Category Archives: Islamic Texts

Reading the Qur’an: Mohammed Arkoun

Anthropology/Sociology, Islam in America, Qur'an

By Jane Dammen McAuliffe
Dean of Arts and Sciences, Georgetown University
Professor, Department of Arabic and History

Mohammed Arkoun is the most honored French Islamicist alive today and continues to receive lecture invitations from around the world. His first language was Berber, and he learned Arabic and studied Islamic sources in French-speaking schools, first in Algeria and then in Paris (Gunther:127-131). Arkoun’s life-long project has been the sustained analysis of Islamic reason from the perspective of the contemporary epistemologies, both philosophical and social scientific. He is well-schooled in the successive forms of critical theory that have occupied humanistic scholarship for the last generation, particularly structural linguistics and semiotics. Continue reading Reading the Qur’an: Mohammed Arkoun →

Book of Curiosities

Art, Islamic Sciences, Islamic Texts, Maps

The Bodleian Library in collaboration with The Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, announces the electronic publication of The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes, a newly discovered medieval Arabic treatise on the depiction of the Heavens and the Earth. The treatise is one of the most important recent finds in the history of Islamic cartography in particular, and for the history of pre-modern cartography in general. The publication of the treatise is mounted on a dedicated website employing a new method for publishing medieval maps. Continue reading Book of Curiosities →

In and Out of Aden

Aden, Archaeology and Antiquities, Books You Should Read, Islamic Economics, Islamic Texts, Rasulids, Travel, Yemen

[The following is an excerpt from a recently published historical analysis of the Yemeni port of Aden in the 13th and 14th centuries by Roxani Margariti (Emory University), who reconstructs port life vividly through archival records in the Cairo Genizeh, relevant Arabic texts and archaeological research. This is a fascinating look at one of the most important medieval ports in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean trading network that ultimately linked Europe with the Far East before Portuguese galleons changed the complex equation of global trade.]

by Roxani Eleni Margariti

In the current era of giant container ships, GPS, and e-commerce, a single vessel can carry forty-eight hundred trailer-sized containers of merchandize from Bremen, Germany, to Elizabeth, New Jersey, in a single voyage. The exact position of a ship is knowable at the push of a button and the blink of any eye, and one can place an order one minute and have confirmation of its receipt in the next. It is therefore difficult to grasp the medieval dimensions of dimensions and time. A respectably sized medieval Arab ship held the equivalent of about two trailer-sized containers. Continue reading In and Out of Aden →

Mary in the Qur’an

Islam and Christianity, Qur'an

Illustration: Theotokos, Virgin Mary, Albanian icon

Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem. In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
. . .And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her people to a place in the East, and had chosen seclusion from them. Then We [God] sent unto her Our Spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect human being. She said: “Truly I seek refuge in the Merciful One from you, if you are God-fearing”. He said: “I am only a messenger of your Lord, to give to you a pure son”. She said: “How can I have a son when no man has touched me, neither have I been unchaste”? He said: “Even so. Your Lord says: ‘It is easy for Me. And that We may make of him a revelation for humanity and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained’”. And she conceived him, and she withdrew pregnant with him to a distant place. And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree: She cried out: “Oh! Would that I had died before this! Would that I had been a thing forgotten and unseen!” Then (a voice) called out to her from beneath her: “Do not grieve, for surely your Lord has made a stream to flow beneath you; And shake towards you the trunk of the palm tree, it will drop on you fresh ripe dates: So eat and drink and refresh yourself. Then if you see any person, say: ‘Surely I have vowed a fast to the Merciful One, so I shall not speak to any one today’”. Then she brought the child to her own people, carrying him. They said: “O Mary! You have come with an amazing thing. O sister of Aaron! Your father was not a wicked man nor was your mother an unchaste woman”. Then she pointed to the child. “But they said, ‘How shall we speak to one who is still in the cradle, a little child?’ Jesus said, ‘Behold, I am God’s servant; God has given me the book and made me a prophet. God has made me blessed, wherever I may be; and God has enjoined me to pray and to give alms so long as I live, and likewise to cherish my mother; God has not made me arrogant or unblessed. Peace be upon me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised up alive’”. Qur’an, Chapter of Mary, (19:16—35)

Good evening, al-salaamu alaikum, peace be upon you all.

I am, as ever, honoured to be here with you on this blessed night at Trinity-St. Paul’s. It is a great joy to be back in this church, both in the primary meaning of that word as this gathering of people, and in the secondary meaning of this amazing physical space that we share. Continue reading Mary in the Qur’an →

That Next Quran Term paper

Qur'an

One of the pedagogical blessings of cyberspace is a service called turnitin.com, which exposes students who copy passages verbatim from internet sites. With the proliferation of websites of mundane term-paper-quality papers for sale, the detective work that now surrounds grading term papers turns even the meekest of professors into forensic hounds. You might expect a temptation for a struggling student to cheat in history or psychology, but surely not on the topic of religion. Imagine assigning a paper on “A Biblical View on Plagiarism” and finding out that it is not a blessing to give the material received a passing grade because the students had less than divine inspiration. What might a pragmatic student be thinking by starting off such a paper with “In the beginning God created…” Continue reading That Next Quran Term paper →

Hate the One Your With

Danish Cartoon Controversy, Islamophobia, Muhammad, Traditions (hadith literature), Yemen, Zaydi


[Photo of Muhammad al-Asadi by Mohammad al-Sharabi for Newsweek.

If your down and confused
And you don’t remember who your talking to
Concentration, step away
‘Cause your baby is so far away
And there’s a rose and it fits me close
And the eagles fly with the doves
And if you can’t be with the one you love honey
Love the one your with
Love the one your with
Love the one your with
You gotta Love the one your with
— Will Young

There is no dearth of Islamophobic and outright anti-Muslim rhetoric in both American and European public opinion forums. A litany of recent events, from the 9/11 Twin Tower tragedy to the Danish cartoon controversy, makes it seem to many people that Muslims are on the attack against “civilized” secular society. Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine (perhaps even Dubai these days) look at their nightly news and see an indiscriminate political war against their moral principles as well as individual lives. The rash of suicide bombings against Western targets, especially U.S. and British military in Iraq, gets precedence because it falls into the usual tit-for-tatness that uncontrolled violence feeds on. But how are we to understand the increasing threats and actual mayhem between fellow Muslims? Continue reading Hate the One Your With →