Abstract
Muslim ethics is cautiously engaging developments in neuroscience. In their encounters with developments in neuroscience such as brain death and functional magnetic resonance imaging procedures, Muslim ethicists might be on the cusp of spirited debates. Science and religion perform different kinds of work and ought not to be conflated. Cultural translation is central to negotiating the complex life worlds of religious communities, Muslims included. Continue reading
edited by KECIA ALI, JULIANE HAMMER, and LAURY SILVERS in 2012:
Excerpt from the Introduction:
It all started with a workshop fittingly titled: “Constructing Muslim ‘Feminist Ethics: Gendered power Relations in the Qur’an and the Prophetic Example.” In October 2010, the three of us, Kecia Ali, Laury Silvers and Juliane Hammer, along with Fatima Seedat, invited a group of Muslim women scholars to George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, to discuss our shared and longstanding interests in questions of Qur’anic hermeneutics, gender roles, and the ethics of rethinking both. We invited Hina Azam, Aysha Hidayatullah, and Saadia Yacoob. Amina Wadud was our guest of honor. Our conversations were honest, wide-ranging, and productive. And it was at the end of the workshop that the idea for this volume was born. Continue reading
by PEW FORUM ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE on AUGUST 9, 2012:
Excerpt from the Executive Summary — The world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are united in their belief in God and the Prophet Muhammad and are bound together by such religious practices as fasting during the holy month of Ramadan and almsgiving to assist people in need. But they have widely differing views about many other aspects of their faith, including how important religion is to their lives, who counts as a Muslim and what practices are acceptable in Islam, according to a worldwide survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Continue reading
Translations from the writings of Jalal al-Din Dawani: Commentary on Suhrawardi’s “Temples of Light” (Sharḥ hayākil al-nūr, Book 5; Arabic), and Flashes of Illumination on Praiseworthy Ethics, or the Jalalian Ethics (Akhlāq-i Jalālī, Book 4; Persian), for An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, ed. S. H. Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi, vol. 4, From the School of Illumination to Philosophical Mysticism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), pp. 93-120, 121-135.
Carl Ernst, UNC Chapel Hill Professor of Religious Studies, is a specialist in Islamic studies, with a focus on West and South Asia. He is co-director with Professor of Sociology Charles Kurzman of UNC Chapel Hill’s Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations.
SOPHIA, Volume 51, Number 1 (2012), 139-141, DOI: 10.1007/s11841-011-0293-xReview of Amyn B. Sajoo (ed.), A Companion to Muslim Ethics I.B. Tauris in Conjunction with the Institute of Ismaili Studies; London & New York, 2010, ISBN: 978-1848855953, hb, 256pp.Bruce B. Lawrence, January 20, 2012.
Bruce Lawrence is an emeritus professor of Islamic studies at Duke University. In Fall 2012 he will be teaching as an adjunct professor in Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif University in Istanbul, Turkey.