bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Imperialist Wars and Liberal Peace
Authors: Bala Asma
Published: October 2020

TheAssociation ofMuslim Social Scientists of NorthAmerica (AMSS) heldits fourth annual Canadian Regional Conference in Toronto at the OntarioInstitute for Studies in Education (OISE) on 1 November 2008. This event,whichwas cosponsored by the Department ofAdult Education and CounselingPsychology (OISE) and the Women and Gender Studies Institute at theUniversity of Toronto, was coordinated by Jasmin Zine (Wilfrid Laurier)and Maliha Chishti (OISE). The keynote address was presented by AnnRusso (DePaul University).The theme of this year’s conference, “Imperialist Wars and LiberalPeace,” brought together a group of scholars to critically engage the natureof the new imperialist wars that are being waged on a smaller scale. Fromthe “war on terror” to the various forms of intra-state warfare, participantssought to address how a viable peace and prosperity can be achieved for amajority of the world’s people, rather than just for an elite minority.During the morning plenary session, “Imperialist ‘Obsession’ withHate: A Critique of the Film ‘Obsession: Radical Islam’s War against theWest,’” conference chair Shahrzad Mojab (OISE) questioned the means bywhich social institutions contribute to violence in our society. Shirley Steinberg(McGill) recalled receiving the film in her issue of the Chronicle ofHigher Learning. For her and other scholars on the panel, the ClarionFund’s distribution abroad in the film was a clear example of the rampantIslamophobia of the post-9/11 world. Referring to this as an “exoticizingand terrorizing” of the Islamic andArab peoples, she proposed a letter writingcampaign to mobilize against Islamophobia. Amir Hassanpour(Toronto) warned against the ideology of hate prominently displayedthroughout the film, highlighting the similarities with historic fascism.Jasmin Zine problemitized the discursive tropes employed by the film’screators, which served to “close minds, not open them.” To move past this“pedagogy of fear,” she called for a shift toward a pedagogy of hope rootedin anti-imperialist thought ...
Managing Sustainable Development and Poverty Alleviation in the Islamic World
Authors: Fredericks L. J.
Published: October 2020

The Centre for Poverty and Development Studies (CPDS), Faculty of Economicsand Administration, University of Malaya, hosted an internationalconference, “Managing Sustainable Development and PovertyAlleviation inthe IslamicWorld,” on 14-15 October 2008 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Thisevent attracted around 100 participants and eighteen presenters.The thematic foci reflected the understanding that the Islamic worldexhibits significant and disturbing variations in its levels and magnitudes ofsocioeconomic development, poverty incidence and prevalence, income distributionpatterns, literacy, employment, and economic growth.As these areinconsistent with Islam’s principles and ethics of distributive justice andequity, unity, and social responsibility, Muslim researchers and concernedindividuals must join the quest to devise concerted and collaborative Islamicsolutions to the challenges of sustainable development, as well as of povertyalleviation and eradication, in the Islamic world.Within an Islamic framework, the presenters analyzed poverty as asocioeconomic phenomenon from multiple perspectives. One perspectivejustifies the instrumentality of empowerment in overcoming poverty inIslamic societies. As the poor are powerless, the universal principles ofequality and justice imply a more equitable power distribution in society,and collective social action implies consultation strategies to resolve socialimperfections. InMalaysia’s three poverty-focused organizations, empowermentwas analyzed using a framework of determinants, including trustingthe organizer, local working culture, participants behaving like friends, thegovernment’s role, importance of the organization, belief in and trusting theorganization, and roles at all levels. It was established that individuals, thecommunity, and the organization widely acknowledge empowerment as asignificant determinant for success ...
Challenges Facing the New President in the Greater Middle East
Authors: Zohdy Nada
Published: October 2020

In November 2008, students, scholars, and interested citizens convened inEast Lansing to hear experts speak about the Middle East. This event, “ChallengesFacing the New President in the GreaterMiddle East,” was hosted byMichigan State University’s Muslim Studies Program with generous cosponsorshipby the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) andthe Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America (AMSS).Speakers highlighted the topic’s timeliness, given the current global politicalclimate. Experts agreed that by heeding the nuances surrounding MiddleEastern issues and contextualizing them, a positive transformation ofAmericanpolicy can be achieved.Professor Mohammed Ayoob (Michigan State University) articulatedwhy the Middle East is significant: as the Muslim world’s spiritual and politicalheartland, understanding its politics is essential to understanding thatworld’s politics, and being the home ofmore than 60%of the world’s provenoil reserves and 40% of its natural gas makes it strategically important. Thisoverview contextualized the challenges facing the Obama administration onsuch critical regional issues as political Islam, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,and the Iraq War as well as the United States’ tenuous relations withPakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and SaudiArabia ...
The Veil
Authors: Bullock Katherine
Published: October 2020

