For the Rationalists, who rejected the notion of an uncreated Quran, the only reasonable method of exegesis was one that accounted for the temporal nature of the Revelation. For this reason, the Rationalists stressed the primacy of human reason in determining not just the essence of the Quran, but also its meaning and, most importantly, its

Of course, the Pan-Arabists had a difficult time defining what exactly they meant by Arab unity. Despite their claims of racial solidarity, there is simply no such thing as a single Arab ethnicity. Egyptian Arabs had practically nothing in common with, say, Iraqi…

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It is this spiritual guidance that gives the Imams sole authority to interpret the Quran. The Shi‘ah believe the Quran contains within its pages two different messages meant for two different audiences. The Quran’s explicit message (zahir) is obvious and accessible to all Muslims through the discipline of tafsir (traditional Quranic exegesis),

TRADITIONALLY, THE JAHILIYYAH has been defined by Muslims as an era of moral depravity and religious discord: a time when the sons of Ismail had obscured belief in the one true God and plunged the Arabian Peninsula into the darkness of idolatry. But then, like the rising of the dawn, the Prophet Muhammad emerged in Mecca at the beginning of the

This intense longing for the Beloved, so prevalent in Rabia’s verses, betrays an important aspect of the Sufi conception of love. Above all else, this is a love that must remain unfulfilled, as Majnun discovered in the palm orchard. After all, as Attar’s birds realized on their journey to the Simurgh, one cannot begin the Way expecting to complete

With the construction of their crowning achievement, the Suez Canal, Egypt’s fate as Britain’s most…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

For the Shi‘ah, the Muharram rituals signify a moral choice; they are a public statement that, in the words of one participant, “if we had been there at Karbala we would have stood with [Husayn] and shed our blood and died with him.” Perhaps equally important, these rituals serve as an act of proselytizing. As another participant explained to David

In rejecting the rigidity of the Shariah and its traditional interpretations, Sufism eagerly absorbed all manner of local beliefs and customs, and became immensely popular throughout those areas of the Muslim Empire that were not dominated by Arab majorities. In India, Sufism spread like fire as it enthusiastically syncretized anti-caste Muslim