bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Flowers of Galilee
Authors: Friedemann Karin M.
Published: October 2020

Flowers of Galilee breaks new ground in modern political discourse. Thisbook recommends a democratic one-state solution in all of historicalPalestine and the return of the Palestinians to rebuild their villages. Thebeautiful front cover painting by Suleiman Mansour of Jerusalem lovinglydepicts a Palestinian family, children seated on a donkey, walking past a hillcovered with olive trees. Similarly, Israel Shamir’s essays portray the peaceful,pastoral landscape of the Holy Land and the humanity of its inhabitants,juxtaposed against the ugliness and inhumanity of Jewish racism.These thought-provoking essays, written in Jaffa during the al-AqsaIntifada in 2001-02, call for Jews to leave their sense of exclusivity andplead for human equality. The author, a Russian immigrant to Israel in 1969,followed his meditations to their inevitable conclusion, renounced Judaism,and was baptized in the Palestinian Orthodox Christian Church ofJerusalem. A brilliant storyteller with a vast knowledge of history, he discussescurrent events and their global implications with brutal honesty andtenderness. His clear insights and lyrical use of language to illustrate social,religious, and political complexities make him the Khalil Gibran of our time.An important chapter, “The Last Action Heroes,” memorializes theSpring 2002 siege of Bethlehem. The Israeli army surrounded 40 monksand priests and 200 Palestinians seeking refuge in the Church of Nativity.For a month, “people starved ... Stench of corpses and of infected woundsfilled the old church” (p. 63). The UN did nothing, but a few InternationalSolidarity Movement activists from America and Europe, including theauthor’s son, broke the siege. One group distracted the soldiers while theothers rushed into the church’s gates, brought food and water, and helpednegotiate a surrender.Shamir deconstructs the legal fictions of the state of Israel and the elusivePalestinian state: “Israelis who would like to live in peace with theirPalestinian neighbors ... cannot counteract the raw muscle of the AmericanJewish leadership” (p.179). He further dissects the Jewish Holocaust cultand other Zionist public relations tactics. He exposes the two-state solutionas a political bluff, calls on the world to cut off aid to Israel, and admonishesthe Muslim world for indulging in usury ...
Family History in the Middle East
Authors: Eum Ikran
Published: October 2020

The study of families and their histories opens up a cross-disciplinary dialogueamong anthropologists, historians, and other social scientists, includingarea specialists. The content of Doumani’s edited book, Family Historyin the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender, falls convincinglyinto such disciplines as history, anthropology, Middle East studies,women’s/gender studies, and Islamic studies, since the collection of articlesprovides various indepth case studies drawn both from Islam and frompolitical, economic, legal, and social perspectives.The anthology’s main theme suggests that the family is an entity that,along with the progression of history, evolves continuously. By reconstructingthe family histories of elites and ordinary people in the Middle East fromthe seventeenth to the early twentieth century, the book challenges prevailingassumptions about the monolithic “traditional” Middle Eastern familytype. Instead, it argues cogently that the structure and boundaries of thesefamilies have always been flexible and dynamic.The book is divided into four sections that explore issues concerningthe family from the perspective of politics, economics, and law. In the firstsection, “Family and Household,” Philippe Fargues, Tomoki Okawara, andMary Ann Fay analyze the structure of the nineteenth-century family andhousehold and illustrate how its formation was influenced by changes in the ...
Interview with Yvonne Ridley
Authors: O’Shea-Meddour Wendy
Published: October 2020

The story of British freelance journalist and author YvonneRidley is fascinating. Ridley, an experienced and well-respectedjournalist, was the chief reporter for The Sunday Express andhad worked for several newspapers, including The SundayTimes, The Independent, and The Observer . But in September2001 she became a household name when captured by theTaliban in Afghanistan. On her release, she famously told theawaiting press that her captors had treated her with “courtesyand respect.” This was not the expected response, and FleetStreet subsequently vilified her.Her decision to honor a promise made to an imam while inAfghanistan led her to study and, to her own surprise, embraceIslam in June 2003. This did little to improve her popularity withthe press. Calling upon the resilience and determination that hadmade her such a good journalist, she moved from London toQatar to take up a position as senior editor at al-Jazeera’s soonto-be-launched English website. After just 5 months, and underrather mysterious circumstances, she was sacked. This promptedRidley to write her first novel Ticket to Paradise. Ridley hassince returned to England and is now a prominent Muslimactivist and anti-war campaigner.
Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century
Authors: Hamid Shadi
Published: October 2020

In Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, aptly subtitled From Triumphto Despair, Adeed Dawisha provides us a most compelling narrative. He tells of a time, not long ago, when Arabs still believed that a glorious futurewas ahead of them. Today, the very thought of a fiery, charismatic Arableader, adored by his people and rising to oppose the West, seems silly andunrealistic. But four decades ago, Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasserwas hailed as nothing less than a modern-day savior, and it seemed – if onlyfor an instant – that the unification of the Arab world was not just probable,but a historical inevitability. Dawisha goes beyond the successes, excesses,and outright failures that defined Arab nationalism at its height. Using awide variety of English and Arabic source material, he weaves a complicatedpicture, analyzing in detail how Arab nationalism was born and how itwould die just as quickly.Central to his argument is that, from the beginning, Arab nationalismfaced an uphill battle in its bid to win over an otherwise indifferent (and illiterate)populace. The author takes particular issue with George Antonious’thesis that leading up to World War I, the region’s elites and masses had beenstirred by “the Arab will to freedom.” It would prove terribly difficult for thenationalists to compete with entrenched pan-Islamic identities. For this reason,the most prominent early advocates of the nationalist ideal wereChristian, such as the Syrians Negib Azoury and Ibrahim al-Yajizi. TheMuslim elites were suspicious, seeing in Arab nationalism, with its secularemphasis, a perfidious plot to divide them ...
A War on Terror
Authors: Muhibullah Ja’far
Published: October 2020

If you have never read a Paul Rogers’ article or book before, you will probablybe wondering who he is and from what angle he is approaching the“war on terror.” Paul Rogers is a professor of peace studies, as well as aninternational security correspondent who focuses upon trends in internationalconflict. More specifically, he examines western military responsesto regional conflicts and political violence. It is with this intellectual backgroundthat he intends to analyze and understand what is happening in theMiddle East (as events occur vis-à-vis “real time”) and predict future implicationsof Bush’s “war on terror” (p. 2).This book is a compilation of articles that Rogers wrote from October2001 to December 2002 as weekly columns for the Open Democracy webjournal (www.openDemocracy.net). His choice to submit these articles tothe web journal, which is neither media-controlled nor affiliated with anyspecial interest group, is a provocative statement that clarifies his positionon the media’s “war on terror.” That is, in the author’s words, “media manipulationis easy” (p. 10) and comes “with little or no critical analysis” (p. 15).After editing and refining his articles to prepare them for book form,Rogers divides the articles into seven chapters: Chapter 1: “War inAfghanistan – I,” Chapter 2: “War in Afghanistan – II,” Chapter 3: “A NewAmerican Century?,” Chapter 4: “Consequences of War,” Chapter 5: “Israeland Palestine,” Chapter 6: “Winning or Losing?,” and Chapter 7: “EndlessWar.” He opens the book with a very brief “Introduction” and ends it with aslightly longer “Afterword.”With a closer look, it becomes evident from the chapter titles thatunderneath the motif of conflict several interrelated issues are presentedthroughout this book: the Bush administration’s (strike first) political ...
Reflections on the Tsunami
Authors: Shakir Imam Zaid
Published: October 2020

Wa’l `Asr Innal Insana lafi Khusr…1By the testimony of time, surely humankind is in a state of loss…

The exegetes mention that the testimony of time, mentioned in this verse,refers to the testimony of each era’s extraordinary events, events that indicatethe incomparable power of God.2 In our time we have seen many suchevents. The recent tsunami, which devastated regions in and around theIndian Ocean, is only the latest. Only God could have ushered the awesomepower unleashed by the earthquake that moved the island of Sumatra 100feet, yet left it intact. Only God could have ushered the awesome power tosend a wave of water, whose depth reached from the surface of the water tothe ocean floor, hundreds of miles across the sea at speeds exceeding fivehundred miles an hour. Only God could devise an “early warning system”which told myriad species of animals to flee to the safety of high ground.Only God.Yet many, even some professing faith in Islam, having seen such anawesome display of God’s power, question His wisdom. Why must ourfaith be constantly tested? Why did so many unsuspecting people have toperish? Why were children swept from their mothers’ arms? Why suchwidespread and apparently wanton destruction? Why, once again, areMuslims the majority of those suffering from such calamities? Why? ...
Revisioning Modernity
Authors: Solak Necva
Published: October 2020

The 33rd Annual Conference of the Association of Muslim SocialScientists (AMSS) was held on September 24-26, 2004, at George MasonUniversity Law School in Arlington, Virginia. It was cosponsored byGeorge Mason University, the Center for Global Studies (CGS), and theIslamic Studies Program. Under the seamless directorship of PeterMandaville, program chair and CGS director, the timely subject of revisioningmodernity for and by Muslims in a post-9/11, post-Afghanistan,and post-Iraq world was addressed in 10 panels. With the theme“Revisioning Modernity: Challenges and Possibilities for Islam,” these sessionsfocused primarily on identity formation, human rights, interfaith dialogueand peacemaking, institutional development, methodological reform,and knowledge paradigms. The conference featured a remarkable array ofscholars and graduate students who raised thought-provoking questionsand offered clear, yet nuanced, solutions based on studied field and academicresearch.For example, Saadia Yacoob’s (Huntington Learning Center, VA)“Developing Identities: What Is Progressive Islam and Who AreProgressive Muslims?” elicited an impassioned and contentious reactionfrom the audience about this somewhat elusive term and whether it was acontradiction of terms or a logical redundancy. She identified five commonelements of self-identified “progressive” Muslim: an anti-imperialiststance, a belief that action and faith must go hand in hand, a championingof the oppressed and poor, a return to core principles, and a belief in a pluralisticand humanistic society.Kamran A. Bokahri (Howard University, DC) used his “ModerateIslam, Progressive Muslims, Democracy, and Post-Islamism” to discussthemes related to identity formation among moderate Islamists, traditionalMuslims, liberal Muslims and regimes, all of which claim to represent ...
Muslims and Islam in the Twenty-first Century
Authors: Haque Amber
Published: October 2020

