New Books In Islamic Studies

How do peripheral places assert the centrality of their identity? Why are fanciful events, like dreams and myths, useful narrative elements for identity construction and arguments about authority, legitimacy, and rhetoric? In Authority and Identity in Medieval Islamic Historiography: Persian Histories from the Periphery (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Mimi Hanaoka, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Richmond, offers a broad and deep dive into the importance of events that never happened to Persianate locales seeking to center themselves within the Islamic world and the Islamic story.In our conversation, Mimi and I touch upon the appearance and nature of local histories, the important role of fiction and fantasy in constructing local identity, and a few of the more interesting stories she encountered in her research.Aaron Hagler is an assistant professor of history at Troy University.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Religion and empire are often intertwined. Regarding Muslims there are well known dynasties like the Umayyad, the Abbasid, the Fatimid, the Ottoman, and many others. But the empire governing the largest Muslim population was, of course, the British. In Imperial Muslims: Islam, Community and Authority in the Indian Ocean, 1839-1937 (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), Scott S. Reese, Professor at Northern Arizona University, explores the social effects of the British empire, and its attending conditions, on Muslims in the port city of Aden. In the the late 19th/ and early 20th centuries Aden was undergoing tremendous change, which was fostered by its valuable position within the empire. Muslims from both ends of the empire were making Aden their home. The diversity of the community and technological innovations shaped the everyday lives of Muslims. Reese explores Aden’s sacred landscape by investigating how space was produced and organized. He demonstrates how unseen entities affected the activities that these

Muhammad Qasim Zaman’s Islam in Pakistan: A History(Princeton University Press, 2018) is a landmark publication in the fields of Religious Studies, modern Islam, South Asian Islam, and by far the most important and monumental contribution to date in the study of Islam in Pakistan. This book takes the reader on an intellectual roller-coaster, that through mesmerizingly layered archival work, makes visible for the first time in the Euro-American academy the religious thought of a number of previously unknown yet extremely important actors, while thoroughly complicating conventional wisdom about a number of familiar religious and political actors. As has been the hallmark of Zaman’s previous scholarship that traverses early, medieval, and modern Islam, the main strength of Islam in Pakistan also lies in the way it seamlessly moves between the close and unexpected analyses of complex religious texts and the careful historicizing of the significance and ambiguities invested in those texts and in the careers of the

Since 2011, civil wars and state failure have wracked the Arab world, underlying the misalignment between national identity and political borders. In Break all the Borders: Separatism and the Resshaping of the Middle East (Oxford UP, 2019), Ariel I. Ahram examines the separatist movements that aimed to remake those borders and create new independent states. With detailed studies of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the federalists in eastern Libya, the southern resistance in Yemen, and Kurdish nationalist parties, Ahram explains how separatists captured territory and handled the tasks of rebel governance, including managing oil exports, electricity grids, and irrigation networks. Ahram emphasizes that the separatism arose not just as an opportunistic response to state collapse. Rather, separatists drew inspiration from the legacy of Woodrow Wilson and ideal of self-determination. They sought to reinstate political autonomy that had been lost during the early and mid-twentieth century. Speaking to the inter

In recent years, the concept of a ‘Cold War’ has been revived to describe the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two most influential states occupying positions of geopolitical importance in the Persian Gulf, who lay claim to leadership over the Islamic world. In the years after the 1979 revolution in Iran, the two states became embroiled in a rivalry that risked consuming the region, dividing it along religious lines. Although latent for a good number of years, the rivalry has erupted in Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, since the Second Gulf War. With devastating consequences in the region as a whole. As a consequence of its escalation, a number of scholars have begun to explore this increasingly fractious rivalry. The latest piece of work has been undertaken by the prolific Indian émigré journalist Dilip Hiro, a long-time expert on Near & Middle East politics and the author of a large number of books and opinion pieces on the topic, among others. In Cold War in the Islamic World: Saudi A

Islam in American has been profoundly shaped by the Black Muslim experience. However, Black Muslims are often marginalized both within their own religious communities and in public discourse about Muslim Americans. Su'ad Abdul Khabeer, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, attends to this erasure by centering Black Muslims to investigate the relationship between race, religion, and popular culture. In Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States (NYU Press, 2016) she offers a rich ethnography of Muslims in Chicago, many of whom are involved with the Inner-City Muslim Action Network. IMAN and members of its community regularly perform “Muslim Cool,” a blueprint for being Muslim in America that is steeped in Blackness. Abdul Khabeer’s research helps us understand how Black Muslims have shaped Islam in America in general despite intra-communal tensions around anti-Blackness. In our conversation we discuss new approaches to Hip Hop, the loop of Muslim Cool, opinions about music

