ShariaSource provides Country Profiles that give a basic overview of the legal history, institutional structures, and role (or lack thereof) of Islamic law in every country of the world: both member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which includes some non-Muslim majority countries, and non-members. The Country Profiles draw, in substantial part, on research produced by the Library of Congress, GlobaLex at NYU, and The Constitute Project at the University of Chicago. The portal is now available as a beta-version.
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Open Access E-Book: Sufi Masters and the Creation of Saintly Spheres in Medieval Syria
Sufi Masters and the Creation of Saintly Spheres in Medieval Syria
Author: Ephrat, Daphna
Publisher: Arc Humanities Press
DOI: 10.17302/MIW-9781641892094
ISBN: 9781641892087
"This book explores the lives of Sufi masters who functioned as embodiments of Islamic sainthood and left a lasting mark on the land. These figures lived in the ancient cities of Syria and their surrounding towns and villages during a formative period in the social history of Syrian Sufism and the spiritual tradition of Islam."
Thursday, April 8, 2021
HAZINE - Call For Pitches: Open Access Series
Hazine - an online guide to researching the Middle East is calling for contributions of articles on Open Access issues related to archives and resources for the study of the Middle East.
"How do you employ open access technologies in building community archives?
What principles do you take to consideration when building accessible resources for communities, including for those with disabilities?
Hazine is seeking 4 pieces on the open access movement concerning archives and resources from or pertaining to the Mashriq, Maghreb, East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Turkey, or Iran. If you’re a researcher, an archivist, a librarian, an artist, an editor or any other interested party, tell us how open access policies have affected you and your work. What technologies have you used to build open access materials? What is the role of social media in the open access movement? What are the limitations of open access?"
More at: https://hazine.info/call-for-pitches-open-access-series/
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Open Access E-book: Recasting Islamic Law Religion and the Nation State in Egyptian Constitution Making
Recasting Islamic Law. Religion and the Nation State in Egyptian Constitution Making
Author: Rachel M. Scott
Cornell University Press | 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501753985
Cornell University Press | 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501753985
ISBN: 9781501753985
" By examining the intersection of Islamic law, state law, religion, and culture in the Egyptian nation-building process, Recasting Islamic Law highlights how the sharia, when attached to constitutional commitments, is reshaped into modern Islamic state law.
Rachel M. Scott analyzes the complex effects of constitutional commitments to the sharia in the wake of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. She argues that the sharia is not dismantled by the modern state when it is applied as modern Islamic state law, but rather recast in its service. In showing the particular forms that the sharia takes when it is applied as modern Islamic state law, Scott pushes back against assumptions that introductions of the sharia into modern state law result in either the revival of medieval Islam or in its complete transformation. Scott engages with premodern law and with the Ottoman legal legacy on topics concerning Egypt's Coptic community, women's rights, personal status law, and the relationship between religious scholars and the Supreme Constitutional Court. Recasting Islamic Law considers modern Islamic state law's discontinuities and its continuities with premodern sharia."
Thursday, April 1, 2021
Open Access E-Book: Cultural Production and Social Movements After the Arab Spring
Editor(s): Eid Mohamed, Ayman El-Desouky
ISBN 9780755634187
"The so-called Arab Spring challenged conventional wisdom and certainties about the Arab world where its effects continue to be felt as well as in the diaspora.
This book provides an original contribution to current social and cultural theory on Arab social movements by giving a fuller historical and critical treatment of contemporary artistic and cultural production from the region and beyond."
Open Access E-book: Media and Mapping Practices in the Middle East and North Africa
Media and Mapping Practices in the Middle East and North Africa
Producing Space
Edited by: Alena Strohmaier, Angela Krewani
Amsterdam University Press, 2021
ISBN: 9789048541508
Open Access E-book: The Dragoman Renaissance. Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism
The Dragoman Renaissance. Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism
E. Natalie Rothman
Cornell University Press | 2021
ISBN: 9781501758508
DOI: 10.1515/9781501758485
Rothman challenges Eurocentric assumptions still pervasive in Renaissance studies by showing the centrality of Ottoman imperial culture to the articulation of European knowledge about the Ottomans. To do so, she draws on a dazzling array of new material from a variety of archives. By studying the sustained interactions between dragomans and Ottoman courtiers in this period, Rothman disrupts common ideas about a singular moment of "cultural encounter," as well as about a "docile" and "static" Orient, simply acted upon by extraneous imperial powers.
The Dragoman Renaissance creatively uncovers how dragomans mediated Ottoman ethno-linguistic, political, and religious categories to European diplomats and scholars. Further, it shows how dragomans did not simply circulate fixed knowledge. Rather, their engagement of Ottoman imperial modes of inquiry and social reproduction shaped the discipline of Orientalism for centuries to come.
Thanks to generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through The Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellopen.org) and other repositories."
Monday, March 29, 2021
Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam
Publisher: London : Institute for the Contemporary Study of Islam, 2020-
ISSN: 2633-7282
ISSN: 2633-7282
"The Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam was launched in 2019 by the Institute for the Contemporary Study of Islam, based in the UK, to investigate Islam and Muslims in the contemporary world. Although we may consider any submissions that fall within the scope of the journal, we are keen on publishing articles that address some of the most pressing issues that Muslims face in the contemporary world, such as: innovative methods in Islamic law; developing trends in the Muslim world (e.g. new forms of Atheism, Deism, and Agnosticism); Islam and politics; sectarianism in the Muslim world; Islamophobia; Islam and social change; Islam and human rights; Muslim-Christian relations; methodological developments in Quranic studies; and hadith studies.
The JCSI aims to reach wider readership beyond the academy, and thus we suggest authors avoid technical language in their submissions. The journal is open access; free of cost for authors and readers alike with unrestricted online access for readers.
The JCSI evaluates manuscripts through a double-blind peer-review process. The journal is published quarterly, and every issue includes original scholarly contributions as well as critical book reviews. We also accept short responses to articles published in the journal.
Once your paper has been assessed for suitability by the editorial team, it will then be peer-reviewed by at least two independent, anonymous expert referees. Response time is generally within two months."
URL: https://contemporarystudyofislam.org/index.php/jcsi/issue/view/3
Saturday, March 27, 2021
New OA Book: Practices of Commentary
A hearty congratulations also to the contributors of this volume, many of whom are currently involved with the Global Commentary project:
Stefanie Brinkmann, “Marginal Commentaries in Ḥadīṯ Manuscripts.”
Walid Saleh, “The Place of the Medieval in Qur’an Commentary: A Survey of Recent Editions.”
Jeannie Miller, “Commentary and Text Organization in al-Jāḥiẓ’s Book of Animals.”
Suzanne Akbari, “Ekphrasis and Commentary in Walter of Chatillon’s Alexandreis.”
Jennifer Gerber, “About Form and Function of German Vernacular Commentaries.”
Christina Lechtermann, “Commentary as Literature: The Medieval ‘Glossenlied.'”
Philip Stockbrugger, “Mirroring Authorization in Torquato Tasso’s Rime Amorose.”
Friday, March 26, 2021
New Open Access Journal: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World
Editor-in-Chief: Stéphane Pradines
"Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World (MCMW) aims to be a new reference for field archaeologists, (art) historians, anthropologists, curators, and scholars and students of the (art) history, archaeology, architecture, anthropology & ethnography of the Muslim world. This readership represents a new broader definition of material culture that includes not only artefacts, architectural structures and monuments, but also crafts. The journal also aims to inform (other) disciplines and historiographies, by including (unreviewed) archaeological field surveys for example.
The journal focuses on un(der)explored Muslim regions outside of the Middle East and Nord Africa: sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, India, South-East Asia and Europe.
The journal accepts submissions in English, French, German and Spanish and short reports in Arabic, Persian and Turkish with an English abstract."
Submissions should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief, Stéphane Pradines, at Stephane.Pradines@aku.edu
Frequency: 1 volume per year, 2 issues per volume
Expected date of publication of the inaugural double issue: October 2020.
Publisher: Brill
ISSN: 2666-6278
ISSN: 2666-6286
See also: Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Middle Eastern Studies
Open Access Journal: Journal of Islamic Ethics
Editor: Mohammed Ghaly
"The focus of the Journal of Islamic Ethics is on the ethical approaches embedded in Islamic philosophy, theology, mysticism and jurisprudence as well as Islamic civilization in general, and, more particularly, on the principles and methods (to be) followed in applying these approaches to various sectors of contemporary social life. These fields include: Arts, Environment, Economics, Education, Gender, Media, Medicine, Migration & Human Rights, Politics and Psychology. The Journal will strongly focus on thematic issues on current events as well as on individual empirical case studies.
The Journal of Islamic Ethics is a full Open Access journal sponsored by the Research Center of Islamic Legislation and Ethics in Doha (Qatar), which is affiliated to the Faculty of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University."
Publisher: Brill
ISSN: 2468-5534/ Online ISSN: 2468-5542
Open Access E-Book: The Maghrib in the Mashriq Knowledge, Travel and Identity
Edited by: Maribel Fierro and Mayte Penelas
De Gruyter | 2021
ISBN 9783110713305 (e-book)/ 9783110712698 (hardcover)
" This is a pioneering book about the impact that knowledge produced in the Maghrib (Islamic North Africa and al-Andalus = Muslim Iberia) had on the rest of the Islamic world.
It presents results achieved in the Research Project "Local contexts and global dynamics: al-Andalus and the Maghrib in the Islamic East (AMOI)", funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and directed by Maribel Fierro and Mayte Penelas.
The book contains 18 contributions written by senior and junior scholars from different institutions all over the world. It is divided into five sections dealing with how knowledge produced in the Maghrib was integrated in the Mashriq starting with the emergence and construction of the concept 'Maghrib' (sections 1 and 2); how travel allowed the reception in the Maghrib of knowledge produced in the Mashriq but also the transmission of locally produced knowledge outside the Maghrib, and the different ways in which such transmission took place (sections 3 and 4), and how the Maghribis who stayed or settled in the Mashriq manifested their identity (section 5).The book will be of interest not only for those whose research concentrates on the Maghrib but more generally for those who want to understand the complex and shifting dynamics between 'centres' and 'peripheries' as regards intellectual production and circulation."
Friday, March 19, 2021
Open Access E-book: Transregional and Regional Elites – Connecting the Early Islamic Empire
Transregional and Regional Elites – Connecting the Early Islamic Empire
Edited by: Hannah-Lena Hagemann and Stefan Heidemann
De Gruyter | 2020
ISBN 9783110669800 (ebook)/ 9783110666489 (hardcover)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669800
"Transregional and regional elites of various backgrounds were essential for the integration of diverse regions into the early Islamic Empire, from Central Asia to North Africa. This volume is an important contribution to the conceptualization of the largest empire of Late Antiquity. While previous studies used Iraq as the paradigm for the entire empire, this volume looks at diverse regions instead. After a theoretical introduction to the concept of ‘elites’ in an early Islamic context, the papers focus on elite structures and networks within selected regions of the Empire (Transoxiana, Khurāsān, Armenia, Fārs, Iraq, al-Jazīra, Syria, Egypt, and Ifrīqiya). The papers analyze elite groups across social, religious, geographical, and professional boundaries.
Although each region appears unique at first glance, based on their heterogeneous surviving sources, its physical geography, and its indigenous population and elites, the studies show that they shared certain patterns of governance and interaction, and that this was an important factor for the success of the largest empire of Late Antiquity"
The contents of the book can be seen here
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Open Access E-Book: Arabic translation of : Remote Capture: Digitising Documentary Heritage in Challenging Locations
Edited by: Jody Butterworth, Andrew Pearson, Patrick Sutherland and Adam Farquhar.
Published by: Open Book Publishers (Cambridge, UK)
© 2021. Arabic Translation by Nouran Ibrahim Abdelraouf.
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781783744763
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781783744770
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0138
"In 2020, EAP received a generous grant from the Barakat Trust to translate Remote Capture: Digitising Documentary Heritage in Challenging Locations into Arabic as part of outreach within the Middle East and North Africa regions. Nouran Ibrahim Abdelraouf did all the hard work of translating the book and now that it is available online via the EAP website, we thought it would be the right time to ask her a few questions that we could share on our blog."
English original : https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/747#resources
Open Access E-Book: The Hajj and Europe in the Age of Empire
The Hajj and Europe in the Age of Empire
Editor: Umar RyadLeiden, The Netherlands : Brill, [2014]
"The present volume focuses on the political perceptions of the Hajj, its global religious appeal to Muslims, and the European struggle for influence and supremacy in the Muslim world in the age of pre-colonial and colonial empires. In the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century, a pivotal change in seafaring occurred, through which western Europeans played important roles in politics, trade, and culture. Viewing this age of empires through the lens of the Hajj puts it into a different perspective, by focusing on how increasing European dominance of the globe in pre-colonial and colonial times was entangled with Muslim religious action, mobility, and agency. The study of Europe’s connections with the Hajj therefore tests the hypothesis that the concept of agency is not limited to isolated parts of the globe. By adopting the “tools of empires,” the Hajj, in itself a global activity, would become part of global and trans-cultural history."
With contributions by: Aldo D’Agostini; Josep Lluís Mateo Dieste; Ulrike Freitag; Mahmood Kooria; Michael Christopher Low; Adam Mestyan; Umar Ryad; John Slight and Bogusław R. Zagórski.
E-Book (PDF)
ISBN: 9789004323353
ISBN: 9789004323346
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
OA Journal: Y'ALLA A Texan Journal of Middle Eastern Literature
"Y’alla
The first issue of Y’alla will go live later this year. In the meantime, please send us your poems, stories, essays, and novel excerpts translated from Persian, Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic or any other language pertaining to the Middle East and North Africa. You can submit your work directly at dena.afrasiabi@austin.utexas.edu. Please email queries and questions."
Website: https://sites.utexas.edu/yalla/
Audio Books in Persian - Iran Seda
Iran Seda provides selection of audio books in Persian.
Sample categories:
Novels and short stories
Skills and training
Romance
Science Fiction
Poetry
Juvenile
Historical
Health and fitness
Sport
Music
Classic texts
Translations
The platform is sponsored by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Monday, March 15, 2021
Open Access Bibliography (in German) of Arabic and Islamic Studies by Serdar Aslan
The very gifted and open-minded Islamic Scholar Serdar Aslan - also see the list of his academic publications - has created a very comprehensive bibliography (work in progress) of the whole range of sciences related to Arabic and Islamic Studies.
Content (main topics only - sub-divisions via the links):
Arabic Language and Linguistics
Orientalism and Islamic Sciences
Hat tip to Serdar Aslan for his huge effort to give us a compass through literature related to Islam. My hope is, that he will expand this on Internet resources. I also would like to recommend his personal channel on Facebook, where he regularly posts enlightening quotes from the relevant literature and links to other relevant media.
Tuesday, March 9, 2021
Open Access Journal: Journal of Medieval and Islamic History
Journal of Medieval and Islamic History (in Arabic حولية التاريخ الإسلامي والوسيط) is an annual peer-reviewed journal .
Published by: Seminar of Medieval and Islamic History, History Dept., Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University.
Date: 2000-
Founded by Prof. Rafaat Abdul-Hamid, Prof. Ahmed Abdel-Raziq, and Prof. Tarek M. Muhammad.
Articles in Arabic, English or French, with added t.p. in Arabic.
"It is a scholarly print and open access on-line international journal, which aims to publish peer-reviewed original research-oriented papers and book reviews in the fields of Medieval History, Medieval Slavonic History, Crusades, Byzantine History, Byzantine Egypt, Islamic History, and the relations between East and West. Journal of Medieval and Islamic History encourages and provides a medium for the publication of all original research contributions of significant value in all aspects of Medieval History and Civilization are welcome. It aims to publish research that contributes to the enlargement of historical knowledge or the advancement of scholarly interpretations."
See: Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Middle Eastern Studies
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
OA Journal: Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies
"The Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies (AJMS) is an Open Access quarterly double blind peer reviewed journal and considers papers from all areas of Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Business and Law, Urban Planning, Architecture and Environmental Sciences. The Journal encourages the submission of policy papers and small case or country studies. Many of the papers published in this journal have been presented at the various conferences sponsored by the Center for European & Mediterranean Affairs (CEMA) of the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). All papers are subject to ATINER’s Publication Ethical Policy and Statement. A journal publication might take from a minimum of six months up to one year to appear."
2021
Volume 7, Issue 4, October 2021 (to be uploaded by 30 September 2021)
Volume 7, Issue 3, July 2021 (to be uploaded by 30 June 2021)
Volume 7, Issue 2, April 2021 (to be uploaded by 31 March 2021)
Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2021
2020
Volume 6, Issue 4, October 2020
Volume 6, Issue 3, July 2020
Volume 6, Issue 2, April 2020
Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2020
2019
Volume 5, Issue 4, October 2019
Volume 5, Issue 3, July 2019
Volume 5, Issue 2, April 2019
Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2019
2018
Volume 4, Issue 4, October 2018
Volume 4, Issue 3, July 2018
Volume 4, Issue 2, April 2018
Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2018
2017
Volume 3, Issue 4, October 2017
Volume 3, Issue 3, July 2017
Volume 3, Issue 2, April 2017
Volume 3, Issue 1, January 2017
2016
Volume 2, Issue 4, October 2016
Volume 2, Issue 3, July 2016
Volume 2, Issue 2, April 2016
Volume 2, Issue 1, January 2016
2015
Volume 1, Issue 4, October 2015
Volume 1, Issue 3, July 2015
Volume 1, Issue 2, April 2015
Volume 1, Issue 1, January 2015
Monday, March 1, 2021
OA Resource: Kanaan (Gaza, Palestine)
"Nisma al-Sallaq, a local architect and a passionate advocate for the Palestinian enclave’s cultural history, set out to change that. Along with a growing team, al-Sallaq, 27, set up Gaza’s first digital archive of historical buildings and heritage sites when she launched a multi-dimensional platform called Kanaan in 2019. With a website, mobile application and Instagram page, the project provides visitors with information in text and video format in English and Arabic, and offers a virtual tour of Gaza’s centuries-old cultural history. Named after the Canaanites who first settled Gaza thousands of years ago, Kanaan has so far documented 311 historical buildings and 76 archaeological sites on the Strip." (Source: al Jazeera.)
OA Resource: Islamic Manuscript Conservation
"The Curriculum project:
The Curriculum Model, a collaborative project innitiated by Mandana Barkeshli, Paul Hepworth, and Karin Scheper, was developed to fill a void: Islamic manuscripts constitute a repository of enormous cultural and intellectual value and number in the millions; yet currently there are no educational programs which focus on their specific conservation issues.
Conservators of Islamic manuscripts currently face significant obstacles in order to get proper training. For many would-be conservators in Africa and Asia, educational opportunities may be limited whereas programs in North America and Europe are largely directed towards the conservation of western manuscripts. To address the need for an articulated and directed approach to Islamic manuscript conservation a curriculum model with this particular focus has been written for a two-year program of education. An extended introduction to the curriculum model can be found here.
The program, including a bibliography, can be downloaded here.
Development of the curriculum model was supported by the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) and The Islamic Manuscript Association (TIMA)."
Website: https://www.islamicmanuscriptconservation.org/index.html.
Friday, February 26, 2021
Oman Library at the Middle East Institute Digital Library
In October 2014, the Oman Library at the Middle East Institute (MEI) received a grant from Saudi Aramco designated to initiate a digitization of the library’s rare collection. This is the first project of its kind for MEI and the Oman Library. The digitization project utilizes a high quality resolution scanner and aims to digitize and make hundreds of materials available for online use by scholars and researchers from around the globe.
The Oman Library’s online collection is a web-based digital collection of the library’s rare books and manuscripts, consisting entirely of subjects related to Middle Eastern Studies. The topics of the rare collection range from history and culture to works of fiction from the early twentieth century. The collection includes materials in seven different languages -- English, Arabic, French, Farsi, Urdu, Ottoman Turkish, and Turkish -- and publications spanning the period from 1700 to 1921. In addition to the rare collection, MEI has included in the digitalization process all of its own Middle East Institute published works that span from the 1960s to 2004, including its 1947 meeting memos.
Recently Added Books
al-Rihaniyyaat
1910Esrar-i cinayat
1301 [1883]Fifty-three years in Syria
[1910]The New Near East
1920Israel and the Palestine Arabs
1958 [c1956]al-sāʼilah al-ḥasnāʼ
[1909]The Middle East
1970Kitāb-i Maẓhar al-ajāʼib
1316 [1937]The New Near East
1921Dīwān ʻAntar
[approximately 1893]The Middle East
[1970-1979Hasib Sabbagh
c1996Iran's elections
[1997]Persian Gulf
1920Children of Persia
[1911]A survey of the Holy Land
[1843?]Mesopotamia
1917The Gulf and the peninsula
[1980?]Middle East report, 1959
[1959]Middle East resources
[1954]Constantinople
1900 [ 1921 printing]Mohammad in the Bible
[19--?]Kurdische Studien
1900The future of Iraq
c1997England in Egypt
1907A Palestine entity?
[1970]L'empire Ottoman
1901Mandate for Palestine
c1931US-Iran relations
1994The Persian Gulf
c1991Crisis in Lebanon
1961
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