The Muslim world remains embroiled in a whole host of religious, social,political, economic, and cultural disputes. Without any real internationalinfluence, despite the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference,great wealth, and large numbers, Muslims are mere spectators in world politics;Islam is synonymous with extremism; and Muslims are often labeled asterrorists. Such issues, as well as questions of media bias, the validity of the“clash of civilizations” thesis, Islamophobia, and realistic Muslim responsesled to the above conference, initiated by the Department of Psychology,International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Kuala Lumpur.Held at the Putra World Trade Center and hosted by IIUM on August4-6, 2004, this conference attempted to highlight and devise solutions tosome of these burning issues. Distinguished scholars presented 120 selectedpapers, in addition to several panel discussions and keynote speeches.About 400 delegates from over 30 countries participated, and PrimeMinister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi gave the inaugural speech.After an “Introduction to the Conference” by Amber Haque, chairmanof the Organizing Committee, the morning session started with keynotespeeches from Ibrahim Abu Rabi` (“Globalization and Social Change”),Lawrence Pintak (“The Communication Gap between America and theWorld’s Muslims”), and Jamal Badawi (“Muslim–Non-Muslim Relations:An Integrated Approach”). These papers were followed by a panel discussionon “Internal Conflicts in Muslim Societies.” M. Nejatullah Siddiqui,Jamal Badawi, Syed Shahabuddin, Anis Ahmad, Ismail Nawwab, ZiauddinSardar, and Zafar Ishaq Ansari were the participants, while ChandraMuzaffar was the moderator. These scholars seemed to agree that whileMuslims must examine and resolve the ummah’s internal problems, theyshould not ignore the problems’ external sources. This panel session was ...
Against the Modern World
Authors: Zaidi Ali Hassan
Published: October 2020

One effect of 9/11 has been that Muslim voices, which until then had beenmostly ignored, are increasingly reaching a wider audience of other Muslimsand non-Muslims. In Europe and North America, this has meant that selfidentified“progressive” Muslim scholars who emphasize social justice, aswell as “traditional” Muslims who emphasize Islam’s spiritual or esotericdimension, have been contributing in a much more vocal manner to the contemporaryinterpretation of what it means to be Muslim. Since most of theleading figures presented herein are Sufi Muslims of a particular strand ofesoteric Islam, this book helps fill an important lacuna concerning the developmentof the traditionalist position – a position that has been voiced bysuch Muslim scholars as Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Martin Lings.Sedgwick promotes the book as a biography of René Guénon (1886-1951) and an intellectual history of the traditionalist movement that heinaugurated in the early twentieth century. Guénon’s movement combineselements of perennial philosophy, which holds that certain perennial problemsrecur in humanity’s philosophical concerns, and that this perennialwisdom is now only found in the traditional forms of the world religions ...
Islam in the African-American Experience
Authors: Nadir Aneesah
Published: October 2020

Islam in the African-American Experience is a historical account of Islamin the African-American community. Written by a scholar of African-American world studies and religious studies, this book focuses on theinterconnection between African Americans’ experiences with Islam as itdeveloped in the United States. While this scholarly work is invaluable forstudents and professors in academia, it is also a very important contributionfor anyone seriously interested in Islam’s development in this country.Moreover, it serves as a central piece in the puzzle for Muslims anxious tounderstand Islam’s history in the United States and the relationship betweenAfrican-American and immigrant Muslims. The use of narrative biographiesthroughout the book adds to its personal relevance, for they relate thepersonal history of ancestors, known and unknown, to Islam’s history inthis country. Turner’s work furthers African-American Muslims’ journeytoward unlocking their history.The main concept expressed in Turner’s book is that of signification, theissue of naming and identity among African Americans. Turner argues thatsignification runs throughout the history of Islam among African Americans,dating back to the west coast of Africa, through the Nation of Islam, to manyof its members’ conversion to orthodox Sunni Islam, and through Islamicmessages disseminated via contemporary hip-hop culture. According toTurner, Charles Long refers to signification as “a process by which names,signs and stereotypes were given to non-European realities and peoples duringthe western conquest and exploration of the world” (p. 2). The renamingof Africans by their oppressors was a method of dehumanization andsubjugation.The author argues that throughout the history of African-AmericanMuslims, Islam served to “undercut signification by offering AfricanAmericans a chance to signify themselves” (p. 3). Self-signification is anantithesis to the oppressive use of signification, for it facilitates empowermentand growing independence from the dominant group. In addition,“signification involved double meanings. It was both a potent form ofoppression and a potent form of resistance to oppression” (p. 3). By choosingMuslim names, whether they were Muslim or not, Turner claims that ...
All American Yemeni Girls
Authors: Alghamdi Amani Hamdan
Published: October 2020

