Malika Zeghal (born 1965 [1] ) is a French Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, [2] and formerly an associate professor of the anthropology and sociology of religion in the University of Chicago Divinity School.
She was a student of the École Normale Supérieure (rue d'Ulm, Paris) where she was admitted in 1987. [3] She received her doctorate from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris in 1994. She began her postdoctoral research in 1995 at the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University before returning to France to join for ten years, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique from 1995 to 2005. [4] She is a Member of the Scientific Council of the Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts. [5]
Her work, Gardiens de l'Islam: Les oulémas d'Al Azhar dans l'Egypte contemporaine, written in French is an analysis of the influence of the ulama of Al-Azhar University [6] [7] . A. Marsot argues her thesis is that "the ulama of the Azhar believe that it is their duty, daʿwa, as the guardians of religion to see that the laws of a country conform to the shariʿa; thus, their struggle with the authorities is defined by an attempt to set aside the laws of the state in favor of the shariʿa." [8] The book explores how state interactions with the Azhari ulama helped to lead to the rise other Islamic movements, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, outside of traditional institutions.
Her most recent book, The Making of the Modern Muslim State: Islam and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa was published by Princeton University Press in 2024. [9]
At Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, she often teaches a General Education Course called "GENED1123: Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East," a seminar called "MODMDEST 315: Reading al-Manar in the Interwar Period" and a course on the modern Middle East called "MODMDEST 100: The Modern Middle East, Real and Imagined: An Introduction."
In Islam, the ulama, also spelled ulema, are scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. They are considered the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam.
Bassam Tibi, is a Syrian-born German political scientist and professor of international relations specializing in Islamic studies and Middle Eastern studies. He was born in 1944 in Damascus, Syria to an aristocratic family, and moved to West Germany in 1962, where he later became a naturalized citizen in 1976.
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.
Muḥammad ʿAbduh was an Egyptian Islamic scholar, judge, and Grand Mufti of Egypt. He was a central figure of the Arab Nahḍa and Islamic Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Soheib Bencheikh is an Islamic religious leader and author and would-be French politician.
Farag Foda was a prominent Egyptian professor, writer, columnist, and human rights activist.
Islam is the dominant religion in Egypt, with approximately 90% of Egyptians identifying as Muslims. The majority of Egyptian Muslims are adherents of Sunni Islam, while a small minority adhere to Shia Islam. Since 1980, Islam has served as Egypt's state religion. Due to the lack of a religious census, owing to the alleged undercounting of non-Muslim minorities in Egyptian censuses, the actual percentage of Muslims is unknown; the percentage of Egyptian Christians, who are the second-largest religious group in the country, is estimated to be between 6% and 11% of the population.
Claude Cahen was a 20th-century French Marxist orientalist and historian. He specialized in the studies of the Islamic Middle Ages, Muslim sources about the Crusades, and social history of the medieval Islamic society.
Al-Ahbash, also known as the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects is a Sufi religious movement and, in Lebanon, political party, which was founded in the mid-1980s. The group follow the teachings of Ethiopian scholar Abdullah al-Harari. Due to the group's origins and activity in Lebanon, the Ahbash have been described as the "activist expression of Lebanese Sufism."
Sheikh Mahmoud Shaltut was an Egyptian figure best known for his attempts in Islamic reform. A disciple of Mohammad Abduh's school of thought, Shaltut rose to prominence as Grand Imam of Al-Azhar during the Nasser years from 1958 until his death in 1963.
Al-Azhar Mosque, known in Egypt simply as al-Azhar, is a mosque in Cairo, Egypt in the historic Islamic core of the city. Commissioned as the new capital of the Fatimid Caliphate in 970, it was the first mosque established in a city that eventually earned the nickname "the City of a Thousand Minarets". Its name is usually thought to derive from az-Zahrāʾ, a title given to Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad.
The Sharifian Caliphate was a Caliphate proclaimed by the Sharifian leaders of the Hejaz in 1924, replacing the Ottoman Caliphate, which was abolished by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Even though the Banu Hashim held the caliphate at various points in history, Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, was the first and last caliph of this lineage.
Jacqueline Chabbi is a historian and a professor of Arab Studies at the University of Paris-VIII. Her research concerns the history of the medieval Muslim world.
Shaykh Mustafa Abd ar-Raziq was an Egyptian Islamic philosopher.
Shahab Ahmed was a Pakistani scholar of Islam at Harvard University.
The Association of Algerian Muslim Ulama, commonly known as Jam'iyat al-'Ulama, was an Islamist and Arab nationalist cultural and religious movement in French Algeria led by Abdelhamid Ben Badis. Its motto was "Islam is our religion, Algeria is our homeland, Arabic is our language".
The Law of Jordan is influenced by Ottoman law and European laws. The Constitution of Jordan of 1952 affirmed Islam as the state religion, but it did not state that Islam is the source of legislation. Jordanian penal code has been influenced by the French Penal Code of 1810.
In the context of Muslim society in Indonesia, Modernism or modernist Islam refers to a religious movement which puts emphasis on teachings purely derived from the Islamic religious scriptures, the Qur'an and Hadith. Modernism is often contrasted with traditionalism, which upholds ulama-based and syncretic vernacular traditions. Modernism is inspired by reformism during the late-19th to early 20th century based in the Middle East, such as the Islamic modernist, Salafiyya and Wahhabi movements. Throughout the history of contemporary Muslim Indonesia, these movements have inspired various religious organizations; from the mass organization Muhammadiyah (1912), political party Masyumi Party (1943), to missionary organization Indonesian Islamic Dawah Council (1967).
Majallat Al Azhar is an Islamic publication of Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, which has existed since 1931.