New Books in Islamic Studies

By Marshall PoeReligion & Spirituality Islam

New Books in Islamic Studies episodes

September 19, 2012 Whitney Bodman, “The Poetics of Iblis: Narrative Theology in the Qur’an” (Harvard UP, 2011)
The Qur’an is filled with stories. It chronicles the lives of prophets, the stories of believers and non-believers, and lays out the creation of the cosmos. However, the Qur’an’s narrative qualities are often overlooked. Recently, there has been an increasing turn to literary models for approaching scripture by academics. Whitney S. Bodman, Professor of Comparative Religion at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, explores the narrative of Iblis in his new book, The Poetics of Iblis: Narrative Theology in the Qur’an (Harvard University Press, 2011). Iblis was a character who refused to bow to Adam and obey God’s command and has been associated with Satan. Most post-Qur’anic narratives of Iblis characterize him as the embodiment of evil. However, other texts, especially Sufi literature, describe him as a staunch monotheist who chose to follow the will of God rather than the command of God. In The Poetics of Iblis, Bodman analyzes each of the seven Qur’anic versions of the his story and explains the characteristics of these renderings through various mythic tropes. Thematic intertexuality, audience knowledge repertoire, and structural composition of Qur’anic chapters all help formulate the meaning of each retelling of the Iblis story. Through a reader-response approach to the literary text of the Qur’an Bodman concludes that Iblis ranges from a tragic character to a foil of humanity, with various meanings in between. In our conversation we discuss the theology of Evil in Islam, the relationship between reader and text, the nature of Qur’anic exegesis, and how some modern authors adapt the Iblis character to comment on contemporary society.

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1 hr 5 min
July 20, 2012 Steve Kemper, “Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa” (Norton, 2012)
Three years ago I travelled overland with my wife from Victoria Falls through Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It felt like we were on a real adventure. Having just read Steve Kemper‘s excellent book Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 miles through Islamic Africa (Norton, 2012) about the real explorer, Heinrich Barth, I now feel like our trip was little more adventurous than a trip to the shops to buy some milk.
Steve’s book brings home what an extraordinary feat a 19th-century expedition really was. The 10,000 miles that Barth covered took him over five years, from Tripoli down across the Sahara to Lake Chad, and then through the Sahel to Timbuktu. His passage took him through kingdoms, entrepot states and vast areas patrolled by ruthless bandits.
The story is an insight into what really lay in those blank bits on European maps of the time – often everything in Africa other than the coast and a couple of rivers. These areas, far from being blank, teemed with life. Steve does a terrific job in documenting the various places that Barth travelled through, the difficulties he faced, the colourful characters he came across and the different ways in which lives were lived. There is banditry, slavery, wealth, poverty and wonder, and the book also gives an invaluable insight into the mammoth logistical tasks associated with embarking on an expedition.
The central question that Steve puts forward is why Barth is not feted as one of the great men of this Age of Exploration, along with Speke, Burton, Livingstone and Stanley. By the end of the book you’re left pondering exactly the same question. It’s a book that I heartily recommend – but first have a listen to the interview!
PS Steve Kemper is @stevekemper on Twitter and his website.
Oh, and you might also want to follow me at @npw99 and NBN at @newbooksnetwork and @newbooksafrica

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50 min
June 24, 2012 Ann Elizabeth Mayer, “Islam and Human Rights: Traditions and Politics” (Westview Press, 2012)
In the new edition to Islam and Human Rights: Traditions and Politics (Westview Press, 2012), Ann Elizabeth Mayer analyzes the complex issue of international human rights standards in Muslim countries. In the book’s preface, Dr. Mayer says that it could more accurately be titled “A Comparison of Selected Civil and Political Rights Formulations in International Law and in Actual and Proposed Human Rights Schemes Purporting to Embody Islamic Principles, with a Critical Appraisal of the Latter with Reference to International Law, Evolving Islamic Thought, and Relevant State Practice in the Middle East.”
Throughout the book she makes that comparison in a way that is detailed, yet still easily approachable by someone new to the topic. In this 5th edition of the book she addresses increased pressures for human rights brought on by the Arab Spring, the efforts of Islamic regimes to use the human rights debate to their advantage, and the issue of the human rights of sexual minorities in the Middle East. Dr. Mayer’s book describes not only the history and evolution of human rights under Islamic law, but also addresses how these developments might continue in the future.

