American Journal of Islam and Society (AJIS) - Volume 41 Issues 2 - 2024


Book Description

Volume 41 Issue 2 of the American Journal of Islam and Society comprises four main research articles, each of which engages themes of Muslim collectiv­ity, community, and umma from different vantage points. The first article is Rezart Beka’s contribution, “The Reconceptualization of the Umma and Ummatic Actions in Abdullah Bin Bayyah’s Discourse.” The second article is titled “An Egyptian Ethicist: Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh Drāz (1894-1958) and His Qurʾān-Based Moral Theory” by Ossama Abdelgawwad. The third research article for this issue is “The Other Legitimate Game in Town? Understanding Public Support for the Caliphate in the Islamic World”, a co-au­thored study by Mujtaba A. Isani, Daniel Silverman, and Joseph J. Kaminski. The fourth and final research article in this issue is Ashwak Hauter’s, “The Reparative Work of the Imagination: Yemen, ‘Afiya, and Politics of the Umma”. This issue of the American Journal of Islam and Society also includes four insightful book reviews, including editor Ovamir Anjum’s review essay engaging Joel Hayward’s recent work The Warrior Prophet: Muhammad and War and Celene Ibrahim’s author response to a review authored in a previous issue on her book, Women and Gender in the Qur’an.




American Journal of Islam and Society (AJIS) - 40th Anniversary Special Issue - Volume 41 Issues 1


Book Description

For forty years, AJIS has been a trusted plat­form for researchers, scholars, and practitioners, serving as a conduit for the exchange of ideas, the dissemination of cutting-edge research, and the cultivation of intellectual dialogue. Many of us found this journal a space for ruminating, discussing, and developing our own narratives on our Islamic heritage and what it means in the contemporary world. Especially compared to anti-Islamic biases in other corners of academia, AJIS is a coming “home.” One constant throughout the past four decades is the journal’s commit­ment to scholarship that documents and explores Islam’s rich religious, intellectual, legal, philosophical, and social heritages. The assumption is that these various perspectives have meaningful things to say about the human condition and our place in the world. Debate, discussion, and disagreement all appear in these pages, but always grounded in an underlying steadfastness that Islam is a faith tradition that is not obso­lete; that Muslims can contribute positively to humanity’s betterment. That said, the journal is not a place of religious homilies. This is an academic journal, with a double-blind peer review process. Articles that are published thus pass muster in the discipline in which they conduct their research. Let us thank the authors who have entrusted us with their groundbreaking research, pushing the boundaries of knowledge and enriching our understanding of critical issues in our disciplines. Let us thank the journal’s editors, editorial boards, diligent reviewers, and committed staff members who have meticulously upheld the journal’s reputation for excellence, contributing to its sustained success.




The Walking Qurʼan


Book Description

Walking Qur'an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa




Defending Muḥammad in Modernity


Book Description

In this groundbreaking study, SherAli Tareen presents the most comprehensive and theoretically engaged work to date on what is arguably the most long-running, complex, and contentious dispute in modern Islam: the Barelvī-Deobandī polemic. The Barelvī and Deobandī groups are two normative orientations/reform movements with beginnings in colonial South Asia. Almost two hundred years separate the beginnings of this polemic from the present. Its specter, however, continues to haunt the religious sensibilities of postcolonial South Asian Muslims in profound ways, both in the region and in diaspora communities around the world. Defending Muḥammad in Modernity challenges the commonplace tendency to view such moments of intra-Muslim contest through the prism of problematic yet powerful liberal secular binaries like legal/mystical, moderate/extremist, and reformist/traditionalist. Tareen argues that the Barelvī-Deobandī polemic was instead animated by what he calls “competing political theologies” that articulated—during a moment in Indian Muslim history marked by the loss and crisis of political sovereignty—contrasting visions of the normative relationship between divine sovereignty, prophetic charisma, and the practice of everyday life. Based on the close reading of previously unexplored print and manuscript sources in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu spanning the late eighteenth and the entirety of the nineteenth century, this book intervenes in and integrates the often-disparate fields of religious studies, Islamic studies, South Asian studies, critical secularism studies, and political theology.




