bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Twenty-first Annual Conference of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women
Authors: Mustapha Nadira
Published: October 2020

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) held its Twenty-firstAnnual Conference, October 4, 2003 at Crowne Plaza, Montreal, Quebec.CCMW was established in 1982 to attain and maintain equality, equity,and empowerment for Canadian Muslim women in the North Americansetting. Participants from across Canada came to celebrate CCMW’srenowned presence throughout the nation as well as to discuss issuesrelated to the conference: “Engaging Muslim Women in Civic and SocialChange.” The conference was officially opened with the reading of theQur’an in Arabic, English, and French, followed by the Girl Guides ofCanada, Muslim Chapter, singing the Canadian national anthem. Theywere accompanied by the CCMW attendees.Dr. Homa Hoodfar (Concordia University, Quebec) opened the conferencewith the first session: “Building Civil Society in our TransnationalWorld.” Civil society, defined as a society ruled by laws and norms andobeyed by the governing body and the public, was discussed, along with itsrelationship in dealing with such minorities as Muslim women in Canada.A civil society permits a group of people to lobby and work with the publicin a democratic system to facilitate change and development. However,transnational support and solidarity are required in conjunction with lobbying.Hoodfar effectively illustrated this concept by bringing to light theorganization Women Living under Muslim Law (WLUML), which currentlycomprises 4000 individuals and organizations and has surveyed theimplementation of Islamic law in many Islamic countries. Along with servingas a platform to network, the organization exists as a powerful institutionto help Muslim women earn their civil rights and liberties.The presentation “Restoring the Glory of Muslim Women: Leadership,Scholarship, and the Family” by Dr. Azizah al Hibri (University ofRichmond, Richond, VA) passionately described another influentialwomen’s organization. Al Hibri, who has visited 12 Islamic countries, high ...
Editorial
Authors: Bullock Katherine
Published: October 2020

As this issue goes to press, the Muslim world is reeling from a number ofevents: President Bush has reversed decades of American foreign policy tocome out in favor of Israel’s annexation of huge swaths of the West Bank;Israel continues to murder top Hamas leaders in Palestine; in Afghanistan,Karzai is having trouble administering a country that is slipping back to thepre-Taliban war-lord era, and violence continues to escalate in an increasinglydestabilized Iraq. Bush’s insistence that the so-called “war on terror”is for the sake of freedom rings increasingly hollow, and the United States,under his administration, appears to be a major catalyst for instability ratherthan stability in the world. When I think of Bush and his team, I cannot helpbut recall the Qur’anic verse that says: “When it is said to them: ‘Make notmischief on the earth,’ they say: ‘We are only ones that put things right.’ Ofa surety, they are the ones who make mischief, but they realize (it) not”(2:11-12).The Bush administration’s responses to the tragic carnage of 9/11 hasunleashed mayhem in the Muslim world that is reminiscent not of thetwentieth century, but of the nineteenth, in which the European powersattempted to colonize the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Thus, Salem’sarticle, in a finely nuanced analysis of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani’s andRashid Rida’s responses to European colonialism, has reverberations intoday’s climate. Salem’s main argument is that al-Afghani and Ridaadvanced similar political programs on three different levels: fightingcolonialism, establishing modern Islamic states, and calling for itjihad inthe interpretation and implementation of Islamic law. It is hard not to seethe Muslim world’s present condition reflected in their struggles nearly acentury ago, and thus to feel a special relevance in studying the lives andworks of these two influential nineteenth-century figures. What were theissues they reflected upon? What were their conclusions, observations, andsuggestions? What worked and did not work for them? Salem’s article isvery instructive in this regard.One of the thorniest issues alal-Afghani and Rida attempted to addresswas the relationship and compatibility between a modern nation-state andan Islamic state. To what extent were these complementary or ...
Israel and Palestine out of the Ashes
Authors: Nestel Sheryl
Published: October 2020

During the more than 37-year brutal Israeli occupation of the West Bankand Gaza, the numbers of North American Jews voicing their oppositionin public have been dispiritingly small. Since the outbreak of the secondIntifada in September 2000, however, Jewish anti-occupation activistshave become a visible political presence in Jewish politics in the UnitedStates and Canada. Such groups as Brit Zedek V’Shalom, the TikkunCommunity, and Junity (Jewish Unity for a Just Peace) have spawneddozens of regional chapters across North America. Local groups such asNot In My Name (Chicago), Jewish Voices against the Occupation(Seattle), and Jews for Global Justice (Portland, Oregon) have sprung upspontaneously in almost every major North American city. Numerous adhoc responses have emerged as well. For example, an “Open Letter fromAmerican Jews,” proclaiming opposition to Israeli government policies inthe Occupied Territories and bearing 4,000 signatures, has appeared as afull-page advertisement in The New York Times as well as in a dozen moreAmerican and British newspapers.While very few of these groups would identify themselves as religiouslyobservant, almost all have invoked a Jewish ethical tradition ofsocial justice, derived from Jewish texts and rabbinical tradition, to maketheir political point. In his most recent book, Israel and Palestine out of theAshes, Jewish theologian Marc Ellis posits a more deeply consequentialconnection between Jewish history, Jewish ethics, and the occupation.According to Ellis, Director of the Center for American and Jewish Studiesat Baylor University (Waco, Texas), Israel’s displacement and dispossessionof the Palestinian people constitutes such a fundamental transgressionof Jewish ethics and morality that it threatens to render Judaism, a religious ...
Islamic Historiography
Authors: Stewart Devin
Published: October 2020