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54 min
June 20, 2012 Sherine Hamdy, “Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam, and the Struggle for Human Dignity in Egypt” (University of California Press, 2012)
One of the best things about co-hosting New Books in STS is the opportunity to discover books like this one. Sherine Hamdy has given us something special in Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam, and the Struggle for Human Dignity in Egypt (University of California Press, 2012). Framed as a study of the history and ethnography of organ transplantation in modern Egypt, Hamdy’s work uses a wide range of sources to encourage readers to think in a much more nuanced way about categories that we tend to generalize: bodies, family, religion, Islam, the idea of a “black market.” The story ranges from printed texts and interviews, to television programs, participant observation in classes on Islamic jurisprudence, and fieldwork in hospitals, private clinics, and other medical institutions. At every stage, Hamdy offers accounts (often quite moving) of individuals who are in the process of weighing the risks and benefits of transplantation, reminding us that none of these individuals exists outside of a complex web of social, political, familial, and other relationships. It is an inspiring book that ought to be read and assigned widely.

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1 hr 1 min
March 14, 2012 Nabil Matar and Gerald MacLean, “Britain and the Islamic World, 1558-1713” (Oxford UP, 2011)
Nineteenth-century observers would say that the British Empire was an Islamic one; be that as it may, before Empire there was trade- and lots of it. Nabil Matar and Gerald MacLean‘s book, Britain and the Islamic World, 1558-1713 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), though, goes beyond trade- there was also lots of curiosity, in Britain and abroad, about the strange new peoples and products beginning to move more freely across the world than ever before. It is this aspect of British-Muslim interaction – (or more accurately interactions; the Islamic world was vast and encompassed a dizzying diversity of peoples and cultures) that Matar and MacLean emphasise- the wondering, bemused, gleeful, fascinated, at times despairing accounts of travellers, diplomats, traders -and pirates and their captives- as they sought to convey their impressions of the new worlds they encountered. Nor did everyone think the same; not every factor in Surat went fantee, and not every potentate and cleric disapproved of tobacco and coffee, which North Africans and Britons were wont to accuse each other of having introduced to their lands- and some people tried both lifestyles before settling on one- or neither. It was this celebration of the exotic that made the trading ports and cities of early modern Britain and the Islamic powers such fascinating places to be in- and MacLean and Matar’s book evokes perfectly the heady atmosphere of the contemporary world.

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1 hr 9 min
February 27, 2012 Carl Ernst, "How to Read the Qur'an: A New Guide, with Select Translations" (UNC Press, 2011)
Recent events revolving around the Qur'an, such as the accidental burning of it in Afghanistan or the intentional provocations of radical American Christian pastors, suggest that Westerns often still fail to understand the role of the Qur'an in Muslims lives. On occasion, the mere suggestion of having Westerners read the Qur'an in order to gain a better understanding of its message has incited anger and lawsuits, as was the case at the University of North Carolina in 2002.
The inability to bridge these cultural differences and the many inherent challenges the Qur'an possesses inspired Carl W. Ernst, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina, to write his new book How to Read the Qur'an: A New Guide, with Select Translations (University of North Carolina Press, 2011). He wondered how should the non-Muslim read the Qur'an? This comprehensive introduction presents a literary historical approach that enables the reader to understand how the Qur'an's initial audience encountered it through a chronological reading, traditionally understood through the early Meccan, later Meccan, and Medinan periods of Muhammad's career. It introduces a reading that understands the structure and form of the text as informing the meaning. Thus, Ernst examines the symmetry and balanced composition of verses, the tripartite structure of certain chapters, intertexuality within the Qur'an, and uses rhetorical analysis and ring composition as a means to approach and understand seemingly contradictory religious claims. Ernst's text is engaging and informative while achieving its goal of making the Qur'an accessible to the non-Muslim. His new book will certainly motivate a future group of Qur'anic studies scholars and will allow the uninitiated reader to better understand what the previously veiled text says about the cosmos and Muslims position in it.

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1 hr
January 24, 2012 Parna Sengupta, “Pedagogy for Religion: Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal” (University of California Press, 2011)
What is the relationship between religion, secularization, and education? Parna Sengupta, Associate Director of Introductory Studies at Stanford University, explores their connections as she reexamines the categories religion, empire, and modernity. In her new book, Pedagogy for Religion: Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal (University of California Press, 2011), she challenges the myth that Western rule secularized non-Western societies. Pedagogy for Religion focuses on missionary schools and their influence in Bengal from roughly 1850 to the 1930s. Sengupta’s conclusions are drawn from reading what she calls the “mundane aspects of schooling,” rather than high religious discourse. The replication of religious, gender, and social identities, as they were established through textbooks, objects, language, and teachers, redefined modern definitions of Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. Altogether, Sengupta demonstrates that modern education effectively deepened the place of religion in colonial South Asia. However, this contemporary return to religion was not a “backward” or “irrational” resurgence of religious beliefs and practices. Religion was transformed into the carrier of modernity and education became the means for recreating religious identity.

