Two new books of possible interest

by Salman Hameed

There are some really good new books out. I want to highlight a couple of interviews with the authors as part of the fantastic New Books Network. The first one is important because it traces the origins of the way we use the term "Muslim World". Today, this notion that a dominant motif for Muslims today is this religious identity. But this was construction of the 19th century and then saw its revival again in the mid-20th century. Here is a description of this new book, The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History, by Cemil Aydin:

Almost daily in popular media the Muslim World is pinpointed as a homogeneous entity that stands separate and parallel to the similarly imagined West. But even scratching the surface of the idea of a Muslim World reveals the geographic, social, linguistic, and religious diversity of Muslims throughout the world. So what work is performed through

the employment and use of this phrase? And in what context did the idea of the Muslim World emerge? 

Cemil Aydin, Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tackles these questions in his wonderful new book The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History (Harvard University Press, 2017). It in he weaves distant and interconnecting social, intellectual, and political histories of modern Muslims societies with clarity and detail. Altogether, he reveals the complex story of how the concept is constructed as a device intended to point to a geopolitical, religious, and civilizational unity among Muslims. The term is defined and employed by Muslim and non-Muslim actors alike across imperial and national contexts over the past nearly 150 years. In our conversation we discussed the justifications for imperial conflicts, the effects of Christian nationalistic liberation and the colonization of Muslims, orientalism, social Darwinism, the racialization of Muslims, the global role of the Ottomans, European and Russian imperialism, Muslim modernists thinkers, the effects of the World Wars, and the changing political landscape of the late 20th century.

You can listen to the interview here and Kristian Peterson did an excellent job with probing questions on the topic. This book is in my queue to read next but you should remember to buy books via New Books link, as it helps the Network.

Two other author interviews I want to quickly highlight. Here is Making Moderate Islam: Sufism, Service, and the 'Ground Zero Mosque' Controversy by Rosemary Corbett:

Among the most powerful and equally insidious aspects of the new global politics of religion is the discourse of religious moderation that seeks to produce moderate religious subjects at ease with the aims and fantasies of liberal secular politics. For Muslim communities in the US and beyond, few expectations and pressures have carried more

weight and urgency than that to pass the test of moderation. In her brilliant new book, Making Moderate Islam: Sufism, Service, and the Ground Zero Mosque Controversy (Stanford University Press, 2016), Rosemary Corbett, Visiting Professor at the Bard Prison Initiative, interrogates the tensions and ambiguities surrounding the moderate Muslim discourse. Far from an exclusively post 9/11 phenomenon, she presents the long running historical and political forces that have shaped the demand for moderation, especially in the equation of Sufism with moderate Islam. The strength of this book lies in the way it combines a deep knowledge of American religious history with the historical narrative and contemporary dynamics of American Islam. Written with breathtaking clarity, this book will spark important conversations in multiple fields including the study of Islam, American Religion, and secularism studies.

You can listen to the interview here.

More book recommendations coming soon.