In this introduction to the large, unwieldy, and complex topic of Islamic historiography,the author has limited himself to historical works written inArabic, primarily in the central Islamic lands, before 1500. This choice canbe justified in that the field’s formative works written early on in Iraq, Iran,Egypt, and Syria and all in Arabic, served as models for historians writinglater on in peripheral regions and in other languages. Nevertheless, it is a bowto convenience and necessity, given the vast amount of material involved. Asa result, the Arabic historiography of North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, andother peripheral regions are largely ignored, as are the Turkish histories of theOttoman Empire and the Persian histories of Iran, Central Asia, and India.Within these admitted and understandable limitations, the book provides anexcellent thematic overview, while, at the same time, introducing the readerto some of the Islamic world’s most fascinating histories and historians.This book is divided into three parts, including ten chapters and aconclusion. A glossary, five plates of manuscript folios, three maps, twochronologies of prominent historians, and suggestions for further readingcontribute to making this a useful and accessible text.In part 1, chapters 1-4, Robinson presents a tripartite typology of historicalworks: chronography, biography, and prosopography. These are idealtypes, which serve as broad categories within which to classify a huge bodyof texts. Chronography refers to annals, works organized into year-by-yearsections; biography refers to texts that treat the lives of famous or exemplaryindividuals; and prosopography refers primarily to biographical dictionaries,works in which biographical notices are devoted to large numbers of individualswho all belonged to a particular scholarly or professional group. Allof these types of historical works, Robinson writes, had emerged by theninth century and were consolidated by the early tenth century. The end ofthis formative period was characterized by large synthetic works, such asAbu Ja`far al-Tabari’s History of Messengers and Kings. In part because ofsuch works, many earlier historical monographs, including the works ofsuch historians as Abu Mikhnaf and al-Mada’ini, were abandoned by the traditionas unnecessary ...
Violence and Muslims
Authors: Siddiqi Mohammad Nejatullah
Published: October 2020

Under what circumstances does Islam tolerate violence or armed struggle?What are the Islamic ethics of war? When Does Islam allow what the westernmedia calls “terrorism,” especially when Muslims are the target of violenceand terrorism? Can Muslims use violence to counter violence?Given existing realities, we need to answer such questions. American andBritish aggression in various countries, the Hindutva aggression in India,and the general global anti-Muslim environment have disturbed Muslimseverywhere. What steps should be taken to counter such negative trends?Ethics and ViolenceIn essence, violence is an unethical act. In a civilized world that values ethicalprinciples, violence is used only to deter and punish criminals and todefend oneself. One may use dialogue, persuasion, communication, andinformation to achieve an objective, but not violence. Violence cannot beused to achieve religious objectives, because it is an instrument of coercion.Islam, which is based on compassion, love, tolerance, gentleness, and forgiveness,prohibits coercion (2:256). Violence, destruction, and cruelty violateIslam’s very nature (7:199).Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, commanded gentleness andforbade harshness and violence. Sahih Muslim records that Ayesha narratedthat the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: “God is kind, and likes kindness.For kindness, God rewards what He never gives due to violence or throughany other means” and that he said to Ayesha: “Be kind and avoid violenceand indecency. Kindness makes a situation best and unkindness makes itworst. This is why the Qur’an prohibits offensive violence and discouragesviolence even as a defensive means” (41:34-35) ...
The AMSS (UK) Fifth Annual Conference
Authors: Malik Abdul-Rehman
Published: October 2020

Traditional fiqh is facing a new challenge: formulating a suitable fiqh forminority Muslim communities. In this spirit, the Association of MuslimSocial Scientists (AMSS [UK]) in conjunction with the InternationalInstitute of Islamic Thought, The Muslim College, and Q-News Media,convened its fifth annual conference, “Fiqh Today: Muslims as Minorities,”at the University of Westminster (London) during February 21-22, 2004.Anas Al-Shaikh-Ali, AMSS (UK) Executive Committee Chair, setout the vision in his opening remarks: A genuine fiqh for minorityMuslims requires a collective engagement between social scientists andShari`ah scholars “in the wider public arena.” He challenged participantsto work for a “comprehensive methodology of minority fiqh” drawing onthe past, but not being afraid to be innovative.Keynote speaker Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina,maintained that while he did not believe in a minority fiqh per se, he readilyaccepted the position that Muslims living as political minorities often arebetter able to fulfill their religious obligations than Muslims elsewhere. Heposited a vision of Muslims in Europe that recognized their unique historicposition and contribution to Europe, which he sees as a place of interactionrather than of confrontation. After discussing the interdependence of culturesand the need for balance and tolerance, he considered present diagnoses ofthe intellectual pathologies of Muslim and European societies and concludedby challenging Muslim minorities to see themselves as driving Islam’s civilizationalwheel. He also called on Europe to institutionalize Islam and forMuslims in Europe to come together within a universal worldview.Al-Shaikh-Ali awarded the AMSS (UK) 2003 Lifetime AchievementAward posthumously to Edward Said. Michel Abdul Messih, QC, eminentlawyer, Palestinian activist, and close friend of Said, accepted it on hisbehalf. Zaki Badawi spoke of how Said’s works changed academia and ...
Islam and Dhimmitude
Authors: Ahmad Imad A.
Published: October 2020

