Category Archives: Scholars

Contesting Islamism

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Ethics, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islam: Introduction, Islamophobia, Scholars, Teaching Resources, Terrorism Issue

Stanford University Press has just published Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam, edited by Richard C. Martin and Abbas Barzegar. In this book Political Scientist Donald Emmerson argues for an inclusive use of the term “Islamism” in order to rescue the term from its misappropriation in the media. This is followed by my essay, in which I argue that the term “Islamism” is as tainted as “Mohammedanism” and should be avoided as a replacement for fundamentalist and political Islam. Our two essays are followed by twelve short responses from a variety of perspectives, Muslim and non-Muslim. The contributors include Feisal Abdul Rauf, Syed Farid Alatas, Hillel Fradkin, Graham Fuller, Hasan Hanafi, Amir Hussain, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Richard Tapper, M. Zuhdi Jasser, Bruce Lawrence, Anouar Majid, Angel Rebasa and Nadia Yassine. Given the range of perspectives on one of the hot topics of the day, this volume will be a great addition to courses on Islam or the Middle East.

The publisher’s description is presented below: Continue reading Contesting Islamism →

Talal Asad and the Anthropology of Islam

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Scholars


Left to right, Jocelyne Cesari, Dan Varisco, Jens Kreinath, Nadia Fadil, Refika Sarionder at AAR in Montreal

Last Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion I had the privilege of serving in a “responding” role on one of the first panels on the program. This was a session entitled “Talal Asad and the Anthropology of Islam,” organized by Jens Kreinath (Wichita State University), presided over by Refika Sarionder (University of Bielefeld) and with presentations by Jocelyne Cesari (Harvard University), Nadia Fadil (Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven), Jens Kreinath and Bruce B. Lawrence (Duke University). [Abstracts of the panel and papers are posted at the bottom of my comments.]

Following a typically powerful presentation by Bruce Lawrence and placed in the difficult role of representing Talal Asad (who was not present), I began my remarks by noting that I felt myself between a rock (a solid one at that) and a hard place. Drawing on my anthropological roots, I offered myself in the metaphorical role of Thomas Henry Huxley to Darwin, dubbing my wrapping-up task as akin to Asad’s Bulldog. This is not to say that the papers were overtly critical of Dr. Asad’s work; on the contrary, all expressed appreciation of his work as formative in their own ideas. Yet, in reading over the individual papers I detected several criticisms that stem more from dealing with isolated comments than considering the impressive and expanding corpus of Asad. I decided the best approach was to sum up what I see as some of the reasons the continuing intellectual trajectory of Dr. Asad is useful for those of us interested in something that might be called an “anthropology” of Islam.


Bruce Lawrence at AAR in Montreal

Continue reading Talal Asad and the Anthropology of Islam →

Lisân al-‘Arab Online

Languages, Scholars, Teaching Resources

The digital world is an extraordinary boon to those of us who depend on a variety of Arabic resources. One of my mainstays is the multi-volume Lisân al-‘Arab of the great lexicologist Ibn Manzur (died 1311 CE). I picked up my copy in 1979 in Dâr al-Muthana in Baghdad. Now I discover that this major classical lexicon, along with al-Fayrûzabâdî’s Qâmi¨s al-muhît and two other dictionaries are online at http://baheth.info. One can type in the Arabic word desired and all references to that in the extensive commentary will be highlighted. All the prompts are in Arabic, although I note that the one Google Ad prompt across the top in English advertised “Arabic Girls.” Poor Ibn Manzûr would no doubt roll over in his qabr, were he around to click his way today. On the right hand side notable quotes are posted. On one recent day I found one by Lenin. Ah, the power of words…

Healing Herbs in Yemen

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Food and Drink, Islamic Law, Islamic Texts, Scholars, Yemen


Aloe and Opuntia (balas Turkî) in al-Ahjur, central highlands of Yemen

Today I am flying on Lufthansa to Leipzig, and then on to Halle Wittenberg for a conference called “The use of herbs in Yemeni healing practices. An interdisciplinary workshop on traditional knowledge and cultural concepts in scientific perspective.“ The conference takes place September 25-26, 2009 at the Orientwissenschaftliches Zentrum , Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. It has been funded by the Royal Ontario Museum Foundation, Ryerson University (both Toronto/Canada), and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Click here for the order of the program.

