Muslim History Research Articles

Admiration and Awe: Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography by Antonio Urquízar-Herrera

Reviewed by: Admiration and Awe: Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography by Antonio Urquízar-Herrera Katherine Van Liere Antonio Urquízar-Herrera. Admiration and Awe: Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography OXFORD UP, 2017. 305 PP. CHRISTIAN SPAIN HAS LONG BEEN AMBIVALENT about its Muslim heritage. After the 1492 defeat of the last Muslim polity on the Peninsula, two conflicting impulses could be found in Spanish Christian culture. On the one hand, an official historiography, rooted in medieval chroniclers and expanded by Renaissance humanist writers, treated the seven centuries of Muslim rule and Christian–Muslim coexistence on the Peninsula as a cultural, political, and religious aberration and rejoiced that the Catholic monarchs' victory over Muslim Granada had ended the contaminating effects of Arab and Muslim culture, especially, though not only, in religious life. Aided by the humanist tradition that celebrated and often magnified classical origins, the received narrative in Habsburg Spain told of a Roman and Christian Hispania, rudely but temporarily interrupted by the violent Arab invasion. This written history was enhanced by a host of "miraculous finds" of artificial Christian relics from the pre-Muslim era that have been much studied of late. On the other hand, a persistent tradition of maurophilia in Christian Spain kept alive positive memories of Morisco culture, albeit in circumscribed contexts. Maurophilia's best-known incarnation is the literary tradition, stretching from medieval romanceros to Cervantes and beyond, that celebrated good-hearted and chivalrous Moors; this has been studied extensively by literary scholars since Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo in the nineteenth century. Barbara Fuchs's Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain (U of Pennsylvania P, 2009) highlighted a much more tangible dimension of maurophilia: a "moorish habitus" that survived in architecture, clothing, and everyday practices such as cuisine and horsemanship. Fuchs characterized this enduring embrace of morisco culture as a largely nonliterary phenomenon and one at odds with the official stance of the Catholic Church. She contrasted the fondness for mudéjar architecture and domesticity, seen especially among the laity and the nobility, with the [End Page 179] "official histories" written by ultraorthodox Spanish clergy who she alleges wrote Muslim history and Morisco culture out of the Spanish national story altogether. Citing passages from the chronicler Hernando de Pulgar and the Jesuit historian Juan de Mariana about the ephemerality of monuments, she suggested that most historians ignored the physical vestiges of the Muslim past in favor of idealized narratives of an eternally Christian Spain. Antonio Urquízar-Herrera's Admiration and Awe demonstrates the falsity of any simplistic picture of maurophilia and maurophobia as representing different segments of the Christian Spanish population. Urquízar-Herrera's main subject is the attitudes of Spain's sixteenth-century humanist historians, many of whom were churchmen, toward the physical remains of al-Andalus. He documents exhaustively that these authors wrote a good deal about the architectural remains of al-Andalus, often professing admiration for them, as exemplified by the book's title, a comment on the great mosque of Cordoba made by Ambrosio de Morales in his Antiquities of the Cities of Spain (1575). But the attitude of these antiquarians, chorographers, and civic historians was also fraught with "contradictions and complexities" (218), which UrquízarHerrera carefully examines in his ten chapters. In part 1, Urquízar-Herrera begins, appropriately, with three chapters of medieval background, both architectural and historiographical. He highlights the prevalence of the theme of "Spain's ruination" in medieval chroniclers, which ensured that "the notion of Islamic destructiveness was a good as etched into the DNA of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century historiographical thought in Spain" (35). In this near-ubiquitous paradigm, Muslims were violent conquerors who, with savagery comparable to the Visigoths before them, had vindictively destroyed buildings—perhaps even for the explicit purpose of destroying sites of historical memory. This justified the treatment of conquered Muslim palaces and mosques in one of two ways: either complete destruction as vestiges of unworthy culture that was best forgotten, or preservation as "symbolic war trophies" that could be converted to Christian use while reminding viewers of the Christian victory over Islam. Throughout...

Reclaiming the Mosque

The most famous Ḥadīth collection, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, records ‘Umar, theSecond Caliph, to have said, “We did not value women as anything duringthe ‘period of ignorance’ until Islam came and started mentioning them,because of which we took into consideration their rights upon us” (ḤadīthNo. 5505). This narration, along with a multitude of other Qur’anic injunctionsand Prophetic sayings, plus the practice of the Prophetic era, makes it clear that Islam elevates the status of women, encourages (indeed ensures)their participation in the society, and makes them the vibrant contributorsalongside men. But, ironically, in the subsequent periods of Muslim history,the jurisdiction of women in Muslim societies was reduced to the confinesof the household, depriving them of active social participation. While thereis no denying that some external political factors and cultural influences ledto this situation, the ‘religious’/ ‘Islamic’ overtone given to this non-Islamicdiscrimination against women is most unfortunate ...

L'histoire sacrée de l'Islam dans la fiction maghrébine by Hanan Elsayed

Reviewed by: L'histoire sacrée de l'Islam dans la fiction maghrébine by Hanan Elsayed Touria Khannous Hanan Elsayed. L'histoire sacrée de l'Islam dans la fiction maghrébine. Paris: karthala, 2016. Pp. 180. Hanan Elsayed's book L'histoire sacrée de l'Islam dans la fiction maghrébine analyzes four key Francophone novels and shows how each text draws on diverse religious, historical, and philosophical sources and legacies to prefigure the authors' own imaginative perception of the early Islamic period. These narratives, written by Assia Djebar, Anissa Boumediene, Driss Chraibi, and Salim Bachi, reimagine early Islam as they reinterpret and reread original Islamic sources. The book examines how these authors translate early Islamic texts into new kinds of readings that unsettle hierarchies, reimagine the Muslim tradition to make it more embedded in contemporary local settings, and position fictions at the center of history. Elsayed argues that while all these texts challenge original sources, they at the same time highlight the authors' degree of familiarity and partiality in their thematic and stylistic choices. The first chapter examines representations of early Islam in three narratives, notably the Islamiyyat, a multi-authored corpus produced in Egypt during the 1930s in order to challenge the misrepresentation of Islam in colonial discourse. Chapter Two examines Djebar's reading of the original sources of Islam in her novel Loin de Médine. Elsayed argues that it is ironic that Djebar relies on an interlocutor and attempts to recover the voices of women, while overlooking the figures of women in these sources themselves. Chapter Three centers on Anissa Boumediene's La fin d'un monde, questioning the accuracy of its historical sources, as well as the novel's recreation of the rule of the third caliph othman. what is remarkable is Elsayed's allegorical reading of the novel's reconstruction of othman's rule. Elsayed argues that the civil wars of early Islamic history are an allegorical representation of the civil war that engulfed Algeria in the late 1990s. Chapter Four examines Driss Chraibi's novel L'homme du livre, which takes place in the twenty-four-hour period prior to the angel Gabriel's revelation of the Quran to the prophet Muhammad. The revelation begins, as Elsayed notes, with the command to read, to which the Prophet responds that he cannot read. Elsayed's astute reading of the influence of Sufism on Chraibi's interpretation of the act of reading as a movement from the letter to the essence of meaning is commendable. Chapter Five focuses on Salim Bachi's novel Le silence de Mahomet, which draws upon four distinct narrative voices corresponding to historical figures from early Islamic history. Elsayed questions the reliability of the novel's sources, as well as the prejudices of its author. In L'histoire sacrée de l'Islam, Hanan Elsayed cogently analyzes important narratives from the Maghreb and beyond in a rare and timely study that explores representations of early Muslim history in texts shaped by a diversity of sources. The author's compelling presentation of a broader historical and political context sheds light on these texts' diversity of themes, voices, and generic forms, and she challenges their omissions, prejudices, and misrepresentations in a way that makes this book pertinent for a wide audience. Her contribution is a significant one, providing an important framework for further work on Islam and Francophone Maghrebin narratives. Touria Khannous Louisiana State University Copyright © 2018 L'Esprit Créateur

LEARNING QUR'AN HADITS IN MADRASAH IBTIDAIYAH WITH MULTIDISCIPLINARY INTEGRATIVE APPROACH

<p align="center"><em>This study discusses the study of Qur'an Hadith in Madrasah Ibtidaiyah with Multidisciplinary Integrative Approach. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze the subjects of Al-Qur'an and Hadith in Madrasah Ibtidaiyah in the context of the Curriculum 2013, describing what is the theme of hadith in Madrasah Ibtidaiyah in the context of the 2013 curriculum and offers a model of Qur'an Hadith learning in MI. The research method used is qualitative approach with analytical descriptive method. The results suggest that the Qur'an and Hadith Subjects in the context of the 2013 Curriculum in Madrasah Ibtidaiyah not only emphasize the knowledge and spiritual aspects (Core Competencies 3 and 1), but further emphasizes the behavioral aspect as a manifestation of knowledge and spirituality contained in the Qur'an and Hadith that conditioned the birth of social attitudes (social intelligence), or often called the Core Competence. The themes of hadith in classes 1 and 2 of MI are Hadiths concerning the hygiene of Muslim history from Abu Malik al-Ash'ari, the Hadith about the superiority of the Qur'anic study of Bukhari's history of Uthman ibn Affan and Hadith on respect to Tirmizi's parents from Abdullah bin Umar. The learning model that can be used is by integrative multidispliner approach with subjects of civic and Indonesian education with storytelling method, field trip and video.</em></p>

Book Review: Asma Afsaruddin, The First Muslims History and Memory (Oxford: Oneworld Publication, 2011) pp. xx + 254. Paperback: $19.95

This is one of remarkably few recent books devoted to the Islamic theoretical conversation of constitutional law, by considering the genesis of polity within the Muslim community through historical, political, theological, and legal perspectives. The book provides the contentious concept of jihad and Islamic state which is perceived as the early Muslims’ legacy in this contemporary world. Specifically, it opens a window into the way of understanding the Muslim history by contesting Muhammad’s tolerant polity and the current extremism notion attached to Islam. Beginning the chapter, Asma Afsaruddin, an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, presents an account of the dawn of Islam brought by the Prophet Muhammad. She takes the lifetime of Muhammad into an account of how the early Muslim community would be shaped from the age of ignorance (Al-Jahiliyya). The term Al-Jahiliyya refers to the time of recklessness and disregard for certain moral, spiritual, and social values revered by Muslims and other righteous people (p. 3).

Islam Kontemporer: Antara Reformasi Dan Revolusi Peradaban

The 19th and 20th centuries were periods for main transformation in Muslim history: periods of degradation and conquest, independence and revolution, renaissance and reform. Toward the 19th century, world power moved from Muslim world to Europe. It was remarked by emerging power of British, France, Spain, Russia, Netherlands, Italy and Portuguese. They dominated Muslim societies in Asia, Africa, and Middle East in economic, military, politic and ideological aspects. Muslim societies’ responses to Europe domination were diverse from rejection and confrontation to emigration and non-cooperative attitudes of traditional Muslim. They planned reform, reconstructed Islamic thinking and beliefs, reformed theology and Islamic law, and emphasized Muslim’s self-esteem significance, unity and solidarity in facing cultural threats and Europe colonialism. However, not few secular Muslims and reformers, were proud and greatly imitated Europe civilization and cultures. They did secularization that ended khalifah system in order to reconstruct Muslim societies.

