New Books Network
Islamic Studies
Islamic Studies January 22, 2021

The Golden Calf Between Bible and Qur'an

Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam

Michael E. Pregill

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
In his exciting and thorough book, The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur'an: Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam (Oxford, 2020), Michael Pregill explores the biblical and …

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Central Asian Studies January 21, 2021

Polymaths of Islam

Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia

James Pickett

Hosted by Nicholas Seay
James Pickett's new book, Polymaths of Islam: Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia (Cornell University Press, 2020) analyzes the social and intellectual power of religious leaders who created a …
Islamic Studies January 15, 2021

The Bruce B. Lawrence Reader

Islam Beyond Borders

Bruce B. Lawrence and Ali Altaf Mian

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
For more than four decades, Bruce Lawrence’s multivalent and fulsomely prolific scholarship has influenced and imprinted the Western study of Islam and Religious Studies more broadly in singularly profound ways …
Islamic Studies January 8, 2021

Say What Your Longing Heart Desires

Women, Prayer and Poetry in Iran

Niloofar Haeri

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer & Poetry in Iran (Stanford University Press, 2020) by Niloofar Haeri is a stunning and absorbing ethnography of the lived ritual experiences …
Middle Eastern Studies January 5, 2021

The Lost Archive

Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue

Marina Rustow

Hosted by Nancy Ko
What does it mean that our single greatest source of medieval Islamic government documents comes from the attic of a Jewish synagogue in Cairo? This is the seeming paradox that …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel January 4, 2021

Till We Have Built Jerusalem

Architects of a New City

Adina Hoffman

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
A remarkable view of one of the world's most beloved and troubled cities, Adina Hoffman's Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City (FSG, 2017) is a gripping …
Islamic Studies December 31, 2020

Muhammad and the Empires of Faith

The Making of the Prophet of Islam

Sean Anthony

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Contemporary historians have searched for the historical Muhammad along many paths. In Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam (University of California Press, 2020) …
East Asian Studies December 30, 2020

China's Muslims and Japan's Empire

Centering Islam in World War II

Kelly A. Hammond

Hosted by Ed Pulford
The 1930s-40s expansion of the Japanese empire was marked by significant interest among Japan-based scholars and policy-makers in China’s Muslim population and how best to write them into a new …
Islamic Studies December 24, 2020

The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender

Justine Howe

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender (Routledge, 2020), edited by Justine Howe, includes an excellent introduction to Islam and gender as well as to the volume and 31 content chapters …
Eastern European Studies December 18, 2020

Remaking Muslim Lives

Everyday Islam in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina

David Henig

Hosted by Steven Seegel
The violent disintegration of Yugoslavia and the cultural and economic dispossession caused by the collapse of socialism continue to force Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina to reconfigure their religious lives …
Islamic Studies December 18, 2020

The Occupied Clinic

Militarism and Care in Kashmir

Saiba Varma

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
In her majestic and magisterial new book, The Occupied Clinic: Militarism and Care in Kashmir (Duke UP, 2020), Saiba Varma disrupts and upsets the care/violence binary by examining and vividly describing …
Islamic Studies December 11, 2020

Witness to Marvels

Sufism and Literary Imagination

Tony K. Stewart

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In Tony K. Stewart’s book, Witness to Marvels: Sufism and Literary Imagination (University of California Press, 2019), we are taken into the imaginal realms of ogres, fairies, Sufi pirs and …
Indian Ocean World December 3, 2020

Islamic Sufi Networks in the Western Indian Ocean (c.1880-1940)

Ripples of Reform

Anne K. Bang

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
In the period c. 1880-1940, organized Sufism spread rapidly in the western Indian Ocean. New communities turned to Islam, and Muslim communities turned to new texts, practices, and religious leaders …
Asian Review of Books December 3, 2020

Stealing from the Saracens

How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe

Diana Darke

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Visitors around the world have travelled to Europe to see the tall spires and stained glass windows of the continent’s Gothic cathedrals: in Cologne, Chartres, Milan, Florence, York and Paris …
Islamic Studies November 27, 2020

Muslim Women's Rights

Contesting Liberal-Secular Sensibilities in Canada

Tabassum Fahim Ruby

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Muslim Women’s Rights: Contesting Liberal-Secular Sensibilities in Canada (Routledge 2019) By Tabassum Fahim Ruby follows the legal debates and public discussions that surrounded the proposed shari‘ah tribunals in Canada from …
Middle Eastern Studies November 25, 2020

Vision or Mirage

Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads

David Rundell

Hosted by James M. Dorsey
David Rundell brings to his book, Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads (I. B. Tauris, 2020), a granular analysis and insider’s understanding of the inner workings of the …
Islamic Studies November 20, 2020

Minding their Place

Space and Religious Hierarchy in Ibn al-Qayyim’s Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma

Antonia Bosanquet

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
How was the relationship between Muslim and non-Muslim communities theologically and spatially imagined in the premodern world? How did religious hierarchies map onto notions of place and spatial distinction and …
Mobilities and Methods November 18, 2020

Beyond Exception

New Interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula

Ahmed Kanna, Amélie Le Renard, and Neha Vora

Hosted by Alize Arıcan
Over the nearly two decades that they have each been conducting fieldwork in the Arabian Peninsula, Ahmed Kanna, Amélie Le Renard, and Neha Vora have regularly encountered exoticizing and exceptionalist …
Islamic Studies November 13, 2020

The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India

The Case of Sindh (1851–1929)

Michel Boivin

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India: The Case of Sindh (1851-1929) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) by Michel Boivin maps the construction of a vernacular …
Middle Eastern Studies November 12, 2020

Muhammad's Body

Baraka Networks and the Prophetic Assemblage

Michael Muhammad Knight

Hosted by Asad Dandia
Muhammad's Body: Baraka Networks and the Prophetic Assemblage by Michael Muhammad Knight (UNC Press, 2020) joins the emerging subfield of literature in Islamic Studies exploring embodiment and materiality as concepts …