New Books in Islamic Studies

 Dr Sabrina Lei, Director of Tawasul Europe Centre for Dialogue and Research, is an emerging Italian Muslim philosopher and thinker. Trained in Latin, Greek and ancient philosophy for over a decade, with a PhD from Pontifical Gregorian University (one of the prominent centres of Catholic scholarship in Rome) in ancient Greek philosophy. Dr Sabrina has, so far, translated over 25 Muslim classics into Italian, besides producing her own five books, including a biography of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the recently released book : Le comunita religioso non-musulmane nel mondo islamico : Un introduzione storica ( The non-Muslim Religious Community in the Muslim World : A Historical Introduction, March 2019). Some of her noted achievements include acclaimed Italian translations of Muhammad Iqbal’s philosophical reflection on Islam called The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.  Dr Sabrina is currently working to publish a new edition of Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s original English Quran translation, with an introductory study, to address the growing need for Quran translations with an inclusive and refined language in the West. This new edition of Yusuf Ali’s Quran translation is set to be published by Tawasul Europe later this year, insha Allah.Dr Sabrina is also currently in the final phase of her study on the first Latin translation of the Quran (Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete, 1143). This study, backed up by linguistic, theological and philosophical insights, is set to show how this translation internalized and solidified many of the medieval Christian subjective notions about Islam, the Quran and Prophet (peace be upon him), and how it went on to influence the later western approaches to the Quran translation, etc. Tawasul Europe, a registered Italian Muslim charity-cum- think tank, founded by Dr Sabrina, is at the forefront of building bridges across cultures and religions in Italy. Tawasul Europe works with Vatican’s Interfaith Section, Rome Municipality and the Grand Mosque of Rome, along with around 10 universities and educational centres in Italy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

The third episode of this season of Radio ReOrient continues our project this season of returning to the first principles of Critical Muslim Studies. In the previous episode, Hizer Mir and Salman Sayyid discussed post-positivism: here they turn to post-orientalism. The advent of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 shook the foundations of many academic disciplines. Not only Oriental Studies (which was the most obvious object of Said’s critique) but almost every discipline found itself asking the question: how should we respond to Said’s Orientalism? How should our subjects be studied differently now that we know what we know about knowledge production? In this episode we delve into some of these questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

A conversation with award-winning academic Dr. Shabana Mir discussing her book Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity (UNC Press, 2016) Interviewer: Sofia Rehman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

This episode is the first of three special episodes in this season of Radio ReOrient in which we look back on the first principles of Critical Muslim Studies. In this episode, Hizer Mir talks to Salman Sayyid about post-positivism - what it means, what it offers, and how it relates to the project of decolonising. The discussion that we kick off here will reverberate throughout this series, as we return to talk in later episodes about post-orientalism and decoloniality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

An interview with Prof. Salman Sayyid on post-orientalism, what it means and its place in Critical Muslim Studies.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Nahj al-Balagha is among the most powerful, consequential, and linguistically brilliant masterpieces of Arabic and of Islamic thought and literature. Based on the orations, letters, and sayings of wisdom of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661), the first Imam or successor to Prophet Muhammad in Shi‘i Islam and the fourth caliph in Sunni Islam, this oral treasure was compiled and brought together as a text by the late tenth/early eleventh scholar and poet Al-Sharif al-Radi (d. 1015). In this episode I speak with Professor Tahera Qutbuddin who has provided us with a majestic and brilliant complete English translation of Nahj al-Balagha titled Nahj al-Balāgha: The Wisdom and Eloquence of ‘Alī (Brill, 2024), a parallel English-Arabic text published open access by Brill. The publication of this volume is an event of seismic importance in the study of Islam, religion, and Arabic. Qutbuddin’s translation is animated with the purpose of rendering the Arabic text of Nahj al-Balagha in English in a fashion that amplifies its literary and philosophical potency, a task at which she excels throughout the translation. The experience of reading this translation is nothing short of a deeply moving, philosophically enriching, and linguistically powerful rhapsody. In addition to an eminently user friendly translation with the particular sections and moments of Nahj al-Balagha clearly marked out, Qutbuddin also presents an erudite account of the text’s reception, reception history, and archival density. This outstanding volume will also be a joy to teach and use as primary source material in a range of courses on Islam, religion, Arabic, and the Humanities more broadly.SherAli Tareen is Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

In Breathtaking Revelations: The Science of Breath from the Fifty Kamarupa Verses to Hazrat Inayat Khan (Suluk Press, 2024), Carl W. Ernst and Patrick J. D’Silva explore the intersections of Sufi and yogic breath-based meditation. Ernst and D’Silva offer us here two stunning texts for study. The first, an anonymous Persian translation of a 14th century manuscript that introduces us to a variety of divinations, incantations, and much more, as well as a thorough outline of the science of the breath, based on whether it comes out from the left or right nostrils and its significance. This text especially is fascinating for its incantations to yogini devis (or female spirits). The second text under consideration is Hazrat Inayat Khan’s The Science of the Breath dictated in English to his student Zohra Williams in the early 20th century. There are numerous similarities across these two texts separated by centuries, especially the focus on breath divination based on left and right nostrils (in this instance associated with jamal and jalali qualities while in the former focused on solar and lunar relations) but also key differences, such as attention to the elements like earth, fire, water etc. in Inayat Khan’s teachings. Reading these two texts on breath and its divination side by side brings to focus the long tradition of Sufi engagement with yoga, and the overlaps between Hindu and Muslim spiritual practices amongst Sufis and yogis, especially of magic, sciences and much more. This book will be of interest to practitioners of Sufism as well as those with interest in Sufism, Islam, yoga, Hinduism, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

An interview with Salman Sayyid about decoloniality and its place in Critical Muslim Studies.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Radio ReOrient is back for another season, and this time Hizer Mir is joined by a new team of hosts: Claudia Radiven, Saeed Khan and Chella Ward. In this first episode Hizer and Chella interview Ambereen Dadabhoy, associate professor of literature at Harvey Mudd College, about her brand new book Shakespeare through Islamic Worlds (Routledge, 2024). In the process we discover Shakespeare’s secret Muslim characters, travel around an early modern Mediterranean that is nothing like the border of Europe we know today, and ask whether it is possible to talk about Islamophobia much earlier in history than its conventional beginnings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Ibrahim Fraihat’s latest book, Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is much more than an exploration of the history of animosity between Saudi Arabia and Iran and its debilitating impact on an already volatile Middle East. It is a detailed roadmap for management and resolution of what increasingly looks like an intractable conflict. Based on years of field research, Fraihat builds a framework that initially could help Saudi Arabia and Iran prevent their conflict from spinning out of control, create mechanisms for communication and travel down a road of confidence building that could create building blocks for a resolution. Fraihat’s book could not have been published at a more critical moment. A devastating coronavirus pandemic has hit both Saudi Arabia and Iran hard. So has the associated global economic breakdown and the collapse of oil markets. The double whammies constitute the most existential crisis the kingdom has faced in at least half a century. They hit Iran particularly hard as it labours under harsh US sanctions. Fraihat offers a roadmap that would allow Saudi Arabia and Iran to ultimately extricate themselves from costly proxy wars in Yemen, Syria and Libya. By providing a detailed roadmap, Fraihat’s book makes a major contribution not only to a vast literature of conflict in the Middle East but also to policymakers in Saudi Arabia and as well as would-be mediators.James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies