Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (65 page)

Frederick M. Denny,
An Introduction to Islam,
2nd edn. (New York: Macmillan, 1985). A highly scholarly study of the Islam as a historical faith, fully contextualized in the history of the Near East. Thorough, accurate, and accessible.

The award-winning
Islamic Studies: Islam, Arabic, and Religion
website. This site, widely considered the most informative Islam website in cyberspace, is

operated by Professor Alan (‘Abd al-Haqq) Godlas of the University of Georgia: http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/

For a complete translation of the Qur’an, one can use
The Koran Interpreted
, trans. Arthur J. Arberry (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955), which is perhaps the most poetic translation of the Qur’an in English. In spite of its Victorian language, or perhaps even because of it, the translation of the Qur’an by Abdullah Yusuf ‘Ali, titled
The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an
(Brentwood, MD: Amana, 1991) is also quite popular among many Muslims.

Karen Armstrong
, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993). An easier read than Lings’ work, with a helpful introductory chapter that deals with polemics against Islam and Muhammad in European literature.

Annemarie Schimmel,
And Muhammad Is His Messenger
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988).

John Renard, ed.,
Windows on the House of Islam: Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious Life
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). A useful way to document the rich historical, geographical, and cultural diversity of the Islamic heritage as preserved textually.

Toshihiko Izutsu,
God and Man in the Koran
(Tokyo: Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1964).

Karen Armstrong,
Islam
(London: Modern Library, 2000).

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John L. Esposito, ed.,
The Oxford History of Islam
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). A collection of essays by some of the top scholars of Islamic history.

Islam: Empire of Faith
(video produced by PBS). Probably the best and most

historically accurate video available on the history of Islamic civilization. Exquisitely produced.

Marshal G.S. Hodgson,
Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization
, 3 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). This is surely a challenging read, and a long one, approaching fifteen hundred pages. It is also about forty years dated now. However, it remains the most ambitious attempt to fully situate the study of Islam and Muslims in the context of a global history.

Marshall G.S. Hodgson,
Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam, and World History
, ed. Edmund Burke III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Ann K.S. Lambton,
State and Government in Medieval Islam: An Introduction to the Study of Islamic Political Theory
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981).

Norman Daniel,
Islam and the West: The Making of an Image
(Oxford: Oneworld, 1993).

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century,
trans. Ross

E. Dunn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

Wilfred Madelung,
The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Moojan Momen,
An Introduction to Shi‘i Islam
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).

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Leila Ahmed
, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).

Amina Wadud,
Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective,
2nd edn (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Miriam Cooke
, Women Claim Islam: Creating Islamic Feminism through Literature
(New York: Routledge, 2000).

Khaled Abou El Fadl,
Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women
(Oxford: Oneworld, 2001).

Haideh Moghissi,
Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Lila Abu-Lughod,
Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

Susan Schaefer Davis,
Patience and Power: Women’s Lives in a Moroccan Village

(Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, 1983).

Muslim Women’s League website: http://www.mwlusa.org/

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Carl W. Ernst,
The Shambhala Guide to Sufism
(Boston: Shambhala, 1997).

M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen,
Islam and World Peace: Explanations of a Sufi

(Philadelphia: Fellowship Press, 1987).

Michael Sells,
Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Qur’an, Mi‘raj, Poetic and Theological Writings
(New York: Paulist Press, 1996).

Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak,
Love is the Wine
, 2nd edn (New York: Philosophical

Research Society, 1999).

Carl W. Ernst
, Teachings of Sufism
(Boston: Shambhala, 1999).

James Fadiman and Robert Frager, eds,
Essential Sufism
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).

Farid al-Din Attar,
Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat al-Auliya‘
, trans. by A.J. Arberry (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966).

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The Spirit of Islam
, available through Minnesota National Public Radio at http://
fi ograms/2001/10/19_spiritofi This program features Omid Safi and Seemi Ghazi in a wide-ranging discussion of Islamic literature, spirituality, Qur’an recitation, and contemporary Islam.

Farid ud-Din Attar,
The Conference of the Birds
, trans. by Afkham Darbandi

and Dick Davis (London: Penguin, 1984).

Victoria Rowe Holbrook,
The Unreadable Shores of Love: Turkish Modernity and Mystic Romance
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994).

Elizabeth T. Gray,
The Green Sea of Heaven: Fifty Ghazals from the Diwan of Hafez
(Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 1995).

Frances W. Pritchett,
Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

Walter Andrews et al.,
Ottoman Lyric Poetry: An Anthology
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997).

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Mark Juergensmeyer,
Terror in the Mind of God
(University of California Press, 1998). A valuable book that talks about the global rise of religious violence in comparative terms, thus moving the conversation beyond the singular association of Islam with terrorism.

Bruce Lawrence,
Shattering the Myth: Islam Beyond Violence
(Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1998).

Malcolm X, with Alex Haley,
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
(New York: Grove Press, 1965).

Michael Sells,
The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia
(Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1996).

Roy Mottahedeh,
The Mantle of the Prophet
:
Religion and Politics in Iran

(Oxford: Oneworld, 2000).

Tayyib Saleh,
Wedding of Zein and Other Stories
(London, 1968).

Bruce Lawrence,
Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995).

Wael B. Hallaq,
Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori,
Muslim Politics
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

Ghassan Kanafani,
Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories

(Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000).

Suroosh Irfani,
Revolutionary Islam in Iran – Popular Liberation or Religious Dictatorship?
(London: Zed, 1983).

Tayyib Saleh,
Season of Migration to the North
(London, 1969).

Albert Hourani,
Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962; reprinted, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.)

Daniel Brown,
Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Tariq Ramadan,
Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity
(Markefield, U.K.: Islamic Foundation, 2001).

Fazlur Rahman,
Islam and Modernity
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

Fazlur Rahman,
Revival and Reform in Islam: A Study of Islamic Fundamentalism
, ed. Ebrahim Moosa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999).

Ebrahim Moosa, “The Poetics and Politics of Law after Empire: Reading Women’s Rights in the Contestations of Law,”
Journal for Islamic and Near Eastern Law
, 2001–2, 1–46.

John Cooper, Ronald Nettler and Mohamed Mahmoud, eds,
Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond
(London: I.B. Taurus, 1998).

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Charles Kurzman, ed.,
Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Farid Esack,
Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of

Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression
(Oxford: Oneworld, 1997).

Abdullahi Ahmed an-Na‘im,
Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and International Law
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990).

Abdolkarim Sorush
, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam,
trans.

Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Mohammed Arkoun,
The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought

(London: Saqi, 2002).

Progressive Muslim Network,
Definition of Progressive Islam
,
www. progressive muslims.com

Aziz Esmail, “Islam and Modernity,” in
The Muslim Almanac
, ed. Azim Nanji (New York: Gale Research, 1996), 483–7.

‘Alija ‘Ali Izetbegovic,
Islam between East and West
(Indianapolis: American Trust, 1984).

Abdulaziz Sachedina,
The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Paul A. Bove´, ed.,
Edward Said and the Work of the Critic: Speaking Truth to Power
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000).

Amartya Sen,
Development as Freedom
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Mohammed Arkoun,
Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers
, trans. Robert D. Lee (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).

Edward Said,
Reflections of the Intellectual
(New York: Vantage Press, 1993). Noam Chomsky,
The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the

Palestinians
(Boston: South End Press, 1983).

Russell T. McCutcheon,
Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001).

Edward Said, “Impossible Histories: Why the Many Islams Cannot be Simplified,”
Harper’s Magazine
, July 2002, 69–74.

Ali Shari‘ati,
Reflections of a Concerned Muslim on the Plight of Oppressed Peoples

(Houston: Free Islamic Literatures, 1979).

Ali Shari’ati,
On the Sociology of Islam
, trans. Hamid Algar (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1979).

Na‘eem Jeenah and Shamima Shaikh,
A Journey of Discovery: A South African Hajj
(Oceanview, South Africa: Full Moon Press, 2000).

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Study of Islam Section at the American Academy of Religion,
Scholars of Islam Responding to the Tragedy of 9/11
, http://groups.
colgate.edu/aarislam/ response.htm

Emran Qureshi and Michael A. Sells,
The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).

Michael Sells, “The Interlinked Factors of a Tragedy,” http://www.haverford. edu/relg/sells/interlinkedfactors.htm

Eqbal Ahmad,
Confronting Empire
(Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000).

The many essays of Robert Fisk, the noted journalist for
The Independent
. His essays there can be accessed by doing a search for Robert Fisk on
The Independent
’s website: http://www.independent.co.uk/

Ahmed Rashid,
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).

Arundhati Roy, “The Algebra of Infinite Justice,”
The Guardian
, September 29, 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4266289,00.html

Arundhati Roy, “War is Peace,”
http://www.zmag.org/roywarpeace.htm. Both of the above essays by Arundhati Roy are reprinted in her recent volume,
Power Politics
(Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002).

“Islamic Statements against Terrorism in the Wake of the September 11 Mass Murders,” http://www.unc.edu/~kurzman/terror.htm

Michael Sells, “on the UNC Approaching the Qur’an Controversy of 2002,” http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/UNC_ApproachingTh
eQur’an.htm

Harvey Cox, “The Market as God,”
www.theatlantic.com/issues/99mar/market- god.htm

Khaled Abou El Fadl, “Islam and the Theology of Power,”
Middle East Report
, 221, 2001, www.merip.org/mer/mer221/221_abu_el_fadl.html

Roy Mottahedeh, “The Clash of Civilizations: An Islamicist’s Critique,”
Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review
, 2, 1996, 1–26. This essay by a leading historian of Middle Eastern history at Harvard is the most serious challenge to and refutation of Samuel Huntington’s problematic – yet highly popular – theory of “Clash of Civilizations.”

Edward Said, “The Clash of Ignorance,”
The Nation,
October 4, 2001. This essay, Edward Said’s most recent critique of Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, can be accessed at http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011022&
c= 1&s=said

Foreign Policy in Focus
http://www.fpif.org

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