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1 hr 12 min
November 23, 2011 Jay Rubenstein, “Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse” (Basic Books, 2011)
You’ve got to be pretty creative to get anything like “holy war” out of the New Testament, what with all that trespass-forgiving, cheek-turning, and neighbor-loving. By all appearances Jesus didn’t want his followers to fight for their faith, but rather to die for it as he had. And during the first three centuries of Christianity–in the time of the Roman persecution–that’s just what they did. “To die in Christ is to live,” wrote the Apostle Paul. And it seems a lot of early Christians believed him for they sought martyrdom. Jesus passively gave his life; and they passively gave theirs. What could be more fitting?
All this passivity makes the Crusades seem very strange indeed. If Christ’s message was one of peace, what in the world were Christians doing taking up arms in the his name? In his excellent Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse(Basic Books, 2011), Jay Rubenstein explains that the reason they did so had everything to do with the conviction that the world was going to presently end. The Crusaders fervently believed that the closing chapter in temporal history upon them and that they had a role in bringing it to the right conclusion. They didn’t know exactly what that role was, but there were good hints in ancient scripture and contemporary signs. Everyone agreed that, whatever part the Crusaders were to play, it involved liberating Jerusalem from the infidels. So off they went. Since they were on a holy mission–in fact the last holy mission before Christ’s return–the ordinary rules did not apply. The Crusaders forced Jews to convert or else die (many were murdered). They killed Muslims indiscriminately. They made sport of desecrating the bodies of their victims. They even roasted some on spits and ate them. That’s right: they roasted and ate them. It was like something out of the Book of Revelations. Which made sense, because the Crusaders believed they were in the Book of Revelations.

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1 hr 5 min
October 25, 2011 Laury Silvers, “A Soaring Minaret: Abu Bakr al-Wasiti and the Rise of Baghdadi Sufism” (SUNY Press, 2010)
A broad portrait of early Islamic mysticism is fairly well-know. However, there are only a few key figures that have been explored in great detail and their activities shape how we understand this early history of Sufism. Laury Silvers, Professor of Religion at the University of Toronto, makes a significant contribution to the early development of Sufism by focusing on an influential but lesser-known figure, Abu Bakr al-Wasiti (d. ca. 320 AH/932 CE), the “soaring minaret.” In her new book, A Soaring Minaret: Abu Bakr al-Wasiti and the Rise of Baghdadi Sufism (SUNY Press, 2010), she situates Wasiti and his contributions within the broader historical developments in the formative period of Sufism. By doing so she deepens our knowledge of the development and spread of Baghdadi Ahl al-Hadith culture East to Khurasan, the consolidation of Baghdadi Sufism and the internalization of Khurasani traditions during the formative period.
Silvers’ approach is refreshing and useful as she details the historical context as well as the intellectual history of early mystics. Wasiti was one of the first students of the influential teachers Junayd and Nuri, the first to travel east and promote the Baghdadi Sufi tradition in Khurasan, and one of the first mystics to compose a Quran commentary. We are also presented with a detailed analysis of his theological perspective on the divine reality. Silvers thoroughly outlines Wasiti’s understanding of God’s Essence, His Attributes, and His Acts in a readable and accessible manner. Overall, Silvers offers us a comprehensive and comprehensible presentation of the intellectual development of Islamic mysticism and metaphysics within the context of the historical development and spread of Sufism. This new book is highly enjoyable and should be useful for the lay reader and academic, the student and the teacher.

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52 min
October 05, 2011 Abdulkader Tayob, “Religion in Modern Islamic Discourse” (Columbia University Press, 2010)
Many people believe that the current Islamic resurgence is not necessarily a “return of religion,” but rather a continuation of tradition. According to this line of thought, therefore, Islam is essentially resistant to modernity and incompatible with contemporary secular societies. But is this really the case? Abdulkader Tayob, professor of Religion at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, examines this question in his new book Religion in Modern Islamic Discourse (Columbia University Press, 2010).
In the book, Tayob offers a fresh look at Muslim intellectuals from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. Treatments of modern Islam often portray it as uniformly antithetical to modernity, but this book presents divergent Muslim voices on this score. Tayob employs religion not as an essential category of examination, but rather as a guiding mode through which he explores Muslim debates on identity, science, politics, law, and gender. The characters involved in these dialogues span the globe from South Asia, the Middle East, and North America, and give voice to both male and female perspectives. We are left with a nuanced examination of modern Islamic thought, which has been carefully contextualized in a critical, disruptive, and engaging way. Overall, Tayob presents a wonderful thematic resource for understanding the adaptation and resistance to modernity as Muslims began to reconcile Islam with the forces of modernization and secularization. It should be useful for readers and listeners interested in modern Islam and the study of religion more generally.

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1 hr 21 min

About New Books in Islamic Studies

From the publisher's feed

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.