Islam

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In the past week, Linah al-Saafin at Al Jazeera English points out, an Israeli drone hit a Hizbullah target in Lebanon, Israeli fighter jets bombed a base in Syria with Iranian personnel, and Israel somehow hit bases of a Shiite militia in Iraq, including one on the Syria-Iraq border, killing […]

Islam

Jazz Great John Coltrane and the Enchantment of Islam

Shalom Goldman

(Informed Comment) – In his childhood and youth in rural North Carolina John Coltrane absorbed the musical traditions of African-American worship. His parents were active in the local African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. John’s paternal grandfather was a minister in that church and John’s mother sang and played piano in the gospel choir. In 1943 […]

Islam

Juan Cole on the Prophet Muhammad in War and Peace (Emir-Stein Center Video)

Juan Cole

Emir-Stein Center | Juan Cole on Muhammad | – Click below to go to YouTube and watch a 7-minute video–with maps, historical graphics and animation– where I summarize my new book, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires: Here’s the link for the video: Emir-Stein Center presents Juan Cole on the Prophet Muhammad […]

Feminism

Cole in Time Magazine for the Fourth of July on Lydia Maria Child and Islam

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Time Magazine does an annual feature on unsung moments in American history for their 4th of July edition. This year they asked me to submit one of the 15 vignettes. Influenced by the work of Jeffrey Einboden on Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880), I suggested as my unsung moment the 1855 […]

Donald Trump

The U.S. Isn’t Winning Any Popularity Contests Among Arabs

contributors

By Lawrence Pintak | – Saudi Arabia’s King Salman may consider U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a “dear friend,” but it turns out the U.S. isn’t winning any popularity contests outside the royal palace. Pompeo is in the region to meet with what he described as America’s “great allies,” Saudi Arabia and the UAE, […]

political Islam

So, What Really is Jihad?

The Conversation

By Mohammad Hassan Khalil | – Often, many people conflate the terms jihad and terrorism. This is in part because many writers use the term “jihadist” when describing violent Muslim radicals. To be sure, such radicals have invoked jihad to justify their heinous acts, such as the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and […]

Islam

Dawn Newspaper: Contextualizing the Dawn of Islam: Glowing Review of Cole’s Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires

contributors

Hachette Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires By Juan Cole Bold Type Books, US ISBN: 978-1568587837 336pp. By Taha Ali | – (Dawn) – Every once in a while, if we are lucky, we get a book which brings the early days of Islam alive for us in a way that is […]

Islam

Very Early Muslim Piety toward the Prophet Muhammad: Blessings and Intercession

Juan Cole

The great scholar Annemarie Schimmel quoted Arthur Jeffrey, the Australian scholar of Islam, to this effect: “Many years ago . . . the late Shaikh Mustafa al-Maraghi remarked on a visit to his friend, the Anglican bishop in Egypt, that the commonest cause of offence, generally unwitting offence, given by Christians to Muslims, arose from […]

Qur'an

Headcanon: Review of Juan Cole, “Muhammad: Prophet of Peace” at Northwest Progressive Institute

Juan Cole

David A. Johnson has written, for The Cascadia Advocate (a project of the Northwest Progressive Institute), a review of my new book on the Prophet Muhammad: Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires, published October 9, 2018 Available at Barnes and Noble And Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor And Hachette And Amazon Here […]