You’ve heard them all before. “Religions are Belief Systems.” “Religion is a Private Matter.” “I'm spiritual but not religious.” Our culture is full of popular stereotypes about religion, both positive and negative. Many people uncritically assume that religion is intrinsically violent, or that religion makes people moral, or that it is simply “bullshit.” In Stereotyping Religion: Critiquing Clichés (Bloomsbury, 2017), edited by Brad Stoddard, Assistant Professor at McDaniel College, and Craig Martin, Associate Professor at St. Thomas Aquinas College, several clichés are understood within a social and historical context, which enables us to see how they are produced and what makes them effective. In our conversation we explore several of these stereotypes, what makes them possible and desirable for communities that reproduce and curate them, secularization theory, the role of atheism, liberal political discourse about religion, critical thinking, and how “Stereotyping Religion” works in the classroom.Kristian

Faith Ed: Teaching About Religion in an Age of Intolerance (Beacon Press, 2017) by Linda K. Wertheimer profiles the beauty and difficulty of teaching about religion in public schools. Teaching about religion in a public school in the United States is rewarding, but very difficult. It is not hyperbolic to say that one moment, everything is going fine and students are learning a lot and the next the class is on the news and steeped in controversy. Do an internet search using the term “Burkagate,” or look up the story of a Wellesley, Massachusetts 6th-grade class who visited a mosque on a field trip in Boston in 2010. In 2015, a school district in Virginia cancelled all classes in December 2015 after a controversy erupted from a teacher asking students to copy Arabic calligraphy which just happened to recite the Shahada, the Muslim statement of faith and one of the pillars of Islam. A Florida school district found itself mired in controversy over a guest speaker from the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CA

In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more democratic. How can publishers and authors contribute to this process? This podcast addresses this issue. We interview Professor Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, whose book, The Good Drone: How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance (forthcoming with MIT Press) is undergoing a Massive Online Peer-Review (MOPR) process, where everyone can make comments on his manuscript. Additionally, his book will be Open Access (OA) since the date of publication. We discuss with him how do MOPR and OA work, how he managed to combine both of them and how these initiatives can contribute to the democratization of knowledge. You can participate in the MOPR process of The Good Drone through this link: https://thegooddrone.pubpub.org/ Felipe G. Santos is a PhD candidate at the Central European University. His research is focused on how activists care for each other and how care practices w

Claire Pamment’s book Comic Performance in Pakistan: The Bhānd (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) is a fantastic new book centered on the Punjabi folk art of the Bhānd, or comic performance. Pamment explores the history and present of the Bhānd and Bhānd artists through a thoroughly interdisciplinary lens that engages performance studies, ethnography, history, and the study of Religion. In our conversation on this wonderful new book, we talked about the pre-colonial Islamicate and colonial history of the Bhānd, the way in which this genre complicates the boundaries of Hindu and Muslim folk art, the manner in which the bhānd has disturbed and unsettled class and gender hierarchies in Pakistan, the political work of the bhānd, and the bhānd in the era of satellite television. This lyrically written book on a long-running and hugely important tradition of Islamicate humor will interest much scholars of Islam, South Asia, Anthropology, and Performance Studies.SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at

Ian Johnson’s new book, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao (Pantheon, 2017),  was called "a masterpiece of observation and empathy" by The New York Review of Books, and The Economist, who included the book on its Best of 2017 list, said the book, "Shows how a resurgence of faith is quietly changing the country." The Guardian said the book is "full of moving encounters with Chinese citizens ... Johnson succeeds in having produced a nuanced group portrait of Chinese citizens striving for non-material answers in an era of frenetic materialism." I just finished the book myself and was stunning in its portrayals. If you hope to understand the trajectory of modern China, arguably the fastest-rising international superpower, understanding the religious Taoist, Christianity, folk religion, and Islam of China will be helpful, if not essential. A Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Ian Johnson is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New York Times; his work has also appeared in

In The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press 2018), Geraldine Heng collects a remarkable array of medieval approaches to race that show the breadth and depth of the kinds of racial thinking in medieval society. In creating a detailed impression of the medieval race-making that would be reconfigured into the biological racism of the modern era, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages reaches beyond medievalists and race-studies scholars to anyone interested in the long history of race. Throughout the study, Heng treats race-making as a repeating tendency to demarcate human beings through differences that are selectively essentialized as absolute and fundamental. Thus constituted, these categories are then used to guide the differential apportioning of power. Scholars working in critical race studies have clearly demonstrated that culture predisposes notions of race. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages reaffirms that insight by examining the era before

The study of Islam is often focused on subjects involved in legal debates or ritual practice. But our understanding of Muslims should also be informed by everyday practices found in the suburbs. In Suburban Islam (Oxford University Press, 2018), Justine Howe, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University, examines the social and spiritual contexts of Muslims living outside of Chicago. Her study focuses on a “third space” for American Islam, a community space called the Webb Foundation, and its membership. Muslim identity for many Webb members is shaped by shared ideals about consumer culture, leisure activities, parenting, and the construction of family life. The fluid and open nature of the community provides room for debate and discussion about gendered practices, racial and ethnic divisions within the Muslim community, or religious pluralism. In the growing body of scholarship on Muslims in America Suburban Islam adds a unique vantage point that greatly adds to our overall vis

