bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
World Conference on Islamic Thought and Civilization
Authors: Haron Muhammed
Published: October 2020

Kolej Universiti Islam Sultan Azlan Shah (KUISAS) organized and hostedthe Second World Conference on Islamic Thought and Civilization (WCIT)during August 18-19, 2014, at Casuarina Hotel, Ipoh, Malaysia. Under theleadership of chairperson Wan Sabri bin Wan Yusof (associate professor), theorganizers chose Ibn Khaldun’s notion of the rise and fall of civilization asthe general theme and asked potential presenters to explore the contemporarystate of Muslim affairs. The over 200 selected presenters, ranging from thesocial sciences to the applied sciences, were slotted into various parallel panels.After welcoming and introducing the sponsors and various presenters,Nordin Kardi (vice-chancellor and rector, KUISAS) spoke on the Arab Springand other problems that continue to afflict the Muslim world: a low to mediumlevel of socioeconomic human development, an absence of good governance,intra-Muslim conflict, and an attitude of the “Muslim world and the rest.” Hesuggested that Muslims begin building strategic bridges to deal with them.The first keynote speaker, Sultan Nazrin M. Shah (pro-chancellor, Universityof Malaya), echoed some of Kardi’s points and reflected critically uponthe Organization of Islamic Cooperation member states’ general poor performancein producing scientific publications as a typical example of the deplorablestate of knowledge production among Muslims as a whole. Headvocated participation, transparency, equitable treatment, good governance,and sound education to remedy this generally negative condition.The second keynote speaker, Serif Ali Tekalan (vice-chancellor, Fatih University,Turkey) spoke on “The Role of Waqf in Islamic Civilization: Turkey’sExperience in Waqf for Education.” A great deal of evidence shows thatTurkey has used “endowment policies” to transform its socio-educational andreligious landscape. Both Muslim-majority and minority communities shouldbe able to benefit from its experience. The final keynote speaker, Zamry AbdulKadir (chief minister), who closed the conference, remarked that Muslimsshould return to the Qur’an and Sunnah to rebuild Islamic civilization. He optimisticallystated: “[I]ronic as it may seem, despite the multitude of conflicts… are we actually looking at the … resurgence of Islam?” He observed thatthe conference’s main result was “a call to re-examine the essence of Islamic ...
English literary Studies
Authors: Hasan Md. Mahmudul
Published: October 2020

Proponents of the integration of Islam into English literary studiesseek, by way of presenting Islamic worldviews in relation to thelife-worlds that English texts presumably promote, to inform (Muslim)students and practitioners of the subject about possible untowardinfluences in order to help them withstand cultural captivityand lifestyle effects. This is part of the wider concept of integratingIslam into human knowledge, which functions across a broad rangeof subject areas and generally refers to a method of looking at academicdisciplines from Islamic perspectives and enlightening thereader about relevant Islamic teachings. Based on this theoreticalpremise, in this article I focus on the need for and three importantways of teaching English literature: inculcating Islamic/moral values,identifying predominant themes and ideas inherent in literarytexts and looking at them from Islamic perspectives, and reformingthe curriculum.
Mirror for the Muslim Prince
Authors: Rizvi Sajjad
Published: October 2020

Everyone seems to be interested in Islamic political thought these days, nodoubt as a result of the rise and fall of Islamisms/post-Islamisms and othercontemporary configurations of Islam and politics. And then there are the claimants for a new caliphate. However, most concerns with political thought– with the exception of the large Princeton Encyclopaedia edited by PatriciaCrone and Gerhard Bowering – tend to focus their attention on either the earlyand classical debates on the imamate (e.g., Crone), classical philosophy andthe “Arabic context” for Platonopolis (e.g., Nelly Lahoud), or the medievalakhlāq literature (e.g., Linda Darling and Muzaffar Alam), or even modernpermutations (far too many examples to mention). It is a rare work indeedthat tries to bring a range of perspectives in a diachronic analysis over space,time, and political theologies into a single volume. The success and achievementof Boroujerdi’s volume is to do precisely that and to collate contributionsfrom some of the most acute and incisive scholars writing on issues relatingto Islam and politics in contemporary, metropolitan academia ...
Slavery, the State, and Islam
Authors: Laabdi Mourad
Published: October 2020