Islam and Dhimmitude is an attempt to confute the concept of “protectedminority” (under which Islamic civilization established what was, up to itstime, the most successful model of pluralistic society) with the worst aberrationsfrom that model. The subtitle “Where Civilizations Collide” indicateshow the author expects her polemic to serve the current wave of neoimperialism.The book seeks to recruit Christians in support of the Zionistproject by explaining away Christian expressions of appreciation ofMuslim tolerance as a false consciousness inspired by a self-hatred she calls dhimmitude, meaning a state of mind that acquiesces, even promotes,the victim’s own subjugation.The book’s first half is devoted to proposing a paradigm in whichQur’anic verses in favor of human rights are ignored, official acts to thebenefit of dhimmis are brushed off as machinations to breed resentmentbetween dhimmi groups, and injustices against Muslims are figments of theimagination invented to whitewash the Islamic master plan for subjugatingthe non-Islamic world into a state of dhimmitude. The second half workswithin this paradigm to vilify Christian anti-Zionists (including Europeansas well as Arabs) as dhimmi pawns of Muslim oppressors. (Curiously, shedoes not attempt to dismiss Jewish critics of Israel in the same manner.) ...
Sword of Islam
Authors: Antonius Rachad
Published: October 2020

This book presents itself as an academic work, with 14 pages of endnotes,a 12-page bibliography, and a detailed 18-page index. While pretending todistinguish between Islam as a religion and Muslims on the one hand, andIslamic extremism on the other, these elements are mixed up throughout thebook. In addition, every instance of Arab or Muslim resistance to occupationor oppression is put under the global category of “Muslim extremism,”a term that has already acquired a connotation of violence due to the book’stitle.The book is a collection of anecdotal evidence, personal opinions,hearsay, and interviews and quotes from “anonymous sources” that are presumably available to the author, who is engaged in intelligence work.Although filled with details about political violence and terrorism (withoutdistinguishing between the two terms) that can be found in the popularpress, it is, however, full of gross mistakes and errors. Thus, the informationfound in it is unreliable. Moreover, the overall interpretation of eventsreflects a deep ignorance of the meanings of historical events for the peopleconcerned. Some quotations will illustrate this brief assessment ...
Pride, Faith, and Fear
Authors: Mabrook Ali
Published: October 2020

If the real value of a book – any book – comes from its ability to presentitself as a subject of various, but not contradictory, readings, this bookundoubtedly fulfils that value. From the point of view of a Muslim and nonwesternreader, the book reflects the western fear of Islam as a power in crisisbut adopts a line of argument against mainstream western writings on Islam. In other words, it argues against the prevalent claim that Islam, especiallyafter the collapse of communism, represents the most dangerous threatto western values. Further, the book suggests that “opportunities for positiveengagement with Africa’s Muslim communities and states abound on thepolitical, social, religious, economic, and cultural level” (p. 150).Motivated by the need “to find a reasonable avenue of exploration andaccommodation with countries and cultures that differ from our own (theWestern culture),” the book unveils the mutual misunderstanding betweenthe West and the Muslim world. Thus, it argues that the “Muslim world istreated (by the West) as having a single dimension, as if Muslims in generalhad bonded with Osama bin Laden” (p. 4). It also argues that the Westsees Muslims as “stubbornly holding the idea that Christians have not abandonedthe Crusaders’ mentality, zealously trying to destroy all traces ofMuslim civilizations in their entirety” (p. 4). Being aware of the harmfulimpacts of these misleading images not only on the media, but also – andthis is the most dangerous – on the “contemporary (academic) analysis,”the book invites the People of the Book (ahl al-kitab) to work togethertoward peace and reconciliation, emphasizing that “it will be a difficult butnot impossible road.” Without this effort to make peace, the book suggests,there will be chaos and violence ...
An Interfaith Perspective on Globalization for the Common Good
Authors: Dangor Suleman
Published: October 2020

