New Books in Religion

Today I talked to Christopher Paul Clohessy about Half of My Heart: The Narratives of Zaynab, Daughter of Alî (Gorgias Press, 2020).As Abû ʿAbd Allâh al-Ḥusayn, son of ʿAlî and Fâṭima and grandson of Muḥammad, moved inexorably towards death on the field of Karbalâʾ, his sister Zaynab was drawn ever closer to the centre of the family of Muḥammad, the 'people of the house' (ahl al-bayt). There she would remain for a few historic days, challenging the wickedness of the Islamic leadership, defending the actions of her brother, initiating the commemorative rituals, protecting and nurturing the new Imâm, al-Ḥusayn's son ʿAlî b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlî b. Abî Ṭâlib, until he could take his rightful place. This is her story.Adam Bobeck received his PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Leipzig. His PhD was entitled “Object-Oriented ʿAzâdâri: Ontology and Ritual Theory”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Francesco Piraino’s Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism and the New Age (University of Edinburgh Press, 2024) is a vital contribution to the growing field of Sufism in the Global North which often encompasses studies of North America and western Europe. This monograph study, the first focused study of Sufism in Italy and France, uses ethnographic data and sociological analysis to map and situate various Sufi communities in Paris and Milan, along with transnational flows of these communities across Morocco, Algeria, and Cyprus. At the heart of these case studies is the question of how to approach and study Sufi communities across an ever diversifying social, religious/spiritual, and political landscape and across categorical commitments such as New Age, New Religious Movements, esotericism, diasporic Islam, Traditionalism and mysticism. Piraino argues for the limitations and utilities of these various categories, and ultimately helps us shift our focus to to the everyday embodied ebbs and flows of a variety of Italian and French Sufi communities to showcase how these terms should be used with fluidity to reflect the lived realities of his interlocutors. This book will be of interest to scholars of contemporary Sufism, sociology of Islam, contemporary Islam, Islam in Europe and much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

The Battle for Sabarimala: Religion, Law, and Gender in Contemporary India (Oxford UP, 2024) tells the story of one of contemporary India’s most contentious disputes: a long-running struggle over women’s access to the Hindu temple at Sabarimala. In 2018, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the temple, which had traditionally been forbidden to women aged ten to fifty because their presence offended the presiding deity, was required to open its doors to all Hindus. The decision in Indian Younger Lawyers Association rocked the nation: protests were launched around India and throughout the diaspora, a record-setting human chain called the ‘Women’s Wall’ was coordinated, and dozens of petitions were filed asking the Supreme Court to review, and potentially reverse, its landmark opinion. Perhaps most significantly, IYLA led the Court to openly reconsider the Essential Practices Doctrine that has been a mainstay of Indian religious freedom jurisprudence since 1954. In this first monograph-length study of the dispute, legal anthropologist Deepa Das Acevedo draws on ethnographic fieldwork, legal analysis, and media archives to tell a multifaceted narrative about the ‘ban on women’. Reaching as far back as the eighteenth century, when the relationship between temple deities and the government was transformed by an ambitious precolonial ruler, and coming up to the litigation delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Das Acevedo reveals the complexities of the dispute and the constitutional framework that defines it. That framework, Das Acevedo argues, reflects two distinct conceptions of religion-state relations, both of which have emerged at various stages in the—still unresolved—battle for Sabarimala. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Speaking with Professor Shalva Weil, one receives a glimpse into the wider world. Through her family ties, her personal journeys, and her research, she has gained, and shares, an understanding of the unique nature and histories of different groups. In this interview she shared the significance of a Jewish community that lasted less than 200 years but made an incredible impact whose reverberations can be felt to this day. Jewish life has existed on the Indian Peninsula for over 2,000 years by most accounts. Prof Weil is a leading scholar in the Bene Israel community of Baghdad, the Jewish communities of Cochin, as well as this more recent community of Baghdadi Jews in India. The Baghdadi Jews in India: Maintaining Communities, Negotiating Identities and Creating Super-Diversity (Routledge, 2021) is an anthology of scholars reviewed by Prof Weil to allow us a glimpse into the unique nature and interactions of Baghdadi Jews in India. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

