In late May 2021, with Gaza reeling in the wake of an extensive bombing campaign conducted by the Israeli military, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyah in Arabic, or “Hamas”) held a festival in…
Moral theology can be understood as the science of cultivating human virtue in relation to a recognized set of absolute, divine, or transcendent principles. Considered both theoretically and practically, the cultivated virtues are simultaneously a…
This post and that of Prof. Maria Dakake mark the official beginning of our respective but interrelated inquiries into contemporary Islamic moral theology. Over the course of the next two years, we will each facilitate…
“Traditional Islam is not the replication of the positions of the ancients; it is to seek what they sought”.[1] Introduction During my doctoral research, an ethnography of a Dār al-‘Ulūm (madrasa) in Britain, the notion…
Omar Farahat’s The Foundation of Norms in Islamic Theology and Jurisprudence is a great new addition to the field of Islamic legal studies and ethics. The book poses two broad questions: how can Divine revelation…
The Saudi reforms launched by Mohammed bin Salman (often referred to in media as MBS) have been underpinned by a fundamental ideological claim: that Saudi Arabia has turned the page on Wahhabi Islam, which having…
Militarism, Armed Opposition, and Self-distinction: Cases from across the Ummah
What Do We Owe to Others?: The Meaning of Muslim Communal Ethics in a Contemporary Context
Virtue Ethics and the Cultivation of the Moral Self
Putting a Rope on Tradition
[Book Review] The Foundation of Norms in Islamic Theology and Jurisprudence (Cambridge, 2019) by Omar Farahat | Reviewed by Alla Alaghbri
Reordering Saudi Religion: MBS is Defanging Wahhabism, not Dethroning it
The Saudi reforms launched by Mohammed bin Salman (often referred to in media as MBS) have been underpinned by a fundamental ideological claim: that Saudi Arabia has turned the page on Wahhabi Islam, which having…
Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim’s Child Custody in Islamic Law is an important and well-researched contribution to Islamic family law in general and to changes on the concept of child custody (hidâna) from the early modern to…
[Book Review] Tauseef Ahmad Parray, Recent Trends in Qur’anic Scholarship (New Delhi: Viva Books, 2020), xxxv + 304 pages. | Reviewed by Owais Manzoor Dar The Qur’anic studies is a rich academic sub-field of Islamic…
Introducing Transcendent God, Rational World: A Māturīdī Theology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021) In Islam, belief is a simple affair: at its heart is a commitment to the truth of the oneness of God and…
When I was speaking at the Jewish Museum of Berlin on the Story of Abraham’s/Ibrāhīm’s sacrifice in the Islamic tradition, a protestant minister on one of the panels stood up and passionately argued that Abraham/Ibrāhīm…
As the nascent field of English-language Islamic philosophy and theology grows, it has become popular to draw parallels between modern thought and classical kalām. Classical kalām is often distinguished from post-classical kalām historically and methodologically:…
In early February 2021, I heard of the passing of Dr. Malik Badri, a Sudanese Muslim psychologist who left an indelible mark on the field of Islamic psychology. The tributes that poured in represented what…
The Maydan Podcast is a production of The Maydan, with dedicated themes around Islamic Studies and related fields. Maydan is an online publication of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George…
Why do two people read the same text and arrive at different conclusions? What does it mean to follow scripture? What roles and limitations do scholars face when interpreting a text? What happens when scholarly…
Zahra Institute Launches Online Kurdish Studies Certificate Program, First of Its Kind in the United States Zahra Institute announced the launch of its Online Kurdish Studies Certificate Program. An interdisciplinary initiative, the eight-week certificate program…