Agents of Change: How Islamist Women Activists in Israel Are Challenging the Status Quo

From the public profile and media reporting on the Islamic Movement in Israel (al-Ḥaraka al-islāmiyya fī Isrā’īl), the impression given is that this movement is run by men, and that women are, if visible, in the background. However, when looking behind the façade it becomes clear that women are not only active, but are at the forefront of Islamist activism, spearheading change in their community. In their organizations for women, and through informal channels, they educate women, and indirectly men, about the role and position of women in Islam. Their activism also contributes to creating awareness about their Palestinian Arab Muslim history and predicament, thus also empowering women vis-à-vis Israeli domination. The women interviewed for this article all studied or study at Israeli universities, and as educated women they are reshaping the ideal of the traditional Muslim mother into that of a Muslim professional working mother. Based on the logic behind and content of their Islamist activism, the present article argues that these women are agents of change who contest the traditional ideal and practical role of Muslim Palestinian women in Israel. They are challenging patriarchal traditions and domination in their community through their Islamist activism; however, this frame simultaneously produces limitations to their opposition.

Book review: A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East

Book review: A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East

Analysis of the Role of World Trade in the Cultural Evolution of Mecca (Fifth to Sixth Century AD)

One of the topics of the studies on the pre-Islamic history includes the reasons and the trend of development of the culture of ignorance in Hejaz, especially in Mecca, as the center of the Abrahamic religion. Muslim historians’ accounts of this evolution are mainly the product of the analysis of events and interpretation of Quran verses rather than the stories and myths that reflect the method of this evolution. The present research, which was carried out based on references and textbooks using the descriptive and analytical method, aimed to explain the reason and the method of rejection of Islam by the habitants of Mecca in spite of their long history of worshiping Allah and believing in the values of the Hanif religion. According to the research findings, ignorance does not seem to have been an intellectual leap or depression influenced by regional changes. It has been rather driven by international changes, especially the growth of world trade, which has turned Arabia into an isolated safe country in charge of the relationship between eastern and western trade centers. This new role has played down monotheistic values by stressing new values.

Searching for Refuge: Challenges in the Contemporary Muslim World

Searching for Refuge: Challenges in the Contemporary Muslim World Muhammad Shafiq Western industrialization followed by the colonization of most of the Muslim world confronted the Muslim community with a new political and identity crisis that they are still struggling with. The ethnic and nationalist movements against colonizing in the early part of the twentieth century resulted in ethnic nation‐states with conflicting views. Today many Muslims are living in a sort of nostalgia between the ideal past and the reality of the present. Ethnic disputes, economic disequilibrium, corruption, and political instabilities along with Western vested political and economic interests are sinking many of the Muslim‐majority countries into the dark ages of oppression. This article aims at analyzing some of the Qur'anic verses about hijrah (seeking refuge), tracing the issue of refuge in Muslim history with focus on medieval terminologies of dar al harb (abode of warfare) and dar al Islam (abode of peace), and ending with contemporary challenges in the Muslim‐majority countries which force Muslims to search refuge. Hijrah in the Qur'an The Qur'an emphasizes to search for refuge, a new home, when living in a country of birth becomes terrible. The Qur'an stands for freedom of worship, protection of human rights, and human dignity. The Qur'an says: And he who forsakes the domain of evil for the sake of God shall find on earth many a lonely road, as well as life abundant. And if anyone leaves his home, fleeing from evil unto God and His Apostle, and then death overtakes him—his reward is ready with God: for God is indeed much‐forgiving, a dispenser of grace. (Surah 4:100) Another verse emphasizes: Behold, those whom the angels gather in death while they are still sinning against themselves, [the angels] will ask, “What was wrong with you?” They will answer: “We were too weak on earth.” [The angels] will say: “Was, then, God's earth not wide enough for you to forsake the domain of evil?” For such, then, the goal is hell—and how evil a journey's end! (Surah 4:97) These and other such verses relate to the period when Muhammad and his companions sought refuge in Madinah. However, the early Muslim history records that even before his migration to Madinah, Prophet Muhammad had asked his companions to seek refuge in Ethiopia, a Christian country at that time, from the persecution of the Meccans (Makkah) (Brown , 76). The Muslim calendar did not begin from the birthday of the Prophet, or his death day, or the day God appointed him to be the messenger. Instead, it started from his migration (hijrah) to Madinah. Hijrah in Islam stands for freedom from oppression, strength from weakness, and protection of human rights. Hijrah is like Exodus in the Bible, which stands for spiritual purity along with liberty and freedom from oppression. Most of the Qur'anic verses about hijrah are about the migration to Madinah. Finding a new home at Madinah, the Qur'an asked Muslims who stayed behind in Makkah to migrate to Madinah: BEHOLD, as for those who have attained to faith, and who have forsaken the domain of evil and are striving hard, with their possessions and their lives, in God's cause, as well as those who shelter and succor [them]—these are [truly] the friends and protectors of one another. But as for those who have come to believe without having migrated [to your country]—you are in no wise responsible for their protection until such a time as they migrate [to you]. Yet, if they ask you for succor against religious persecution, it is your duty to give [them] this succor‐except against a people between whom and yourselves there is a covenant: for God sees all that you do. (Surah 8:72) The Qur'an praises the Muhajirun (the migrants) and those who shelter them (Al‐Ansar) with abundance of rewards: And as for the first and foremost of those who have forsaken the domain of evil and of those who have sheltered and scoured the Faith, as well as those who follow them in [the way of] righteousness—God is well‐pleased with them...