In her book, Loukia Sarroub offers an ethnographic account of the lives ofsix Yemeni-American girls by following them through public schools from1997-2002 to “obtain a deeper and richer understanding of their day-to-daylives at home and at school” (p. 19). By observing them in the school,home, malls, and mosque, as well as at their community’s social occasions,Sarroub investigates the tensions between their lives and identities in theAmerican public school system and their family lives at home, both in theUnited States and in Yemen, their land of origin.In the first chapter, Sarroub details the theories behind her ethnographicresearch, introduces the research background, reviews theresearch methodology, and gives an overview of the participants. In chapter2, she chooses Layla, one of the Yemeni-American girls, as a representativeof the group. As Sarroub explains, Layla struggled to find aspace for herself, because “it was not always clear to her whether she was an American or a Yemeni, and her attitude toward her home and schoollives reflected her consternation with both identities” (p. 30). Being anArab Muslim woman myself and living as a minority in a western society,I can relate to the struggle between gender roles. The girls’ roles areprescribed by culture and traditions, and their gender identity is constructedin ways that have been influenced by American society.Therefore, I expected the author to provide a more detailed analysis ofhow adolescents construct their gender identity in both Arab MuslimYemeni and secular American cultures ...
International Seminar on Islamic Thought
Authors: Haron Muhammed
Published: October 2020

“Islamic thought” has received a great deal of attention since the 9/11tragedy and the American-led invasion of Iraq. As a result, the conferenceorganizers considered it timely to invite selected individuals to discussthis topic at the International Seminar on Islamic Thought, which washeld at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) on 7-9 December2004.The conference attracted a sizeable number of participants from withinthe Association of Southeast Asian Nations region and beyond. The largecontingent of presenters (100+) was placed on thematic panels designed tocover the following topics: ethics, psychology, education, the environmentand technology, theology, philosophy, the Shari`ah, gender, social development,economics, civilization, and Qur’anic studies. The organizers dividedthe panels into specific time-slots. The languages of presentation wereBahasa Melayu, English, and Arabic.Given the large number of presenters, it is difficult to highlight allaspects of this conference. Therefore, interested readers are advised to gethold of the CD that contains all of the papers that were presented or sent forinclusion. These papers were edited by Ahmad S. Long, Jaffary Awang, andKamaruddin Salleh, and the digital publication was titled Islam: Past,Present, and Future.Prior to the seminar, the organizers invited Minister of HigherEducation Dato Shafi’ to give his input and support. This was then followedby contributions from the dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, which isan integral part of UKM, and two of the organizers. The seminar was officiallyopened with an important public forum on “Islam and Globalization,”chaired by Abu Bakr Ibrahim, who is a member of the Department of Usulud-Din (UKM). This forum was addressed by the two keynote speakers:Irfan Abdul-Hamid Fattah, who hails from Iraq and is attached to theInternational Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), and Azizan Baharuddin,director of the Centre for Civilizational Dialogue at the Universityof Malaya (UM).Fattah argued for replacing globalization with universalism, which heconsidered to be more suitable because the latter term is not beset withproblems and has no negative connotations. Azizan addressed the issues ofscience and technology, as well as economics in relation to globalization ...
Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance
Authors: Yildirim Yetkin
Published: October 2020

This book presents the thoughts of M. Fethullah Gülen, one of the world’smost influential Muslim scholars today. His ideas are attractive to manypeople because they give guidance on how to combine Islamic values withcontemporary demands. Moreover, his emphasis on interfaith dialogue hasearned him an international audience from various religious backgrounds.Thus, Gülen’s movement has spread rapidly throughout the world withschools, cultural and media activities, and dialogue projects.This book is a compilation of Gülen’s writings, interviews, andspeeches that address such contemporary topics as interfaith dialogue, jihad,Sufism, and education. Moreover, it is among the first to address the timelyissue of dialogue among civilizations. The book clearly presents Gülen’sunderstanding of such a dialogue as a deliberate undertaking based uponlove, dialogue, and tolerance among people of different backgrounds.Readers who are not familiar with the context of these ideas in Turkish history,however, may find it difficult to follow the flow of some of his ideas.Gülen proposes dialogue for mutual enrichment and sharing as asolution to the “clash of civilizations” (p. 257), stating that the Abrahamicreligions, especially Islam, are against disorder, treachery, conflict, andoppression (p. 256). His model is based on people dedicating their livesto thought and activism for the sake of God and creation.Both Muslims and non-Muslims can benefit from this book. The authorreminds Muslims of Islam’s teachings on dialogue, using the Qur’an andthe Hadith to show that tolerance, love, and compassion have been the mainIslamic values throughout Islamic history and signify the importance of“reflecting God’s Mercy on themselves.” It may also help certain non-Muslims move beyond their prejudice, distrust, and misinformation andarrive at a deeper understanding of Islam. Gülen engages non-Muslims in ...
Tensions and Transitions in the Muslim World
Authors: Sabet Amr G. E.
Published: October 2020

