New Books in Islamic Studies

J. Matthias DetermannView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in History] Saudi Arabia is, for most Westerners, a mysterious place. It's home to one of the most conservative forms of Islam around and ruled by one of the least democratic regimes in the world.  Yet it's a great friend of the liberal, democratic Western powers, the United States in particular. That's odd.  As Jörg Matthias Determann shows in his fascinating book Historiography in Saudi Arabia: Globalization and the State in the Middle East (Tauris, 2014), Saudi Arabia is something of a mysterious–or at least contested–place for many Saudi Arabian historians. Somewhat surprisingly, Saudi Arabian historians have enjoyed a relatively free hand in depicting the country's past. That past, as Determann explains, is at once tribal, regional, religious, dynastic, national, and even global, depending on how you look at it. Saudi Arabian historians–and the royal family that ultimately supports them all–have looked at Saudi history through all these lenses. In their work, the seemingly monolithic country (from the Western perspective, at least) emerges as something of a pastiche of inter-penetrating historical identities. Listen in.

Hugh Talat HalmanView on AmazonIn Where The Two Seas Meet (Fons Vitae, 2013), Hugh Talat Halman unpacks one of the most provocative narratives in the Islamic tradition. In the 18th chapter of the Qur'an, Surat al-Kahf (The Cave), a mysterious figure named Khidr (the "Green Man"), guides Moses through a series of seemingly criminal acts. These events turn out to be, rather, tests to try Moses' patience, each with divine purpose and knowledge behind it. Because of Khidr's special knowledge and status–even immortal according to some traditions–this story from the Qur'an has inspired Muslims from a variety of cultures to take interest in the relationship between Moses and Khidr as a model of discipleship, adversity, and spiritual symbolism. In his pioneering book, Halman charts the waters of literature about the story of Khidr and Moses while giving special attention to Sufi commentaries, including those of Ruzbihan Baqli, al-Qushayri, and al-Qashani. Halman also demonstrates that it was not only medieval Muslims who gravitated toward mining the spiritual wisdom of the story but also non-Muslims in the modern period, including Carl Jung, a director of a kung fu film, and others. Halman ends his monograph with a poem that synthesizes the many faces of the narrative and adds a unique personal touch to his work. Where The Two Seas Meet has undoubtedly become the authoritative English-language reference for research on the "Green Man" and provides the reader with lucid writing and ample references. Inevitably, moreover, it will also interest readers beyond the academy because of its transcultural insights and possibilities for interpretation.

Najam HaiderView on AmazonWhen did groups in Kūfa begin forming unique identities leading to the development of Imamī Shī῾ism and Zaydī Shī῾ism? Najam Haider, professor of Religion at Barnard College of Columbia University, answers this question in his book, The Origins of the Shī῾a: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in Eighth-Century Kūfa (Cambridge University Press, 2011) This study is a boon for those with research interests in early Shī῾ism, Kūfa, or the history of Islam prior to the 3rd/9th century. In the first section of his book, Haider announces his intention to test literary narratives of the origins of Sḥī'ism: namely, if Imamī Shī῾ism did, in fact, develop during the early 2nd/8th century and if Zaydī Shī῾ism was the product of the merging of two distinct Shī῾a groups, the Jārūdīs and Batrīs. To answer those questions he proposes to analyze 2nd/8th century Kūfan traditions (Ḥadīths and Akhbār), from Sunnī, Imamī, and Zaydī sources. Haider examines traditions on the basis of their legal authorities, the composition of their isnāds, and their narrative styles, a methodology known among scholars of Islam as matn-cum-isnād. He applies this method to three cases studies in the second section of his book: (1) the basmala in ritual prayer, (2) the use of qunūt, a blessing or curse, in prayer, and (3) the prohibition of intoxicants. Each case study centers on ritual which Haider argues is a more determinative means of ascribing identity then an individual or group's theology. Based on the results of these three case studies, Haider proposes a revised history of Zaydī Shī῾ism in his third section; a history in which Zaydism was a movement with strong Batrī influence in its nascent stages but later became Jārūdī. Haider's work stands out for the clarity of the questions he seeks to answer and the method he employs in doing so. Every chapter concludes with a concise summary of the major points and the entire work is filled with charts of data to help readers understand how the massive corpus of information he utilized was organized and categorized. Scholars will obviously benefit from its proposed revised history, but its readability makes it useful for undergraduates and laypersons. 