A question has long hung over the the United States regarding the proper role of religion in public life. Those who long for a Christian America claim that the Founders intended a nation with political values and institutions shaped by Christianity. Secularists argue that those same Founders designed an enlightened republic where church and state should be kept separate. American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order (Yale UP, 2024), Jerome E. Copulsky examines the Americans who rejected the secularism of American society, predicted the collapse of the nation, and hoped to develop a new and decidedly Christian commonwealth. By reviewing extreme religious dissent from colonial times through the current age, Copulsky shows how these thinkers opposed the American orthodoxy of pluralist democracy on theological grounds. Their views are diametrically opposed to the idea of America as a place where multiple sects and creeds peacefully coexist. Each chapter explains a different strain of heresy, beginning with loyal Anglicans who opposed the American Revolution and ending with current National Conservatives who embrace illiberal populism in an effort to enact their vision of a Christian America.Author recommended reading: The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy by Matthew D. TaylorHosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, an expert in Desert Ascetics and monastic life, dives deep into the rich tapestry of early Christianity in Egypt. She uncovers the communal nature of desert ascetics who relied on a network of visitors rather than solitary existence. The discussion includes the balanced teachings of Antony the Great and the complexities of monastic life revealed through tax records and letters. Hedstrom also touches on the surprising luxury in ascetics’ lives and their unique sleep practices, shedding light on the intricate dynamics of these spiritual communities.

It is well-known that the institution of marriage has changed dramatically in the past few decades. However, very little research has focused on the role of religious institutions in helping couples form and maintain their relationships.Guiding God's Marriage: Faith and Social Change in Premarital Counseling (NYU Press, 2024) by Dr. Courtney Irby offers an examination of Christian marriage preparation programs, exploring their efforts to stabilise the institution of marriage and highlighting the tension between individualism and community in people’s relational lives. Marriage preparation programs offer a useful lens through which to trace shifts in both religious and family institutions because they set out clear and intentional articulations of marriage ideologies and gendered relationship scripts by faith communities. By documenting the changes in content and practices of Christian premarital education along with its advice regarding what makes a good marriage, the book charts the ways that religious communities have been transformed by and have helped to contribute to the individualization of faith and relationships.Featuring archival research as well as first hand observations of four marriage preparation courses—two Protestant and two Catholic—along with seventy interviews with participating couples and leaders of these and other programs, the book offers a rare view of visions about how to realise a successful and faith-filled relationship. This examination of marriage classes offers key insight into how religious communities have responded to cultural changes in marriage, gender, sexuality, and intimacy.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Michael C. Baltutis, an expert on Hinduism, discusses his new book, which demystifies the diverse and complex religious tradition. He shares insights from his travels in India and Nepal, illustrating how personal experience informs academic understanding. The conversation covers the roles of influential figures like Swami Narayan and Amma, and details the cultural significance of cows within Hindu practices. Baltutis also highlights the challenges and opportunities in teaching Hinduism, making it accessible for students navigating this multifaceted faith.