This book belongs to the genre of studies attempting to extend and broadenMuslim channels of communication to “western” academic and intellectualcircles in general, and to their American counterparts in particular. It startsfrom the conventional apologetic premise that Islam is misunderstood and,in many instances, mystified both by unrepresentative scholarly works onthe one hand, and the dynamics of Muslim history and actions on the other.Marked differences between the historical, social, and political experiencesof Muslims and Europeans, as reflected in different modes of organizationand discourse, have put serious impediments in the way of mutual understandingacross the cultural divide separating the two worlds.One reflection of such distrust is manifested in the indifference shownby American scholars and statesmen toward what Safi designates as“Islamic reformists” and their forward-looking agenda. Despite the latter’sambitions to advance a pluralist and democratic society in consonance withthe modern world, the former continue to dismiss such claims as both“opportunistic” and insincere. These perceptions, according to the author,are driven by a strong sense of skepticism about the commensurability ofIslamic values with modern western ideals as well as by vested Americangeostrategic interests.Safi challenges such attitudes by emphasizing the importance and vitalsignificance of Islamic reform, which he defines as the “middle ground andthe moral synthesis between the nationalist-secularist and the moral-Islamist forces” at the heart of the unsettling tensions that inform sociopoliticaltransformations in the Arab and Islamic worlds (p. xii). Reform ofthis kind should be able to appropriate the universal elements of the historicalMuslim experience in order to transcend the political and cultural institutionsof classical and contemporary Muslim societies, and to bring abouta creative synthesis of Islam and modernity (p. xi). Safi’s main contention ...
Islam and Democracy in the Middle East
Authors: Hamid Shadi
Published: October 2020

This collection of essays edited by Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, andDaniel Brumberg, is one that everyone interested in future of the Middle East should read carefully. All of the essays here, in one way or another,seek to address that most perplexing of questions: Why has the Middle Eastso stubbornly resisted the sweeping reach of democracy? The answers presentedare sometimes illuminating and, even in the weaker sections, almostalways thought provoking.All of the authors in this volume come from the basic and – I hope –fairly self-evident assumption that sustained democratic change is now animperative of the highest order. What is so interesting about this collectionis the diversity of viewpoints and the alternating currents of pessimism andoptimism that run through it. For the most part, the authors rarely delve intothe kind of neo-conservative posturing that obscures a nuanced understandingof the interplay between political Islam and democratization.There are some unfortunate exceptions, such as Ladan and RoyaBoroumand’s embarrassing assertion that Hassan al-Banna “borrowed theidea of heroic death as a political art form,” while Emmanuel Sivan commitsa surprising factual error when he posits that the Sudanese Islamistregime is an example of “one man, one vote, one time.” ...
The Jewish Study Bible
Authors: Glazer Aubrey L.
Published: October 2020

Jabès’ aphorism captures the challenge to readers of scripture: how to preservethe immaculate experience of the ineffable through a finite languageof maculate perception. The Jewish Study Bible [JSB] is a testament to thehuman struggle with the divine as read through diverse interpretive lensesthroughout the ages. Editors Berlin and Brettler, along with Fishbane, havecompiled a first-rate Hebrew Bible that fuses the technically adept JPSEnglish translation along with introductions, annotations, and essays bymany of today’s established and burgeoning scholars. This model is basedupon The New Oxford Annotated Bible (p. xi), which abridges in-depthessays by contemporary scholars into accessible versions for general readersand undergraduate students. The balance between North American and ...
Liberal Islam versus Moderate Islam
Authors: Mazrui Ali
Published: October 2020

There is a tendency to equate liberal Islam with moderate Islam. Yet thereare occasions when to be liberal demands a sense of outrage and rebellion.The causes of the political radicalization of Islam are different from theroots of theological conservatism. For decades, the Royal House of SaudiArabia has been theologically conservative but not politically radical.Indeed, for a long time the monarchy in Riyadh was a classic example ofhow a Muslim regime could be politically pro-western without being culturallywesternized. Was the Saudi regime politically moderate withoutbeing doctrinally liberal?This journal debate has been rich in trying to diagnose the nature ofIslam’s radicalization, but relatively thin in diagnosing its causes. The bestdiagnosis of these causes in this collection comes from Graham E. Fuller:The Muslim world, feeling itself under siege, and with its sensitivitiesheightened by its witness of the struggle of Muslims right across the globalummah, is not currently operating in an environment conducive toeither intellectual openness or to liberal and reformist thought. TheMuslim world is simply hunkered down in a defensive and survivalistmode. Indeed, the forces of terrorism in the Muslim world must bebrought to heel. But this will not happen unless we see a change in hegemonisticAmerican policies, the explicit American embrace of Israeliright-wing policies in the occupied West Bank, and the linkage withAmerican fundamentalist Christian attitudes.I have never heard the problem better formulated. Indeed, there areglobal causes of Islamic radicalism and global reasons why “Muslim terrorism”has gone international. One factor is the “Latin Americanization” ...
Shattering the Stereotypes
Authors: Chaudhry Ayesha Siddiqua
Published: October 2020

Ever since the West’s initial contact with the East, Muslim women haveoccupied center stage as highly politicized subjects who the West hasclaimed to liberate from the oppressive East and who the East has claimedto protect from the hedonistic West. Despite their central role as pawns inthis political struggle, women have been strikingly silent subjects. Thisbook belongs to an emerging collection of books that seek to give voice tothese silent subjects. Nawal El Saadawi, in her emotionally charged“Foreword,” captures the book’s tone quite well in her expression that “thepersonal is political” (p. x). Through personal stories, this anthology seeksto dissociate Islam from both terrorism and the oppression of women.Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s anecdotal introduction reveals that her goal istwofold: first, to connect various strands of conversation between MuslimAmerican women from different backgrounds since 9/11, and, second, toenlighten both Muslim and non-Muslim readers of the varied realities of the“Muslim Woman.”This anthology is divided into six sections. Section 1, “Non-Fiction,”contains several personal accounts of Muslim American women’s encounterswith 9/11. In her piece “Unholy Alliances,” Afzal-Khan vents her frustrationon several targets, including Israel, American foreign policy, SalmanRushdie, women who choose to wear the hijab, as well as the MontclairUniversity Muslim Students’ Association and the Global Studies Institute.Nadia Ali Maiwandi, Zohra Saed, and Wajma Ahmady reflect on theresponses they encountered and experienced amidst the Afghan-Americancommunity in the aftermath of 9/11. Eisa Nefertari Ulen’s genuinely tolerantarticle encourages Muslim and non-Muslim women to work together.Writing from her perspective as an African-American convert, she identifiesissues of gender and religion as mere smokescreens used by the “oppressor”to separate women (p. 50). Humera Afridi’s witty and refreshing work functionsas a social commentary on the climate of New York City after the 9/11attacks. One of the most edifying pieces is Rabab Abdulhadi’s “Where isHome?” This piece, written as a series of journal entries, captures the strugglesof identity faced by an exiled Palestinian woman as she tries to make ahome in New York City in the aftermath of 9/11 ...
A Community of Many Worlds
Authors: Biondo III Vincent F.
Published: October 2020

This edited collection complemented a March 2001 museum exhibit and isbased upon a February 2000 Columbia University conference and a threeyearFord Foundation-sponsored research project. It provides a generaloverview of the history and diversity of Arab Americans in New York Cityand is particularly strong in the area of the arts, featuring several chapters onliterature and music, including several first-person narratives. This two-partbook, which surveys both the historical and the contemporary scenes, isfurther enhanced by forty black-and-white photographs, including thirteenby Empire State College’s Mel Rosenthal.New York contains the third largest Arab-American community, afterDearborn (Michigan) and Los Angeles. In the first chapter, Alixa Naffexplains that the community was formed around 1895, when Christian missionaries in Syria encouraged Arab Christians near Mount Lebanon to workin New York for a couple of years to make money for their families. Syrianand Lebanese immigrants initially gathered at Washington Street in LowerManhattan and soon moved to Atlantic Avenue in the South Ferry portion ofBrooklyn. From 1899-1910, 56,909 Syrian immigrants arrived in New York.In the book’s first part, two historical chapters are followed by entrieson literature, music, photography, and first-person accounts. Philip Kayalpoints out that Arab-American is a cultural and ethnic – but not a religious– category, for most Arab Americans are Christian, not Muslim. JonathanFriedlander reveals that the first Arab-American immigrant, AntonioBishallany, visited from Lebanon in 1854 to gather evangelical teachings foruse back home. This four-page and six-photograph entry on representationsin historical archives could be expanded into a larger work ...
The Thirty-fourth AMSS Annual Conference
Authors: Willoughby Jay
Published: October 2020

This conference, held from Sept. 30 – Oct. 2, 2005 and co-sponsored byTemple University (Philadelphia), represented a homecoming for theAssociation of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), for its source of inspiration,Dr. Isma`il al-Faruqi, taught religion there from 1968-1986. Elevenpanels addressed the theme, “Muslims and Islam in the Chaotic ModernWorld: Relations of Muslims among Themselves and with Others,” by coveringa wide range of topics, from Muslim minority groups, mutual understanding,and women, to modernity, family law, legal theory, education, andjust war. Due to space constraints, only a few of them will be covered here.After the welcoming and introductory remarks by Program ChairKhalid Blankinship (Temple University) and Rafik Beekun (University ofNevada), Abdul Mutualo (American University in Cairo) began the proceedingsby discussing the history of Islam as an “imported” religion in his nativeMozambique. Heol Choul Kim (Temple University) spoke on KoreanMuslims’ problems due to cultural traditions (e.g., ancestor worship) and thelack of an indigenous Muslim community. Robert Riggs (University ofPennsylvania) discussed how the White Fathers gave Algeria’s KabyleBerers a sense of national self-consciousness and how many of them, livingin small Christian communities, left Algeria after independence.The banquet’s keynote speaker, Abdullah Schleifer (American Universityin Cairo), reflected on his many years as a news reporter and producerin the Middle East. His talk received such an enthusiastic response that wehave included it in our “Forum” section. The winners of the AMSS BestGraduate Paper Awards were also announced: Zareena Grewal (first place),Maleeha Aslam (second place), and Kamran Hashimi (third place).Panel 4A featured, among others, Helena J. Kaler (George WashingtonUniversity), who revealed, probably to the surprise of many, commonalitiesbetween Ayman al-Zawahiri’s and Farid Esack’s responses to modernity.She said that while al-Zawahiri bases his worldview on grievances, Esack ...
God’s Rule
Authors: Fletcher Charles
Published: October 2020

