1- The Fallen Jew in the Koran :
The question this paper aims to address pertains to Muslim anti-Semitism, and in particular, the role of the Koran, Islam’s founding document, in the formation of Muslim attitudes towards Jews. This question is being asked now more than ever, both because of the mistrust and antipathy that have come to define Muslim/Jewish relations, and because of the alleged complicity of the Koran in fomenting such mistrust.
That material prosperity and religious belief are intertwined has remained an unrecognized teaching of most major faiths and ideologies. To cite but one example from Islam itself, the Prophet once said: “if left unchecked, poverty may well lead to disbelief!” Now comes empirical research to corroborate these views in ways that give religion in general an all new resonance in an otherwise secular world; and perhaps for Islam, in particular, an all new role in the economic lives of its adherents.
2-i: The Ethics of Islamic Financing:
In recent years, the idea of Shariah compliance has taken firm root in the business world and been applied in multiple spheres; everything from Shariah-compliant mortgages to Shariah-compliant hedge funds are growing increasingly popular. The Economist dubbed the phenomenon "sharianomics." Today, as Islamic financing grows exponentially because many more Muslims are mindful of the Shariah aspects of financial transactions, I would like to remind them that there is an often ignored social justice aspect to such financing as well.
3- The Moon-Sighting Controversy: A Silent Revolution in Legal Thinking :
For the first time in Islamic history it is the vox populi that now seems instrumental in modifying those very maqasid of the sacred law that al-Shatibi highlighted. More specifically, there would seem to be an almost imperceptible shift in the interpretive process itself, in the objectives the law is now being called upon to fulfil--and such objectives are clearly unprecedented.
3-i: Lunar Sighting: An Act of Worship ? :
In his paper An Islamic Legal Analysis of the Astronomical Determination of the Beginning of Ramadan Dr. Mukhtar Maghraoui succinctly does the following: 1-analyzes the various interpretations of the scriptural material pertinent to moon sighting; 2-analyzes the juridical arguments on moon-sighting; 3-and presents his own understanding of moon sighting in light of the overall objectives of Islamic law. [1] For the most part Maghraoui’s is a compelling argument against what he himself calls ‘unconditional astronomical calculation of the beginning of Ramadan’. The paper is weak nonetheless, not in Maghraoui’s critique of the computation arguments but in his assertions that sighting is an act of worship and not just a means to mark time. The discussion that follows is an attempt to make the counter argument.
4-Violence in the Name of Islam: Not Just a Threat to Life and Limb :
Ordinary Muslims increasingly find the wanton use of violence even in defense of Islam and Muslims hard to reconcile with common decency. Even those ulama who, swayed by the injustices perpetrated against Muslims, reluctantly relaxed the strict laws that generally regulate the use of violence in Islam, now lament the harm this has done to Islam’s image. But it still falls short of addressing the greater threat it poses to the civilization that is Islam.
Divorced Muslim spouses who ask the US courts to enforce the civil conditions of their Islamic marriages face problems unique to this country. These problems take several forms, from the unilaterally divorced (talaq) wife being left with no alimony, to children of the deceased being denied their inheritance because their parents were involved in a polygynous marriage. One marital situation gaining greater attention in the United States is what British experts on Muslim family law called the limping marriage. In such a marriage the wife is divorced in terms of one law, but not the other.
To undo the corrosive effects of European colonialism on their civil societies, Muslim reformists turned to their past, to what they believed was the catalyst that spawned early Islam's intellectual efflorescence: for many, ijtihad was that impulse, the single element from the sacred heritage with the potential to restore the sacred law to Muslim society. But no such efflorescence could be hoped for without the removal of the regimen of taqlid, described by reformists as the slavish emulation of the madhahib. Whereas ijtihad was prescribed by the Prophet himself, taqlid was an egregious heresy (bidàh) foisted upon Muslim society by flaccid scholars too indecisive to keep apace of evolving exigencies.
7-Hanbalite Hermeneutics: Beyond Reason, Beyond Text
Ahmed Ibn Hanbal's hermeneutics stands accused of being a ferociously anthropomorphist theodicy, a traditionalism so sectarian as to be no longer viable, one that fostered a spirit of frenzied intolerance, critics say, and a kind of permanent inability to accept the established social order. Such charges however, have in the first place served to minimize the pivotal role that Hanbalite thought played in the formative period of sunni orthodoxy, and in the second, to trivialize the complexities of Hanbalite theology and jurisprudence.
Human trafficking is a good point of entry for Muslim religious leaders wishing to contribute to the culture of human rights. We ought to urge our Imams, Shaikhs, and others to see this tragedy as an opportunity to give new meaning to the verse: “. . .If anyone kills one person it would be as if he has killed all of mankind; and if he saves one person, it would be as if has saved all of mankind.”
9-Rights of God, Rights of People
One defining feature of Islam’s ethics is the distinction drawn between rights owed to God and rights owed to fellow humans. Even those otherwise unfamiliar with the Arabic language recognize the phrases huquq Allah and huquq al-`ibad when they hear them; this might be because human rights are but a handful of themes Muslims still find relevant in the weekly sermons. . .
Where modern science’s Judeo-Christian origins are feted expect to find some disgruntled Muslim complaining that Islam was not invited to the party. And this person would be correct to point out the obvious: that without the schools (madrassahs actually!) of Toledo and Granada, the translations of Galen and Aristotle from Latin into Arabic, and the pioneering works of Avicenna and Averroes in the natural and the rational sciences, the miracle that is modern science would not have occurred. But in fairness to those partygoers unwilling to share the limelight, human beings all too often, take more credit than is their due, and allot more blame than is due others.
Two recent disturbances ought to have tempered our new found exuberance for ecumenism both within and outside the Muslim community. In the first, a popular Sunni scholar in Pakistan, during the course of his lecture, unwittingly quoted a well established sunni text that allegedly disparaged `Ali, the fourth caliph. In so doing he incensed Shiites to the extent that the government of Pakistan stepped in with threats of legal action against such 'irresponsible behavior'. In the second
Thanks to Richard Bulliet, the Muslim world may now be examined meaningfully from the outside in. Bulliet writes mainly about Iran in the 11th century but much of what he says is worth considering today. Whereas prior to Bulliet both theology and social change were believed to have cascaded from the center of the Muslim world to its edges, Bulliet’s counterintuitive argument is that change actually begins at the edges of the Muslim world, and then moves backwards into the center.
13-Somali Youth in America
The city of Minneapolis recently set aside a special development grant meant not just to reduce crime in Somali neighborhoods (as was announced), but also, some say, to prevent Somali youth from getting involved in domestic terrorism. City officials did so because some of these same youth are known to have slipped out of the country to engage in acts of piracy on the east coast of Africa, or to help al-Shabab, a paramilitary youth group, topple Somalia’s transitional government.