American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences


Book Description

The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS), established in 1984, is a quarterly, double blind peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary journal, published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), and distributed worldwide. The journal showcases a wide variety of scholarly research on all facets of Islam and the Muslim world including subjects such as anthropology, history, philosophy and metaphysics, politics, psychology, religious law, and traditional Islam.




Pious Fashion


Book Description

Who says you can’t be pious and fashionable? Throughout the Muslim world, women have found creative ways of expressing their personality through the way they dress. Headscarves can be modest or bold, while brand-name clothing and accessories are part of a multimillion-dollar ready-to-wear industry that caters to pious fashion from head to toe. In this lively snapshot, Liz Bucar takes us to Iran, Turkey, and Indonesia and finds a dynamic world of fashion, faith, and style. “Brings out both the sensuality and pleasure of sartorial experimentation.” —Times Literary Supplement “I defy anyone not to be beguiled by [Bucar’s] generous-hearted yet penetrating observation of pious fashion in Indonesia, Turkey and Iran... Bucar uses interviews with consumers, designers, retailers and journalists...to examine the presumptions that modest dressing can’t be fashionable, and fashion can’t be faithful.” —Times Higher Education “Bucar disabuses readers of any preconceived ideas that women who adhere to an aesthetic of modesty are unfashionable or frumpy.” —Robin Givhan, Washington Post “A smart, eye-opening guide to the creative sartorial practices of young Muslim women... Bucar’s lively narrative illuminates fashion choices, moral aspirations, and social struggles that will unsettle those who prefer to stereotype than inform themselves about women’s everyday lives in the fast-changing, diverse societies that constitute the Muslim world.” —Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Do Muslim Women Need Saving?




Muslims and Christians Debate Justice and Love


Book Description

seeks to elucidate the concept of justice. It draws inspiration from two recent works of philosopher Nicolas Wolterstorff, but also from the groundbreaking Islamic initiative of 2007, the Common Word Letter addressed by 138 eminent Muslim scholars and clerics to the pope and all Christian leaders.




Research Handbook on Islamic Law and Society


Book Description

The Research Handbook on Islamic Law and Society provides an examination of the role of Islamic law as it applies in Muslim and non-Muslim societies through legislation, fatwa, court cases, sermons, media, or scholarly debate. It illuminates the intersection of social, political, economic and cultural factors that inform Islamic Law across a number of jurisdictions. Chapters evaluate when and how actors and institutions have turned to Islamic law to address problems faced by societies in Muslim and, in some cases, Western states.




American Journal of Islam and Society (AJIS) - Volume 37 Issues 1-2


Book Description

You will notice the new name of our journal, American Journal of Islam and Society (AJIS), that has replaced the older American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS). Now in its thirty-seventh year, the journal has evolved along with the scholarly landscape and our global community of readers. The new name reflects an expansion of the journal’s scope, which has in fact already reflected in the articles it has featured for years. This change signals that social sciences and humanities are interrelated and that an Islamic engagement with one requires examining the other; we therefore wish to underscore that we welcome all scholarship that pertains to the myriad ways in which Islam and human societies interact. Furthermore, in order to optimize our resources and further improve the quality of the content, the journal will henceforth be published biannually rather than every quarter. Ovamir Anjum Editor




An Introduction to Islamic Psychology


Book Description

Contemporary psychology is highly influenced by positivism and scientific naturalism. Psychological studies make efforts to control the variables and provide operational definitions of subjective constructs in order to reach the most concrete conclusions. Such efforts are admirable in natural sciences since they have led to a better life. But, this worldview has deprived contemporary psychology of more qualitative sources of knowledge like waḥy (revelation). The present book introduces Islamic psychology as a paradigm, which can apply waḥy knowledge and consider religious/spiritual dimensions of humans in scientific exploration. The first part discusses the possibility, foundations, and characteristics of Islamic psychology. The second part introduces research methodology in Islamic psychology. The third part reviews the Quranic theory of personality and highlights the concept of shakeleh. Finally, the fourth part presents the theories and methods of religious psychotherapy in the Islamic tradition. Each part provides introductory content for readers interested in Islamic psychology.