Taking an expansive notion of what is a “veil” and recognizing its immemorialrelationship to sacredness, Jennifer Heath has put together a wonderfulcollection of essays about it. The twenty-one female contributors considerthe veil from a variety of viewpoints: academic, personal memoir, and artistic.Her introduction and epilogue presents the book’s overall goal and asummation. The main argument is that “the veil” has been (and will remain)part of human society, in countless cultures and religions, for thousands ofyears. It can be a piece of cloth, a mask, or even related to the mystery of nature (as in the ancient Greek goddess Nyx [Night], drawing the veil ofdarkness across earth, while Selene [Moon] rises wearing a veil [p. 5].).”Current debates over veiling focus only on Islamic veiling and its relationshipto women’s oppression, which politicizes and narrows the understandingof this practice.There is no singular truth to “the veil,” Heath suggests, and that is preciselythe feeling one gets, for after reading the entire collection, one is nowiser to “the” meaning of “the” veil. The “truth” of the veil, rather, is thatthe current debate over it (does it or does it not oppress women?) detractsfrom the real issues women face: ...
The Public Sphere
Authors: Johnston David L.
Published: October 2020

A shortened version of his 2005 Habilitation thesis at Humboldt University,Berlin, this ambitious book both leans on and disagrees with German philosopherJürgenHabermas, the authoritative western theorist on the public sphereand communicative action. Salvatore applauds how Habermas created anoriginal synthesis between the idea of civil society developed in the Anglo-American tradition and the more radical version of “civic virtue” in theEuropean republican tradition emanating from Immanuel Kant. Habermashas masterfully wedded his theories of the public sphere and communicativeaction in such a way that “the only secure way to vindicate public reason isidentified with a democratic process” (p. 240).A great achievement, no doubt, but at what cost? Salvatore sees this theoryof the public sphere as condemned to an impasse. The “Habermas effect”has three main weaknesses: (1) it ultimately rests on the shaky ground of privatetrust; (2) its theory is limited to a western view of the self and citizenshipand, in the end, to the reach of a hegemonic western culture; and (3) thislimitation leaves out the all-pervasive dynamic of religious traditions in mostother parts of the world ...
The Political Economy of Arab Cultural Underdevelopment
Authors: Aysha Emad El-Din
Published: October 2020

Lawrence E. Harrison pins the blame forArab-Islamic underdevelopment ona set of cultural dysfunctions. Among those that interest me are “submissivecollectivism rather than individualism” and the hostility to ‘innovation,’‘change,’ and ‘dissent’; “isolationism” not just toward non-Muslims but eveninternally, placing an “emphasis on family, clan and ethnic cohesion ratherthan broader relationships”; and “clerical interpretations ... that have ... transmittedfatalistic dogma, ... permitted adoption of scientific and technologicaladvances from outside but closed the door to the liberalizing cultural forcesthat made these advances possible.”1Well, the Saudis do “believe that oil was a gift from Allah ... It was areward for their devout belief ... Ever thankful, they see no reason to deny theteachings of theKoran.”As for importing western know-howwithout the valuesthat come with it, the Saudis also believe that “God has given them oilwealth which is to be translated into money as a means by which they can modernize. But one should never interfere with the other”2 – as if one can buya television set without the manual that tells you how to use it ...
“Difference” in the Qur’an
Authors: Rayan Sobhi
Published: October 2020

This article seeks to explain and analyze the concept of cultural ikhtilaf (difference)in the Qur’an. Islam introduces a model for human communicationamong cultures at the individual and group levels that is based on humanvalues that guarantee a person’s dignity and human rights. The principle ofdifference in Islam means accepting the “other,” namely, the different person,by establishing relations based on acquaintance, dialogue, sharing, andreciprocity. Difference became an important conceptual tool in the frameworkof traditional Muslim societies’willingness to accept diversity and hasremained an important part of Muslim discourse.1The different person is not a mere independent isolated unit living withinhis/her own world and whose main concern is to protect himself/herselfand his/her identity from loss and forgetfulness. Rather, he/she is characterizedby his/her communicative and productive nature and entity, which aredelineated by mutual dependence on the “other” while maintaining the independenceof the “other.” The “other” also has an independent and confidentcharacter that qualifies him/her to establish a communicative and reciprocalrelationship that seeks to achieve public advantage.The “different” person can prove his/her truth, since “difference” is usedin a saying based on evidence,2 and the established truth based on this evidencegrants its holdermoral and logical confidence, therebymaking him/hermore open to the “other.” In addition, evidence indicates the power of argumentativelogic and high epistemological level of those who differentiate.The concept of difference, while based on rationality and logic, also carriesa moral dimension as a complementary unity.As a result, therefore, differenceturns out to be a fundamental element in establishing a civilized creativesociety ...
Shifting Grounds
Authors: Sucu Ayse Tuba Demirel
Published: October 2020

The Association for the Study of the New Literatures in English(ASNEL) held its twentieth annual conference at the University of Münsterbetween 21-24 May 2009 in Münster, Germany. The conference was coordinatedby Mark Stein, Silke Stroh, Marga Munkelt, and Markus Schmitz,all of whom are based at the University of Münster. Around 300 delegatesfrom thirty-five countries attended.This four-day conference featured three major keynote speakers, fourprominent authors, and 100 presenters whose abstracts had been selectedfromaround 300 submissions. This event explored translocation, an increasinglysignificant theme of postcolonial studies. The conference promoted acritical evaluation of postcolonial texts and media while investigating theirinstitutional academic contexts. The concept of “translocational identity” ispart of a new debate in postcolonial theory. From border regimes and bordercrossings to translocal space, from translocal food to cyber diasporas anddiasporic literature, participants sought to address major paradigms of postcolonialcritique ...
Political Islam and the State in Africa
Authors: Haron Muhammed
Published: October 2020

