New Books In Middle Eastern Studies

In Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam: The Originall and Progress of Mahometanism (Columbia University Press, 2014), Nabil Matar masterfully edits an important piece of scholarship from seventeenth-century England by scholar and physician, Henry Stubbe (1632-76). Matar also gives a substantial introduction to his annotated edition of Stubbe’s text by situating the author in his historical context. Unlike other early modern writers on Islam, Stubbe’s ostensible goals were not to cast Islam in a negative light. On the contrary, he sought to challenge popular conceptions that understood Islam in negative terms, and although there is no evidence that Stubbe entertained conversion, he admits many admirable characteristics of Islam, ranging from Muhammad’s character to the unity of God. The English polymath was well versed in theological debates of his time and therefore equipped all the more to write the Originall, given the benefit of his comparative framework, which in part explains why the first portion o

Where does love come from and where will it lead us? Throughout the years various answers have been given to these questions. In Divine Love: Islamic Literature and the Path to God (Yale University Press, 2013), William Chittick, professor at Stony Brook University, responds to these queries from the perspective of the rich literary traditions of Islam. He reveals how some Muslims explained the origins, life, and goal of love through a detailed investigation of authors writing in Persian and Arabic mainly from the eleventh to twelfth centuries. For these authors, love is manifest through the relationship between God and creation in all of its various iterations. Commentary and explanation are drawn from numerous sources beginning with the Qur’an but most extensively from Rashid al-din Maybudi’s Qur’an commentary, Unveiling of the Mysteries, and Ahmad Sam’ani’sRepose of the Spirits. In our conversation we discussed the role of the Persian Muslim tradition, the cosmological roles of Adam and Muhammad, the centr

In Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Ovamir Anjum explores a timely topic, even though his focus is hundreds of years in the past. In order to present his topic Professor Anjum asks a series of foundational questions, such as: How have Muslims understood ideal government and political theology? What is the role of rulers in those politics? And what does it even mean to talk about “politics” as a category? In Anjum’s words “the relationship between Islam and politics in the classical age can neither be described as a formal divorce nor a honeymoon, but rather a tenuous and unstable separation of spheres of religious authority from political power that was neither justified in theory nor wholeheartedly accepted” (136). The “Taymiyyan Moment,” a rephrasing of the “Machiavellian Moment” comes during the life of the prodigious author, theologian, and jurist Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328). By honing in on Ibn Taymiyya’s magnum opus, Dar’ Ta’arud al-‘

Ronen Shamir‘s new book is a timely and thoughtful study of the electrification of Palestine in the early twentieth century. Current Flow: The Electrification of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2013) makes use of Actor-Network Theory as a methodology to trace the processes involved in constructing a powerhouse and assembling an electric grid in 1920s Palestine. The book brilliantly shows how electrification “makes politics” rather than just transmitting it: under the auspices of British colonial government, the material processes of electrification produced and affirmed ethno-national distinctions like “Jews” and “Arabs” and the spaces they came to produce and inhabit in Palestine. The electric grid, here, “performs and enables (or disables) social formations through the physical connections it establishes and its attachments to other entities.” The episteme of separatism and the roots of what would become a partition plan were born in this context, as Shamir shows. The first part of the book (chapters

Scholars of Islam and historians have frequently pointed to the Miḥna, translated as ‘trial’ or ‘test,’ as a crossroad in the landscape of Islamic history. Professor John P. Turner of Colby College is among those who challenge the long held assumption that the Miḥna was a uniquely pivotal event in his work Inquisition in Early Islam: The Competition for Political and Religious Authority in the Abbasid Empire (I. B. Tauris, 2013). In his book, Turner explores issues of heresy, orthodoxy, and caliphal authority. He investigates how Muslim doxographers, a term Professor employs instead of heresiographers, defined orthodoxy not by what orthodoxy is but what orthodoxy is not. Defining the limits of orthodoxy allowed scholars and caliphs to become the arbiters of orthodoxy. This discussion sets the stage for his examination of heresy trials that took place under both the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs. Of particular importance is the heresy trial of Aḥmad ibn Hanbal, whose name is carried on by the HanbalÄ« madh

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 J. 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 perspectiv

In 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 t

When did groups in Kufa begin forming unique identities leading to the development of Shiism? Najam Haider, professor of Religion at Barnard College of Columbia University, answers this question in his book, The Origins of Shia: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in Eighth-Century Kufa (Cambridge University Press, 2011). This study is a boon for those with research interests in early Shiism, or the history of Islam prior to the ninth century. In the first section of his book, Haider announces his intention to test literary narratives of the origins of Shiism: namely, if Shiism did, in fact, develop during the early 8th century and if it was the product of the merging of two distinct groups. To answer those questions he proposes to analyze the 8th-century Kufa traditions. Haider examines these traditions on the basis of their legal authorities and the composition of their narrative styles.He applies this method to three cases studies in the second section of his book: (1) the basmala in ritual prayer, (2) th