View on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Science, Technology, and Society] The work of Charles Darwin, together with the writing of associated scholars of society and its organs and organisms, had a particularly global reach in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Marwa Elshakry's new book offers a fascinating window into the ways that this work was read and rendered in modern Arabic-language contexts. Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2013) invites us into a late nineteenth-century moment when the notions of "science" and "civilization" mutually transformed one another, and offers a thoughtful and nuanced account of the ways that this played out for scholars working and writing in Syria and Egypt. The early chapters of Elshakry's book focus on the central role played by popular science journals like Al-Muqtataf (The Digest) in translating and disseminating Darwin's ideas. We meet Ya'qub Sarruf & Faris Nimr, young teachers at the Syrian Protestant College who were instrumental in translating scientific works into Arabic there and, later, in Egypt. An entire chapter looks closely at Isma'il Mazhar's work producing the first verbatim translation of Darwin's Origin of Species into Arabic, but the book also looks well beyond Darwin to consider broader Arabic discourses on the relationship between science and society, as those discourses were shaped by engagements with the work of Herbert Spencer, Ludwig Büchner, and many others. Elshakry pays special attention to the ways that this story is embedded in the histories of print culture, the politics of empire, and debates over educational reform, materialism, and socialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and concludes with a consideration of the continuing reverberations of these issues into late twentieth century Egypt and beyond. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the entanglements of science, translation, and empire in the modern world, and it will change the way we understand the place of Arabic interlocutors in the history of modern science.

Sean AnthonyCrucifixion is one of the most widely envisioned symbols in history. So much so, that for a contemporary reader the notion almost immediately plants an image of Jesus on the cross. Sean Anthony, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Oregon, argues that an assumption of uniformity in the role of crucifixion hinders our understanding of it, which is especially true when looking at crucifixion as a cross-cultural category during the Late Antique period. In Crucifixion and Death as Spectacle: Umayyad Crucifixion in Its Late Antique Context (American Oriental Society, 2014), crucifixion is examined in the early Muslim context but placed within broader social and political tactics of late antiquity. Extreme death techniques, especially in the disciplining of religious deviants, were most often public spectacles of ritualized violence used to legitimize political leaders. Umayyad leadership used crucifixion as a ideological tool to reinforce their own political legitimacy. Anthony demonstrates how this all plays out in the cases of Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr and Zayd ibn 'Ali. The study of crucifixion also enables us to examine the rich ways that Muslims remembered and accounted for their own personal histories. In our conversation we discussed the relationship between early Islam and late antique societies, crucifixion in the Zoroastrian setting, the treatment of the dead Muslim body, crucifixion in the Qur'an and Hadith, the public/private spheres of the body, deciphering historical sources, religious deviance, and the ironic fate of the conquered Ummayads.

View on AmazonMany Muslim debates regarding women are solely situated in legal or political frameworks. For example, we often find this tendency in conversations about women's leadership in the mosque or the politics of veiling. Sa'diyya Shaikh, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town, provides a unique approach to these discussions that puts feminist hermeneutics in dialogue with the thought of the prolific Muhyi al-Din ibn al-'Arabi (1165-1240). In Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn ʿArabi, Gender and Sexuality (University of North Carolina Press, 2012) she explores contestations over embodiment and gender, spirituality and leadership, sexuality and power in order to rethink patriarchal epistemologies in contemporary Muslim discourses. She argues that contesting positions on gender in these debates are underpinned by certain assumptions about human nature, its gendering, and existence. Shaikh outlines the social and ritual consequences of spiritual (in)equality and initiates reflections on Islamic notions of the central category "human being." Shaikh leads us through Ibn 'Arabi's dynamic anthropology, ontology, and cosmology and links abstract philosophical concepts with concrete daily relationships between men and women. In our conversation we discussed Islamic feminism, apophatic unsayings and hermeneutic of subversions, Ibn 'Arabi's interpersonal relationships with women, parallels between the macrocosm and microcosm, Muslim exegesis, notions of creation, interpretations of Adam and Eve, Jesus' birth from the Virgin Mary, and masculine and feminine in Islam.

