For Love of the Prophet argues that in moving beyond the institutional life of the Sudanese state, we are able…
For Love of the Prophet—An Introduction
Book blog
Scholars from varying disciplines engage in critical discussions of recent books. Additionally, scholars introduce their books with an original essay or, occasionally, an original essay reviews an important new book, connecting it to other threads of conversation in the academy and beyond.
You can read our very first book forum, on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and the continued discussion around Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age here.
New itineraries in the study of Islam and the state
From Wael Hallaq’s The Impossible State to Shahab Ahmad’s What is Islam?, recent scholarship on Islam and the state has…
When is the Islamic state? Historical time and the agenda of Islamic studies
From the Islamic revolutions in Iran (1978-79) and Sudan (1989) to the recent emergence of ISIS, the concept of an…
The rhetoric of Islamic politics in local and global dimensions
Noah Salomon’s ethnography of politics provides a penetrating insight on the far-reaching effects of the Islamic state project in the…
Tainted love
Noah Salomon begins his work with the provocative statement that the “state may have failed according to the criteria of…
Taking the Islamic in “the Islamic state” seriously
I want to focus on Salomon’s argument that the secular state—in this case the British colonial one—is in the business…
The inevitable Islamic State? The paradoxes of Sudanese politics and society
Noah Salomon’s recent book, For Love of the Prophet, is a lesson in academic creativity in the face of adversity.…
For Love of the Prophet—A reply
For Love of the Prophet certainly is a book about Sudan, but, like all ethnographies, it is also very much…
The American tradition of tolerance and free speech
Much has happened since Denise Spellberg’s Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an came out in 2013. When I first read it, I treasured…
Muslim fears and Muslim rights
Muslims played a crucial role in determining the full extent of religious liberty in the early history of the United…