The third Annual International Conference on Globalization for theCommon Good was held on 27-31 March 2004 at the Bustan Rotana hotel, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. More than thirty participants, representingacademics, peace activists, theologians, environmentalists, and businessmenfrom the United States, Europe, Japan, the Gulf region, Australia,and South Africa attended the eleven plenary sessions. These were dividedunder the following headings: Muslim-Christian Dialogue for the CommonGood; Religions and Social Justice; Profit and the Common Good: Conflictor Convergence?; Religions and the Common Good; Urbanization andCities in a Global Age; Globalization and Civilizations; EthicalPerspectives on Globalization; Interfaith Dialogue and Peace-building;Natural Resources, Ecology and Development; Youth in a Global Age; andScience and Technology in a Global Age. The conference was officiallyopened by the founder and chief convenor of the Interfaith Perspective onGlobalization for the Common Good, Dr Kamran Mofid of the UnitedKingdom.Dr William Lesher (Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago) in his“Pathways to Peace” identified the major factors supporting globalizationand showed how global trends become indigenized through the process ofglocalization. Sister Beatrice Mariotti’s (St. Mary’s Catholic HighSchool, Dubai) “Globalization and Christian-Muslim Spiritual Dialoguein Dubai” dealt with three challenges to cultural identity: consumerism,the Internet, and isolationism. Markus Glatz-Schmallegger (CatholicSocial Academy of Austria) argued in his “Religions Acting for ‘Bridgingand Linking Social Capital’ in the Context of Globalization,” that religion,as an organ of civil society, can contribute significantly to socialcapital.In the session on “Profit and the Common Good: Conflict or Convergence?”Kamran Mofid outlined both the negative and positive aspects ofglobalization. This was followed by a lively discussion on how globalization’sbenefits could be extended to all and not confined to a minority ofindividuals, multinationals, and states. Suleman Dangor (University ofKwazulu-Natal, South Africa) outlined the positive and negative featuresof globalization, and then elaborated on the role that religions could playin ensuring that its benefits are spread equitably while developing nationsare protected from its negative impact.Jakob von Uexkull (The Right Livelihood Awards, London, UK), in his“Global Values and Global Stability,” made a case for equitable access tothe world’s natural resources. The possibility of this happening is greaternow that we are moving to a post-secular world. Keyvan Tabari emphasizedthe importance of national sovereignty. Since the demise of the USSR ...
Family and Households in History
Authors: Elrab Sherry Gad
Published: October 2020

From March 18-20, 2004, the American University in Cairo (AUC) hostedits annual history seminar entitled “Family and Households in History.” Dr.Nelly Hanna, chair of the Arab Studies department, welcomed the participantsand audience and explained that the sessions would cover the institutionof family from various perspectives and present its different roles andpatterns throughout history.The first session dealt with the family both philosophically and legally.Wolf Gazo (philosophy professor, AUC) tackled the issue of individualfreedom and the concept of family morality. He compared the family in theOrient with that of Europe and North America, as well as each pattern’sflexibility, including individual freedom. Edward Metenier (InstituteFrançais du Proche Orient, Damascus) studied the pattern of one Iraqi familyand made it his model for analyzing the strong ties between familymembers. He also focused on how one member’s achievement of majorprestige affected other members by raising them to high social positions.Thus, this one family enjoyed a high status for the whole nineteenth century,despite the political and economic changes in Iraq during that time.After a coffee break, Judith Tucker (Georgetown University, USA) presenteda paper on redefining the family and marital relations after modernization.According to her, legal reforms during the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies, which were inspired by the western model, did not really revolutionizethe family or redefine marital relations. Rather, these reforms transformedthe most rigid Islamic traditions into laws that would be difficult tochange. The seminar also considered different family patterns in other partsof world. Thus, Sonia Tamimy (Centre d’Etudes et de DocumentationEconomiques, Juridiques et Sociales [CEDEJ], Cairo) presented the viewsof famous French historians on the family and showed that the view of familychanged according to changes in society and its morals ...
Editorial
Authors: Bullock Katherine
Published: October 2020

This issue goes to press as we reach the half-way mark of another monthof fasting, the blessed month of Ramadan. A month when Muslims abstainfrom food and drink between sunrise and sunset is bound to bring to the forequestions of identity, especially for Muslims living in non-Muslim societies.I marveled as two of my non-Muslim students blithely ate their fruit beforeour morning class while the Muslim students and I could only eye their foodwith envy – the pungent smell of orange peel only heightened by the fast.That the students seemed totally oblivious only increased my wonder. It is,perhaps, an odd example to mention, but as we proceeded to have a heateddiscussion of the position of women in Islam, it reminded me of the dailycomplexities of maintaining an Islamic identity in the West.This question of identity and what it means to be Muslim has, perhaps,never been so under the spotlight or so hotly debated. That is why academicanalysis, done under the constraints of the noble ideals of academia (asearch for as dispassionate and objective meaning about the human conditionas is humanly possible) is more pressing than ever. The fate ofMuslims in the West depends on it, and on the dissemination of good academicthought through the media into popular culture. The week of writingthis editorial saw the arrest of a young man alleged to be behind hateliterature left under the doors of the Arab and Muslim StudentAssociations at a university in Toronto. Under a photograph of a whitemale, a caption reads: “Those who follow the Islam faith [sic] need to bekilled in the worst possible way imaginable.” These are some of the resultsof Bush’s “war on terror,” which, though meant to make the world saferfor freedom, democracy, and tolerance, is, in fact, polarizing the globe andfuelling an ethnic and racial particularism that has been growing duringthe past decade.As with this year’s other issues, the articles in this issue deal withthese perennially important questions of identity, ethnicity, the state,media, and war. Two of the three relate to the current predicament ofMuslims and the West, and the third looks at related questions in a historicaland intra-Muslim context – the role of Arab tribes in the eighth centu ry`Abbasid revolution ...
Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts
Authors: Harmsen Egbert
Published: October 2020