Zareena GrewalView on AmazonZareena Grewal's monograph Islam is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority (NYU Press, 2013), seamlessly interweaves ethnographic research with an in-depth historical perspective in order to yield an unparalleled account of American Muslims and their intellectual and spiritual journeys. Where does knowledge come from? Where does Islam come from? Can Americans find it in California, or must they travel to Egypt, or Syria? How does skin color, religious conversion, and national origin play into these queries? In order to answer these questions and many more, Grewal guides the reader through a complex history of Islam in the United States–including key institutions, important figures, and critical events–while also recounting her ethnographic research from Cairo, Damascus, and Amman. Grewal follows the stories of American youth as they travel overseas in search of something they believed could not be found domestically, yet at the same time, these students seek to return to the United States after acquiring what they set out to find. How their idiosyncratic identities and concerns play out in their respective locales offers a frame in which Grewal explores her larger questions surrounding authority, identity, and religious truth. The monograph is an example of scholarly rigor while simultaneously welcomes non-specialists to explore the challenges she puts so eloquently into words. Islam is a Foreign Country is thoroughly digestible and although with big ideas often come big words, Grewal's prose proves inviting and absorbing, making it an absolute pleasure to read and a conversation starter for any number of audiences.

Nathan SchneiderView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Religion] Nathan Schneider's monograph, God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet (University of California Press, 2013), explores the timeless challenge of how to explain God. Are such explanations rational? Why are some attempts more popular than others? Indeed, can one really "prove" God? Isn't it called "faith" for a reason? And what does Star Trek have to do with all of this? In addressing these questions, and many more, Schneider guides the reader through a rich land of storytelling, autobiographical reflections, and clever drawings. As the author submits in the book from its onset, don't expect to discover which proof is right or why atheists are wrong. It turns out, in any case, that "proof" doesn't necessarily mean what we think it means. Although proof can mean unimpeachable evidence, a proof can also be a work in progress (e.g., the proof of a text); or it can mean to tackle a challenge (e.g., to prove oneself). As Schneider convincingly argues, moreover, proofs for God have scarcely focused on mitigating doubt. They have been works of devotion and profoundly personal revelations. These proofs have also remained tied intimately to particular socio-historical contexts, but Schneider points out that despite this, the world of proofs is also a world of relationships and shared ideas in which Muslims, Jews, Christians, philosophers, and many others draw upon the ideas of one another. Schneider's combined background in journalism and academia helps in rendering his complex and sometimes mind-boggling subject digestible to both general and scholarly audiences with polyvalent interests and beliefs about God.

Ayesha ChaudhryView on AmazonHow do people make sense of their scriptures when they do not align with the way they envision these texts? This problem is faced by many contemporary believers and is especially challenging in relation to passages that go against one's vision of a gender egalitarian cosmology. Ayesha Chaudhry, professor in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia, examines one such passage from the Qur'an, verse 4:34, which has traditionally been interpreted to give husbands disciplinary rights over their wives, including hitting them. In Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition: Ethics, Law, and the Muslim Discourse on Gender (Oxford University Press, 2013) Chaudhry offers a historical genealogy of pre-colonial and post-colonial interpretations of this verse and their implications. Through her presentation she offers portraits of the "Islamic Tradition" and how these visions of authority shape participants' readings of scripture. In our conversation we discuss the ethics of discipline, idealized cosmologies, marital relationships, legal interpretations, Muhammad's embodied model, Muslim feminist discourses, effects of colonialism, and the hermeneutical space between modernity and tradition.

Joshua DublerView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Religion] In almost every prison movie you see, there is a group of fanatically religious inmates. They are almost always led by a charismatic leader, an outsized father-figure who is loved by his acolytes and feared by nearly everyone else. They're usually black Muslims, but you also see the occasional born-again Christian gang. They promise salvation and, of course, protection. And they are scary. But what's religious life in prison really like? In order to find out, the intrepid and brave religious scholar Joshua Dubler actually moved into a prison. He lived among the inmates and those clerics who had devoted their lives to bringing them spiritual comfort. The picture he paints in his wonderful new book Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013) is nothing like the one you see on TV or in the movies. In fact, it's so irreducibly complex that it almost defies description. The spirituality he finds behind bars is adapted to the harsh realities of prison life and the personalities of the religious (and quasi-religious) inmates themselves. Dubler reminds us that churches–of whatever type and wherever found–are made of people in all their idiosyncratic variety. Listen in to our fascinating and lively discussion.

Ellen J. AmsterView on AmazonWhat is the interplay between the physical human body and the body politic? This question is at the heart of Ellen J. Amster's Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the Colonial Encounter in Morocco, 1877-1956 (University of Texas Press, 2013). In this pioneering, interdisciplinary study, Professor Amster explores the French campaign to colonize Morocco through medicine. It is through medicine and medical encounters that Amster reveals competing ideas of "scientific paradigm (cosmologies), knowledge systems (hygiene and medical theory), and the technologies of physical intervention (therapeutics)" (p. 2) between the colonizing French positivists and the Moroccan populace. Amster's breadth of expertise in the fields of medical history, Moroccan/North African history, the history of French colonization, the study of Islam and Sufism, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy is equally matched to the depth in which she explores these topics throughout the six chapters of her work. Each chapter explores a unique encounter, or more often clash, between the French and the Moroccan. From Sufi saints in the first chapter to government hygiene initiatives in the fourth, Amster is meticulous and exhaustive with her source material. Even more distinctive is her use of oral narratives. Scholars interested in the role of women as medical practitioners will greatly benefit from Amster's exploration of the qabla (midwife) in the fifth chapter. Gradually, Amster demonstrates that French attempts to "modernize" Morocco were in fact the very seeds that led to Moroccan ideas of independence and nationhood. This work will have a tremendous impact on many fields and hopefully give rise to further interdisciplinary work in the fields of Islam, North African and Moroccan history, and medicine.

View on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in South Asian Studies] If you're going to teach a broadly themed survey course, you'll probably need to assign some readings. One option is to assemble one of those photocopied course readers, full of excerpts taken from different sources. However, what you gain in flexibility may be sacrificed in coherence of presentation. A textbook produced by a single author might be more nicely packaged for student consumption, but then, how many different things can one author be an expert in? The best of both approaches would be found in a single-volume collection of essays, written by experts in their respective fields, newly commissioned for the volume in question, and all presented according to a shared format. Karen Pechilis and Selva J. Raj's South Asian Religions: Tradition and Today (Routledge, 2012) provides just such a collection, designed with both faculty and students in mind. Contributors to the book include Vasudha Narayanan, M. Whitney Kelting, Sunil Goonasekera, Nathan Katz, M. Thomas Thangaraj, Karen G. Ruffle, Joseph Marianus Kujur, and Pashaura Singh. In this interview, editor Karen Pechilis discusses her decisions behind the form and content of the book, shares her experiences using the book in one of her own classes, and unexpectedly turns the tables on the interviewer regarding how he came to be interested in such things. This podcast is dedicated to the memory of Selva J. Raj.

