New Books in Islamic Studies

Shadaab Rahemtullah's book Qur'an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam (Oxford University Press, 2017) offers a compelling comparative analysis of the works of four Muslim scholars of Islam – Asghar Ali Engineer, Farid Esack, Amina Wadud, and Asma Barlas. The book serves as an excellent introduction to the works of these scholars and is complete with a clear, thorough, and rich analysis of the ways that they approach Islam's most important scripture as a liberating text to respond to various issues, such as poverty, patriarchy, racism, and inter-religious conflict. Qur'an of the Oppressed relies both on these scholars' written works and on Rahemtullah's in-depth interviews with them. Each chapter is dedicated to an individual scholar and begins with an introduction to their backgrounds with a discussion of the political, social, and other contexts that shape their respective scholarship; while deeply appreciative of their works, Rahemtullah also carefully addresses the drawbacks of their arguments and methodologies and offers correctives when useful. Qur'an of the Oppressed is an accessible text that can be assigned in undergraduate and graduate courses as well as read by non-specialists, including anyone with an interest in religion, gender, liberation theology, and especially in Islam; it will also be of interest to anyone looking to better understand the ways that modern religious communities interpret their scriptures as a source of liberation and justice.Shehnaz Haqqani is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Mercer University. Her primary research areas include Islam, gender, and questions of change and tradition in Islam. She can be reached at haqqani_s@mercer.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

The attacks on the luxurious Taj Hotel in Mumbai in 2008 put Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a jihadist terrorist group, in the international / Western spotlight for the first time, though they had been deadly active in India and Afghanistan for decades.In her book In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (Oxford University Press, 2018), Christine Fair reveals a little-known aspect of how LeT functions in Pakistan and beyond, by translating and commenting upon a range of publications produced and disseminated by Dar-ul-Andlus, the publishing wing of LeT.Only a fraction of LeT's cadres ever see battle: most of them are despatched on nation-wide "prozelytising" (dawa) missions to convert Pakistanis to their particular interpretation of Islam, in support of which LeT has developed a sophisticated propagandist literature. This canon of Islamist texts is the most popular and potent weapon in LeT's arsenal, and its scrutiny affords insights into how and who the group recruits; LeT's justification for jihad; its vision of itself in global and regional politics; the enemies LeT identifies and the allies it cultivates; and how and where it conducts its operations. Particular attention is paid to the role that LeT assigns to women by examining those writings which heap extravagant praise upon the mothers of aspirant jihadis, who bless their operations and martyrdom. It is only by understanding LeT's domestic functions as set out in these texts that one can begin to appreciate why Pakistan so fiercely supports it, despite mounting international pressure to disband the group.India and the United States are placed in extremely difficult positions with regard to Pakistan because of this.Christine Fair is a Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor in the Peace and Security Studies Program within Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

In her fascinating and remarkable new book Faithful Fighters: Identity and Power in the British Indian Army (Stanford University Press, 2019), Kate Imy explores the negotiation of religious identity, military service, and imperial power in the context of twentieth century British India. How were preconceived British imperial notions of religion and loyalty to the state attached to indigenous South Asian communities frustrated by the way Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, and Nepali Gurkha (Hindu and Buddhist) soldiers engaged the state and performed their political and religious identities as part of the British Indian army.Faithful Fighters is a powerful and brilliant meditation on the impossibility of modern colonial power to canonize religion and religious identity. The six chapters of this book examine a range of archives, themes, theaters, and actors including tensions surrounding the valorization of Sikh loyalty and controversies shadowing the Kirpān (sword), the cooptation of pan-Islamic sentiments for British imperialism, suspicions and sexual desires invested in the figure of the Pathan, Nepali Gurkhas, caste hierarchies, and rituals of purification, debates of food and religion in the military, projects of nationalism through military academies, and masculinity, fascism, and Hindu nationalism.This thoroughly researched and multidisciplinary book will attract and interest scholars from a range of fields including South Asian history, Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Military History, and Cultural Studies. Beautifully written, and populated with enticing narratives and images, it will also be a delight to teach in a variety of classes.SherAli Tareen is Associate 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 academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. 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

Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn't require tangibles, like rabbits or hats. Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy (MIT Press, 2020), Matt Cook and a few collaborators dive deeply into more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As each paradox is discussed and resolved, Cook helps readers discover the meaning of knowledge and the proper formation of concepts―and how reason can dispel the illusion of contradiction.The journey begins with “a most ingenious paradox” from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. Readers will then travel from Ancient Greece to cutting-edge laboratories, encounter infinity and its different sizes, and discover mathematical impossibilities inherent in elections. They will tackle conundrums in probability, induction, geometry, and game theory; perform “supertasks”; build apparent perpetual motion machines; meet twins living in different millennia; explore the strange quantum world―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

