In Charles Taylor’s magnum opus, A Secular Age, he makes a series of wonderful distinctions about the pre-modern and modern worlds. Among these is the idea that modernity entails a loss of enchantment, a move…
Introduction Anyone who has been homeless can tell you it is not a place you want to be. The pangs of hunger, the cold, lonely nights roaming the street or countryside, the uncomfortable position of…
The Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies (AVACGIS) at George Mason University is organizing a webinar series that will explore the impact of Covid-19 on various dimensions of Muslim religious life in global…
The Covid-19 pandemic has been disruptive to all religious communities in the US, including American Muslims. What happens to the rituals of religion—Durkheim’s “eminently social phenomenon”—when the social is withdrawn from them? Believers find themselves…
In Indonesia, like elsewhere, Islam and Marxism have an historical relationship largely characterized by opposition. Notably, there was an historical moment during the late colonial and early independence eras when a tradition of Islamic communism…
While browsing through old journals we often encounter a name that repeats itself frequently enough to be noticed, yet buried away from the allure of the front page. Throughout many months and years, these semi-visible…
Enchantment, Orientalism, and Modern Mysticism
Why the Muslim World Matters: Building a Home with the Homeless
Covid-19 and Muslim Religiosity: an AVACGIS Webinar Series
Covid-19’s Impact on American Muslims: Notes from Ramadan 2020
A Place for Marxism in Traditionalist Fiqh: Engaging the Indonesian Thinker Muhammad Al-Fayyadl
The Importance of Being a Hajji: Muhamed Krpo and the Wonders of Pilgrimage
While browsing through old journals we often encounter a name that repeats itself frequently enough to be noticed, yet buried away from the allure of the front page. Throughout many months and years, these semi-visible…
Since January 2016, I’ve been conducting ethnographic research on the progressive Muslim community globally, both face to face in six North American groups and in three online groups. Some of this work, which I report…
Mohammed A. Bamyeh, Lifeworlds of Islam: The Pragmatics of a Religion (Oxford University Press, 2019). ISBN: 9780190280567. 256 pages. Hardcover: $65.00. | Reviewed by Ehsan Sheikholharam When asked to define their religion, Muslims tend to…
In the era of the Coronavirus, it would be prudent to look at other times of pandemics and how they impacted society and daily living. The so-called “Black Death” was one of the worst plagues…
Ottoman Sufis were often criticized for engaging in bidʿa or innovative interpretations of Islamic texts by their orthodox opponents, such as the Qāḍīzādeh ʿulamā’. In their writings, members of the Qāḍīzādeh ʿulamā’ subjected Sufi treatises…
M.A. Muqtedar Khan. Islam and Good Governance: A Political Philosophy of Ihsan. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).pp.279. $29.99 paperback. DOI : 10.1057/978-1-137-54832-0 The outbreak of the Arab Spring clearly demonstrated a need to reformulate…
Aydogan Kars. Unsaying God: Negative Theology in Medieval Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). 343 pages. $99.00. Unsaying God presents the first book-length study of negative theological strategies in Islamic thought, with a focus…
How do you engage with an ancient art form that continues to be practiced today? What does it mean for a contemporary artist to make use of sacred mathematical tools and techniques that are more…
The name Khan is trending. One Khan – Imran Khan – is now the PM of Pakistan, another, Sadiq Khan, is the Mayor of London, and in the US, Khizer Khan, a five star dad,…
The microscopically delicate floral and yellow gold designs demanded I draw so close as to almost breathe on them. As with the other fourteen tazhib (“illumination”) works in Behnaz Karjoo’s 2020 exhibit Immanence, “The Solace…