Editorial: A twenty‐first century scourge: Introducing the special issue on Islamophobia

Editorial: A twenty‐first century scourge: Introducing the special issue on Islamophobia

West African ʿulamāʾ and Salafism in Mecca and Medina: Jawāb al-Ifrīqī—The Response of the African

West African ʿulamāʾ and Salafism in Mecca and Medina: Jawāb al-Ifrīqī—The Response of the African

علوم حدیث پر برصغیر کی اردو کتب کا تعارفی و تجزیاتی مطالعہ(1905ء تا عصرحاضر)

The Hadith were account usually brief of the words and actions of the beloved Prophet,[May Allah Bless him and grant him peace]. As Such, they were subjected to intense security by generations of Muslim Scholars. The Principles to authenticate and document this literature along with it peculiar terminology called Usool-e-Hadith.This unique Science is a historic achievement of early Muslim scholars, having and history of centuries contributing to its evolution. In the opinion of the Late 'Allama Rashid Rida of Egypt,"The Indian Muslims are playing the leading role in the diffusion and dissemination of Hadith learning in the world to-day. As a matter of fact, according to him, but for the painstaking labour of the Indian Muslims towards the cultivation of the science of al-Hadith, it would have well nigh died down." A number of Scholars in the Indo-Pak sub-continent have produced an extensive work on the subject in Urdu language as well, during last century. My Research work focuses on analytical study of the same books on Usool-e-Hadith.

From 1917 to 1937: The Muftī, the Turkologist, and Stalin’s Terror

The Tatar religious scholar Rizaeddin Fakhreddinov (1859-1936) is well-known as a Jadīd publicist and historian, but his time as qāḍī and muftī of Soviet Russia (1918-36) is still unexplored. Muftī Fakhreddinov witnessed the Bolsheviks’ gradual elimination of all Islamic community life. In 1935 he considered saving his personal archive from de­­struction by transferring it to the Institute of Oriental Studies in Leningrad, the director of which, Turkologist Aleksandr N. Samoilovich (1880-1938), enjoyed his trust. But Fakhreddinov passed away in 1936, and in 1937 the NKVD constructed a group case against Muslim historians and philologists into which Samoilovich and Fakhreddinov’s sons were also drawn. After Stalin’s death in 1953, the “rehabilitation” of these victims of state terror was slow and selective, and scholarship on Islam in Russia was severely crippled. Only the late 1980s and the 1990s brought a window of opportunity for revisiting the Bolsheviks’ destruction of the secular and Islamic elites.