This volume, written by scholars in Middle Eastern history, addresses thehistory of charity in the Middle East, including its meanings, conceptions, practical patterns, motivations, and the ways of institutionalization andidentifying its “deserving” beneficiaries throughout the last 14 centuries. Itis addressed to academic readers interested in Middle Eastern history or incharity in a universal sense.One aspect of charity dealt with throughout the book is that of motivation.It turns out that besides adhering to general Islamic principles, motivationsof enhancing one’s prestige and social clout have played an importantrole as well. Michael Bonner points out in his chapter, “Poverty and Charityin the Rise of Islam,” that generosity in pre-Islamic and early IslamicArabia was clearly linked to competition for political and social prestigeamong tribal leaders. However, he does not adequately clarify these practices’role in the emergence of the Islamic charitable tradition. In “Charityand Hospitality,” Miri Shefer describes how prominent individuals in theOttoman Empire enhanced their own prestige by founding hospitalsthrough the establishment of awqaf. Likewise, Ottoman sultan AbdülhamidII sponsored numerous charitable projects in order to enhance his own publicimage as a caring and fatherly benefactor toward his subjects, as NadirÖzbek describes in “Imperial Gifts and Sultanic Legitimation during theLate Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909.”Beth Baron and Kathryn Libal, authors of “Islam, Philanthropy, andPolitical Culture in interwar Egypt,” and of “The Child Question,” respectively,shed light on the emergence in Egypt and Turkey, during the first halfof the twentieth century, of motivations informed by various philanthropists’(either Islamist or secular) ideological commitment to the well-being of thenation as a whole. They also describe how this commitment translated itselfinto civil society activism and public debates in both countries.Another relevant aspect is institutionalization. Possibly, the earliest formof institutionalized charity in Islamic history is the collection and distributionof zakat. Timur Kuran distinguishes, in his “Islamic Redistributionthrough Zakat” (see the section “Instrument of Modern Redistribution?”) the“proceduralist” from the “situationist” approach toward this basic Islamicduty. The former approach denotes a strict application of specific rules fromthe Islamic sources, regardless of the concrete situation at hand, while thesecond refers to a flexible implementation of general religious principlesbased on the current situation ...
Ethnicity and Nationalism
Authors: Oka Kayleen U.
Published: October 2020

Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s second edition of Ethnicity and Nationalismcomes over 10 years after the first. In light of a decade’s worth of historicaland political changes, this new edition has been expanded to covertransnationalism, hybridity, and globalization, and includes a new chapteron multiculturalism, culture, and rights. The book, which is presented as a core text for social anthropology students and a leading introduction to thefield, takes its theoretical standpoint from social anthropology but alsodraws on studies from anthropology and sociology. Its main themes remainthe same as the first edition: reflexive identity and social change, identitypolitics, social complexity, and group dynamics ...
With Reverence for the Word
Authors: Geissinger Aisha
Published: October 2020

This ground-breaking work is a collection of papers originally given at anacademic conference on the interpretation of scripture in medieval Judaism,Christianity, and Islam, which was held at the University of Toronto in1997. Of equal interest to scholars and students of medieval Judaism,Christianity, and Islam, particularly those concerned with the place of thescriptures in these religious traditions, it demonstrates both the diversitywithin these three faiths’ exegetical traditions as well as their many crossculturalsimilarities.Following a short preface, which briefly outlines the work’s purposesand scope, the book is divided into three sections, each of which containsthe chapters related to each faith tradition. Each section begins with itsown introduction to the history and methods of the medieval exegesis ofthe relevant faith tradition, which provides the non-specialist reader witha historical context in which to place the individual chapters. The introductionsalso draw the reader’s attention to some parallel developmentsand possible interfaith influences among these exegetical traditions,while at the same time promoting a nuanced understanding in order toavoid facile comparisons. The book contains both a general subject indexand an index to citations from the Bible, Rabbinic literature, and theQur’an.Part 1, which contains 10 chapters on medieval Jewish exegesis, isarguably the most vibrant portion of this book. It conveys a sense of thedepth and breadth of this exegetical tradition, as well as the variety ofapproaches that are being used to study it, and the potential such studieshave for shedding light on a variety of historical issues ...
The Idea of Woman in Fundamentalist Islam
Authors: Khan Shahnaz
Published: October 2020

