David Cook is an American historian and professor of the history of Islam at Rice University. Cook earned his PhD at the University of Chicago.
Cook is noted among scholars of Islam for his "diligent reading and clear translations" of Islamic texts. [1]
Islamism refers to a broad set of religious and political ideological movements that believe Islam should influence political systems, and generally oppose secularism. The advocates of Islamism, also known as "al-Islamiyyun", are dedicated to realizing their ideological interpretation of Islam within the context of the state or society. The majority of them are affiliated with Islamic institutions or social mobilization movements, often designated as "al-harakat al-Islamiyyah." Islamists emphasize the implementation of sharia, pan-Islamic political unity, and the creation of Islamic states.
Islamic eschatology is a field of study in Islam concerning future events that would happen in the end times. It is primarily based on sources from the Quran and Sunnah. Aspects from this field of study include the signs of the final age, the destruction of the universe and Judgement Day.
Jihad is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God's guidance, such as an 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.
Ibn Warraq is the pen name of an anonymous author critical of Islam. He is the founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society and used to be a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, focusing on Quranic criticism. Warraq is the vice-president of the World Encounter Institute.
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.
Qutbism is an exonym that refers to the Sunni Islamist beliefs and ideology of Sayyid Qutb, a leading Islamist revolutionary of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed by the Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1966. Influenced by the doctrines of earlier Islamists like Hasan al-Banna and Maududi, Qutbism advocates Islamic extremist violence in order to establish an Islamic government, in addition to promoting offensive Jihad. Qutbism has been characterized as an Islamofascist and Islamic terrorist ideology.
Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Gisèle Littman, better known by her pen name Bat Ye'or, is an Egyptian-born British-French author, who argues in her writings that Islam, anti-Americanism and antisemitism hold sway over European culture and politics.
Takfiri is an Arabic and Islamic term denoting a Muslim who excommunicates one of his/her coreligionists, i.e. who accuses another Muslim of being an apostate.
Efraim Karsh is an Israeli and British historian who is the founding director and emeritus professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London. Since 2013, he has served as professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University. He is also a principal research fellow and former director of the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank. He is a vocal critic of the New Historians, a group of Israeli scholars who have questioned the traditional Israeli narrative of the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Criticism of Islam can take many forms, including academic critiques, political criticism, religious criticism, and personal opinions. Subjects of criticism include Islamic beliefs, practices, and doctrines.
Patricia Crone was a Danish historian specialising in early Islamic history. Crone was a member of the Revisionist school of Islamic studies and questioned the historicity of the Islamic traditions about the beginnings of Islam.
Michael Allan Cook FBA is a British historian and scholar of Islamic history. Cook is the general editor of The New Cambridge History of Islam.
Jihadism is a neologism for militant Islamic movements that seek to base the state on Islamic principles. In a narrower sense, it refers to the belief held by some Muslims that armed confrontation with political rivals is an efficient and theologically legitimate method of socio-political change. 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. There were also the Fula jihads in West Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Asma Afsaruddin is an American scholar of Islamic studies and Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University in Bloomington.
This is a list of books in the English language which deal with Afghanistan and its geography, history, inhabitants, culture, biota, etc.
Shahid denotes a martyr in Islam. The word is used frequently in the Quran in the generic sense of "witness" but only once in the sense of "martyr" ; the latter sense acquires wider usage in the hadith. The first martyr for Islam was a woman; a Divine, unparalleled, universal and eternal honor. The term's usage is also borrowed by non-Muslim communities where persianate Islamic empires held cultural influence, such as amongst Hindus and Sikhs in India.
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.
Reuven Firestone is an American academic and historian of religion, who serves as the Regenstein Professor in Medieval Judaism and Islam at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion's Skirball Campus in Los Angeles and Affiliate Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California.
Nehemia Levtzion was an Israeli scholar of African history, Near East, Islamic, and African studies, and the President of the Open University of Israel from 1987 to 1992 and the Executive Director of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute from 1994 to 1997.