Category Archives: Scholars

Emory Ph.D. in Islamic Civilizations Studies

Islam: Introduction, Islamic History, Scholars, Teaching Resources


A folio from the Akhlaq-i Nasiri, a philosophical treatise written by one of Iran’s greatest medieval intellects, Nasir al-Din Tusi.

Emory approves new Ph.D. in Islamic Civilizations Studies

By Elaine Justice, Emory News, May 2, 2012

A new Ph.D. program in Islamic Civilizations Studies (ICIVS) has been approved by Emory University’s Board of Trustees for the university’s Laney Graduate School.

“Faculty have come together from several Emory schools and departments to establish a comprehensive approach to research and scholarship in this vital area, a pattern which is a hallmark of the Laney Graduate School,” says Lisa Tedesco, dean of the Laney Graduate School and vice provost for academic affairs–graduate studies.

The program will offer an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the global impact of Islam, says Vincent Cornell, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies and chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies.

“Demand for specialists in the Islamic world and Islamic studies is high and is expected to remain so for the next decade at least,” he says. “The program in Islamic Civilizations Studies will be a place for graduate students who are interested in the interface between the histories, languages, literatures and societies of the Islamic world.”

The new independent and interdisciplinary program is designed to complement and cooperate with Emory’s current Ph.D. programs in the Graduate Division of Religion (GDR), anthropology, comparative literature, Spanish, history, political science, philosophy and the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts. It also is designed to complement and cooperate with current and future programs in Jewish studies. Continue reading Emory Ph.D. in Islamic Civilizations Studies →

Happy Birthday Sir Richard Francis Burton

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Gender and Sexuality, Languages, Orientalism, Photography, Scholars, Travel


Burton in Aden

Today is March 19. Exactly 191 years ago, at 9:30 in the evening in the British town of Torquay in Devon the future Sir Richard Francis Burton was born. Like his 2oth century acting namesake, Burton was a character for the ages. He reveled in adventure and eroticism, for which he was much reviled in public and no doubt admired in private. If any one word can be used to described the persona that Burton pursued it would be “swashbuckling” in life as in spirit. My point today is neither to praise this flamboyant quasi-Victorian Caesar nor bury him (his grave is indeed a monumental site to behold). May his dry bones rest in the kind of peace he never seems to have found in life.

Burton’s biographers are numerous, as befits someone who is remembered as larger than life. His prolific corpus is now almost entirely online in various formats, but the place to start is burtoniana.org. There is much to question and quibble about in Burton’s exploits. Was his surreptitious entry into Mecca, disguised as a pilgrim, a travesty of Islamic values? Did his fascination with erotica in an age of gentlemananged taboos overstep ethical bounds? Was he the bad kind of “Orientalist,” a discourse cum intercourse voyeur that warrants calling him “Dirty Dick”, as Edward Said does in Orientalism (p. 190)? Was he, perhaps, a bit mad in that ubiquitous England manner?

Whatever you might think of the man, it is probably because of what you have read about him rather than what he actually wrote. Regardless of what he is saying, it must be noted that he had an extraordinary capacity for learning languages. Below is a list of the languages and dialects he is said to have mastered to some extent:

English, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Jataki dialect (he wrote a grammar), Hindustani, Marathi, Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Pushtu, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Icelandic, Swahili, Amharic, Fan, Egba, Ashanti, Hebrew, Aramaic, Many other West African & Indian dialects

I suspect he would get into Harvard, no matter what his SAT score.

Numismatics at Hofstra

Archaeology and Antiquities, Central Asia, Conferences and Talks, Iran, Scholars


Sogdiana, Chach 3rd century

The Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies program at Hofstra announces
the Fourth Seminar on Central Asian and Middle Eastern Numismatics in Memoriam Boris Kochnev

Hofstra University, Breslin Hall 217, March 17, 2012
(Directions to Hofstra)

Attendance is free and all are welcome.

11:00 am
Daniel Varisco (Hofstra University)
Opening Remarks

11:15 am
Vladimir Belyaev (Zeno.ru, Sankt-Petersburg) and Aleksandr Naymark (Hofstra University)
Ancient Sogdian Coins from the Center of Kashka-darya Valley

12:00 noon
Stefan Heidemann (Hamburg University)
A Hoard from the Time of the Collapse of the Sasanian Empire

12:45 pm Lunch Break

1:30 pm
Michael Bates (American Numismatic Society, New York )
How Ziyad Made a Name for Himself:
Coins and the Chronology of Ziyad ‘son of his father’/’son of Abi Sufyan’ Continue reading Numismatics at Hofstra →

Majid in Morocco

Conferences and Talks, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Morocco, Scholars