Lamia Rustum Shehadeh’s timely book, The Idea of Woman inFundamentalist Islam, begins with a brief biography of influential “fundamentalists.” She examines the context in which they formulated their theoriesand the extent to which they influenced each other, a process thatallows us to see their ideas as a response to the historical, political, andsocial environments in which they lived. For example, the MuslimBrotherhood, founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928, not only helped formulateand consolidate Islamic revivalism in Egypt, but also helped provide ablueprint for a sociopolitical organization that promoted the political Islamor Islamism influencing chapters in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine.The ideas promoted by the Brotherhood also spread to Sudan, where theycontinue to guide the current regime’s policies. In some cases, as in Iran andSudan, pronouncements of these ideologues influence state law and publicpolicy. At other times they challenge the state, as in Tunisia.Al-Banna promotes the view that Muslim countries became impoverishedand fell under European control because they have deviated fromIslam. He suggests that Muslims see Islam as the solution to their problems.However, al-Banna and other Islamists believe that Islam’s historicaltraditions are irrelevant for modern times. Instead, they propose areturn to what they believe to be the traditions of the Prophet’s time andthat of the first four caliphs. Moreover, they advocate the use of ijtihad(independent judgment), a practice that allows them to interpret seventhcenturytraditions in light of modern needs. Islamist ideologues reservethis practice for themselves, and thus largely marginalize its alternativeuses by feminists and other progressive groups to advance women’s rightsor minority rights ...
Voices from Iran
Authors: Hojati Zahra
Published: October 2020

Voices from Iran is authored by Mahnaz Kousha, an Iranian college professorwho lectures on issues relating to women in the Middle East at MacalesterCollege in Minnesota. The 10-chapter work provides a qualitative study, featuring15 Iranian women, that addresses the position of women in Iran.Participants ranged in age from from 38 to 55 and lived in the capital city ofTehran from 1995 to 1997. These women came from low- to high-incomefamilies, had educational backgrounds that range from high school diplomasto college/university degrees, and possessed employment experience in Iran.Even though the work can be considered a valuable piece in that it servesas a medium through which the voices of Iranian women can be heard, it doesnot necessarily reflect the experiences of all women due to the limitation ofthe research itself (region, language, religion). In addition, some of Kousha’sconclusions are far reaching and can be rendered debatable. For instance, theissue of why educated mothers still do not treat their daughters fairly andseem unable to help them question and resist their social status is notaddressed. The author also fails to provide an in-depth analysis regarding theimpact of family class and culture in shaping the subjectivities of their daughters.As well, the social and cultural impact of the Islamic revolution onwomen’s rights in Iran is not discussed. Moreover, a closing summary orassessment is not made at the end of the work.The book’s first three chapters include an introduction, a methodologychapter, and an introduction to the research participants. The analysis of thedata begins from chapters 4 and 5, where the different relationshipsbetween mothers and daughters are discussed. Some of the participants’experiences involve mothers who openly shared their problems and concernswith them such as the isolation and powerlessness that they have withtheir husbands or mothers-in-law. Others complained that their mothers discriminatedagainst them while giving their brothers preferential treatment.Of interest is the fact that the author does not explore the underlying factorsthat may have contributed to this problematic behavior such as parentaleducation, socioeconomic status, local culture, and religious issues.In chapter 6, Kousha analyzes the relationship between fathers anddaughters. The father is seen as the first man in his daughter’s life, providing ...
Terror, Counter-Terror
Authors: Neegan Erica
Published: October 2020

Terror, Counter-Terror: Women Speak Out presents articles by severalwomen writers and women’s organizations. The book analyzes and interrogatesthe madness of male-dominated war and violence, and presentswomen’s perspectives on war and the 9/11 tragedy. Contributors includefeminist writers, authors, academics, and journalists; mothers, women ofcolor, Muslim women; and women who have had first-hand experiencewith war and its effects. The editors provide an excellent critical reappraisal of the ideas, concepts,and language that underpin the multilayered world of war, power, andpeace. The book also explores diverse women’s perspectives on the failure ofwar to bring about peace. In giving their perspective, the authors respond eloquentlyand defiantly to war’s destructive nature. This collection, a wonderfulanthology of women’s experiences of war, allows the reader to capture thesuffering of war as well as its paradoxes, double standards, and contradictions.The essays are organized into seven sections: “Personal and Political,”“The War on Terror,” “Saying No,” “Motherland/ Fatherland,” “The War onWomen,” “Displaced and Dispossessed,” and “Women against War.”The book highlights the wars in Afghanistan and Israel and the 9/11tragedy. The authors lament that war has never really brought peace, butrather turmoil and human and economic suffering. Most people in theWest see sanitized images of war that are carefully selected for them.Women Speak Out tells the story of how loosing one’s children, home, andlivelihood are part of war’s true horrors ...
Muslims in the United States
Authors: Khan Shaza
Published: October 2020

