Though we conceptualize the political and the religious as distinct, in practice, they remain very intertwined, especially in many Muslim-majority countries. Understanding one is crucial in understanding the other. In the case of Muslim-majority countries,…
Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah’s justification for Islamic autocracy is far from a throwback to an imagined premodern world of Muslim scholars united with pious sultans, but rather, deeply indebted to the reformist idioms of Islamic…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
In recent years, Islamic Studies scholars and scholars who study Muslims have begun to use critical race theory – which was introduced by legal scholars to explain how white supremacy persisted despite the end of…