Street in Tangier, by Henry Ossawa Tanne, ca 1910

Tabsir Contributor Anouar Majid, will be giving two talks in Morocco in March. Details below:

“Todos somos moros: una invitación para un debate”
Conferencia de Anouar Majid

Fecha: 12-03-2012
Lugar: Salón de Actos. Fundación Instituto Euroárabe. Colegio de Niñas Nobles. C/ Cárcel Baja, 3.
Hora: 19:30

Anouar Majid, (Tánger, Marruecos), es director del Centro de Humanidades y director adjunto de Iniciativas Globales de la Universidad de New England, Portland, Maine, (EEUU). Reconocido analista del papel del islam en la edad de la globalización y de las conflictivas relaciones del islam con Occidente desde 1492. Autor de “We are all Moors: ending centuries of Crusades against Muslims and other minorities”,”A call for heresy:why dissent is vital for Islam and America”, “Freedom and Orthodoxy: Islam and difference in the post-Andalusian age”, “Si Yussef”(novela)…Ha sido descrito por el filósofo y profesor de la Universidad de Princeton, Cornel West, en su obra “Democracy matters”, como “uno de los escasos intelectuales islámicos de envergadura”. Dirige la revista norteamericana-marroquí de ideas y cultura TingisRedux y colabora asiduamente en el Washington Post, Chronicle of Higuer Education y otras publicaciones.

Su conferencia, que reflexiona a partir del lugar destacado que históricamente ocupa España en el clima de desconfianza secular entre árabes y occidentales, trata de demostrar que las claves de una transición democrática y de una política económica con la diversidad como lema en el mundo árabe e islámico deben ser halladas en los antiguos territorios de Al Andalus.

Understanding American-Muslim Relations
Professor Anouar Majid
American Legation, 8 rue d’Amérique, Tangier.
Friday, 16 March, 19:00 Continue reading Majid in Morocco →

Talal Asad on Egypt after Mubarak

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Egypt, Scholars


On Friday, February 24, Professor Talal Asad will be speaking in the CUNY Graduate Program in Anthropology series. His topic is Fear and Revolution: Reflections on Egypt after Mubarak. This will be held at The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, New York, NY 10016 in Room C415A (concourse level). Light refreshments will be served afterward in the Brockway Room, Rm. 6402. For more information, click here.

Online Sufi Text

Islamic Texts, Scholars, Sufism


A second revised edition of a text attributed to Muhammad ibn ‘Isa al-Tirmidhi (d. 279/892) and called Bayan al-Farq bayn al-Sadr wal-Qalb wal-Fu’ad wal-Lubb, edited with a brief introduction by Yousef Meri is now available from the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, Jordan (ISBN: 978-9957-8533-5-8). A pdf may be downloaded from the RISSC website by clicking here.

Worldwide Association for the Study of Religion

Anthropology/Sociology, Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islam: Introduction, Judaism, Scholars, Sufism


Whatever you think about “religion,” you must admit that “religion” is not something that can be avoided. There are countries where a person has little choice but to accept the dominant religion imposed and there are places where one can shop for religion more easily than clothes. As an anthropologist I accept the fact not only that we have evolved (even if Darwin did not start a religion) and that all members of Homo sapiens that have been encountered and studied have something that deserves to be called “religion,” even if only in the minimalist sense of Victorian Quaker Edward Tylor that religion is at bottom a belief in spirits. There are many religions out there and several important scholarly organizations devoted to the study of religion in one way or another, but add a new one to the mix.

Anthropologist Gabriele Marranci, founder of the journal Contemporary Islam, has formed the Worldwide Association for the Study of Religion (WASR perhaps for those who like acronyms) If you do not have a Facebook account, join the Wiki.

This group is open to scholars studying religion or with an interest in religion and aims to develop a worldwide association accessible to any scholar or student wherever they might live. This is a working group to develop ideas and the structure for this new association, which aims also to remove the gap between scholars working in developing countries and those in the West. This group is open to scholars studying religion or with an interest in religion and aims to develop a worldwide association accessible to any scholar or student wherever they might live. As scholars the goal of the association to study religion in all its forms and not to lobby for any particular religion or even for the absence of religion. This is a working group to develop ideas and the structure for this new association, which aims also to remove the gap between scholars working in developing countries and those in the West.

As Marranci notes, his effort is not to replace organizations like the American Academy of Religion, but to expand the network of scholars who study religion worldwide. With the Internet and Skype, scholars are no longer captive to meeting colleagues at professional meetings, important as these remain. Feel free to join today and tell your friends.

On Facebook; you can request joining (which is free) by clicking here. You can also join via the Wiki.