There are reductive categories . . . that have been and should be abandoned in scholarly discourse because the terms…
Critiquing reductionism
politics
The politics of inaccuracy and a case for “Islamic law”
Since the process of understanding divine law is not a uniform or singular one, there are multiple interpretations of what…
The Theological and the Political
From Fortress Press, an interview with Mark Lewis Taylor, author of The Theological and the Political: On the Weight of…
Religion and marriage debate
Should the state be in the business of marriage, or is it inherently a religious union that should be performed…
Beyond denial
For a brief moment in 2007, news of a hit Iranian television series, whose Farsi title was translated variously as…
Ducking the Arab Spring in Morocco
The wave of protests shaking the Arab political regimes has quietly but forcefully made its way to Morocco. The February…
Mamdani on the African uprisings
Mahmood Mamdami places the Egyptian revolution and other protest movements in the historical context of popular struggle in Africa.
From exodus to immigration
At Killing the Buddha: "Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists broke matzo with Jewish Israelis in a Tel Aviv basketball court before…
Farrakhan, Qaddafi, and the definition of American Islam
In another example of how mass media shape and constrain what constitutes legitimate Islam and religion more generally, the New…
Translating music into politics in Haiti
In Foreign Policy, Elizabeth McAlister---a member of the SSRC Working Group on Spirituality, Political Engagement, and Public Life---writes on recent…