Karen Leonard’s book, Muslims in the United States: The State ofResearch, seeks to provide “a useful research tool for exploring” the largebody of social science research that exists on Islam and Muslims in theUnited States (p. ix). As a “non-Muslim secular scholar” and anthropologist(p. xi), she reviews research that examines the lives of all those whoself-identify as Muslim, including those generally excluded from such discussions,such as Ahmedis, Five Percenters, and homosexuals. The varietyof topics explored in this review promises to draw a broad readership.Topics as diverse as immigration and racialization, international conflictsand intra-Muslim tensions, “un-mosqued” Muslims and extremist ideologuesare all covered. Therefore, those interested in sociology, history, religion,and, more specifically, individuals researching Islam and Muslimswill benefit from reading Muslims in the United States.The book is divided into three sections. In part 1, “Historical Overviewof Muslims in the United States,” Leonard briefly introduces Islam’s basictenets and proceeds to discuss the historical and political realities thataffected the growth of African-American, Arab, and South Asian Muslimpopulations in this country. She identifies three sets of issues that have historically arisen in research and theory building on Muslims in the UnitedStates: legitimacy as it relates to African-American Muslim movements,the problem of religious authority in the smaller national-origin and sectariancommunities, and the lack of research on the lives of “un-mosqued,”“invisible,” or secular Muslims ...
Editorial
Authors: Bullock Katherine
Published: October 2020

As Mehmet Mahfuz Söylemez documents in his “The Jundishapur School:Its History, Structure, and Functions,” Southwest Asia has long been a sitefor a cross-fertilization of ideas that have led to productive societies.Although Jundishapur’s excellence as a medical center predates the comingof Islam, it nevertheless played a key role in transmitting knowledge toMuslim physicians as well as contributing to Baghdad’s development as anup-and-coming center of excellence. In an open and welcoming climate,the scholars and physicians of Jundishapur and Baghdad fostered a learningenvironment that allowed Muslim civilizations to flourish.Today’s Muslims often look back to such “golden ages” with wistfulness,admiration, and frustration. Given the constant defeats and subjugationfaced by Muslim countries since western colonization, this wistfulness is notsurprising. In order to bolster their identity to defend themselves against thiscontinuing subjugation, Muslims often offer this glorious past to anIslamophobic world: “We are not barbarians! See what Muslim civilizationwas capable of!” And in the face of Eurocentric curricula that largely denyany role to a non-European civilization in the history of ideas since Plato,such reminders are crucial.But as Dieter Weiss’ “Paths toward an Arab Knowledge Society” inadvertentlyhighlights, such wistfulness is underscored by an ignorance of justwhat it takes to produce a golden age. For a society to flourish, it must createthe conditions that enable its inhabitants to engage in knowledge creation:the freedom to think, debate, and discuss. While he focuses only onthe Arab world, one would have to be blind to reality not to realize that thesame deplorable situation can be found in most Muslim countries today.Imagine what kind of Muslim cultural and political society must haveexisted for Ibn Sina, who produced great medical and philosophical workswhile denying the resurrection of the body. Compare that with the assassinations,death threats, and the like facing contemporary writers who engagein independent thought about Islam and the modern world. Think of the roleof caliph Ma’mun’s bayt al-hikmah (House of Wisdom), where Christians,Muslims, and scholars who followed other religions worked side-by-side to ...
Islamophobia Issues, Challenges, and Action
Authors: Saloojee Zubeida
Published: October 2020

This report is actually a comprehensive and highly informative two-partreport put out by the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia,which was established by the Runneymede Trust in the United Kingdom in1996. In 1999, Dr. Richard Stone (vice chair of the Runneymede Trust) wasappointed chair of the commission.The first part details the issues and challenges Muslims face in Britain,while the second part focuses on the actions taken to deal with and combatIslamophobia. As a report, its applicability is limited to the socioeconomicand political conditions prevailing in Britain and, in particular, that country’surban areas. However, the substantial issues raised (namely, a broaderdiscussion of the concept of Islamophobia; the relationship of Islamophobiato racism; and whether racism as a concept ought to include intolerance,bias, stereotyping, and discrimination on the basis of religion) have a greaterresonance.The backdrop to the report consists of the events of 9/11 and the growingintolerance displayed in the media, governmental institutions, and societyat large toward Muslims, both individually and collectively. Centrally,the report asks how a secular society like Britain can provide a safe space,one that is free of discrimination, disrespect, and intolerance, in whichMuslims can observe and practice their faith. In addition, the authors alsoask two vitally important questions: “Why is the anti-racist movement soreluctant to address prejudice, hate, and discrimination based on religion?”and concomitantly: “Should Islamophobia be defined as a form of racism, inmuch the same [way] that anti-Semitism clearly is, and should the full forceof race relations legislation be brought to bear to defeat it?” ...
A Fundamental Fear
Authors: Malik Anas
Published: October 2020