A Delicate Mosaic: The Future of Muslims in Canada

Islam has had a long and, recently, contested history in Canada. Studies after 9/11 show an increasingly negative view towards Islam and Muslims in Canada. Supposed clashes between Islam and the West, the advent of Canadian Muslim diaspora with an increase in Muslim immigration after World War II, and the rise of Islamophobia and counter anti-Islamophobia movements have strained Muslim integration efforts and challenged Islam's place in Canadian society, testing long-standing Canadian values and beliefs about multiculturalism, democracy and pluralism. This paper addresses the question of Canadian-Muslim integration, looking briefly at the history of Muslims in Canada, the issues they face, and some recent events including Bill 94 and the niqab debate to examine the state of Muslim Canadian integration in Canada today. The paper also proposes a process where Muslim communities, the Canadian government and the public can work together to build understanding and resolve differences in order to move forward as a country.

Material Evidence and Narrative Sources: Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of the Muslim Middle East Edited by Daniella Talmon-Heller and Katia Cytryn-Silverman

Material Evidence and Narrative Sources: Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of the Muslim Middle East Edited by Daniella Talmon-Heller and Katia Cytryn-Silverman

Causes of Downfall of Umayyad Caliphate

Dynasty that ruled the Islamic caliphate from the death of the fourth Sunni caliph Hazrat Ali, in 661 until 750. Its founder was Ameer-Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan of the Meccan clan of Umayyah. By the time of Muawiyah's death in 680, he had established Damascus as the capital and a system of administration for the caliphate that gave it a degree of stability. A later caliph, Abd al-Malik, strengthened the organization of the empire, making Arabic the official language of government and replacing Byzantine and Sassanian coinage with coins with Arabic inscriptions. At times tribal rivalries threatened the unity of the empire. The dynasty was responsible for the expansion of the Islamic state westward through North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. In 711 the Umayyads crossed into the Iberian peninsula and rapidly conquered most of it, establishing a forward base in southern France. They were defeated between Tours and Poitiers in 732 by Charles Martel, halting the expansion of Islam into western Europe. In the East, they moved from Iran into Central Asia and northwest India. Little progress was made in the North due to the strength of the Byzantine Empire. The Umayyads’ great expansion was primarily military and political, not religious; conversion to Islam was discouraged for some time since it would reduce the treasury's intake of taxes on non-Muslims. Its armies were originally exclusively Arab and Muslim, but clients were ultimately included, mostly of Iranian and Berber origin. Later Muslim historians accused the Umayyads of transforming the Islamic state into an Arab kingdom. The Umayyads did rely largely on the traditional political ideas of Arabs, but they also claimed to be upholders of Islam. Overthrown by Abbasids in 750.