Slavery, the State, and Islam is Fagan’s English rendering of Mohammed Ennaji’s2007 work Le Sujet et le Mamelouk: Esclavage, Pouvoir et Religion dansle Monde Arab, a historical study of the economics of power in the relationshipamong slavery, Islam, and monarchy. Ennaji investigates the structure and natureof the “bond of authority” as it manifests itself in servitude between theking and subject, master and slave, God and believers. The bulk of his primaryhistorical material belongs to the first few centuries of Islam. However his intention,as he notes in the introduction, is to also make sense of contemporarymodes of power that govern the scene of authority in the individuals’ proximityto the state and, in some instances, to one another.The opening chapter tells an anecdote of a nineteenth-century Moroccanofficial who was stripped of his title as Local Governor (in Arabic, Qaid), declareddead to the public, and kept as a slave in the sultan’s palace. Ennajichallenges the official narrative and weaves novel threads of the story to showthe degree to which the bond of authority between the sultan and his servantsdepends upon uninterrupted flat obedience.The second chapter questions the issue of slavery during Islam’s earlyyears. The author claims that the new religion made little practical changes tothis institution and, in certain cases, made slaves even more abjectly submissiveto their masters. Ennaji particularly details Islam’s termination of the statusesof sa’b (a sā’ib is a slave who has attained full unconditional freedom) andṭalq (repudiation) and its admission of mawlā (freed slaves must remain loyalto their ex-master). He also elaborates on the non-provision of part of the publicfunds to free more slaves, as well as the practice of depriving freed slaves ofthe spoils of war and discouraging people from marrying them.In the third chapter, Ennaji undertakes the king-subject relation in lightof the notion of servitude. He probes the sociolinguistic roots of several conceptualizations,including ‘ibādah, ra’īyah, and ṭā‘ah (translated successivelyas adoration, people, and obedience). He also examines the semiotics of variousexpressions of servitude and presents a prolonged discussion of the differentuses of the hand in this context. Ennaji contends that the transition toIslam barely changed anything in the structure of authority and the masterslaverelationship. As he puts it, with the advent of Islam there was “a reorganizationof the authoritarian space that reshuffled the division of powerbetween the king and the divine authority” (p. 82). This redistribution of poweris elaborated in the fourth chapter, where the author draws on concepts used ...
The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran
Authors: Alavi Samad
Published: October 2020

Perhaps no single historical occurrence looms larger in the imagining of contemporaryIranian identity than Islam’s rise and the ensuing widespread conversionson and around the Iranian plateau. Of course, as with any eventsoccurring over a millennium ago, not to mention events that have shaped theirheirs’ confessional commitments, one encounters a gulf between how Iran’sMuslim conversion is written in the popular imagination and how historiographicalstudies attempt to make sense of such complex transformations.Nonetheless, Sarah Bowen Savant’s The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran:Tradition, Memory, and Conversion might ultimately shape Iranian and Islamic studies not only by contributing novel scholarship to the field, but alsoby speaking to non-specialists’ interests as well.As evidence of popular interest, one need only note the continual reprintsof Abd al-Husayn Zarrinkub’s seminal 1957 study, Dū Qarn Sukūt (Two Centuriesof Silence), which considers the period following the Islamic conquestand the Sasanian Empire’s collapse. Savant’s study picks up where Zarrinkub’sends, arguing that post-conquest Iranians experienced a twofold conversionduring the ninth to eleventh centuries: becoming both Muslim and Persian.And while the author disavows simplistic notions like historical silence or staticnational identities, her book, like Zarrinkub’s, sheds new light on Persian Muslimidentities in a particular historical context and suggests how they areformed, negotiated, contested, and transformed over time and space ...
Multiple layers
Authors: Gaber Tammy
Published: October 2020

To appreciate North York’s newly opened Aga Khan Museum (AKM), onemust first understand its patron, as this undertaking is only the most recent ina long line of proactive institutions and projects initiated by the Aga Khan allover the world. The Aga Khan and members of his family have cultivated thiscollection for decades, and have given it a permanent home in North York. Infact, this striking building located within a complex of the Ismaili Center andgardens, is the first North American museum dedicated exclusively to Islamicarts and culture.
Understanding the Qur’anic Miracle Stories in the Modern Age
Authors: Alhassen Leyla Ozgur
Published: October 2020

In the introduction to her Understanding the Qur’anic Miracle Stories in theModern Age, Isra Yazicioglu writes about the dilemma of how readers are tounderstand such stories. She poses the question that if both the Qur’an andscholars of Islamic thought argue that Muhammad’s message is his miracle(p. 5) and that natural phenomena contain miracles, then why is there a needfor such narrations? And since they are only narrations of miracles, for readersdo not actually witness these miracles, do they “count as evidence ofGod’s power?” (p. 8). Stemming from these and other related questions,much of the book revolves around issues of causation and sources of knowledge.This book will appeal to advanced university students and academicsinterested in Qur’anic studies and especially in Islamic philosophy.Part I, “Medieval Muslim Debate,” includes a chapter on al-Ghazali andIbn Rushd. Each chapter includes a welcome biographical section on thescholar under discussion. Starting with al-Ghazali, we see the idea that Godcan and has sent miracles to verify His messengers and that this is fundamentalin Islam (p. 18). These miracles enable people to discern betweenprophets and imposters (p. 19) and by creating miracles God “nonverbally ...
Making Sense of Radicalization
Authors: Senzai Farid
Published: October 2020

The self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) burning to deathof Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasba and beheading of twenty-one Egyptiansin Libya are just the latest incidents in a series of escalating acts of violencethat epitomize the seemingly senseless carnage that so often results from thepolitical radicalization of individual Muslims. As the international media zeroesin on such instances, one often struggles to make sense of the perpetrators’true motives. But understanding the circumstances that lead up to such viciousnessis key if governments are to minimize such acts in the future.What motivates an individual to join a terrorist organization? Is it ideology,politics, poverty, or something else? What might be done to de-radicalize anindividual who has joined a terrorist group? The reality is that there is no singlepathway toward radicalization. In a May 2010 report entitled “Why Youth Joinal-Qaeda,”1 U.S. Army Colonel Matt Venhaus suggested that those seeking tojoin jihadist networks can be divided into revenge seekers needing an outletfor their frustration, status seekers needing recognition, identity seekers in needof a group to join, and thrill seekers looking for adventure.2 Clearly the motivesfor terrorism are differentiated and complex, as opposed to uniform and simple.Thus identifying an overarching pattern to understanding how individualsmight become susceptible to terrorist recruiters and what intervention strategiescan be employed to stop it becomes a very difficult task ...
Between Salafism and Traditionalism
Authors: Willoughby Jay
Published: October 2020

On March 12, 2015 Emad Hamdeh, a specialist in modern Muslim reformmovements, Islamic intellectual history, historical pedagogical methods, andIslamic law, discussed “Between Salafism and Traditionalism: The Case ofNasir al-Din Albani and His Detractors” at the IIIT headquarters in Herndon,VA. He currently serves as an adjunct professor of Arabic and Islamic studiesin the Department of Modern Languages and Literature at Montclair StateUniversity, Montclair, NJ. His doctorate (Exeter University, 2014) “TheEmergence of an Iconoclast: Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani and HisCritics” traced the origins of this controversial figure’s anti-madhhabpolemic.Hamdeh began by presenting a brief overview of al-Albani’s life. Hewas born in Albania in 1914 at a time of increasing secularism. When he wasnine years old his father, a traditional Hanafi, moved the family to Syria.While growing up, he studied under his father and with local religious schol-156 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences ...
Female Personalities in the Qur’an and Sunna
Authors: Inloes Amina
Published: October 2020

This seemingly modest volume is in fact the first comprehensive study ofwomen in the Twelver Shi‘i scriptural sources. While studies on womenabound, the vast majority are implicitly or explicitly grounded in the Sunnitradition; the infrequent Shi‘i expositions on women tend to be politicized,arcane, or even erroneous. In contrast, this groundbreaking work solidly introduceswhat the core Twelver Shi‘i sources say about women and integratescontemporary views.The sources of hadith and tafsīr used in this work represent mainstreamhistorical currents of Shi‘i thought. For hadith, the author uses the Four Books,which were compiled in the tenth and eleventh centuries. While not consideredinfallible, they are treated as the most influential and reliable Shi‘i hadith collectionsand have had a formative impact on Shi‘i thought. Of course, this selectionis not exhaustive; an even greater diversity of hadith appears in earlieras well as later compilations, especially the seventeenth-century encyclopaedicwork Biḥār al-Anwār. In addition, the possibility exists that the Four Books’treatment of women differs from that in other works. Therefore, this bookshould be seen as foundational and an invitation for further study, rather thanas the final word on the subject. Note that this is not a criticism: Since manysections could easily be expanded into their own volume, it would not havebeen feasible to survey all extant Shi‘i hadith in a volume this size. Authorsare, after all, only human.For tafsīr, the author uses Ali ibn Ibrahim al-Qummi’s Tafsīr al-Qummī(tenth century), al-Tusi’s Tibyān (eleventh century), al-Tabrisi’s Majma‘ al-Bayān (twelfth century), al-Huwayzi’s Nūr al-Thaqalayn (twelfth century),and Allamah Tabataba’i’s Tafsīr al-Mizān (twentieth century). This solid selectionrepresents different time periods and approaches – the old and the new,the narrative and the analytical – but, again, is not absolutely comprehensive.In particular it omits mystical tafsīr, which might be expected to take a lessearthly approach to gender.Additionally, the author gives her work a modern twist by consideringideas from contemporary writers on women in Islam who do not engage withthe Shi‘i tradition, such as Amina Wadud, Fatima Mernissi, and Asma Barlas.She also frequently engages with the views of the Lebanese scholars Sayyid ...
Franks and Saracens
Authors: Tutt Daniel
Published: October 2020

Avner Falk’s Franks and Saracens: Reality and Fantasy in the Crusades ispresented in the opening pages as the first psychoanalytic study of the Crusades.The book is written for both a general readership and an academic audience.The fact that it was published by Karnac Books, one of the premierepublishers of psychoanalytic theory and practice, leads one to think that thepsychoanalytic community is a particularly important audience. The book’sopening chapter, “Us and Them,” introduces psychoanalysis as a theoreticalsource for helping us to think about cultural identity and conflict, particularly“us vs. them” identity conflicts. Following this general foregrounding of theCrusades and psychoanalytic theory, the author turns to how the Crusaders,namely, the “Franks,” created a larger fantasy that drove their violent engagementwith Muslims, one that was tied to a political effort to build a collectiveEuropean identity.Rather surprisingly, the term fantasy is never defined thoroughly, althoughthe author’s central claim is that the Crusades functioned as a way to develop a unified cultural identity for Europe, a project that was itself tied toa fantasy. This project of building a singular Frankish identity, and whatwould eventually come to be a European identity, is the focus of the second,third, and fourth chapters. In them, Falk pays particular attention to the evolutionof the term Saracen, which the Europeans invoked to refer to all ofthe different kinds of Muslims they encountered during the various crusades.The term was initially deployed to specify all Muslims, but by the Third Crusadeit began to connote Eastern European and Baltic Christians as well.Saracens would later be applied to Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians duringthe Baltic crusades, which lasted for four centuries. This word eventuallycame to designate anyone who was not European and Christian, and evenChristians like the Basques who had fought the Franks (p. 132).The etymology of this term, which means “empty of Sarah,” emphasizeshow Hagar is recognized as Ishmael’s mother in the Islamic tradition in distinctionto Christianity. The primary motivation for deploying Saracen wasmeant to resolve this outer collective state project of a unified Europe, as wellas to resolve a far more abstract psychological identity conflict that was feltacross Crusader culture. As Falk states: ...
Encyclopaedic Works on Islamic Political Thought and Movements in the Twenty-first Century
Authors: Parray Tauseef Ahmad
Published: October 2020

Books Reviewed: Gerhard Bowering, et. al., eds., The Princeton Encyclopediaof Islamic Political Thought (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton UniversityPress, 2013); John L. Esposito and Emad El-Din Shahin, eds., The OxfordHandbook of Islam and Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013);Emad El-Din Shahin, ed., Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics, 2 vols.(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).During last two decades or so, many encyclopedias have been published onIslam and its history – classical to contemporary – with a modern approach,among them Richard Martin’s two-volume Encyclopedia of Islam and theMuslim World 1 and John L. Esposito’s Oxford Encyclopedia of the ModernIslamic World.2 Other encyclopedic works focus on specific eras, like JosefMeri’s Medieval Islamic Civilization.3 One more category is that of Islam andpolitics, political Islam, and/or the various facets, complexities, and intricaciesof Islamic movements. This essay focuses on three works that discuss thethemes and issues that fall in this last category.The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (EIPT)4 is awide-ranging one-volume publication, as well as the first encyclopedia andreference work on Islamic political thought. It includes articles ranging fromthe classical to the contemporary periods and incorporates the eras from theProphet’s time to the present. Written by prominent scholars and specialistsin the field, The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics (OHIP)5 is a singlevolumesourcebook that provides a comprehensive analysis of “whatwe knowand where we are in the study of political Islam,” thereby enabling scholars,students, and policymakers “to appreciate the interaction of Islam and politicsand the multiple and diverse roles of Islamic movements” both regionally andglobally (p. 2; italics mine). By analyzing Islam and politics through a detailedand profound study, the two-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and ...
Islam through Western Eyes
Authors: Sleiman Zeina
Published: October 2020

Jonathan Lyons’ Islam through Western Eyes takes a critical and historical approachto understanding the anti-Islam discourses that continue to emergeacross North America and Europe. His main argument is that their origins canbe traced back to the Crusades and that the current Islamophobic climate hasbeen in the production since then. Thus an inherent anti-Islam discourse hasbeen ingrained into the western imagination, and its effects are still being seentoday.In the introduction, the author notes that the answer to understandingmuch of this western Islamophobic movement has been in the making sincethe fifteenth century anti-Islam discourse as it relates to the Crusades. Lyonsnotes that we need to develop a deeper understanding of the history of thisdiscourse in order to fight its modern version and to understand the causes ofthe current Islamophobic climate. This certainly sheds a more complex lighton many of the issues facing Muslims in Europe and North America, and givesreaders a new angle from which they should understand and interpret thisgrowing sentiment.The book is divided into five main chapters following the introduction.The first is essentially a chapter on methodology, which delves deeper intoFoucault’s critical theories on discourse and power. Lyons particularly focuseson Foucault’s Archeology of Knowledge, in which he argues that certain formsof knowledge are privileged over others in order to create a larger narrativeabout a particular topic or group of people. The author clearly takes a post- ...
The Study of Shi’i Islam
Authors: Arjana Sophia Rose
Published: October 2020

Shi’i Islam is a broad subject encompassing history, theology, ritual, culture,and other topics. Several current monographs provide an overview ofone or more of these subject areas. Two examples that come to mind arePedram Khosronejad’s edited volumes on Shi’i pilgrimage, ritual, and materialculture, The Art and Material Culture of Iranian Shi’ism: Iconographyand Religious Devotion in Shi’i Islam (2011) and Saints and Pilgrimsin Iran and Neighboring Countries (2012). While these volumes help usunderstand the pilgrimage practices, art, and other cultural expressions ofShi’ism, they are not focused on the fundamentals, such as the movement’shistory, various theological schools, legal traditions, and textual sources.The Study of Shi’i Islam: History, Theology, and Law helps to fill this voidwith its large and serious collection of essays on Imami, Ismaili, and ZaydiShi’ism.The volume is organized into eight sections: “History and Historiography,”“The Qur’an and Its Shi’i Interpretations,” “Shi’i Hadith,” “Shi’i Law,” “Authority,”“Theology,” “Rites and Rituals,” and “Philosophy and IntellectualTraditions.” Contributions include essays by some of the greatest contemporaryscholars working in Shi’ism, including Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, EtanKohlberg, Sajjad Rizvi, Maria Massi Dakake, and Wilferd Madelung.The Study of Shi’i Islam opens with a preface that includes a succinctand important discussion about the marginalization of Shi’ism in the academy.The reasons for the lack of attention, which has been somewhat remediedin recent years, include a worldview that used Western Christianity tocreate categories of Islam and the popularity of scientific Orientalism. As the ...
Prophet Muhammad
Authors: Sabet Amr
Published: October 2020

For those seeking solace from the trepidations of this world, Prophet Muhammad:The Sultan of Hearts is a thoughtful work of reflection and comfort.This two-volume comprehensive narrative of enchanted times recollectingthe “Prophetic” summoning introduces the readers to Prophet Muhammad’ssīrah (biography) within a lucid and flowing stream of emotion. More thansimply an effort to record events, stating who said what and did what basedupon whose narration, as many of the traditional biographies tend to do, thiswork infuses events with meanings and feelings. As the authors indicate, thepurpose is not to speak about the Prophet, but to “let him be observed in hisown actions” (p. xvi), creating thereby an “awareness” of his life not as a solefigure, but “in connection with his companions” in order to “present a lifemodel that has been miraculously constructed” (p. xvi).This sīrah is not about reinterpreting events. In fact, a great deal of whatit says falls back on the earlier and primary biographies of such figures as IbnHisham, Ibn Sa‘d, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Abd al-Barr, and al-Tabari, as well as thenine Sunni canonical Hadith collections (p. xvii). Its claim to novelty is notdue to this “synthesis” alone, but more to its focus on the Prophet’s life in societyas a member of that society, rather than on the wars in which he engaged,as if those events were the most significant aspects of his mission (p. xiii).The authors’ intention, as they put it, is not simply to speak about the Prophetin their own descriptions, but rather to observe him in his own actions. Hismulti-dimensional personality is brought forth not only as a Prophet, but also ...
Opportunities and Challenges of Teaching Islamic Studies in Theological Seminaries
Authors: Siwaju Fatima
Published: October 2020

On Saturday, November 21, 2015, from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., a panel coorganized by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) entitled “Opportunitiesand Challenges of Teaching Islamic Studies in TheologicalSeminaries,” was held during the Annual Meeting of the American Academyof Religion (AAR) at the Marriott Hotel in Atlanta, GA. The panel was presidedover by Reverend Dr. Serene Jones (president of Union Theological Seminaryand AAR president-elect), and included contributions from Nazila Isgandarova(Emmanuel College), Munir Jiwa (Graduate Theological Union), JerushaLamptey (Union Theological Seminary), Nevin Reda (Emmanuel College),Feryal Salem (Hartford Seminary), and Ermin Sinanović (IIIT). Amir Hussain(Loyola Marymount University) served as respondent.The purpose of the roundtable was to address the growing trend amongChristian seminaries in North America of offering courses and, in some cases,professional degrees in the study of Islam, which has often involved hiringMuslim academics. The panelists endeavored to explore the opportunitiesand challenges posed by this new context, as well as the possible future directionof theological schools in addition to the future trajectory of Islamicstudies at them.Nazila Isgandarova, a spiritual care coordinator for the Center for Addictionand Mental Health in Canada and a graduate student at Emmanuel College,spoke of her personal experience as a Muslim student in a theological school.She noted that one of the unique advantages of studying Islam in a Christianenvironment is that it provides a space for the exchange of ideas. Isgandarovaidentified clinical pastoral education (CPE) as one of the major advantages ofstudying at a seminary. She emphasized that Islamic spiritual care educationshould be grounded not only in the Islamic tradition, but also in the conceptualand methodological frameworks provided by CPE. While she acknowledged ...
Reflections on Political Islam
Authors: Khalil Nancy A.
Published: October 2020

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) participated in the annualmeeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in Atlanta, GA, heldNovember 21-24, 2015. In addition to the participation of staff and associatesin several meeting events and panels, IIIT maintained a book booth in the ExhibitHall, co-organized a panel on “Opportunities and Challenges of TeachingIslamic Studies in Theological Seminaries,” and held its second annual AARReception and Special Lecture.Offering a tribute to Ismail al-Faruqi (d. 1986), IIIT co-founder and cofounderof the AAR’s “Study of Islam” section, Abubaker Alshingieti (executivedirector, IIIT) and Ermin Sinanović (director of research, IIIT) expressedgreat pride in rekindling a stronger IIIT presence at the AAR by reviving thehistorical link established by al-Faruqi. Fittingly, John Esposito (GeorgetownUniversity), al-Faruqi’s first doctoral advisee, delivered the keynote speech:“Reflections on Political Islam: Concepts and Contexts.”An intellectual giant in his own right, Esposito presented a historicalanalysis of the rise of political Islam movements during the latter half of thetwentieth century through his individual interactions, appointments, and presencein spaces of influence at critical times. His keynote speech served bothas an intellectual analysis as well as a personal journey, full of spontaneouslysprinkled firsthand stories and narratives from private conversations. He emphasizedthe critical need to avoid ahistoric analyses of such movements andto resist symptomatic treatments that have become a popular approach bywestern governments blind to their own roles in such undesired behaviors andviolence.Referring to challenges like ISIS and youth radicalization, Esposito statedthat “unless you understand the context within which political Islam arose...:who were the players, what were the issues for these movements, and alsowhat their interactions were with government, you can’t understand why wecontinue to screw up today.” Making specific reference to recent governmentinitiatives on Countering Violent Extremism that are youth-centric and targetthe great role religion occupies in people’s lives, he reminded the audiencethat discounting a history of oppression by western-backed authoritarianregimes is a myopic perspective to the rise of radicalism.His speech spanned over fifty years of political history and Americaninvolvement in Muslim-majority nations with an emphasis on the Iranian ...
Islam in Africa, Islam in Globalization
Authors: Willoughby Jay
Published: October 2020

On October 15, 2105, the International Institute of Islamic Thought commemoratedAli Mazrui’s (1933- 2014) first death anniversary by convening a seminarto honor their mutual close and lasting relationship. Mazrui served as theeditor-in-chief of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (2009-14),participated in many of the institute’s events, and was awarded the IIIT DistinguishedScholar Award in 2011. In addition, he bequeathed his collectionof papers and publications to IIIT.His widow Pauline Utimazrui opened the seminar by recalling how herlate husband always spoke the truth regardless of the consequences, how hedecided to attend Columbia University because so many African students weregoing there, and how he sought to bring up controversial issues to force peopleto think outside the box. She said that he was a very happy and grateful manwho appreciated others, liked to live a simple life and be in the moment, anddid not believe in accumulating wealth.Keynote speaker Ebrahim Rasool, former ambassador of South Africa tothe United States and a long-time activist who was jailed for his anti-apartheidactivities, spoke on “Ali Mazrui: Beacon at the Intersection of Islam andAfrica.” He described Mazrui as follows:Standing for justice is the point of the triangle which is least populated, orif it is populated it may well be populated in the absence of understandingthe implications of belief in the unity of God or the understanding of the dynamismof knowledge. Professor Ali Mazrui will be remembered for epitomizingthe completeness and perfection of this golden triangle [of belief,knowledge and justice], for indeed his knowledge was founded in his unflinchingcommitment to Tauhid or unity and this, in turn, impelled him towardsutilizing his intellect both towards identifying the sources of injusticein the world and positing theoretical and practical solutions towards justice.He reminded his audience how Mazrui never shied away from controversy,as can be seen in his battle with National Public Radio (NPR) in termsof his production and defense of “The Africans: The Triple Heritage,” disagreementswith much of post-colonial Africa’s ideological or philosophicalthinking, and assertion of a distinction between theological Islam and historicalIslam. On a more personal level, in 1969 he rejected an invitation extended ...
Shared Stories, Rival Tellings
Authors: Afridi Mehnaz M.
Published: October 2020

“What are the differences and similarities between the early encounter andpivotal stories of the Abrahamic faiths?” is the main question underlying thisengaging academic book. Recently, there has been a revitalization of discussionsabout Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in academia and in interfaithwork around the United States. This book comes at a timely and crucial time,one in which where there is so much misunderstanding and misinformationabout these particular faiths, especially about the questions of origins and absolutetruths. Gregg’s methodology and choice of texts, illustrations and sacredstories are intriguing and complex. The book captures the reader in a detailedtextual analysis that seems hard to sustain; however, his writing wins one overwith its clarity and enticing content that one cannot stop reading this tome ofa book. He provides an extensive yet accessible guide for many religious textsthat also include artwork as well as historical writings to illuminate religiousinterpretations and their impact on community relations.
Ali Mazrui
Authors: Rasool Ebrahim
Published: October 2020

On the occasion of the passing of Ali Mazrui, Rashied Omar, imam of theClaremont Main Road Mosque in Cape Town, South Africa, invoked probablythe most appropriate verse of the Qur’an to memorialize him: “God bears witnessthat there is no god but Allah, and so do the angels and those possessedof knowledge, standing firm on justice. There is no God but Allah, the Exalted,the Wise” (Q. 3:18).There are many who testify to belief in the unity of God, and fewer whoaccept its corollary, the unity of creation and the unity of humanity. There aremany who qualify for the description of possessing knowledge by virtue ofqualifications obtained in institutions of learning, whether Islamic or other. Itis, however, the third angle of this triangle – the triangle of belief, knowledge,and justice – where the world experiences a deficit. Standing for justice is thepoint of the triangle that is least populated, or if it is populated, it may well bepopulated in the absence of understanding the implications of belief in theunity of God or understanding the dynamism of knowledge. Mazrui will beremembered for epitomizing the completeness and perfection of this goldentriangle, for indeed his knowledge was founded in his unflinching commitmentto tawḥīd (unity) and this, in turn, impelled him toward utilizing his intellectboth for identifying the sources of injustice in the world and positingtheoretical and practical solutions towards justice ...
Writing Self, Writing Empire
Authors: Fani Aria
Published: October 2020

The seventeenth century marks an exciting period in the life of Persian literarycultures in northern India. Established as a language of administration byTurco-Afghans in the early thirteenth century, several centuries later Persianhad extended well beyond its initial administrative strongholds to become animportant medium for literary and religious composition, historiography, andtranslation. In a literary environment that prized both literary aesthetics andfierce rivalries, the massive textual production on vastly diverse subjects, aswell as the presence of literary salons, standalone bookstalls, and mushā‘irahs(poetic assemblies), cumulatively point to a lively Persian literary culture thatechoed across political, religious, and socio-cultural terrains.Unfortunately, most of the scholarship on Persian in the medieval Indiancontext over the past decades has failed to illuminate this dynamic scene.Moreover, most studies seek to highlight Persian’s influence on India or examineIndia’s civilizational impact on Persian. Both paradigms assume a natural(read: Iranian) ecumene for Persian and thus do not critically considerthe slippage between linguistic, ethnic, and geographic designations wh
After the American Century
Authors: Ebrahimian Mojtaba
Published: October 2020

Brian T. Edwards’ book boasts of an insightful interdisciplinary approach thatdraws upon his expertise in anthropology, literary and cultural studies, Americanstudies, and Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) studies. His approachand overall argument can benefit both the specialists in these disciplinesand the non-academic audience interested in the MENA region’s contemporarycultural history and connection to the United States’ international cultural politics.Edwards introduces two principal concepts to formulate his arguments:the “ends of circulation” and “jumping publics.” In his view, the former describes“new contexts for American texts” and the latter explicates “the wayculture moves through the world in the digital age” (p. 27).He offers four reasons why the circulation of cultural products “acrossborders and publics” is important to the contemporary American audience.

First, “The U.S. Department of State has invested time and funding in propagatingthe circulation of American culture.” Second, “American media venueshave a continuing interest in this topic, whether in the coverage of theEgyptian revolution or in the popular fascination with books such as ReadingLolita in Tehran (2003) that depict Americans or American culture displacedin the Middle East.” Third, many “popular and influential writers,” including“the developmentalist Daniel Lerner in the 1950s to Thomas Friedman in the1990s and 2000s to media studies journalist Clay Shirky, assume a technocentricor cyberutopian determinism,” and thus consider “access to newtechnologies and media” and “modernization and freedom” inevitably intertwined.And fourth, “In the fields of American literary studies and comparativeliterature, the ways in which the American culture and literature aretaken up around the world puts pressure on the ways of doing things in thosedisciplines” (p. 16) ...
The Muslim Question in Canada
Authors: Bullock Katherine
Published: October 2020

Considering that in the 2015 Federal Election, candidates were often talkingabout Muslims and their relationship to Canada, whether from an empatheticand supportive position or from a negative and racist position, Kazemipur’sbook could not be more welcome and timely. While many of us in the Muslimcommunity wish we were not part of a “question” that needed debating anddiscussing, Kazemipur’s title is, regrettably, very consciously and aptly chosen,for it refers back to the debates in Europe at the turn of the nineteenthcentury about the “Jewish Question.” The author notes, as others have, thatcontemporary debates about “illiberal Muslims” with strange customs whocannot and will not “integrate” into Canadian society mirror those about Jewsin that era (pp. 7-8), and proposes to study this particular community througha much needed sociological lens. The book is very well-written, accessible,methodologically and theoretically sophisticated, and enormously useful –anyone who wants to talk about the Muslim experience in Canada will find itinsightful and indispensable for coming to terms with day-to-day realities ofthose experiences.Kazemipur rightly points out that this “Muslim” question is not fruitfullyapproached through the paradigm proposed by Samuel Huntington and likemindedscholars, namely, “culture,” which forms the basis of a “Muslim exceptionalism”(p. 5) and explains the “inability” of Muslims to integrate intowestern democracies. This approach, he argues, “grossly oversimplifies aBook Reviews 127complex and multifaceted problem” and “removes the possibility that themainstream population might have to take some moral responsibility for it”(p. 5). Integration is a relationship among different peoples. Thus he alsopoints out, although not until the end of the book, that trying to understandthese Muslims’ situation by focusing upon Islamic theology is less useful than ...
The International Institute of Islamic Thought Intellectual Panels
Authors: Pervez Saulat
Published: October 2020

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) held a series of panels atthe 41st annual convention of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) inBaltimore, MD, on Sunday, May 29, 2016.The first panel, “Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah as a Philosophy of Islamic Law,”featured Jasser Auda (Al-Shatibi Chair of Maqasid Studies, the InternationalPeace College, South Africa) and Ebrahim Rasool (Distinguished Scholar inResidence at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School for ForeignService and former ambassador of South Africa to the U.S.), with ErminSinanović (director, Research and Academic Programs, IIIT) as moderator.Sinanović began by introducing IIIT to the diverse audience. He explainedthat the institute is devoted to the revival of Islamic traditions and the reformof Muslim societies. In addition to affirming that our sources and principlesare unchangeable, he positioned IIIT as the institution dedicated to making our intellectual legacy the core of the solution to our current malaise, for it is the“answer to the crisis of the ummah,” a crisis that is largely intellectual in nature:our inability to translate our eternal message as per our time and space ...
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity
Authors: Rizvi Sajjad
Published: October 2020

Since I and others have already commented on this project’s significance interms of producing critical editions and annotated translations of the intriguingcorpus of texts produced in southern Iraq during the tenth century by a collectivecalling itself the Brethren of Purity, I shall not focus on that or evenrepeat my quibble that I would far prefer to have the Arabic on the facing pageto the English translation (whether on the left like the Library of Arabic Literatureor on the right like the Islamic Translations Series is immaterial).With this publication, the project has now published at least one epistlefrom each of the four parts of the corpus. The present volume is from the third quartile on the “sciences of the soul and the intellect,” which constitutes apreparation for the higher theology of the last quartile. The epistles’ arrangementis progressive, from the exact sciences moving onto the observable sciencesand then from the external phenomena to those internal to the humansubject. The five relatively short epistles collected here cover the Brethren’smetaphysics, philosophical anthropology, psychology, and cosmology. Eachepistle is introduced by the editor/translator with comments on the text followedby the annotated translation. The Arabic texts are then gathered at theend of the volume ...
Uṣūl al-Tafsīr
Authors: Ghali Walid
Published: October 2020

“The best among you is the one who learns the Qur’an and teaches it to others”is a well-known hadith on the superiority of the Qur’an mentioned in Ṣaḥīḥal-Bukhārī and many other hadith collections. When one needs to teach somethingto others, it is crucial to have a well-grounded knowledge of the subjectto be taught. More importantly, it is necessary to know the methodology ofobtaining this knowledge. In the field of Qur’an studies, ‘ilm al-tafsīr providesthe infrastructure for the interpreter who is preparing himself/herself to interpretthe Qur’an. In addition, uṣūl al-tafsīr provides him/her with an almoststep-by-step guide in this regard.This book Uṣūl al-Tafsīr could only have been written by an author withprofound experience in the history and exegesis of the Qur’an in particular, aswell as with a great deal of familiarity and comprehensive understanding ofthe various Islamic disciplines. In his valuable work, Recep Doğan, a lecturerof Islamic sciences and civilizations at Australia’s Charles Stuart University,attempts to fill a gap in the literature of the methodology of Qur’anic exegesis.In doing so, he provides detailed accounts on the history of uṣūl al-tafsīr andcombines both classical and modern Qur’anic exegetical approaches.In addition to the forward by Ismail Albayrak (pp. xiii-xv), the book consistsof twelve chapters, a glossary, and a bibliography. The chapters dealswith various topics, such as the history and development of Qur’anic exegesis,the revelation (waḥy), the transmission of the Qur’anic revelation, thei‘jāz of the Qur’an, the history of interpretation and interpreters, occasionsof the revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl); clear and ambiguous verses (muḥkam andmutashābih), the notion of abrogation (naskh), Qur’anic readings and the notionof the seven letters, Qur’anic stories, esoteric interpretation, textualanalysis, and translation of the Qur’an. The work also contains detailed informationon the history of the methodology of exegesis, such as the Makkanand Madinian parts of the Qur’an.The author contends that the literature in the field of uṣūl al-tafsīr is limitedin both number and approaches (p. xiv). He also criticizes the approachof some orientalists in this field, which is, according to him, neither satisfyingnor flawless. However, the book does not include any evidence to support thisclaim. Nevertheless, Doğan does state that those who want to interpret ...
The Foundation and Principles of Critical Thinking
Authors: Ali Muhammad Mumtaz
Published: October 2020

This article explains the currently dominant paradigm of criticalthinking, which is considered universally applicable, in terms ofapplying various skills, techniques, standards, and procedures.However, it also contends that emphasizing the technical aspectsdoes not make it critical thinking, for that depends mainly upon itsown metaphysics – a view that is never discussed. I contend thatthe metaphysical premise is more important than the skills andtechniques, as it is intimately related to the technical dimensionsof critical thinking. I argue that without a true and realistic metaphysicalfoundation, critical thinking cannot produce good results.
Communities of Interpretation
Authors: El-Badawi Emran
Published: October 2020

This article discusses “Communities of the Qur’an,” a conference,public talk, and forthcoming book that will examine the Qur’an’s“communities of interpretation.” They are represented by ten worldrenownedacademics and leaders from the Sunni, Shi‘i, and Ahmadicommunities; reformist LGBT, feminist, African American, andQur’an-only groups; as well as non-Muslims like the Bahais. In thisbrief paper, I discuss their nature, engagements with the Qur’an asa text or an experience, and the challenges they face in the twentyfirstcentury.
IIIT Panels at the 2016 ISNA Convention
Authors: Elaradi Hadeel
Published: October 2020

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) held a series of panels atISNA’s 41st annual convention in Chicago, IL, on September 3-4, 2016.
An Anchor and a Vehicle
Authors: Ibrahim Zakyi
Published: October 2020

This editorial was first published in Dutch in 2015 as part of a collection ofreflections on faith (“Anker en voertuig,” in Geloven - Spirituele denkers uitde hele wereld getuigen, ed. Jürgen Mettepenningen (Tielt: Lannoo, 2015), 73-78. Forty-six scholars of diverse religious backgrounds around the world weresent a set of questions: “What Are the central features of your faith?” “How isyour belief in praxis?” “Why do you believe (belief)?” “What is the richnessof faith?” and “What has faith given to you? How can it be meaningful to others?”.As the style was “conversational,” all references were omitted. I obtainedthe editor’s written permission to publish the English version.