In his new book Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy (New York University Press, 2019), Edward E. Curtis IV interrogates the limitations of American liberalism in light of the states’ and its various actor’s exclusionary politics and rhetoric around Muslim American citizens. Curtis argues that the place of Muslim Americans in the narrative and praxis of American law, politics, rights discourse, and much are, must be questioned. To do so, the book examines various case studies of Muslim American institutions, figures, soldiers, and women who have navigated and negotiated their place within American democracy as citizens. For instance, the Nation of Islam (NOI) is one such case study explored in the book.Curtis considers how the NOI maintained certain forms of American liberalism (i.e., use of law and incurring of capital) while challenging others (i.e., racial and religious logics) as the movement developed. While Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) quintessentially models political dissent against American imperialism precisely because of his Islamic ethics and revolutionary politics. Both in and beyond his involvement in the NOI, Malcolm X’s politics was defined by global pan-African movements, as well as by revolutionary Muslim state leaders like Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nasser. Using various other such examples, from the ways in which Muslim American women’s bodies were used by the nation state to justify foreign policies and military interventions to the memorialization of fallen Muslim American soldiers by American politicians, Curtis provocatively challenges his readers to content with the exclusionary, problematic, and complex rhetoric of American liberalism’s treatment of Muslim Americans as second-class citizens and Muslim Americans’ responses to this injustice. The book is a must read for scholars interested in American Islam and politics, while chapters of the book can also be accessibly used in courses on contemporary Islam, American Islam, and religion and politics.Shobhana Xavier is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Queen’s University. Her research areas are on contemporary Sufism in North America and South Asia. She is the author of Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism (Bloombsury Press, 2018) and a co-author of Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture (Routledge, 2017). More details about her research and scholarship may be found on here and here. You can follow her on Twitter via @shobhanaxavier Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Ahmet T. Kuru’s new book Islam, Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment, A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019) is a ground-breaking history and analysis of the evolution of the state in Muslim countries. Thoroughly researched and accessibly written, Kuru’s work traces the template of the modern-day state in many Muslim-majority countries to fundamental political, social and economic changes in the 11th century. That was when Islamic scholars who until then had by and large refused to surrender their independence to the state were co-opted by Muslim rulers. It was a time when the merchant class lost its economic clout as the Muslim world moved from a mercantile to a feudal economy. Religious and other scholars were often themselves merchants or funded by merchants.The transition coincided with the rise of the military state legitimized by religious scholars who had little choice but to go into its employ. They helped the state develop a forced Sunni Muslim orthodoxy based on text rather than reason- or tradition based interpretation of Islam with the founding of madrassahs or religious seminaries that were designed to counter the rise of Shiite states in North Africa and counter less or unorthodox strands of the faith. Kuru’s history could hardly be more relevant. It lays bare the roots of modern-day, illiberal, authoritarian or autocratic states in the Muslim world that are characterized by some form of often rent-driven state capitalism and frequently expansionary in their effort to ensure regime survival and increase rents.These states feature education systems that fail to develop critical thinking and religious establishments that are subservient to their rulers. Kuru’s book also in effect describes one of the original sources of the civilizational state that has become a fixture in the struggle to shape a new world order. With his book, Kuru has made an invaluable contribution to the understanding of the stagnation as well as the turmoil that has swept the Middle East and North Africa as well as the wider Islamic world.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

Shoshana Keller’s new book, Russia and Central Asia: Coexistence, Conquest, Convergence (University of Toronto Press, 2019) provides an excellent introduction and overview of the history of Central Asia, from roughly the 14th century to the present. Focused on the territory of contemporary Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, this book offers a general narrative of Central Asian history (and Central Asian entanglements with Russia) for undergraduate students, Central Asian scholars, and interested readers.Nicholas Seay is a PhD candidate at The Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

In his dazzling new book The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali (University of Chicago Press, 2019), Spencer Dew treats his readers to a riveting and often counterintuitive account of the interaction of law, race, and citizenship in the discourses of the Moorish Science Temple and other movements inspired by Noble Drew Ali. How do theological visions of democracy serve as critiques of racism and exclusionary politics? In what ways does a notion of sovereignty as located in faith and outside history mobilize popular sovereignty to critique modern state sovereignty? What are the complicated mechanisms through which legal institutions, texts, and theaters are engaged and negotiated to make space for a notion of citizenship grounded in the entanglement of law, love, and social transformation? These are among the central questions that animate this sparkling study, situated at the intersection of legal studies, African American Religion, and American Islam. Lucidly composed, theoretically charged, and discursively playful, The Aliites is sure to transform the way we look at Noble Drew Ali and his profound and complex legacy. This book will also generate important and productive conversations in various undergraduate and graduate seminars on American Islam, American Religion, Political Studies, History, and Law.SherAli Tareen is Associate 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 academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. 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

“I am the Real,” is the ecstatic statement often associated with the early Sufi poet Mansur al-Hallaj. In popular narratives about Hallaj this declaration of absolute unity with God is what led to his execution in Abbasid Baghdad. Other accounts attribute it to Hallaj’s directive to build a symbolic Ka’ba in one’s home if they are not able to perform the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca. While Hallaj’s biographical details are often wrapped in myth what is clear is the polarizing position he played within the Islamic tradition. Hallaj wrote prodigiously but it was his poetry that drew particular reservations even among his peers.Carl W. Ernst, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina, makes this poetry available to the contemporary reader in his new volume of translations, Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr (Northwestern University Press, 2018). Ernst contextualizes Hallaj’s poetry within various intellectual and social contexts and renders them in clear beautiful language. While the poetry can be read on its own for its aesthetic value the volume overall helps us understand Hallaj’s complex system of thought through his own words. In our conversation we discuss the intellectual and social context of Hallaj’s Baghdad, his textual legacy, his feelings about the emerging Sufi practices and norms, how the poems’ original audiences encountered them, Hallaj’s metaphysics, sermons, riddles, and love poems, how to translate Arabic poetry, Louis Massignon, and the relationship between Rumi and Hallaj. You can hear more about Carl Ernst’s background and research in our previous conversation about his book How to Read the Qur'an: A New Guide, with Select Translations.Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Over decades, the Yoruba community of southwest Nigeria has thrived as an inter-religious community, balancing Christianity, Islam, and the ways of a modern and secular globalized world.In this episode, Dr. Adeyemi Balogun, from the University of Bayreuth in Germany, explores the fabric of the Yoruba society in terms of the founding and development of the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria, the impact of colonialism, and the transformation of Islam over the last 20 years. His discussion is based on his paper titled “‘When Knowledge is there, Other Things Follow’: The Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria and the Making of Yoruba Muslim Youths”, published in Brill’s Islamic Africa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies