Representation of the non-Western Islamist fighter has long had to deal with the Eurocentric and asymmetrical nature of international relations.…
Irredeemable enemies
Islamic State
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 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.…
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…
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…
For Love of the Prophet—An Introduction
For Love of the Prophet argues that in moving beyond the institutional life of the Sudanese state, we are able…
The Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy (and what you need to read to understand it)
Graeme Wood’s “What ISIS Really Wants,” published in The Atlantic in February 2015, sparked a massive debate. The controversy concerns…
Is ISIS Islamic? Why it matters for the study of Islam
Recent months have witnessed considerable angst in the academy over what is and isn’t Islam(ic). Spurred by events from the…
The ISIS shock doctrine
The rapid and shockingly violent establishment of a self-declared Islamic Caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq by The Islamic…
In whose name? ISIS, Islam, and social media
Commentators routinely remark on the sophisticated use of media by the organization that calls itself the Islamic State, but in…