Ahmad Atif AhmadView on AmazonIn the book, The Fatigue of the Sharī'a (Palgrave, 2012), Ahmad Atif Ahmad explores a centuries-old debate about the permanence, or impermanence, of God's law, and guidance, in the lives of Muslims. Could God's guidance simply cease to be accessible at some point? Has such a "fatigue" already taken place? If so, how could one know for sure? What kinds of Muslims, and non-Muslims, have contributed to this debate? Ahmad ambitiously tackles these questions, and many more, in his meticulously researched and provocative monograph. In order to interrogate his topic, he surveys the many camps of the debate and also defines and problematizes key words such as sharī'a, ijtihād, and madhhab. Although the text relies on a familiarity with the Islamic legal tradition, Ahmad's style of writing, which constantly asks readers to reflect on key questions, allows even the uninitiated to benefit from and reflect on what it could mean for God's guidance to fatigue. As a result of recounting competing angles of the debate, Ahmad leaves with the reader with enduring questions, rather than simple answers, regarding how or if the sharī'a will indeed come to an end. If the legal schools, for example, arose at different times and in different contexts, why would they all meet a common future? As political struggles in the Middle East, North Africa, and the greater Muslim world continue, Ahmad's timely book will likely interest not only Islamic studies scholars and legal historians, but also journalists, policy makers, and political scientists.

Afsar MohammadView on AmazonSeveral studies about Islam in Asian contexts highlight the pluralistic environment that Muslims inhabit and interplay of various religious traditions that color local practice and thought. In The Festival of Pirs: Popular Islam and Shared Devotion in South India (Oxford University Press, 2013) we are given a first hand account of the devotional life and dynamic setting that produces one such example. Afsar Mohammad, professor at the University of Texas at Austin, documents public rituals and devotional stories revolving around a Sufi master, Kullayappa, and the 300,000 pilgrims from throughout South Asia who travel to the small village of Gugudu. In The Festival of Pirs we are shown how the events occurring during the month of Muharram and the narrative of the Battle of Karbala are transformed into a meaningful local frame. Here, the importance of the 'local' becomes clear while both Muslims and Hindus participate in these events. In fact, participants identify their practices as Kullayappa devotion (bakhti) instead of the more singular categories we are more familiar with, such as Muslim and Hindu. Mohammad also examines the tensions between these practices and the reformist activity of Muslims following what they call 'True' (asli) Islam. In our conversation we discussed frictions between mosque and shrine cultures, textual authority, the role of Telugu language, local and localized Islam, political sermons, public rituals, temporary asceticism, and religious identity.  

Rebecca WilliamsView on AmazonRebecca Williams' book Muḥammad and the Supernatural: Medieval Arab Views (Routledge, 2013) is one of the newest additions to the Routledge Studies in Classic Islam series. Despite the Qur'anic proclamation that the only "miracle" which served as proof of Muhammad's propethood was the Qur'an itself, miracles and supernatural events have been ascribed to Muhammad in numerous Islamic literary and intellectual genres. Professor Williams, of the University of South Alabama, delivers a unique and fresh look at the supernatural in Islam. Specifically, she explores how the Muslim authors al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) and Ibn Kathīr (d. 773/1373) understood and interpreted supernatural phenomena attributed Muhammad. Restricting her analysis to the works of Qur'anic exegesis (tafsīr) and the biography (sīra) produced by al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr, she focuses on four events in the life of Muhammad. Muhammad's conception, his first occasion of public preaching, a vignette concerning a warning sent by one of Muhammad's followers to the residents of Mecca prior to an attack, and a failed assassination attempt upon Muhammad's life each contain some type of supernatural occurrence. Each of these events is connected to an important theme for Muslims in the medieval era, sex, politics, betrayal, and wrath, respectively. Professor William's fascinating comparative investigation of the treatment of these supernatural occasions by al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathir demonstrates important similarities and differences between these two scholars. Moreover, the reader becomes conscious of the milieu in which each scholar constructed their texts. While this is a significant contribution to the field of the study of Islam, the topics addressed are of great benefit to scholars of literature and folklore and its contents are accessible to a wide spectrum of readers.