Originally intended as a short textbook codifying the existing knowledge ofIslamic political thought, Patricia Crone’s God’s Rule developed into a fullerand more comprehensive examination of the first six centuries of governmentand Islam. Crone, perhaps better known for her more controversialworks, such as Hagarism (Cambridge: 1977), God’s Caliph (Cambridge:1986), and Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Oxford: 1987), is nostranger to Islamic political theory, having written Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge: 1980). In her present book, thereader will find an accessible, readable, and scholarly contribution that islargely devoid of controversy while retaining a healthy skepticism of thesources, as one would expect from an historian.Primarily written for the non-specialist, the intention is to render thecontextual theory, practice, and development of political thought during theearly centuries of Islam (c. 622-1258) intelligible to the general reader.Divided into four sections, Crone seeks to cover the broader trends andthemes in the transition from the Prophet’s polity to that of the Buyids andthe Seljuqs. Along the way, she guides the reader through the complex webof Islamic history, starting, in part 1, with the basic Muslim conceptualunderstanding of government and state up to the first civil war, sect formation,and the Umayyad period. Here, the central importance was the leader,as successor to the Prophet, who weds truth and power and thereby rightlyguides the Muslim community by providing legal legitimacy and a moralexample. The question of legitimacy came to the fore during the first civilwar, which resulted in the formation of various sects and the rise of theUmayyad dynasty ...
Early Shi`i Thought
Authors: Empey Heather
Published: October 2020

The work under consideration is a clear and concise exposition of the lifeand thought of Muhammad al-Baqir, the great-grandson of ProphetMuhammad and one of the most influential Shi`i Imams, recognized by boththe Isma`ili and Ithna`ashari Shi`ahs. In this revised version of her doctoraldissertation, the author draws on a wide-range of primary sources and aselection of secondary materials in order to provide the reader with a portraitof a central figure in Shi`i Islam, one who can also tell us a great deal aboutthe formative stage of Islamic thought. For this reason, Early Shi`i Thoughtshould be of interest not only to students of Shi`ism, but also to all those concernedwith the often complex development of Islamic civilization during itsearly period.The first chapter, which serves as the introduction, constitutes a briefsummary of the lives of the first Shi`i Imams and the succession to theProphet. Here, the author provides us with a list of the primary sources thatshe will be using throughout her study. The second chapter, dealing with theimamate before the time of Muhammad al-Baqir, is also an historicaloverview of the lives of the early Imams and their struggles against both theUmayyads as well as some of their own partisans. Chapter 3 is devoted toal-Baqir’s succession to the imamate and to the divisions among the Shi`ahat that time. Al-Baqir’s quietism is contrasted with the political activism ofhis half-brother Zayd ibn `Ali and the emerging Zaydi Shi`ah, who werewilling to revolt against their rulers ...
Islamic Fundamentalism Since 1945
Authors: Mir Anita
Published: October 2020

For first-time students of the increasingly well-researched field of Islamicfundamentalism, or for those with a general interest keen to hone theirunderstanding, Beverly Milton-Edwards’ fourth book, Islamic FundamentalismSince 1945, is a good place to start. This compact book, running amere 139 pages of text, has a rather grand ambition: to describe the definingperiods in the growth of this phenomenon and introduce the main players aswell as the key debates. To a large degree, this ambition is successfully met.Milton-Edwards uses an historical linear approach, and so we begin, inchapter 1, with “a diverse tradition from past to present” that takes usquickly from the events following the Prophet’s death in 632 to the MuslimBrotherhood’s emergence in Egypt in 1928. The author regards its foundingfather, Hassan al-Banna (1906-49), in “many respects as the founding fatherof Islamic fundamentalism.” The subsequent chapters examine “TheAdvance of Secularism”; “Identity and Revivalism”; “Islam Armed”; and“Going Global: Fundamentalism and Terror.” With the penultimate chapter,“Ground Zero and Islamic Fundamentalism,” we are brought to the present.The year 1945, the end of the Second World War, marks the first dismembermentof the imperialist model and the emergence of new nation ...
Reading Arab Women’s Autobiographies
Authors: Fiorindi Lisa Pike
Published: October 2020

