honored to count myself among them.With degrees in economics, Islamic studies, and developmentadministration, and a Ph.D. in political science from the Universityof Chicago, Ahmad published eight books. His most recent is Observingthe Observer: The State of Islamic Studies in American Universities(Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought,2012). Bringing together a stellar array of scholars, this book is particularlyprescient in stressing the importance of the responsiblestudy of Islam in a country whose policies so deeply impact Muslims.He also published dozens of articles and chapters, and deliveredhundreds of lectures throughout his native Pakistan and NorthAmerica, as well as Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South andSoutheast Asia.He served as president of the Association of Muslim Social Scientistsas well as the South Asian Muslims Studies Association. Inaddition, he served on numerous editorial boards, was editor of Studiesin Contemporary Islam, and associate editor of the AmericanJournal of Islamic Social Sciences and the East-West Review. Hiswork was supported by grants from the Fulbright Foundation, theFord Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust, the Center for Strategicand International Studies, the United States Institute of Peace, theNational Bureau of Asian Research, and the Brookings Institution,among others ...
Qur’an in Conversation
Authors: Bond Julian
Published: October 2020

This book is meant for non-Muslims who want to understand the Qur’an butare perplexed by it. Describing it as a complex book, neither thematic norchronological, but elliptical with much of its content out of reach of the uninitiated,Michael Birkel explores how it is interpreted among North AmericanMuslims. From the beginning, this non-Muslim author highlights the diversityof approaches and manages to present accessible “insider’s” views. Its sevensections contain a selection of voices obtained through personal interactionwith the twenty-four Muslim contributors, a brief introduction, and a closingconclusion.

The first contribution, “The Mother of the Book,” reflects upon how theQur’an’s first chapter is both foundational as its “opening” and opens heartsthroughout each of the five daily prayers. The two partner pieces, “KnowledgeHidden and Manifest,” focus on the Qur’anic accounts of Joseph (by IngridMattson) and the encounter between Moses and the mysterious Khidr (byMaria Dakake). The themes of both stories, namely, faith and wisdom, drawthe reader into the wider theme of aligning oneself with God. The author thenmoves on to his second theme: “Close Readings, Old and New.” MohammadHassan Khalil discusses God’s mercy with the phrase “In the name of God,the Compassionate, the Merciful,” which appears at the beginning of all butone sūrah. He wrestles with the idea of an everlasting hell, having discoveredas a student that some Muslim scholars challenge it on the basis of God’smercy. Alongside this “shocking” (his expression) opinion, he also cameacross the conviction that non-Muslims would receive God’s mercy in theHereafter. Challenging negative readings of the Qur’an, he says, “Readingthe Qur’an under the benevolent shadow of raḥma allows one to appreciateScripture on a different level” (p. 37) ...
Islamic and Jewish Legal Reasoning
Authors: Afridi Mehnaz M.
Published: October 2020

This book comes at a very advantageous time, for interfaith encounters havebecome part of a larger conversation in academic and non-academic circles.Journals and conferences have added the dimension of how to understand the“other” and create dialogue in many innovative ways. Islamic and JewishLegal Reasoning: Encountering Our Legal Other is precisely the type of textand rigorous academic guide to lead us at a time when so many religious lawsare misunderstood – especially between Jews and Muslims.The authors ask some questions: “Can the traditions of Judaism and Islambe read together through a legal religious lens without always having a commonground?” and “Can dialogue precipitate a philosophical framework thatcan demonstrate self-critical thought and still be engaged with the ‘Other’?”More importantly, in each section ask the authors some core questions aboutreligion and law in order to show why the modern preoccupation with religiouslaw is so relevant. In addition, through their methodological legal analysis,they at times demonstrate why religious law is irrelevant. The scholarsfeatured this book are meticulous, thought-provoking, and timely in terms oftheir significant lines of questioning.The book is unique in its conception, for Anver M. Emon and the contributors’organic approach makes it more accessible and, at the same time, academicallyrigorous. The book emerged from workshops and was “developedfurther when Emon went to Cambridge University to join Gibbs and others inthe Scriptural Reasoning project, where scholars read the scriptural texts ofmultiple traditions with scholars from those different traditions” (p. xi). Scripturalreasoning allows one to read another’s scriptures in a way that allows forpersonal readings and reactions to one another’s sacred text, an approach thatallows for “recognizing their own otherness to their own respective traditions”(p. xxiii).Islamic and Jewish Legal Reasoning opens up deeply complex and glaringissues of interpretation, authority of interpretation, and the historical conditionsof reading sacred text, especially for religious law. In the first chapter,“Assuming Power: Judges, Imagined Authorities, and the Quotidian,” RumeeAhmed and Aryeh Cohen introduce us to this complex problem of authorityand complex phenomenon through legal schools of thought in both traditions.The question of God as authority is crucial, as the authors ask, almost in a ...
From the Sacred Canopy to the Haunted Vault
Authors: Anjum Ovamir
Published: October 2020

