Asma Afsaruddin | |
|---|---|
 Asma Afsaruddin in 2015 | |
| Born | Asma Afsaruddin 1958 |
| Nationality | American |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Johns Hopkins University |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | Indiana University |
| Notable works |
|
Asma Afsaruddin (born 1958) is an American scholar of Islamic studies [1] [2] and Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University in Bloomington. [3]
She was an associate professor in Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. [4] She has previously taught at Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University, from which she received her PhD in 1993. [5] Her fields of specialization include the religious and political thought of Islam, study of the primary Islamic texts (Qur'an and hadith), as well as gender studies. [5]
Afsaruddin has been an editorial board member for the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, published by Cambridge University Press. She was an editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Medieval Islamic Civilization and a consultant for The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2002). [5]
Afsaruddin chairs the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy board of directors. She also sits on advisory committees for the Muslim World Initiative of the United States Institute of Peace and the human rights organization Karamah. [6]
In 2015, she was presented the Jayezeh Jahani (World Book Prize) for the best new book in Islamic studies by the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani for her book Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought. [7] The book was also a runner-up for the British-Kuwaiti Friendship Society Book Prize in 2014. [7]
Jihad is an Arabic word which literally means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God's guidance, such as internal struggle against evil in oneself, efforts to build a good Muslim community (ummah), and struggle to defend Islam. In non-Muslim societies, the term is most often associated with offensive warfare and violence.
Political aspects of Islam are derived from the Quran, ḥadīth literature, and sunnah, the history of Islam, and elements of political movements outside Islam. Traditional political concepts in Islam include leadership by elected or selected successors to Muhammad, known as Caliphs in Sunnī Islam and Imams in Shīʿa Islam; the importance of following the Islamic law (sharīʿa); the duty of rulers to seek consultation (shūrā) from their subjects; and the importance of rebuking unjust rulers.
Fakir, faqeer, or faqīr, derived from faqr, is an Islamic term traditionally used for Sufi Muslim ascetics who renounce their worldly possessions and dedicate their lives to the worship of God. They do not necessarily renounce all relationships, or take vows of poverty, but the adornments of the temporal worldly life are kept in perspective. The connotations of poverty associated with the term relate to their spiritual neediness, not necessarily their physical neediness.
Gilles Kepel, is a French political scientist and Arabist, specialized in the contemporary Middle East and Muslims in the West. He was Professor at Sciences Po Paris, the Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) and director of the Middle East and Mediterranean Program at PSL, based at Ecole Normale Supérieure. His latest English-translated book is, Away from Chaos. The Middle East and the Challenge to the West was reviewed by The New York Times as "an excellent primer for anyone wanting to get up to speed on the region”. His last essay, le Prophète et la Pandémie / du Moyen-Orient au jihadisme d'atmosphère, just released in French, has topped the best-seller lists and is currently being translated into English and a half-dozen languages.
At-Tawbah is the ninth chapter of the Quran. It contains 129 verses and is one of the last Medinan surahs. This Surah is known by two names, At-Taubah and Al-Bara'at. It is called At-Taubah in light of the fact that it articulates taubah (atonement) and informs about the conditions of its acceptance.. The name Bara'at (Release) is taken from the opening word of the Surah.
Religious violence covers phenomena in which religion is either the subject or the object of violent behavior. All the religions of the world contain narratives, symbols, and metaphors of violence and war. Religious violence is violence that is motivated by, or in reaction to, religious precepts, texts, or the doctrines of a target or an attacker. It includes violence against religious institutions, people, objects, or events. Religious violence includes both acts which are committed by religious groups and acts which are committed against religious groups.
Islamic military jurisprudence refers to what has been accepted in Sharia and Fiqh by Ulama as the correct Islamic manner, expected to be obeyed by Muslims, in times of war. Some scholars and Muslim religious figures describe armed struggle based on Islamic principles as the Lesser jihad.
Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or ʿaqīdah (creed). Within Islamic groups themselves there may be differences, such as different orders (tariqa) within Sufism, and within Sunnī Islam different schools of theology and jurisprudence. Groups in Islam may be numerous, or relatively small in size.
Criticism of Islam, including of Islamic beliefs, practices, and doctrines, can take many forms, including academic critiques, political criticism, religious criticism, and personal opinions.
In Twelver Shia Islam, the Ancillaries of the Faith are a set of practices that Shia Muslims have to carry out.
Verse 29 of chapter 9 of the Qur'an is notable as dealing with the imposition of tribute (ǧizya) on non-Muslims who have fallen under Muslim rule. Most Muslim commentators believe this verse was revealed at the time of the expedition to Tabuk to threaten the Christians of Arabia in Syria and those of Rome.:239-240
Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centered on the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad, the religion's founder. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number approximately 1.9 billion worldwide and are the world's second-largest religious population after Christians.
Jihadism is a neologism for militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West. It is a form of religious violence and has been applied to various insurgent Islamic extremist, militant Islamist, and terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideologies are based on the Islamic notion of lesser jihad from the classical interpretation of Islam. It has also been applied to various Islamic empires in history, such as the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates of the early Muslim conquests, and the Ottoman Empire.
The Sword Verse is the fifth verse of the ninth surah (at-Tawbah) of the Quran. It is a Quranic verse widely cited by critics of Islam to suggest the faith promotes violence against pagans by isolating the portion of the verse "kill the polytheists wherever you find them, capture them".
[9:5] But once the Sacred Months have passed, kill the polytheists wherever you find them, capture them, besiege them, and lie in wait for them on every way. But if they repent, perform prayers, and pay alms-tax, then set them free. Indeed, Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.[Quran 9:5]
Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Qutb was an Egyptian political theorist and revolutionary who was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He is dubbed the "father of Salafi jihadism", the religio-political doctrine that underpins the ideological roots of global jihadist organisations such as al-Qaeda and ISIL.
Different Muslim movements through history had linked pacifism with Muslim theology. However, warfare has been an integral part of Islamic history both for the defense and the spread of the faith since the time of Muhammad.
The use of politically and religiously-motivated violence dates back to the early history of Islam. Islam has its origins in the behavior, sayings, and rulings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, his companions, and the first caliphs in the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries CE. Mainstream Islamic law stipulates detailed regulations for the use of violence, including corporal and capital punishment, as well as regulations on how, when, and whom to wage war against.
Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources is a 1983 biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad by Martin Lings.
Natana J. DeLong-Bas is an American academic, scholar of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, and author of a number of academic publications on Islam on the subjects of Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism, Islamic thought and history, Islam and politics, and contemporary jihadism.
Caner Dagli is a Circassian-American Islamic scholar and associate professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
