Category Archives: Scholars

A Stink Bomb in Georgia

Ethics, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Scholars

GSU Professor Resigns over “Bomb” Comments to Muslim-American Student

Atlanta, Georgia – July 1, 2009 – The Director of the Middle East Institute at Georgia State University, Dona J. Stewart, has resigned citing the university’s failure to address incidents of anti-Muslim bias.

In August 2008 a Muslim-American doctoral student, Ms. Slma Shelbayah, was repeatedly asked by a senior faculty member, Dr. Mary Stuckey, if she was ‘carrying any bombs’ underneath her Islamic headscarf, or hijab. Ms Shelbayah was also employed as a Visiting Instructor of Arabic in the Middle East Institute. She holds Bachelor and Masters degrees from Georgia State University.

Dr. Stewart’s resignation cited retaliatory actions taken by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Lauren Adamson, following Ms. Shelbayah’s request that the incidents cease. Continue reading A Stink Bomb in Georgia →

Re-Writing Muslim Political History

India, Muhammad, Qur'an, Scholars, Terrorism Issue

Based in New Delhi, Maulana Waris Mazhari is a leading Indian Deobandi scholar. He is a graduate of the Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband, and is the editor of Tarjuman Dar ul-Uloom, the official organ of the Deoband Madrasa’s Graduates’ Association.

In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, Maulana Mazhari talks about his views on Islam, historiography and politics.

Q: Muslim history has generally been written in the form of a series of battles and a succession of rulers and military generals. This, in turn, has had a deep impact on the way Muslims imagine their past and their identity and on the way they relate to people of other faiths. What do you feel about this way of presenting Muslim history?

A: I have major problems with the traditional approach, including the traditional way of presenting the sirat, the history of the Prophet Muhammad, who Muslims consider as the model for all humankind. Typically, sirat-writing has taken the form of a narration of events that focus mainly on the maghazis or military confrontations and victories of the Prophet. This tradition goes back to early times. In fact, one of the first available sirat texts that we have, by Ibn Ishaq, is also known as Maghazi Ibn Ishaq. This is a reflection of how Ibn Ishaq portrayed the Prophet’s life. Ibn Ishaq was by no means an isolated case. In fact, many other sirat writers followed in that mode, and still continue to do so. Continue reading Re-Writing Muslim Political History →

Portrait of a Bahraini Anthropologist

Anthropology/Sociology, Bahrain, Scholars


Bahraini dhow builder, photo by Abdulla Al Khan; insert shows Dr. Abdullah Yateem

A modern culture specialist
By Paul Balles, Bahrain This Month

What makes Dr. Abdullah Yateem a modern culture specialist? He’s an anthropologist who has taken a modern approach to studying cultures.

Many people don’t know what anthropology is or what anthropologists do unless they happen to have attended university and learned that they could take courses in the subject.

If they listened to British television critic Nancy Banks-Smith, they might have heard her say, “Anthropology is the science which tells us that people are the same the whole world over — except when they are different.”

Cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict, with tongue in cheek, put it another way, “The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.”

From these comments, one might safely assume that anthropologists study almost anything related to the similarities and differences between cultures.

Anthropologists like Dr. Abdullah Yateem address questions such as: how can people who look different, talk differently and come from different cultures get along together in today’s world? (paraphrasing Clyde Kluckhohn). Dr. Yateem is not only an anthropologist who studies cultures. Currently, he’s Assistant Undersecretary for Press and Publications in the Ministry of Information. Continue reading Portrait of a Bahraini Anthropologist →

In Memoriam Elizabeth Fernea

Anthropology/Sociology, Gender and Sexuality, Iraq, Scholars

Webshaykh’s Note: For the many people whose lives crossed those of BJ Fernea this is a sad note from the University of Texas, where she taught for many years.

It is with great sorrow that we report that Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, passed away on Tuesday afternoon, December 2, 2008, at the home of her daughter, Laila Stroben, in La Canada, California. She is survived by her husband, Robert A. Fernea (Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies), daughters Laura Ann and Laila and son David, and several grandchildren. Continue reading In Memoriam Elizabeth Fernea →

Civil Society minus the visas

Iraq, Iraq War, Scholars

Academics Struggle for Civil Society in Iraq

by David Moltz, Inside Higher Ed, November 25, 2008

WASHINGTON – Two of the three scholars invited from Iraq to share analysis of academic conditions there could not get visas to attend this week’s meeting of the Middle East Studies Association. Those gathered at the annual meeting for a panel on “the role of academics in building civil society in Iraq” had to settle for having the papers paraphrased to them by a colleague. This twist of fate, however, prompted the remaining panelists to reflect on the challenges that still exist for students and scholars in a post-Saddam Iraq.