Political Islam has been under the scholarly spotlight for over two decades.The events in the Muslim heartlands and beyond have caused scholars tocritically investigate the relationship between religion and politics throughoutthe era of secularism; some arguing that religion is on its way out, andothers stating that it is gradually gaining ground in the public arena. For thewestern-trained scholar, the religion-politics divide is a sine qua non; however,for those outside the scholarly circles, religion has always been connectedto and intertwined with politics. This has been the case with Islam.The editors of this text, which focuses on the nature of political Islam andthe nation-state on the African continent, have brought together a crop ofscholars with divergent views. It consists of nine chapters, an introductioncoauthored by Hussein Solomon and Akeem Fadare, and a conclusion coauthoredby Solomon and Firoza Butler ...
Islamophobia – The Experience in Worlds Old and New
Authors: Bruckmayr Philipp
Published: October 2020

Organized jointly by the Australian Intercultural Society, the AustralianCatholic University, and Monash University together with the Gülen conferencea few days earlier, this conference was devoted to a particularly important and pressing topic: the anti-Islam discourse slowly becoming a standardfeature of western political competition and media coverage. As the topic issimilarly a rather polarizing one, an event of high scholarly quality could notbe taken for granted. However, this is just what organizers, speakers, andaudience managed to achieve during this event, held during 18-19 July 2009at Monash University in Melbourne. The phenomena subsumed under theterm Islamophobia, their expressions, preconditions, and multiple roots andfacets were discussed through different approaches in theoretical, descriptive,and analytical terms ...
Security First
Authors: Sabet Amr G. E.
Published: October 2020

Couched in moral language and endeavoring to preempt possible shifts inforeign policy attitudes, this six-part book attempts to subtly and indirectlyweave Israeli interests into American policy and upcoming decision-makingprocesses. Essentially, it repackages Israel’s “security for peace” formulawith the language of security (read “order”) and democracy (read “justice/law”) and stresses the former’s priority over the latter – security being Israel’sparamount claim. In so doing, Etzioni seeks to limit references to Israel togive the reader the impression that he is dealing with issues over and beyond– a form of reorienting the reader’s attention through focal deception while“playing the same tune – on a different instrument” (p. xii).The book’s main thesis is that there are “principled” and “pragmatic”reasons forWashington to transform its foreign policy approach from prioritizingthe spread of democracy to security (p. xi), for democracy must followthe establishment of “basic security” (p. xi) as the supreme human good.Doing things differently simply reflects the “Multiple Realism DeficiencyDisorder” from which American foreign policy suffers (p. xiv), namely, apsychological state that deals with matters as Americans would like them tobe rather than as they are (p. xv) ...
Islamic Biomedical Ethics
Authors: Swazo Norman K.
Published: October 2020

Immediately distinctive of Sachedina’s approach to biomedical ethics is hisconception of the Shari`ah as an integrated legal-ethical tradition: TheQur’an provides jurists with moral underpinnings of religious duty, and thegrounding texts are to be taken as an ethical standard of conduct. Legal rulingsare to be extracted accordingly. In short, the Islamic juridical tradition(usul al-fiqh) presupposes ethics.Sachedina argues for an ethical foundation – a strong epistemologicalclaim– and concerns himself with conceptual bases ofmoral reasoning ratherthan with juridically derived judgment per se. He elucidates deontologicalteleologicalprinciples that are “cross-culturally communicable” yet appreciativeof “situational exigencies.” In contrast to the juridical objective ofissuing legal opinions (fatwas), bioethical pluralism motivates Sachedina’spreference for recommended moral conduct (tawsiyah). He therefore movesaway from the tendency of some scholars to conceive of bioethics merely as“applied Islamic jurisprudence.”The author’s epistemic and hermeneutic commitment commends hiswork, given the two facts that he identifies: (1) informed public debate oncritical issues of biomedical ethics within Islam is lacking, relative to thedegree of democratic governance, and (2) the epistemological and ontologicalbases of ethical inquiry remain underdeveloped in the Muslim seminariancurriculum. Consequently, there is a critical need to demonstrate toreligious scholars that Islamic ethics have much in common with secularbioethics and thus that an opportunity for dialogue exists ...
Narrating Muhammad’s Night Journey
Authors: Rippin Andrew
Published: October 2020

