On the one hand, the story of modern Islam across multiple disciplines has for decades been organized by a figure…
Listening to the torment of existence
Islam
Knot of the Soul: Voices, textures, resonances
More than any other book I have read recently, Stefania Pandolfo’s Knot of the Soul made me ask myself time…
Translation, tradition, and the ethical turn: A reply to Bardawil and Allan
The Arabic Freud ... does not aim to augment the literature on psychoanalysis by contributing yet another reading of Freud (merely…
The Arabic Freud: Discourse interruptus
The Arabic Freud masterfully excavates the neglected archives of psychoanalysis in mid-twentieth century Egypt, and offers a doubly contrapuntal account…
Hidden figures in Jinnealogy
Visiting Firoz Shah Kotla has much to tell us about Islamic epistemologies, and much to tell us about how to…
On epistemic possibility: A reply to Hirschkind and Tambar
In their thoughtful reflections on The Iranian Metaphysicals, Charles Hirschkind and Kabir Tambar focus on my analysis of how different…
The future of enlightenment: Comparison, tradition, temporality
In The Iranian Metaphysicals, Alireza Doostdar describes his work as contributing to “comparative anthropologies of epistemology”—“how people know things and…
Thoughts on tradition in The Iranian Metaphysicals
While this book is an extraordinary accomplishment, rich in its ethnographic wanderings and sophisticated in its theoretical framing, my interest…
Science and the soul—An introduction
“Science and the soul: New inquiries into Islamic ethics” offers a unique forum not merely for review or commentary on…
A women’s march without God (the Father)
Despite the increasing feminist readings of religion, the broader women’s movement frequently overlooks religion, and the result is often an…