As the incoming editor of an academic journal in the fourth decade of its existence,I must begin with a great deal of trepidation for the task ahead andgratitude to many predecessors: those who envisioned and founded it, andthose who brought it where it is today. “One who does not thank men [andwomen] does not thank God,” goes a saying of Prophet Muhammad (S). Myfirst note of gratitude must go to the outgoing editor, Dr. Zakyi Ibrahim, wholed the journal for several years and has been extremely kind and supportiveover the course of this transition. Equally instrumental was the outgoing bookreview editor, Dr. Mahdi Tourage, who not only managed the book reviewand review essay sections, but also contributed to the forum and reports and,most importantly, worked to expand the scope and diversity of the perspectivesrepresented in the journal. I am also grateful to the outgoing managing editor,Dr. Aliaa Dakroury, who has been available despite the recent loss of her husband,Dr. Mahmoud Eid. My deepest condolences and heartfelt prayers go toher and her family ...
Facts, Values, and Institutions
Authors: Caeiro Alexandre
Published: October 2020

Since the 1990s, an increasingly diverse set of Muslim scholars andinstitutions has called for the integration of social science into thesystem of Islamic normativity. This article explores some historicaland conceptual issues raised by this call. It approaches the issuethrough an examination of one of its central concepts: the notion offiqh al-wāqi‘ (the fiqh of reality or realistic fiqh). The article tracesthis concept’s distinctively modern history, situating it in the contextof various projects of religious reform and in relation to specificanxieties regarding the nature of modern law. Taking a set of controversiesrelated to Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s fatwas on Muslim minoritiesas a case-study, it then argues that the concept of a “realisticfiqh” renders visible not only the difficulties that social scientificinquiry presents to the hermeneutical commitments of the Islamiclegal tradition, but also the challenges that the layered structure ofreality in the Islamic tradition poses to the sociological imagination.In conclusion, this paper briefly addresses two implications of theIslamic legal debates discussed previously: the question of the politicaland the limits of methodological individualism. It also suggeststhat contemporary Islamic legal scholars who struggle withthese questions may be laying the ground for the development of acritical Islamic jurisprudence centrally concerned with the articulationof facts, values, and institutions.
Good Girls Marry Doctors
Authors: Haq Sara
Published: October 2020

From the publisher that brought us Gloria Anzaldua’s classic work Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), now comes Good Girls Marry Doctors:South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion. AuntLute Books gives us this 2016 anthology of short stories edited by Piyali Bhattacharyathat, I envision, will strike a similar chord of deep resonance withthose who are living in the liminal spaces of mixed consciousness, mixed cultures,mixed religions – the South Asian American diasporic community andbeyond. The striking cover of the book shows a graphic illustration of a browngirl decked in traditional South Asian gold jewelry and a red sarhi, her handslipping underneath the fabric below her waist, leaving the viewer to imaginethat she is feelin’ herself.The style of writing and the range of themes allow this book to speak toa multitude of audiences. The book can easily be included in syllabi rangingfrom South Asian American studies, American studies, and Islamic studies towomen/gender/sexuality studies, cultural studies, and affect theory. WhatBhattacharya set out to do over a span of eight years in bringing this collectionto fruition is to create for herself and the women she knew a network, a community,a support system (p. v) – “we had to find our tribe” (p. viii). What Ifind interesting and useful in this collection is that it can be used as an illustrationof how gender and sexuality frame affective knowledge productionand world-making in diasporic communities ...