Subversive Maryam or a Qur'anic View on Women's Empowerment

Subversive Maryam or a Qur'anic View on Women's Empowerment Johanna Marie Buisson Introduction When considering the history of the religions of the Book, Maryam is at the center; in that respect, her position is pivotal and around her revolves most controversies between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. As a Jewish woman of the 1st century BC, she was born to bring forth radical change within the Jewish community of Jerusalem, and at the same time, she enabled cultural and religious transition into Christianity. She was brought up in the Temple of Jerusalem among Jewish priests, she was therefore dedicated to God's service, knowledgeable, and particularly well educated within Judaism, and still, she broke the Jewish rule of gender segregation and she later became the mother of the Prophet of Christianity, recurrently called Ibnu Maryama in the Qur'an, to emphasize their kinship. In early Muslim history, Maryam was also set forth as a powerful figure of unity between Christian and Muslim faiths, as the episode of the migration to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia shows, when Muslims were persecuted in Mecca and sought the Negus’ protection. Verses on Maryam were recited, and Muslim migrants were eventually granted asylum. Maryam therefore epitomizes both the bridge and the u‐turn. Maryam's body was the living locus of the manifestation of the power of the Word of God, but Maryam is obviously much more than a body and a womb; religious tradition turned her into the epitome of both virginity and motherhood, two extremely patriarchal key‐representations of woman; the Sufi tradition turned her into the symbol of the “silent soul” (Annemarie Schimmel ) and the paragon of virtue, purity, and devotion. However, another reading of the Qur'an, far from such a patriarchal perspective, may reveal, rather, that the Qur'an highlights not only her purity of soul, but also her stamina, willpower, and strength, and portrays her as an autonomous subject, an independent woman, who grew from being an orphaned child to a single mother. The Qur'an, particularly in Surah Al‐Imran and in Surah Maryam, conveys a fuller picture of her life, especially focusing on her childhood, youth, and education, as is evident in Shawkat Toorawa's study (Toorawa ). This, in itself, is an indication of her symbolical weight as a full character, as a woman elected by God, but also as a young girl and woman who went through a demanding learning process and personal development. As such, her formative years may be interpreted as a model of education for both men and women, yet, with regard to her social and religious environment, especially toward women's assertiveness and empowerment. Loneliness and independence Loneliness, among messengers and prophets, is a common feature, since it is viewed as an experience of hardship and, as such, as a test of faith and a way to build a stronger relationship to God. Maryam too had to face loneliness from an early age as she is believed to have been the only child to Hanna (“the wife of Imran”) and Imran, while her father died before her birth. It is also understood that she was sent away from her mother while still young, as her mother had devoted her to God's service in the Temple (Q.3:35), and that her mother died soon afterward. Though Zakariya acted as her guardian, as a girl and teenager, she lived alone, away from other children and away from any home and family atmosphere. It is understood that she grew up in the Temple, fulfilling all kinds of chores, and experienced the loneliness of being the only girl child and teenager and not allowed to mix with boys and other teenagers. The only people she was in contact with were her priest‐teachers and occasionally her guardian and “uncle,” the Prophet Zakariya (pbuh). She therefore grew up and was educated within a male‐dominated environment and with a fair amount of loneliness. This may be understood as the learning process of independence, that is, of emotional, intellectual, and spiritual independence altogether. If her education in the Temple had isolated her, Maryam was also later subject to multiple isolations. Indeed, before receiving the...

Two Major Challenges to Muslims and the World in the Age of Post-Truth: Islamist Extremism and Islamophobia

A brief perusal of Islamic studies, Muslim history and sociology of Islam refutes both radical Islamists and Islamophobes who want to portray a twisted, ahistorical and fabricated version of Islam and Muslim culture. But these two ostensibly opposite ideological camps consistently, mutually and symbiotically reinforce each other at expense of Islam, Muslims, intercultural understanding and the peaceful co-existence in the World. This is a fatalistic and even dystopian vicious cycle that has threatened not only the Muslims and the Muslim World but also the entire humanity. It will go on and on unless it begins to be creatively and pro-actively challenged and broken down. Two of the main reasons of this notorious vicious cycle are a lack of knowledge in Islamic studies and a lack of intercultural understanding. This vicious cycle could only be broken by production and dissemination of knowledge that does not only inform minds but also facilitates critical thinking, self-reflexivity, empathy, openness to others and intercultural exchange.

A Survey of Ismaili Studies Part 2: Post‐Fatimid and Modern Ismailism

AbstractThis article continues to discuss the major scholarly issues and developments in the study of Ismaili Muslim history and thought in the post‐Fatimid and modern periods. In general, scholarly coverage of the Nizari Ismailis greatly outweighs that of the Tayyibis. Following the concealment of the Tayyibi Imams in the 12th century, the Tayyibi da‘wah continued in Yemen under the leadership of da‘is representing the Imams and divided into two major groups – the Sulaymanis and Da'udis. The Nizari Imamat continued in Persia until the public emergence of their recent living Imams, the Aga Khans, in modern times. The scholarly issues and themes discussed in this article include the establishment of the Tayyibi da‘wah, later Tayyibi cosmology, the 1164 Nizari declaration of qiyamah, the survival of Nizari communities in Persia and South Asia after the Mongol invasion, and modern Ismaili leadership institutions and communities. The article concludes by briefly summarizing the state of research for different periods of Ismaili history/thought and proposing some future trajectories for the progress of Ismaili studies.