A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism usescritical theory to examine the Islamists’ political projects and their depictions.Scholars are divided between those who believe in a religious ornational essence to the Muslim community (essentialists) and those whoreject this assumption (anti-essentialists). In regards to a Muslim essence,Sayyid identifies two existing scholarly camps: Orientalists assume an ahistorical,acontextual Islamic essence that drives and shapes Muslim societyand activity through most places and ages. Anti-Orientalists, as manifestedin such writers as Hamid El-Zien, assert that there is not one “Islam,” butonly many “Islams.” According to this view, Islam and indeed all religion cannot exist as an analytic category having a self-sustaining, positive, fixing,universal, and autonomous content; rather, religion is only manifestedthrough particular contexts.While acknowledging an intellectual debt to Edward Said, whose critiquesfed the anti-Orientalist camp, Sayyid argues for a middle pathbetween Orientalist and anti-Orientalist understandings. Orientalists claimthat the relationship between Islam and Islamism is direct, whereas anti-Orientalists claim that the relationship is merely opportunistic – Islam iswhat Marxists might call “superstructural” (a surface action over deeper,more real material contests) and is driven by a false consciousness.Picking theoretical fruit from writers who explored signs, ideas, andlanguage, among them Slavoj Zizek, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan,the author asks Zizek’s general question: “What creates and sustains theidentity of a given ideological field beyond all possible variations of its ideologicalcontent?” (p. 44). Analysts typically find themselves unable toanswer this question without reasserting a new Orientalism. Sayyid assertsthat despite the malleability of Islamic symbols and Islamist programs,Islam has retained its specificity, a term by which he means the traces of itsoriginal meaning articulated at the foundation, traces that have beeninvoked repeatedly. Islam is a crucial nodal point, à la Jacques Lacan, retrospectivelygiving meaning to other elements, be they Sufi discussions,debates on fiqh, or other discourses (p. 45) ...
Weapons of Mass Persuasion
Authors: Ahmad Ayesha
Published: October 2020

The concept of a public body deluded into believing whatever its leadersassert as truth might seem to recall Marxist theories of media and society. But this is an element of the reality painted by Paul Rutherford in hisWeapons of Mass Persuasion: Marketing the War against Iraq, in which heexamines Washington’s promotion of the war and its effectiveness in winningpublic support despite misinformation.Public opinion has been key to maintaining support for the war and thetremendous amount of money that it continues to pull out of the Americaneconomy. Rutherford investigates the marketing strategy, illustrates itseffects, and explores the significance of the experiment. His analysis providesan insightful look into how Washington was able to convince theAmerican people of the false threat of “weapons of mass destruction” andraises important questions about what the Bush administration’s “persuasion”experiment means for American democracy.The author dedicates the first three chapters to analyzing how the“weapons of mass persuasion” were deployed. However, the heart of hisstudy lies in the effects of those “weapons” on individuals and society. Hisresearch is centered in Canada and draws from its government and press.This makes it difficult to discern who is the focus of his analysis – is itCanadians, Americans, the Middle East, or the world at large? ...
Fundamentals of Rumi’s Thought
Authors: Tourage Mahdi
Published: October 2020

Is there room on the shelf for another book about Jalal al-Din Rumi, thethirteenth-century mystic of Persia? Considering the great depth of hisgenius, the answer has to be yes. Sefik Can’s Fundamentals of Rumi’sThought is one of the latest books on the subject, and is distinguished fromothers in that its author is the current head of the Mevlevi order, the Sufiorder established after Rumi’s death and based on his teachings. In his biography,the author is introduced as “the most authoritative spiritual figure ofthe Order” and “the latest living Mesnevihan (Mesnevi reciter) whoreceived his ijazah (special certificate in the recitation of the Mesnevi) fromhis spiritual master Tahir al-Mevlevi.”This book thus reflects the Mevlevi tradition as it is understood withinits Turkish milieu today. Neatly organized into four chapters, it deals withthe political and historical background of Anatolia during Rumi’s lifetime(chapter 1), “Rumi’s Personality and Views” (chapter 2), his influence(chapter 3), and “Rumi’s Sufi Order and His Approach to Orders” (chapter4). A short bibliography and an index are also provided.Throughout many passages, one can feel the author’s love and compassionfor Rumi. His sincerity and enthusiasm compel one to set aside academicconcerns over historical accuracy and critical analysis in order to viewRumi from a Mevlevi perspective. The book offers insight into a livingdevotional approach to Rumi that often translates into an uplifting joy, whichis the hallmark of Rumi’s poems and which has animated the life of manyof his devotees. The reader will benefit from the relevant spiritual insightsoffered. The section entitled “Beauty” is a good example of explainingRumi’s views and relating them to contemporary experiences. The authorwrites:According to Rumi, beauty takes us from ourselves, frees us from theprison of the body, and brings us closer to another realm, to God. Thus wefind God within the impact of the fine arts on sensitive people. (p. 191)The heart of this book is chapter 2, which features the author’s interpretationsof Rumi’s personality and views (pp. 97-246). Although a small portionof this chapter is devoted to Rumi’s life and characteristics, most of it ...