In their book Women, Households, and the Hereafter in the Qur’an: A Patronage of Piety (Oxford UP/Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2024), Karen Bauer and Feras Hamza make a compelling and thought-provoking argument about the role of everyday life in the Qur’an. They aptly demonstrate that the idea of households and women is integral to the salvific message of the Qur’an, to the Qur’an’s understanding of piety and morality, and to Islamic theology. By doing this, the book also makes an important case for the limitations of applying modern ideals and frameworks to the Qur’an, given the 7th century context that sets the stage for the social structures in the text. For instance, the social arrangement of the 7th century community, of the broader society, was reciprocal and inherently set up certain people to be disadvantaged. But that set-up necessitated a focus on piety and morality that would ensure that the privileged protect the marginalized. Yet, the equality component is significant: as Feras Hamza explains in this interview, in the patronage of piety, currency is piety “and the payout is the reward in the afterlife, and once the currency is piety, not material, then everyone can participate.” In other words, since piety is available to everyone, it becomes emancipatory for everyone.What’s unique about this book isn’t simply that the authors make discoveries about the Qur’an’s transformative and emancipatory message about people and communities who are marginalized and vulnerable, which many other scholars have already highlighted; but the main contribution of this book is the way that it shows the equal moral agency of women and men by narrating the developmental story of the Qur’an. Women aren’t simply a separate subject, aside from the Qur’an, but are integral to the developmental story of the Qur’an. For instance, the authors highlight some of the major developments from the early to later Meccan surahs, where women become pious subjects in their own right, to early and later Medinan surahs, where women’s moral agency comes to its fruition, as seen in linguistics shifts. This idea of the developmental narrative of the Qur’an is a key point in the book and in the interview: Bauer and Hamza consistently show that the moral thread of the Qur’an stays the same, which is that life is a moral test, but its specifics change, evolving from being less nuanced in early Meccan surahs to more so in Medinan ones. Women are related to the theology, to Muhammad, to morality, to ethics, to law. As the authors point out, the Qur’an’s purpose of including so many verses on marriage and women is that these issues are clearly connected to larger questions of morality and especially moral agency. The subject of women and the everyday life therefore cannot be isolated from these other categories. The Qur’an is all daily life, and daily life is connected to the hereafter.In this interview, we discuss dissonances between the tradition and the Qur’an and the harms of taking Qur’anic verses in isolation. The authors explain why they believe that households and daily life haven’t really been associated with Qur’anic piety and the sacred realm in the study of the Qur’an before. They discuss in detail the idea of the developmental narrative that emerges from their study. We end with the authors’ idea that, to quote them, “women’s agency did not undermine the Qur’anic patriarchy but was constructed from within it” (p 359), as they explain what this might mean for our world today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Nāgārjuna (c. 150-250), founder of the Madhyamaka or Middle Way school of Buddhist philosophy and the most influential of all Buddhist thinkers aside from the Buddha himself, concludes his masterpiece, Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, with these baffling verses:For the abandonment of all viewsHe taught the true teachingBy means of compassionI salute him, GautamaBut how could anyone possibly abandon all views? In Buddhism Between Religion and Philosophy: Nāgārjuna and the Ethics of Emptiness (Oxford UP, 2024), Rafal K. Stepien shows not only how Nāgārjuna's radical teaching of no-view or “abelief” makes sense within his Buddhist philosophy, but also how it stands at the summit of his religious mission to care for all living beings. Rather than treating any one aspect of Nāgārjuna's ideas in isolation, here his metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics emerge as a single coherent and convincing philosophical-religious system of thought and practice.Grounded in meticulous study of original texts from classical India and China but innovating on the theories and methods underpinning contemporary scholarship East and West, this study shows how profoundly important voices from the diverse religious and philosophical traditions of the world have until now been diminished, distorted, and silenced. In opening up truly global horizons of existing and co-existing in the world, this work challenges the very ways in which we think about religion and philosophy.* Elucidates Nāgārjuna's thought in its Buddhist context, integrating his views on belief and intention, language and mind, action and attachment, selfhood and suffering, violence and peace, emptiness and Buddhahood* Presents a trenchant critique of the Christian and Western assumptions still dominating the study of religion and philosophy today* Introduces and clarifies ideas of pivotal importance to the history of Buddhist thought in India, Tibet, China, and JapanReaders may also find a related edited volume equally fascinating, Buddhist Literature as Philosophy and Buddhist Philosophy as LiteratureProf. Rafal Stepien is also leading a collaborative project, " The Ethics of Empty Beliefs: Chinese Buddhist Philosophy in the ‘Period of Disunity’" that has openings for postdocs and will host several workshops on studies of Sanlun and its influences in Sinophone spheres.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion