The American Muslim (TAM) List of Recommended Books on Islam
The American Muslim List of Recommended Books on Islam by Sheila Musaji The books listed here are books that we recommend. This list began with the publication of The American Muslim Resource Directory in 1994. At that time we asked 35 people to submit information about the books about Islam that they would most highlyContinue reading "The American Muslim (TAM) List of Recommended Books on Islam"
A Critical Reading of Martin Lings’ Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources
Foreword to the first Swedish translation © GF Haddad 2005 Twenty-three years after its first publication in 1983, Muḥammad: his life based on the earliest sources by the late Abū Bakr Sirāj al-Dīn (Martin Lings, d. 2004) continues its lead as the best-written work of Prophetic biography in English and has now been translated intoContinue reading "A Critical Reading of Martin Lings’ Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources"
Reviews of Yasin Dutton’s Works
Yasin Dutton has some very interesting works concerning the history of the Maliki school. Here are some sharply contrasting reviews of those works.
Motzki’s review of ‘The Origin’s of Islamic Law’ can be found here:
Haddad’s review of ‘Original Islam’ follows:
ORIGINAL ISLAM: MALIK AND THE madhhab OF MADINA
By Yasin Dutton. London and New York: Routledge, 2007.
Pp. xiii + 219. ISBN10: 0-415-33813-1.
ISBN13: 978-0-415-33813-4 (HB).
For three quarters of its pages the translation of a 9th-century
outdated anti-Shafi`i work advocating the superiority of the Maliki
School – Intisar al-Faqir al-Salik li-Tarjih madhhab al-Imam al-Kabir
Malik by Shams al-Din al-Ra`i al-Gharnati (782-853), an obscure
Andalo-Egyptian grammarian whom Imam al-Sakhawi described as a good poet
who possessed “a sharp tongue and sharp manners” – Original Islam‘s
unoriginal material and real author are shanghaied by Arabic Studies
Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town Yasin Dutton (a disciple
of…
View original post 2,882 more words
Book Review: The Immense Ocean
Title: The Immense Ocean (Al-Bahr Al-Madid): A Thirteenth Century Quranic Commentary on the Chapters of The All-Merciful, The Event and Iron
Author: Shaykh Ahmad Ibn Ajiba
Translated and Annotated by: Mohamed Fouad Aresmouk and Michael Abdurrahman Fitzgerald
Publisher: Fons Vitae (2009)
Shaykh Ibn Ajiba was born in northern Morocco in 1747 or 1748, into a family that descended from Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). He was a spiritual master in the Shadhiliyya-Darqawiyya tradition. Shaykh Ibn Ajiba has written an autobiography that has been translated, also by Fons Vitae, which can be found here. In regards to the book at hand, Shaykh Ahmad Ibn Ajiba writes in his own introduction:
I have been requested by my Shaykh, Sidi Muhammad al Buzidi al-Hasani, as well as his Shaykh, Qutb Mulay al’Arabi al-Darqawi al-Hasani, to set down in writing a commentary that would combine both exoteric explanation and esoteric allusion, and…
View original post 1,334 more words
Observations on Chapter 1 of Karen Armstrong’s Book “Islam: A Short History”
The following is a reproduction of some observations I made while reading the first chapter of Karen Armstrong’s book “Islam: A Short History” well over a year ago.
.
All quotes and page numbers are from the e-book here
.
She writes;
” … the opposition grew, led by Abu al-Hakam (who is called Abu Jahl, “Father of Lies,” in the Quran), …” (p.12)
The Qur’an no where mentions Abu Jahl explicitly, what to say of giving him this title.
“Islamic tradition would later assert that there had been 124,000 such prophets, a symbolic number suggesting infinity.” (p.8)
Clear reflection of the mythological orientalist belief that Hadith is a later “invention”
“On one occasion his most intelligent wife,Umm Salamah, helped to prevent a mutiny.” (p.16)
This is a reference to short lived reluctance of the companions to put off ihram at the eve of Hudaybiya. Giving it…
View original post 698 more words
Ṭaḥāwī 