Education
She has previously taught at Harvard University and the Johns Hopkins University, from which she received her Doctor of Philosophy in 1993.
(This volume focuses on how legitimate leadership came to ...)
This volume focuses on how legitimate leadership came to be defined in the formative period of Islam in terms of two key Qur'anic concepts: moral excellence (fad l/fad la) and precedence (s biqa). These two concepts undergirded a specific discourse on leadership which developed in the first century of Islam. This discourse is reconstructed through careful scrutiny of the man qib literature in particular, which contains detailed accounts of the excellences attributed to the R shid n caliphs. This book stresses that all early factions, including the proto-Sh a, subscribed to the Qur' nically-mandated vision of a righteous polity guided by its most morally excellent members. Such a conclusion forces us to rethink the nature of leadership in the earliest period and reconsider the criteria invoked to establish its legitimacy."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9004120432/?tag=2022091-20
(Key 'hot-button' contemporary issues in Islam, often at t...)
Key 'hot-button' contemporary issues in Islam, often at the centre of public scrutiny, are the focus of this book. By placing the discussion of topics such as the Sharia, jihad, the caliphate, women's status and interfaith relations within a longer historical framework, Contemporary Issues in Islam reveals their multiple interpretations and contested applications over time. Most public - and occasionally academic - discourses in the West present the Islamic tradition as unchanging and therefore unable to respond to the modern world. Such an ahistorical approach can foster the belief that Muslim-majority and Western societies are destined to clash. This book reveals instead the diversity and transformations within Islamic thought over time. Focusing on this internal diversity permits us to appreciate the scriptural and intellectual resources available within the Islamic tradition for responding to the challenges of modernity, even as this tradition interrogates and shapes modernity itself. About the series: The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys is a well-established and highly regarded series of over 30 volumes introducing key areas within Islamic Studies. Each book is written by an expert in the field, offering an overview of its subject as well as presenting original thinking, making it suitable for students and academics alike.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0748632778/?tag=2022091-20
(In popular and academic literature, jihad is predominantl...)
In popular and academic literature, jihad is predominantly assumed to refer exclusively to armed combat, and martyrdom in the Islamic context is understood to be invariably of the military kind. This perspective, derived mainly from legal texts, has led to discussions of jihad and martyrdom as concepts with fixed, universal meanings divorced from the socio-political circumstances in which they have been deployed through the centuries. Asma Afsaruddin studies in a more holistic manner the range of significations that can be ascribed to the term jihad from the earliest period to the present and historically contextualizes the competing discourses that developed over time. Many assumptions about the military jihad and martyrdom in Islam are thereby challenged and deconstructed. A comprehensive interrogation of varied sources reveals early and multiple competing definitions of a word that in combination with the phrase fi sabil Allah translates literally to "striving in the path of God." Contemporary radical Islamists have appropriated this language to exhort their cadres to armed political opposition, which they legitimize under the rubric of jihad. Afsaruddin shows that the multivalent connotations of jihad and shahid recovered from the formative period lead us to question the assertions of those who maintain that belligerent and militant interpretations preserve the earliest and only authentic understanding of these two key terms. Retrieval of these multiple perspectives has important implications for our world today in which the concepts of jihad and martyrdom are still being fiercely debated.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199730938/?tag=2022091-20
( A fresh look at the origins and development of Islam, t...)
A fresh look at the origins and development of Islam, this is a fascinating reconstruction of the era of the first three generations of Muslims. Using a wealth of classical Arabic sources, it chronicles the lives of the Prophet Muhammad, his Companions, and the subsequent two generations of Muslims, together known as the "the Pious Forebears" (al-salaf al-salih). Examining the adoption in contemporary times of these early Muslims as legitimizing figureheads for a variety of causes, both religious and political, Afsaruddin tries to establish where their sympathies really lay. Essential reading for anyone interested in the inception of the Islamic Faith, this important book will captivate the general reader and student alike. Asma Afsaruddin is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. She is the author of /Excellence and Precedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership/.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1851684972/?tag=2022091-20
She has previously taught at Harvard University and the Johns Hopkins University, from which she received her Doctor of Philosophy in 1993.
She was an associate professor in Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Afsaruddin has been an editorial board member for the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, published by Cambridge University Press.
(This volume focuses on how legitimate leadership came to ...)
(In popular and academic literature, jihad is predominantl...)
( A fresh look at the origins and development of Islam, t...)
(Key 'hot-button' contemporary issues in Islam, often at t...)