New Book: Understanding the Qur'anic Miracle Stories in the Modern Age

The Qur’an contains many miracle stories, from Moses’s staff turning into a serpent to Mary’s conceiving Jesus as a virgin. In Understanding the Qur’anic Miracle Stories in the Modern Age, Isra Yazicioglu offers a glimpse of the ways in which meaningful implications have been drawn from these apparently strange narratives, both in the premodern and modern era. It fleshes out a fascinating medieval Muslim debate over miracles and connects its insights with early and late modern turning points in Western thought and with contemporary Qur’anic interpretation. Building on an apparent tension within the Qur’an and analyzing crucial cases of classical and moern Muslim engagement with these miracle stories, this book illustrates how an apparent site of conflict between faith and reason, or revelation and science, can become a site of fruitful exchange.

This book is a distinctive contribution to a new trend in Qur’anic Studies: it reveals the presence of insightful Qur’anic interpretation outside of the traditional line-by-line commentary genre, engaging with the works of Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, and Said Nursi. Moreover, focused as it is on the case of miracle stories, the book also goes beyond these specific passages to reflect more broadly on the issue of Qur’anic hermeneutics. It notes the connections between literal and symbolic approaches and highlights the importance of approaching the Qur’an with an eye to its potential implications for everyday life.

Amazon

Penn State UP

New book: Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, and the Fate of Others

In Between Heaven and Hell, eminent and up-and-coming scholars representing a diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints address the question of non-Muslim salvation: according to the Islamic ethos (however understood), what can be said about the status and fate of non-Muslims? Each of the volume's contributors responds to this often asked "salvation question"-a question with profound theological and practical implications-from different angles: while some limit themselves to its historical dimensions, others approach it as theologians and philosophers, while yet others focus on the relationship between this-worldly relations with Others and next-worldly conceptions of salvation. Collectively and individually, the essays in this volume advance our understanding of Islamic thought and Muslim societies and indeed the discourse on religious diversity. This groundbreaking volume does not conclude with neat resolutions; instead, it offers fascinating expositions, debates, and points of departure for further contemplation. Contributors include Mohammad Hassan Khalil, Tariq Ramadan, William C. Chittick, Farid Esack, Mohammad Fadel, David M. Freidenreich, Marcia Hermansen, Jerusha Lamptey, Bruce B. Lawrence, Muhammad Legenhausen, Yasir Qadhi, A. Kevin Reinhart, Sajjad Rizvi, Reza Shah-Kazemi, and Tim Winter.

Amazon

In addition to this edited volume, also see this work by the editor. 

Jesus the Muslim: Interview with Tim Winter

http://www.thingsunseen.co.uk/life-of-the-spirit/jesus-the-muslim/

New khutba by Shaykh Abdal-Hakim Murad: Dua Mukh al-Ibada

http://cambridgekhutbasetc.blogspot.com/2013/12/dua-mukh-al-ibada.html

Ella Collins Winter Retreat 2013

http://ellacollinsinstitute.org/winter-retreat-2013/

Signs on the Horizons: Meetings with Men of Knowledge and Illumination

SIGNS ON THE HORIZONS is an enthralling contemporary memoir of one seeker’s interactions with men who have transcended the ordinary and achieved stations of spirituality and enlightenment that in the modern world we only attribute to the Biblical fathers of ancient times or to myth. Michael Sugich, an American writer who was initiated into a traditional Sufi order over forty years ago and who lived for 23 years in the sacred city of Makkah Al Mukaramah, has kept company with some of the greatest Sufi saints of the age from many parts of the world. His book is a unique eye-witness narrative of a mystical tradition that today hides in plain sight, veiled by the turbulence and materialism gripping the Muslim world. It is a spellbinding personal memoir told with eloquence, empathy, self-effacing humor, insight and love.

Amazon

Princeton Muslim Life Program Videos

http://vimeo.com/muslimlifeprogram/videos/sort:date

Some treasures here ma sha Allah.

The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dao-Muhammad-Cultural-Monographs/dp/0674017749

This book documents an Islamic-Confucian school of scholarship that flourished, mostly in the Yangzi Delta, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Drawing on previously unstudied materials, it reconstructs the network of Muslim scholars responsible for the creation and circulation of a large corpus of Chinese Islamic written material--the so-called Han Kitab. Against the backdrop of the rise of the Manchu Qing dynasty, The Dao of Muhammad shows how the creation of this corpus, and of the scholarly network that supported it, arose in a context of intense dialogue between Muslim scholars, their Confucian social context, and China's imperial rulers.  

Overturning the idea that participation in Confucian culture necessitated the obliteration of all other identities, this book offers insight into the world of a group of scholars who felt that their study of the Islamic classics constituted a rightful "school" within the Confucian intellectual landscape. These men were not the first Muslims to master the Chinese Classics. But they were the first to express themselves specifically as Chinese Muslims and to generate foundation myths that made sense of their place both within Islam and within Chinese culture.

This Addiction Has Only Been Around For A Little While, But It's Hurting Our Generation

http://www.upworthy.com/this-addiction-has-only-been-around-for-a-little-while-but-its-hurting-our-generation

Call for Papers: Zaytuna College Conference on Islamic Higher Education

http://www.zaytunacollege.org/static/call_for_papers_jan_20_2014/