Though Riyadh Aziz Hadi, a high-ranking administrator at Baghdad University, and Amer Qader, a professor at Kirkuk University, were unable to attend the event, their scholarly work was presented before the panel.

“This is kind of good for the event in a sinister way,” said Abbas Kadhim, professor of Islamic studies at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, Cal. and a product of Iraqi higher education. “This shows you some of the difficulties that remain for Iraqi academics. If someone cannot attend an event like this — because of a denied visa with one year’s notice [the case for Hadi and Qader] — you’re looking at a sequestered group of people.” Continue reading Civil Society minus the visas →

Lucie Wood Saunders, 1928-2008

Anthropology/Sociology, Egypt, Gender and Sexuality, Scholars

Lucie Wood Saunders, 1928-2008

One of AMEWS’ earliest members and warmest supporters, Lucie Wood Saunders, passed away on July 26, 2008. Lucie received her PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1959. Her dissertation research was on parallel cousin marriage in Arab families. She carried out research in Egypt, at the invitation of Laila el Hamamsy, Director of American University of Cairo’s Social Research Center, starting in 1961 and into the 1980’s in the Egyptian Delta village, Tafahna el-Ashraf. She worked with Sohair Mehanna of the SRC, authoring many articles with her on Tafahna el-Ashraf. Lucie was among the first Anthropologsits to write on issues of gender in the Delta villages. Her research inspected family and gender relations, the local zar cults, women and development issues around small businesses such as poultry, and medical anthropology. Her early work focused more on psychological issues and her later work more on economic issues. Continue reading Lucie Wood Saunders, 1928-2008 →

Ann Lambton

Iran, Scholars

Professor Ann Lambton: Persian scholar
From The Times, July 23, 2008

Ann Lambton, known as Nancy to her friends, devoted the greater part of her life to Iran and the study of Iran. Iranians who knew her thought she was either a saint, a scholar, a spy or all three. She was tough, physically and mentally, and almost an ascetic. She was a walker, a climber, a horsewoman and a squash player. She was a scholar who wrote some of the standard works on Iranian language, agriculture, land tenure and history. She was involved in some of the most dramatic of 20th-century Iranian political events. She was a devout Christian.

Lambton was the second child of the Hon George Lambton, fifth son of the 2nd Earl of Durham; and of Cecily, daughter of Sir John Horner. Her father trained racehorses, including George V’s, at Newmarket, and she was a good horsewoman herself. Her mother did not believe in education and kept her at home. She had almost no formal schooling and spent her youth in her father’s stables until she became too tall to be a jockey (a younger sister, Sybil, died in a riding accident in 1961). Continue reading Ann Lambton →

Holy Men and Social Discourse in Colonial Benaadir

Books You Should Read, Islamic History, Scholars, Somalia, Sufism

Renewers of the Age: Holy Men and Social Discourse in Colonial Benaadir
by Scott Reese (Leiden, Brill, 2008)

Studies of nineteenth and twentieth century Islamic reform have tended to focus more on the evolution of ideas than how those ideas emerge from local contexts or are disseminated to a broad audience. Using the urban culture of southern Somalia, known as the Benaadir, this book explores the role of local ʿulamāʾ as popular intellectuals in the early colonial period. Drawing on locally compiled hagiographies, religious poetry and Sufi manuals, it examines the place of religious discourse as social discourse and how religious leaders sought to guide society through a time of troubles through calls to greater piety but also by exhorting believers to examine their lives in the hopes of bringing society into line with their image of a proper Islamic society.

Table of contents
Chapter 1– Introduction— The Ê¿Ulamāʾ as “local intellectuals”
Chapter 2– Religious History as Social History
Chapter 3–Saints, Scholars and the Acquisition of Discursive Authority
Chapter 4–Urban Woes and Pious Remedies: Sufis, Urbanites and Managing Social Crises in the Nineteenth Century
Chapter 5–When is Kafāʾa Kifayah? – Sufi Leadership, Religious Authority and Questions of Social Inequality
Chapter 6–The Best of Guides: Sufi Poetry, theological writing and Comprehending Qadiriyya popularity in the Early 20th Century

Scott S. Reese, Ph.D. (1996) in History, University of Pennsylvania, is Associate Professor of Islamic History at Northern Arizona University. He has published extensively on Islam in Africa including the edited collection The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa (Brill, 2004).