Ahmad Atif Ahmad’s  Pitfalls of Scholarship: Lessons from Islamic Studies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) is a unique reflection on the field of Islamic studies. It is not quite a memoir, although it is reflective of Islamic studies, academia, and higher education in general. It is also not quite a book of theory, although it offers several deep readings of various figures in the Muslim intellectual canon. Rather, it is a collection of essays. Chapter 1, for example is a rumination the humanities and its place in the modern academy. Ahmad then goes on to  concept of academic frustration. He builds on this in the third chapter by examining the iconic Muslim intellectual al-Ghazali. The final chapter ties the wider world into the academy and considers themes of nationalism and democracy. In this interview, we talk to Ahmad about what it is to be a scholar in 21st-century America (and specifically a scholar of Islam in 21st-century America), the politics of the field, what it is to be bold in academia, 

Revival from Below: The Deoband Movement and Global Islam (University of California Press, 2018) by Brannon D. Ingram is a timely study of the Deoband movement from its inception in India to its transnational contemporary context in South Africa. Through careful analysis of historical textual discourses, Ingram carefully guides his readers through important polemics that manifested amongst the Deoband ‘ulama and its implications for Muslim publics and their performance of a “traditional” Islam. The study, then, goes onto highlight why and how the Deoband movement’s relationship to Sufism has been miscategorized and crucially situates the Deoband ‘ulama’s own complex relationship with Sufism, especially Sufi ethics and comportment. Overall, Ingram challenges his readers to think more carefully about Sufism in the 21st century. This book is a must read for those interested in Sufism, South Asian Islam, and global transnational Islam.Shobhana Xavier is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Queen’s University. He

In On the Mediterranean and the Nile: The Jews of Egypt (Indiana University Press, 2017),  Aimée Israel-Pelletier, Professor and Head of French at the University of Texas at Arlington, looks at the work of five Egyptian Jewish writers. She confronts issues of identity, exile, language, immigration, Arab nationalism, European colonialism, and discourse on the Holocaust. Israel-Pelletier's volume is a hugely important part of the project recovering and transmitting Egyptian Jewish life and thought.Max Kaiser is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. He can be reached at kaiser@student.unimelb.edu.au. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recent economic crises have made the centrality of debt, and the instability it creates, increasingly apparent. In Beyond Debt: Islamic Experiments in Global Finance (University of Chicago Press, 2018), anthropologist Daromir Rudnyckyj illustrates how the Malaysian state, led by the central bank, is seeking to make the country’s capital Kuala Lumpur the central node of global financial activity conducted in accordance with Islam. Beyond Debt tracks efforts to re-center international finance in an emergent Islamic global city and, ultimately, to challenge the very foundations of conventional finance.Daromir Rudnyckyj is Associate Professor of anthropology at the University of Victoria.Hillary Kaell co-hosts NBIR and is Associate Professor of Religion at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his groundbreaking new book, Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion, and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies (University of California Press, 2018), Jamal Elias takes his readers on a riveting intellectual tour thematically centered on the interaction of childhood, visual culture, and affect in contemporary Muslim majority societies, and in Muslim intellectual thought more broadly. Drawing on while also significantly extending and reworking recent theoretical explorations in the field of affect theory, Elias interrogates, with lucidity as well as with dazzling insight, the promises, aspirations, and tensions invested in childhood and the figure of the child in Muslim visual culture. Elias convincingly shows that not only is childhood itself a concept and construct fraught with ambiguity, but also that the mobilization of the ideal child through material and visual culture can take remarkably malleable forms and purposes. Alef is for Allah moves seamlessly between such varied contexts as Iran, Turkey, and Pa

George Mason University professor Ben Gatling’s debut book, Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikistan (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018), is a beautifully written ethnography exploring the lives, religious practice, and narratives of Sufi believers near Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Through close examination of historical narratives, nostalgia, material practice, ritual, and more, Ben shows how his interlocutors link their faith and their practice with the religious and expressive traditions of Central Asian Islam. The alternative temporalities and asynchronies present in these narratives provide persuasive counter-narratives to the Tajik state’s ideologies.  At the same time, he shows that reading these narratives “simply” as resistance is not accurate, but as a way of shaping their own experiences of the present.Timothy Thurston is Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds. His research examines language at the nexus of tradition and modernity in China’s Tibet.Learn more about your ad choices.

After years of being overlooked, there has been a growing interest among academic historians in the history of Turkish Guest Workers in West Germany. In her new book, Turkish Germans in the Federal Republic of Germany: Immigration, Space, and Belonging, 1961-1990 (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Sarah Thomsen Vierra examines the experience of Turkish immigrants in Berlin. Focused on social history, she synthesized evidence from oral histories, archives, memoirs, and newspapers. Building upon research from a dissertation that won the German Historical Institute’s Fritz Stern Prize, the book analyzes how the first and second generations of Turkish Germans created local spaces where they belonged despite feelings of disillusionment with nationalist xenophobia. It also includes much analysis about the role of women in the guest worker program and its aftermath. Thomsen’s book is essential for anyone interested in the modern history of European migration. Sarah Thomsen Vierra teaches at New England College.Mich