The story of Muhammad’s night journey to Jerusalem and ascent to heavenenjoys huge popularity across the Muslim world. It has functioned as a vehiclefor many forms of artistic expression throughout the ages as well as havingbeen subject to much literary development. In addition, it has impactedand interacted with legal and theological dogma that may be seen in elementsranging fromthe establishment of the five daily prayers (on which seethe fascinating essay by Ron Buckley, “The Isra’/Mi`raj and the prescriptionof the five daily prayers,” in Andreas Christmann, Robert Gleave [eds.],Studies in Islamic Law: A Festschrift for Colin Imber [Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2007], 23-49) to the conceptualization of paradise and hell (see the treatment in Nerina Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire: Heaven andHell in Islamic Culture [NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2008], especiallypp. 26-39).Historically, the narrative makes its basic appearance in some of the earliestMuslim texts, for example, in Ibn Ishaq’s eighth-century work entitledLife ofMuhammad. The emergence of the story has been seen (in, for example,Brooke Olson Vuckovic, Heavenly Journeys, Earthly Concerns: TheLegacy of the Mi`raj in the Formation of Islam [New York and London:Routledge, 2005]) as an important element in the historical formation ofIslamic identity; it has also been seen by some as having had a powerfulimpact on European imaginings of the hereafter, as found in medieval writerssuch as Dante ...
Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds
Authors: Jaffer Sadaf
Published: October 2020

Parin Dossa’s book on the lives of Canadian Muslims provides insightinto the personal stories of women who must grapple with disability in theirdaily lives. It is, therefore, located at the intersection of race, gender, and disabilitystudies and has broad social implications.In her introduction, Dossa discusses the 1967 change in Canadian immigrationpolicies that made immigration easier for a pool of skilled laborersneeded to fill jobs in the economy. Though this search for skilled labor isposited as objective, these policies are biased as regards the relative valueof different bodies. Disabled bodies are valued less in this system. Racialbiases make the situation of racialized disabled people even more difficult.Dossa’s project seeks to investigate the experience of a racialized body ina world that disables. To counter this external lack of value, the women featuredcreate an alternative space of self-value through storytelling ...
War
Authors: Wyman Ann C.
Published: October 2020

There is a long-standing set of criteria thoughtful leaders have used to helpdetermine when engaging in war is the right thing to do. The criteria havealso been long debated, and Larry May’s collection of fifteen original essaysmakes an excellent contribution to the discourse. Historical background isprovided by Gregory Reichberg’s “Jus ad Bellum” and Nicholas Rengger’s“The Jus in Bello in Historical and Philosophical Perspective,” both ofwhich are astutely concise descriptions of just war philosophical developmentfrom the western perspective. Most just war literature readily availableto western analysts has produced by western thinkers, and international legalstandards on war have been promulgated primarily through western interactions.But the rich Islamic tradition of just war jurisprudence and philosophy could have been included. The ninth-century scholar al-Shaybani, forinstance, wrote about the rules of war and has been called “the Hugo Grotiusof Islam.”Al-Farabi, the father of Islamic political philosophy, directly addressesthe justice of war (although significantly the best he will say of any war isthat it is not unjust), and many of his tenth-century principles are consistentwith western thinking; the lack of discrimination between military targetsand civilians is unjust in both traditions, for example. In his SelectedAphorisms, al-Farabi identifies innocents as illegitimate targets and evenhints that forcibly drafted soldiers might be considered “innocents” when thewar’s cause is unjust, thereby intertwining the ad bellum principle of justcause with the in bello principle of discrimination (Political Writings:“Selected Aphorisms” and Other Texts, trans. Charles Butterworth [CornellUniversity Press: 2002]). Thomas Hurka shares al-Farabi’s idea of interdependence.His superb essay, “Proportionality and Necessity,” poses questionssuch as: “How many enemy soldiers can be sacrificed to save one ofour own soldiers’ lives?” According to him, the right number differs accordingto the necessity and who is doing the calculating; in other words, jus adbellum and jus in bello influence each other ...
Hadith as Scripture
Authors: Stewart Devin J.
Published: October 2020

This book treats the debate among Muslims over the authority of hadith,which by the ninth century had been raised to the level of scripture. Theauthor’s main purpose is to show that modern Muslim thinkers who question its status as a source of law are not the first ones to do so and thus cannot bedismissed as inauthentic aberrations or the results of a western, colonialistplot to undermine Islam. In addition, modern arguments against this viewhave close parallels in the opinions attributed to those of their predecessors.Hadith as Scripture thus has a strong presentist concern, despite its treatmentof classical Islamic sources, and can be seen as apologetic in that it seeks todefend the Qur’an-only position from unfair detraction ...
Terror.edu
Authors: Mehan Uppinder
Published: October 2020

The Society for Critical Exchange held its first Winter Theory Institute from11-14 February 2010 at the University of Houston-Victoria, located inVictoria, Texas. Eleven scholars from a variety of disciplines and fromacross the United States came together to present and discuss their currentwork on questions regarding the affect terror and terrorism are having oneducation in higher education. The participants presented their work by turn,and all took part in the intense two days fully devoted to the discussions.Some of the questions we hoped to address included the following: Howhave institutions of higher learning responded to the specter of terror? Howshould academe respond? What is our professional role in a terroristicworld? ...
Shari’a
Authors: Hussin Iza
Published: October 2020

In his “Introduction,” Hallaq states that this work approaches the field ofIslamic law in a way that few other scholars have attempted. “To write thehistory of Shari’a is to represent the Other,” he argues; “history, both Islamicand European, is the modern’s Other, and ... in the case of Islam this historyis preceded by another Other – namely contemporary Islam” (p. 1). This approach, which treats the Shari`ah as an aggregate of its history – its theory,institutional and societal applications, and implications in projects of power– also draws the discipline of Islamic legal studies into its analysis. ForHallaq, the “extraordinary innocence” of modern scholarship concerningIslamic law and society “proceeds ... unaware of (its) culpable dependency... on the ideology of the state” (p. 5). His approach brings together two intellectualaims: (a) to illumine the conditions of production and power relationswithin which Islamic legal knowledge, as an academic discipline, was builtand (b) to further elaborate upon the Shari`ah’s development as a system ofthought, practice, and institutions throughout its history. My review willfocus upon how these two major strands interweave and the new contributionsthe author makes to the study of Islamic law and society ...
Islam Dot Com
Authors: Siapera Eugenia
Published: October 2020

The articulation of Islam with the new media, and the Internet in particular,has attracted the interest of many researchers. The Internet’s openness anddemocratic potential may infuse Islamic discourses with a new dynamic or,alternatively, offer a new lease of life to such valued traditions as shura (consultation)and ijtihad (independent thinking). Islam Dot Com belongs to theline of thought that seeks to discover how the Internet has been associatedwith Islam and the extent to which it may be thought to contribute to itsdemocratization by providing a truly public sphere in which interested peoplecan participate. On the other hand, the authors are cognizant of the limitationsof the concept of “public sphere” when applied to Islamic contexts.Part of the book’s remit, therefore, is to examine how the Internet relates to shura, ijtihad, and ijma` (consensus). At the same time, it seeks to relatethese theoretical arguments to an empirical case study consisting of a textualanalysis of three Islamic websites: www.islamonline.net, www.amrkhaled.net, and www.islamway.com. The book’s structure comprises threetheoretical chapters (chapters 1-3), two empirical chapters (chapters 4 and5), and a concluding chapter (chapter 6) ...
Indonesian Muslim Intelligentsia and Power
Authors: Daniels Timothy P.
Published: October 2020

Yudi Latif’s Indonesian Muslim Intelligentsia and Power provides a broad,interdisciplinary, and long-term study of Indonesia’s Muslim intelligentsiafrom the late nineteenth until the early twenty-first century. His methodologystresses the reinterpretation of secondary sources, but does include primarydata collected via a documentary and database survey, interviews, aquestionnaire, and direct observation. Latif attempts to situate his multigenerationaldescription and analysis within an interdisciplinary frameworkthat includes politics, economics, education, discursive practices, the publicsphere, and intellectual traditions. The book consists of seven chapters,including an introduction and a conclusion ...
Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the East
Authors: Rizvi Sajjad H.
Published: October 2020

The Late Antique Aristotelian tradition inherited by the world of earlyIslam in the Near East considered the Rhetoric an integral part of one’straining in logic and reasoning. Thus far, however, there has been little academicinterest in it, apart from Deborah Black’s ground-breaking monographpublished some two decades ago and the recent edition in MarounAouad’s translation and study of Ibn Rushd’s commentary on it. Vagelpohl’srevised Cambridge dissertation is a careful historical and linguisticstudy of its translation and naturalization in Syriac (less so) and Arabiclearned culture in the Near East. As such, he considers the text a case studythat raises wider questions about the whole process of the translation movementthat, after a relative absence of interest, is again inspiring a new vogueof academic literature.Since translation is a process of cultural exchange, it is important to payattention to details and formulations. The choice of the Rhetoric requiressome justification, as Vagelpohl admits, for two reasons: (a) the Aristotelian text was not that significant in antiquity; more practical manuals were morewidely used and taught, and (b) the Arabic tradition distinguished betweentwo traditions of rhetoric, an indigenous genre of balaghah (and bayan) thatdrew upon classics of the Arabic language and was essential for trainingpreachers and functionaries, and a more philosophical and Hellenizingkhitabah represented by the Aristotelian text and its commentary, such asthe one by Ibn Rushd. Clearly the former tradition dominated, for even a cursoryexamination of the manuscript traditions and texts in libraries attests tothis imbalance. However, Vagelpohl argues that the challenges posed by thetext reveal strategies and approaches used by the translators to deal with thecultural exchange that may assist our understanding of the wider translationmovement ...
Tales of God’s Friends
Authors: Nadvi Muhammad Junaid
Published: October 2020

Tales of God’s Friends: Islamic Hagiography in Translation, an anthologythat honors Sufis from every corner of the Muslim world, provides an easilyaccessible overview of Sufism’s history and the particularities of individualSufi experiences that helped spread Islam throughout the world. A valuablecontribution to the contemporary literature of Sufi studies, this volume alsooffers an excellent overview of the Sufi path and philosophy as well as classictexts of Islamic mysticism. The wide-ranging and eclectic collection of sources is a particular strength, and manuscripts have been edited with referencesto several authors who knew the life history of these Sufis.The book contains twenty illustrations; a preface; six parts (divided intotwenty-seven chapters); an appendix and a glossary; notes about the contributors;an index of names; an index of concepts, themes, places, and booktitles; and a Qur’an index. The editor claims that it is the first truly globalEnglish-language anthology of Islamic hagiography, both historically andgeographically – it is translated from seventeen languages of origin, with thehelp of two dozen Islamic scholars specializing in broad spectrum of languages(pp. xi-xiv) ...
Jinn n’ (No Freshly Squeezed) Juice
Authors: Alhassen Maytha
Published: October 2020

Liquor stores, or more colloquially “corner stores,” in Detroit, Chicago, NewYork, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Washington, and other major metropolitancities located in economically under-served, urban, majority-black neighborhoodshave been purchased by Arab American and Arab immigrants over thelast two decades. In order to understand the relationship of place to religionand race, I intend to examine the dynamics of the encounter between African-American Muslims and Arab and Arab-American Muslims (mostly Yemeni)at various liquor stores in Oakland, where, according to the US Census(2000), African Americans compose 64 percent of the population.Complicated by an ethno-religious component, Yemeni Muslim liquorstore ownership concentrated in Oakland’s highest density, crime-ridden,black-dominant, and economically poorest neighborhoods, although aidedby literature, requires a new theoretical arsenal for approaching the conflict.Little scholarly attention has been paid to the demographic shift in ownershipand the resulting relations between the two groups. This essay is by nomeans an attempt to provide a comprehensive portrait or a theoretical foundation.Better described as a pilot study, my participant observations during ...
The Arabic Script in Africa
Authors: Haron Muhammed
Published: October 2020

The Arabic script’s flexible and adaptive nature has made it a significantcontributor to Africa’s rich and vibrant socio-linguistic landscape. This hasbeen noted by major scholars in the field, among them John Hunwick(director-general, Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa,Northwestern University, USA) and Helmi Sharawi (Centre for Arabo-African Studies, Egypt). Meikal Mumin, a young German-Somali scholarwho completed his M.A. at the University of Cologne’s Institute for AfricanStudies on the use of the Arabic script in Africa, solicited funds from theFritz Thyssen Stiftung, as well as the necessary moral support from theabove-mentioned institute, to host a workshop on this topic. Entitled “ArabicScript in Africa,” it was held at the University of Koln’s Institute for AfricanStudies during 6-7 April 2010. Mumin regarded this event as the first of itskind on German soil to dealt with the “linguistic aspects of the usage and diffusionof the Arabic script in Africa for the writing of African languages, aphenomenon also known as Ajami.” The assembled scholars investigated,among other concerns, linguistic, sociolinguistic, and historical processes aswell as applied language policy for certain African languages ...
Islamic Liberation Theology
Authors: Yenigun Halil Ibrahim
Published: October 2020

By this provocative work – to say the least – Dabashi makes a quite timelyintervention in the direction that the new discourse on Islam has recentlytaken, especially among progressive-liberal Muslim scholars. Unlike manyothers who are attracted to liberalism of various sorts, Dabashi remains closer to the socialist lineage to formulate a fervent anti-imperialist critiqueand struggle for justice in the line of liberation theologies of Gustavo Gutierrezand Joseph H. Cone. There have also been a few other Muslims pursuinga similar endeavor, such as Shabbir Akhtar and Farid Esack. Yet Dabashi,while retaining the basic sense of liberation theology, “articulation of themeaning of faith based on commitment to abolish injustice” (p. 254), is ratherafter a theodicy for our post-civilizational times. In his words, the aim is “toinvestigate the specifically Islamic manners of opposing the imperial upsurgein the aftermath of the ‘Islam and West binary opposition’” (p. 2) ...
Muslims in America
Authors: Rahemtulla Shadaab
Published: October 2020

Muslims in America: A Short History is an accessible, succinct, andinformative historical survey of Muslim American communities. This popularbook has two key objectives: to increase non-Muslim Americans’understanding of Muslims in the United States and to foreground to Muslim Americans themselves their own religious, ethnic, and culturaldiversity (p. xi).The story of Muslim America begins in the eighteenth century. Chapter1, “Across the Black Atlantic: The First Muslims in North America,”sketches the lives of several West African Muslims, many of them highly literateand schooled in the Islamic sciences, who were enslaved and shippedto the United States, such as Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (Job Ben Solomon),Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima, and Omar ibn Sayyid. The second chapter, “TheFirst American Converts to Islam,” moves into the late-nineteenth and earlytwentiethcenturies. Here Curtis provides an array of highly diverse Muslimmissionary activities, from the rather unsuccessful proselytization work ofWhite American convert Alexander Russell Webb, to the steady spread ofmystical Islamic teachings spearheaded by such preachers as Indian Sufimaster Inayat Khan, to the Nation of Islam’s ascendance as a mass-basedBlack liberation movement ...
Third Global Forum of the Alliance of Civilizations
Authors: Mutualo Abdula Manafi
Published: October 2020

On 27 May 2010, a roundtable on “Addressing Islamophobia: Building onUnused Opportunities for Mutual Respect and Inclusion” took place on thesidelines of the Alliance of Civilizations’ Third Global Forum. Held in Riode Janeiro, Brazil, at the initiative of the Organization of the Islamic Conference(OIC), it was cosponsored by the Alliance of Civilizations (AoC),the Council of Europe, and the British Council.After the initial remarks made by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (secretary general,OIC) and Jorge Sampaio (UN High Representative for the AoC), theroundtable was addressed by a host of speakers and representatives of internationallyreputed institutions, among them Marc de Brinchambaut (secretarygeneral of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe),Irina Bokova (director general, UNESCO), Mevlüt Çavusoglu (president,Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe), André Azoulay (president,the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation), and Mike Hardy(program leader, Intercultural Leader, the British Council). The session wasmoderated by Iqbal Riza (special advisor to the UN secretary-general for theAlliance of Civilizations) ...
Islam and Pluralism
Authors: Ibrahim Zakyi
Published: October 2020

Is religious pluralism possible in Islam? This question is theoretically andhistorically easy to answer affirmatively. But in perception seen as reality,it is anything but simple to answer at all. Contemporary attitudes towardand portrayals of Muslims confuse the debate even further. Attempts to providelegitimate answers in a nuanced manner are usually considered apologeticsand thus dismissed. Yet the case must be made that the Islamicworldview on religion and humanity assumes religious pluralism.Anybody periodically engaged in interfaith dialogue or public lectureson Islam must have heard this question by now. While most are genuinelyinterested in knowing the true answer, some have already made their mindsup about Islam’s inability to tolerate other religions. Perhaps one of theeffective answers came through Bill Moyers’ 1990 interview with SeyyedHossein Nasr.1 That Nasr answered affirmatively with authority and eloquencecannot be denied; however, that few Americans heard his answer isconfirmed by the persistence of this question twenty years later. Significantly,that even fewer would have believed him is proven by the troublesomerhetoric of the current rising Islamophobia.Moyers’s questions included the following: “By the nature of its theology,its own principle of unity, … can Islam coexist with [a] non-Muslim[world]?”; “Do Muslims envision a world dominated by Islam?”; “One doesnot see pluralism and tolerance?”; “Can you [Muslims] tolerate [an] infidel?”2Nasr responded by affirming coexistence, pluralism, and tolerance and rejectingany notion of Muslim world domination. This editorial analyzes “Islamand pluralism.” But to understand the Muslims’ response, one must acceptsome basic facts: Muslim extremists, who have always existed, do not trulyand legitimately represent Islam by their actions or pronouncement ...
Understanding Muslim Identity
Authors: Duderjia Adis
Published: October 2020

Gabrielle Marranci seeks to shift the analyses of “Islamic fundamentalism/radicalism” discourses away from those focusing on cultural and politicalessentialism, scripturalism, and social determinism and toward that ofexploring the dynamics of radicalization by examining the central role ofemotions on identity formation. His main thesis is that fundamentalismmust be understood as a process linked to identity and identification (nota thing) and that theories which take into account the crucial role of emotions,feelings, and the environment can explain fundamentalism, includingIslamic fundamentalism, more accurately then social deterministand/or cultural constructivist theories can (pp. 77-80). The author thus setsout to “engage with an incredibly expanding academic literature [onIslamic fundamentalism] that tends to treat religious fundamentalism onthe basis of culturalist or social theory discourse” (p. 153). He uses thesame analytical lens adopted in his Jihad beyond Islam (London: Berg,2006) ...
Understanding Muslim Social Arrangement
Authors: Ahmed Mohd Shakil
Published: October 2020

This article analyzes the Muslim Pangal community of Manipurin northeastern India. Although its members have been fairlyintegrated with other groups, their liberal cultural sense, infusedwith a deep religious grounding, has allowed them to borrow variouscultural traits, including language. Apart from Islam, theircultural whole is based on, among other elements, language,dressing patterns, social arrangements, folk songs, and courtshiprituals.
A Review of Inter-Civilizational Dialogue
Authors: Madani Iyad A.
Published: October 2020

Is interfaith dialogue full of challenges or opportunities? Does itlead somewhere, or is it a never ending circular road? When wedialogue, do we still harbor the notion of converting our dialoguepartners? Analyzing some of the actual work done by governmentsand non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well asacademics and individuals, may answer these questions. In thisshort article, I will focus on several efforts’ goals, success rate,and what we can learn from their experiences.
The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights
Authors: Morrow John Andrew
Published: October 2020

The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights by Muhsin J. al-Musawicontains seven chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion. It addressesthe Islamic factor in global times, the unifying Islamic factor, the age ofthe Muslim empire, and the burgeoning of a text. It also examines the roleof the public, non-religious displacements in popular tradition, namely, theduality between Islam and culture—as well as the public role in narrativetheorizations, that is, the impact of literary criticism. Finally, the authorexplores Scheherazade’s nonverbal narratives in religious contexts, demonstratingthe underlying Islamic character of the work.Musawi’s recent work is a most welcome and long-needed additionto scholarship in the field of Arabic literature. Well-written and well-researchedby one of the senior scholars on the subject, The Islamic Contextdemonstrates how the Thousand and One Nights operate within the parametersof the Islamic faith. A portrait of life in all its aspects, the work wouldnever have reached us had it not been the product of a strong Islamic literaryand cultural climate. Although rife with erotic escapades, sexual sinsrarely go unpunished in the work. Despite all the morally deviant behaviordisplayed in the work, many of its tales are cautionary; they communicateethical messages and promote the good and forbid the wrong throughwarnings grounded in Islamic law. While there is no shortage of sex in amultiracial, multilingual, and multicultural society, much of the merrymakingis motivated by love, instead of lust ...
Editorial
Authors: Esposito John L. , Yusu Imtiyaz
Published: October 2020

This special issue of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences onIsmail al Faruqi is prepared to honor the memory and contribution of ProfessorIsmail al Faruqi to the academia, the history of Islamic thought,and the development of the Muslim community (Ummah). Providing aperspective twenty-five years after Professor al Faruqi’s death, it providesthought-provoking papers relating of the person, mission, and intellectualjihad initiated by Professor al Faruqi.Ismail Raji al Faruqi (1921–1986) was a great scholar of Islam in moderntimes. His scholarship covered a broad spectrum of Islamic studies: thestudy of religion, Islamic thought, approaches to knowledge, history, culture,education, interfaith dialogue, aesthetics, ethics, politics, economics,science, and gender issues. He had indeed an encyclopedic knowledge, arare person among contemporary Muslim scholars.Ismail al-Faruqi laid the foundation for a new interpretation and analysisof the quintessence of tawhid and its relevance in various dimensionsof human life and thought. He also made unique contributions to the studyof Islam and its relevance to the contemporary age. In fact, many of hisunique contributions to Islamic scholarship remain especially relevant todayand have been carried on and extended by many of his former.Professor al Faruqi was a founder of “the school of Islamization ofknowledge,” which has been incorporated at several international Islamicuniversities. His school of thought, academic approach, and practice is alsobeing applied by hundreds of his students who are teaching and doing researchat different universities in all continents.This special issue of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences,revisits the intellectual legacy and continuing influence of Professor Ismailal Faruqi since his death ...
The People Reloaded
Authors: Parray Tauseef Ahmad
Published: October 2020

The People Reloaded ‒ an anthology of the multiplicity of voices, belongingto various perspectives, fields, and geographical locations throughoutthe world, and primarily and principally in the Iran and Iranian diasporas‒ is edited by Nader Hashemi (of the University of Denver) and DannyPostel (the editor of The Common Review). The book is a definitive selectedcollection of fifty-three writings and political analyses written by diverse voices interested in and engaged with the struggle for democracyin Iran. The People Reloaded is comprised of key documents, statements,interviews, letters, and essays ‒ and it seeks to capture “an important momentin Iran’s history (xxii).”This book is a rich, consistently engaging anthology that makes animportant effort to provide “an intellectual and political roadmap,” whichhelps the reader in understanding the tumultuous events that have rockedthe Islamic Republic since June 2009 ‒ a period when the struggle forthe democracy in Iran underwent a “momentous transformation (xi).” Thefacts, analyses, shadings, and nuances that these essays provide allow thereader to better understand whatever direction Iran can or may take in thefuture. The editors contribute to the work the introduction and two essays;the remaining essays are those of noted historians, political activists inand out of Iran, and journalists. Among the historians are Ervand Abrahamian,Hamid Dabashi, and Juan Cole; the activists include AyatollahMohsen Kadivar, Shirin Ebadi (2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner), and HosseinBashiriyeh; and the journalists include Roger Cohen, Stephen Kinzer,and Laura Secor. The combined effect is a history of the Green Movement,which includes much of Iran’s revolutionary past and a vision of the futureof the Green Movement in its struggle for justice and a voice in the ancientcivilization of Iran ...
Muslim Intellectualism in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings
Authors: Ibrahim Zakyi
Published: October 2020

With the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa come scores ofintellectual initiatives and academic investigations geared toward understandingthe forces and motives propelling these unprecedented developments.Conferences are being convened and special issues ofjournals are being dedicated to addressing some aspects of the currentphenomena ‒ not to talk of droves of “experts” (academic tourists?)pouring into the Muslim world for research. In short, the so-called“Arab Spring” ‒ also known by the people from the region as revolution(thawra), uprising (intifāÌa), renaissance (nahÌa) and awakening(ṣaḥwa)1 ‒ has been an intellectual treasure trove for academics in the areasof Middle Eastern Studies, Islamic Studies, and Comparative Politics.But are the attempts to explain these phenomena enough to guide the presentand future Muslim generations to proper trajectories toward sociopoliticaland intellectual success? This editorial is intended to argue that, despitethe potential positive outcomes from recent initiatives, now is the opportunetime for Muslims to seize in order to design future trajectories for their upcominggenerations. The sociopolitical imperatives (civility, freedom, empowerment,pluralism, and happiness, to name a few), to which they aspireto respond, must be guided by, or anchored in, grand intellectual endeavors ...
Emirati Women
Authors: Hashemi Manata
Published: October 2020

Jane Bristol-Ryhs’ Emirati Women: Generations of Change provides a rareglimpse into how the lives of Abu Dhabi women have changed as a result ofthe discovery of oil in the late 1960s. Combining eight years of oral histories,participant observation, and interviews ‒ along with her own experiences ofliving and teaching in Abu Dhabi ‒ Bristol-Rhys offers a lucid ethnographicaccount of a population that has been one of the most affected by Abu Dhabi’soil boom. Over the course of the chapters near the end of the book, Bristol-Rhys details the experiences of three generations of Abu Dhabi womenand how they view their pre-oil past and face the challenges of the present ...