Islam

03 Oct 1994 12:01

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I shan't try to explain Islam here.

Cultural influence in medieval Italy; in Renaissance Italy; in Sardinia.

One of the most interesting spectacles awaiting the observer of American politics and culture is the rise of Islam. There are somewhere between five and eight million Muslims in the country right now, depending on who is counting and how strictly "Muslim" is defined. Even by the more conservative estimates, therefore, there are already more Muslims than Presbyterians, Episcopalians or even Mormons, and sometime early in the 21st century (that is, the mid-15th) Islam will be the second-largest religion in the United States, surpassing Judaism. The contortions this will produce on the parts of politicians, pundits and colleges are delicious to contemplate, and will be even more amusing to watch. The struggle to find a replacement for "Judeo-Christian" alone will doubtless provide years of entertainment. ("Peoples of the Book" is a natural choice, but by no means assured.) What to teach about the Crusades will also be fun. Pundits and authors of textbooks for college freshmen will solemnly declaim that, since the Muslim world has a Semitic, monotheist religion and inherited Greek philosophy, it is of course a part of "Western Civilization" --- how could one think otherwise? And so on. --- I don't think this will be a bad thing, you understand; it will just be deeply hypocritical, and very funny.

See also: Afghanistan, the Berbers, Central Asia, Islamism, Mu'tazila and Mu'tazilites, Sufism.

Recommended:
• The Qu'ran, of course; the best English translations I've encountered is A. J. Arberry's The Koran Interpreted, but Marmaduke Pickthall's The Meaning of the Glorious Koran is OK, and has curiosity-value, inasmuch as Pickthall became a Muslim in the course of making his translation.
• Khaled Abou El Fadl, Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women
• J. L. Berggren, Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam
• Noel J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law [The law occupies a place of paramount importance in Islam, much more so than in any of the other great religions.]
• Ernest Gellner, Muslim Society
• Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization [One of the best works of history I've ever encountered. There is nothing of comparable value about western civilization.]
• Pervez Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality
• Fatima Mernissi
• Howard R. Turner, Science in Medieval Islam [Light, in places superficial --- I don't think Turner really understands algebra --- but excellently illustrated and it is, after all, a glorified exhibition catalogue]

To read (very miscellaneous, in need of subdivision and more specialized notebooks):
• Akbar S. Ahmed, Islam Under Siege
• Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, and International Law
• M. J. Akbar, The Shade of Swords: Jihad and Conflict between Islam and Christianity
• Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam: India 1200-180 [Blurb]
• Seyyed H. Badakhchani (ed.), Nasir al-Din Tusi: Contemplation and Action: The Spiritual Autobiography of a Muslim Scholar [Tusi being one of the great astronomers and mathematicians of medieval times, inventor of an early form of Fourier decomposition...]
• Anthony Black, History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present
• Daniel Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought
• Ronald Paul Buckley, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector
• Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge
• David Cook
  • Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature
  • Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic
• Michael L. Cook
  • Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought
  • Forbidding Wrong in Islam: An Introduction [looks like a self-vulgarization of Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong.]
• Farhad Daftary, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'ilis
• Herbert Alan Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect, and Theories of Human Intellect
• Richard M. Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204--1760 [Online]
• al-Farabi, Harmony of the Philosophies of Plato and Aristotle
• Francesco Gabrielli, Arab Historians of the Crusades
• Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers [ = Tahafut al-falasifah]
• Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale
• H. A. R. Gibb
  • Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey
  • Studies in the Civilization of Islam
• Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic
• Jack Goody, Islam in Europe
• Michael Gomez, Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas
• Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament
• Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunni usul al-fiqh
• Kaye Haw, Educating Muslim Girls: Shifting Discourses
• Jan P. Hogendijk and Abdelhamid I. Sabra (eds.), The Enterprise of Science in Islam
• Tarif Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period
• Rosamond E. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300--1600 [Blurb, intro]
• Tim MacKintosh-Smith, Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah
• Wilferd Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate [Blurb]
• Muhsin Mahdi, Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy [Blurb]
• Louise Marlow, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought [blurb]
• Nabil Matar, Islam in Britain, 1558--1685 [Blurb]
• Julie Meisami, Structure and Meaning in Medieval Arabic and Persian Lyric Poetry
• Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society
• Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Science and Civilization in Islam
• Chase F. Robinson, Islamic Historiography
• Laurence Rosen, The Justice of Islam [Islamic law as a common law tradition]
• Franz Rosenthal, The Classical Heritage in Islam
• George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance [blurb]
• Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam
• Adam J. Silverstein, Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World [blurb]
• Eleanor Sims, Peerless Images: Persian Figural Painting and Its Sources [Persianate painting needs its own notebook]
• Abdolkarim Soroush, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings
• Nurit Tsafrir, The History of an Islamic School of Law: The Early Spread of Hanafism [Blurb]
• Najib Ullah, Islamic Literature: An Introductory History with Selections
• Knut S. Vikor, Between God and the Sultan: A History of Islamic Law
• Paul Wheatley, The Places Where Men Pray Together: Cities in Islamic Lands, Seventh through the Tenth Centuries [Blurb]
• Brannon Wheeler, Mecca and Eden: Ritual, Relics, and Territory in Islam [Blurb]
• Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change [Blurb, introduction]