In writing Reading Arab Women’s Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells HerStory, Nawar Al-Hassan Golley’s goal is to fill a critical gap. Recent bookslike Marilyn Booth’s May Her Likes Be Multiplied: Biography and GenderPolitics in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) analyzewomen’s relation to biography from Zainab Fawwaz’s Scattered Pearls (1894) onward. However, any critical analysis of Arab women’s autobiographyis scarce, if not non-existent. In its efforts to fill this critical gap, ReadingArab Women’s Autobiographies carves out a dual readership. Delineatingpast and present meanings both within and without Islam of “Arab,” “Arabworld,” “hijab,” and “harem” with an eye to the non-Arab reader, Golley’sanalysis of five autobiographical texts and three anthologies of women’s collectedstories simultaneously participates in a conversation with other Arabwomen scholars about modes of text production, distribution, and the overallplace of women’s autobiography within Arab feminism.Part 1, “Political Theory: Colonial Discourse, Feminist Theory, andArab Feminism,” contains three chapters: “Why Colonial Discourse?”;“Feminism, Nationalism, and Colonialism in the Arab World”; and “HudaShaarawi’s Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist.” In the firsttwo, the author argues for the inclusion of gender-related issues within colonialdiscourse analysis and for the necessity of adopting Spivak’s “strategicessentialism” when speaking of “Arab women.” In outlining a brief historyof Arab feminism, Golley strives to both demystify the “aura of exoticism”that has surrounded Arab women and to demonstrate that Arab feminism “isnot alien to Arab culture.” ...
Tensions and Transitions in the Muslim World
Authors: Abboud Samer
Published: October 2020

Safi’s text interrogates the potential of Islamic reform movements to articulatea democratic and pluralistic politics throughout the Middle East and thebroader Islamic world. He begins by arguing that these reform movementsexert the greatest influence in determining the direction of sociopoliticalreforms in the Middle East, and, as a result, constitute a core movement fromwhich to understand and interpret the dynamics of the region’s cultural andsociopolitical reality. Furthermore, the author argues that in the contemporaryMiddle Eastern intellectual climate, Islamic reformists represent a synthesisbetween the opposing programs of moralist-Islamists on the one hand,and nationalist-secularists on the other. This synthesis constitutes the mostviable and realistic program for genuine reform and for developing a pluralisticsociety and participatory politics. In support of this thesis, Safi dividesthe text into nine chapters constituting four interrelated parts: “Democratizationand the Islamic State,” “Visions of Reform,” “Islamic Law and HumanRights,” and “Islam in a Global Cultural Order.”The first part poses the question of whether democracy and pluralism canflourish in a society in which Islamic law commands the majority’s allegiance.His answer is cautiously affirmative, as it depends on the rejuvenationof cultural and legal reforms grounded in a historical Muslim experience that offers the tools to transcend current political and cultural institutions.As such, both the secular state and Islamist movements preclude such arenewal: the former because its structures negate the possibility of pluralisticpolitics, and the latter because its merging of state structures with the communalstructure of the historical Shari`ah contradicts the nature of the Islamicpolity as established by the Prophet.These restrictions can be overcome through grounding the state in twopillars. First, this means severing the link between the state and the ummah,a separation necessary to ensure that the state and its institutions are nothijacked by particularistic interests or erected as obstructions to the Islamiccommunity’s spiritual and conceptual development. Such an Islamic state,which privileges the marshalling of state resources toward the Islamiccommunity’s spiritual goals, also has, as its second pillar, the concept of consensus(ijma` ). Classical jurists viewed this concept as the fundamentalprinciple that confers legitimacy upon the state. Therefore, the state gainsits legitimacy insofar as it reflects the ummah’s will ...
Sacred Other
Authors: Sabbath Roberta
Published: October 2020

The American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) conference,held on 23-26 March 2006 at Princeton University, featured over 120 panels,each with about three presenters. The theme of the conference, “The Humanand Its Other,” inspired a broad spectrum of imaginative considerations ofthis fascinating topic. The field of comparative literature specializes in interdisciplinarywork that crosses the boundaries of language, nationality, culture,historical period, and religion by examining the common groundshared by creative works.The conference doubled its size of previous years to 1,200 participantsfrom around the world. This year it included a reading by Joyce Carol Oates,a conversation with Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison, a performance bythe American Ballet Theater dancers, and a talk on human rights by notedpostcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak. The ACLAconference uses a two- andthree-panel series format to structure panels, thereby allowing panelists ineach series to dialogue over a two- or three-day period.One of the three-panel series, “Sacred Other: Boundaries and Pores inthe Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur’an as Literary Works,” focused on thethree sacred texts as literary works. Chaired by Roberta Sabbath (Universityof Nevada, Las Vegas), the panel topic continued her three-year project ofchairing similar panels at major literary conferences in the United States.The topic enables a dialogue between scholars primarily from the fields ofliterary and religious studies. A variety of literary theoretical lenses enlistedby participants enriched the understanding of the sacred texts themselvesand their vast influence on cultural production.Panelists stretched the word otherness to include a variety of meanings.The survey of topics below reflects the depth of the conversation. While religious,social, and cultural institutional practices encourage thinking aboutthe many levels of human experience in terms of an inclusive/exclusive sensibility,these panelists made no such distinction. While labels define individualsin society, papers in this panel series fractured stereotypical thinking.While labels also limit the understanding of the human experience of spirituality,alienation, emotion, influence, and community, these panelistsexploded the myth that any of these human experiences adhered to boundariesor limitations. On the contrary, the porous nature of life at the material ...