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 and Faris Nimr, young teachers at the Syrian Protestant College who were instrumental in translating scientific works into Arabic there and, late

Crucifixion 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

This book tells a remarkable and–to me at least–little known but very important story. In Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East(Yale UP, 2014), Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz trace the many connections between Germany–Imperial and Nazi–and the Arab world. Their particular focus is on a fellow named Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem between from 1921 to 1948. Both Al-Husseini and, a bit later, Hitler inherited a project hatched by the German officials in World War I, namely, to start an Islamist Jihad against the Western Powers in the Middle East. The two found common cause in this project: al Husseini wanted the French and British out and Hitler wanted to Germany to dominate the region. But they were also united by another cause: eliminationist Jew-hatred. Al-Husseini and Hitler worked together throughout the war to murder and plan the murder of as many Jews as they could get their hands on. After the war al-Husseini denied any connection with Hitler, yet he continued

Many 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 Arabi, 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 noti

How 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 par

In the book, The Fatigue of the SharÄ«’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 sharÄ«’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, Ah

Rebecca Williams‘ book Muhammad 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. Restricting her analysis to the works of Qur’anic exegesis and the biography, 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

Joshua Mitchell is the author of Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas in a Democratic Age (University of Chicago Press 2013). Mitchell is professor of political science in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. He has written several previous books including: The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future (University of Chicago Press, 1995). Mitchell writes as a political theorist but also as a memoirist. He weaves his personal history in the region with his experiences in 2005 teaching Tocqueville in the Georgetown campus in Doha, Qatar. What he produces then is both a re-introduction to Democracy in America, but also an introduction to a country and a generation of students. This is a book of theory, of travel, but also of pedagogy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joshua Mitchell is the author of Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas in a Democratic Age (University of Chicago Press 2013). Mitchell is professor of political science in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. He has written several previous books including: The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future (University of Chicago Press, 1995). Mitchell writes as a political theorist but also as a memoirist. He weaves his personal history in the region with his experiences in 2005 teaching Tocqueville in the Georgetown campus in Doha, Qatar. What he produces then is both a re-introduction to Democracy in America, but also an introduction to a country and a generation of students. This is a book of theory, of travel, but also of pedagogy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his brilliant new book, The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History (Cambridge UP, 2013), Ahmed El Shamsy, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago, explores the question of how the discursive tradition of Islamic law was canonized during the eighth and ninth centuries CE. While focusing on the religious thought of the towering Muslim jurist Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafi’i (d. 820) and the intellectual and social milieu in which he wrote, El Shamsy presents a fascinating narrative of the transformation of the Muslim legal tradition in early Islam. He convincingly argues that through al-Shafi’i’s intervention, a previously mimetic model of Islamic law inseparable from communal practice made way for a more systematic hermeneutical enterprise enshrined in a clearly defined scriptural canon. Through a rich and multilayered analysis, El Shamsy shiningly demonstrates how and why this process of canonization came about. Written in a remarkably lucid fashion, this gro

How should one understand Islamic law outside of its application? What happens when we think about religious jurisprudence theoretically? For medieval Muslim scholars this was the field where one could enumerate the meaning and purpose of Islamic law. But to the uninitiated these justifications for legal thinking are submerged in rote repetition of technical language and discourses. Luckily for us, Rumee Ahmed, professor in the Department of Classics, Near Eastern and Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, dives into the depths of various legal theory manuals to draw narrative understandings of shari’a to the surface. In Narratives of Islamic Legal Theory (Oxford University Press, 2012), Ahmed examines two formative contemporaneous jurists from the Hanafi school of law to determine the relationship between law and ethics through legal discourses. He focuses on the nature and meaning of the Qur’an, the role of the sunnah (the Prophetic example), and the use of considered opinion in

Al-Qāḍī al-Nu῾mān (d. 363/974) was the primary architect of Ismā῾īlÄ« jurisprudence which was formed under the Fatamids. The Early History of Ismaili Jurisprudence (I. B. Tauris, 2013) provides an English translation and edited Arabic edition of a work held to be written by al-Nu῾mān, the Minhāj al-farā’iḍ, a brief tract on inheritance law. However, author Agostino Cilardo, Professor at the ‘Orientale’ of Università degli Studi di Napoli (Naples), offers his readers much more in this book. The first half of this work explores critical questions concerning the development of Ismā῾īlÄ« jurisprudence which includes synopses of the theories concerning the progression and originality of Ismā῾īlÄ« jurisprudence. This is followed by an analysis of the Minhāj alongside four other works penned by al-Nu῾mān: Kitāb al-iqtiṣār, Kitāb al-yanbū῾, Mukhtaá¹£ar al-āthār, and Da῾ā’im al-Islām. This study allows Professor Cilardo to draw a number of conclusions about the work itself,