The organizers are Dr Hanne Schönig (Orientwissenschaftliches Zentrum
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, homepage: http://www.owz.uni-halle.de/owz.php?pid=2) and Dr Ingrid Hehmeyer (Department of History, Ryerson University, Toronto, homepage: http://www.ryerson.ca/history/faculty/Hehmeyeri.html) and Dr Anne Regourd, Collaborateur Scientifique, Dept of Islamic arts, Musée du Louvre, Paris – France, homepage: http://www.anne.regourd.org.

The conference participants and papers are noted below: Continue reading Healing Herbs in Yemen →

Reviewing the Review

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Islam: Introduction, Islamic Texts, Orientalism, Scholars, Sufism

In 2005 I published Islam Obscured, a critical assessment of four books widely read as “the” anthropology of Islam. The books I examined were by Clifford Geertz, Ernest Gellner, Fatima Mernissi and Akbar Ahmed. Having wielded an iconclastic hammer over the first four chapters, I concluded the book with a brief question-and-answer survey of the ways in which “Islam” has and should be studied by anthropologists who value the role of ethnographic fieldwork. At the time, the publisher failed to send the book out for review, although some review copies finally went out over a year ago. There are many, many books out there on “Islam,” but my text was, to not mire myself in humility, somewhat unique. It faulted these texts for not using ethnographic data but rather essentializing their own views of what Islam should be.

I recently received a lengthy review by Ken Lizzio, whose research was on Sufi texts, in The Journal of North African Studies (14:309-316, June, 2009). Having written my book in large part for non-anthropologists, I was quite interested in how a specialist in Near Eastern Studies would react to it. The thrust of the reviewer strikes me as quite positive, especially when he states: “As Varisco proceeds to fell some of the giants in the anthropological forest, he does so with an axe sharpened with impeccable logic and refreshing intellectual honesty” (p. 310). The reviewer agrees with me that both Geertz and Gellner both fail to apply data from fieldwork to their assertions. So far, so good. Continue reading Reviewing the Review →

Hashish in the Muslim World

Books You Should Read, Ethics, Islamic Law, Plants, Scholars, Sufism

Webshaykh’s note: In the process of researching the medical aspects of the chewing of qât (Catha edulis) leaves in Yemen, I consulted an important study published almost forty years by the distinguished historian Orientalist (in the best sense — and there is a best sense — of the word) Franz Rosenthal. This was his The Herb: Hashish versus Medieval Muslim Society (Leiden: Brill, 1971). Appearing at a time when hashish had become a household word in America, Rosenthal sorts through legal, medical and literary sources to provide a historical overview of the issues surrounding the use of hashish, the plant known as qinnab in Arabic (Cannabis sp). This is a valuable resource, but also worth a good read to get a sense of how an addictive socially popular drug was viewed for almost the last full millennium. Fortunately for those of us who cannot afford massive libraries, this book is available as a Google Book online. I quote from the conclusion.]

Hashish, the Individual, and Society

In conclusion we must state again that our knowledge is very limited. The gaps are tremendous. The nature of the information we do have is not easily assessed. Its applicability to the realities prevailing over the immense extension in time and space of medieval Islam is often suspect. Partisanship pro or con, coupled with a seemingly widespread ignorance of hard facts, obscures everything. Statistics naturally are non-existent.

Our sources give the impression of a westward march of hashish that had its serious beginnings int he twelfth century and gathered speed during the thirteenth century. Continue reading Hashish in the Muslim World →

Edward T. Hall (1914-2009)

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Scholars

One of the most readable anthropologists of the 20th century passed away earlier this month on Monday, July 20. Most known for his The Silent Language (1959) and The Hidden Dimension (1966), Edward T. Hall specialized in the analysis of body language and established his theory of proxemics. Hall received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1942. In 1979 Hall was interviewed by Kenneth Friedman in the August issue of Psychology Today for an article entitled “Learning the Arabs’ Silent Language.” His comments on Arab culture are worth revisiting:

Kenneth Friedman: Do we Americans understand the Arabs, or do we tend to caricature or stereotype them?
Edward Hall: I don’t think we understand them. We ten to think of Arabs as underdeveloped Americans – Americans with sheets on. We look at them as undereducated and rather poor at anything technological. All we have to do is make believers out of them, get them the proper education, teach them English, and they will turn into Americans. Continue reading Edward T. Hall (1914-2009) →