Confronting Inequality. Building Community
Since the earliest days of Islamic history, Muslims have deliberated over the structure and purpose of the mosque. The Arabic term for mosque, masjid, derives from the Qur’an and translates simply as a place of prostration. In Muslim tradition, as [...]
In the twenty-first century, economists have increasingly recognized the profound issue of wealth inequality that afflicts societies worldwide. This realization holds true not only in non-Muslim countries but extends to the Muslim world, where disparities in wealth are apparent both [...]
Imagine what it would feel like to have AI as your best friend within the next few years. This is what Jim Keller, a former Apple employee and a Silicon Valley guru, predicts.[1] And perhaps one should take such prognostication [...]
In the first year of the Islamic Moral Theology and the Future project (IMTF), authors contributing to the part of the project concerned with communal morality and ethics in Muslim contexts discussed various concepts that undergird the Muslim moral “ideal” [...]
This past fall, on October 20-22, the first conference in support of the “Islamic Moral Theology and the Future” Project was held at George Mason University. With the invaluable support of the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies, Maria Dakake [...]
The Muslim umma is internally diverse and reaches across a variety of continents, customs and cultures, yet it retains its sense of unity by virtue of a common set of moral precepts and religious beliefs. This holds true with regard [...]
“Praise be to God I’m no longer on that jāhilī app (aplikasi jahiliah),” the middle-aged man sitting beside me said when he caught a glimpse of me checking Twitter moments before our plane taxied down the runway. For a moment, [...]
The Prophet Muhammad’s open and outward-looking worldview has been constricted over centuries into insular dogmas that circumambulate increasingly tighter circles. Contemporary extremists, particularly, seek to hold believers hostage in narrow confines. The Prophet’s establishment of the umma encompassed Medinan Jews; [...]
Opportunities for interaction between diverse groups has today reached an unprecedented level due to innovations in communication, transportation, and virtual media. Nonetheless, people’s interactions are often superficial and limited, with the knowledge they gain of each other only surface-level. In [...]
Before death takes away what you are given, Give away what there is to give. –– Rumi A number of reports released over the last decade by Oxfam and similar organizations have drawn attention to the mind-boggling disparity of [...]
Viele Menschen haben im Zuge der Covid-19 Shut Downs und ihren Einschränkungen vor allem in Bezug auf die sozialen Interaktionen, starke Wut und Angst empfunden. In der Pandemie haben Menschen Kontrollverluste erlitten und sind mit ihren Begrenztheiten konfrontiert worden. Zugleich [...]
Many people have experienced intense anger and fear in the wake of the Covid-19 shutdowns and their subsequent toll on social interaction. During the pandemic, people suffered a loss of control and were confronted by their limitations. At the same [...]
On Modern Islamic Economics Mainstream depictions of economic science and the development of capitalism are by-and-large historically distorted. They ignore power relations and are based upon a particular philosophical understanding of the division of sciences developed under the specific social [...]
My neighbor passed away and I did not hear about it until sometime later. We had not really known each other but had been on greeting terms. The deceased was elderly and ill, and had been in the care of [...]
Over the past six months, the IMTF online roundtable discussion has brought together a number of Muslim voices to explore the area of inquiry concerning Islamic virtues of the self, specifically with regards to their relevance for understanding and confronting [...]
In the first set of essays posted for the IMTF online roundtable discussion on communal ethics, I asked scholars and thinkers from Muslim communities in different geographical regions and contexts to address the basic question of “what we owe to [...]
Parts of what is called modern Europe saw the arrival of Jews and Judaism over two thousand years ago. Following which, approximately two thousand years ago, Europe saw the spread of Christianity. Christians of Jewish heritage were the first to [...]
The neighborhood may be conceived as an intermediate space, a location between the private and the public. Here, an individual extends the immediate and private space of human interaction. The people populating this space are not necessarily part of one’s [...]
Moral theology can be understood as the science of cultivating human virtue in relation to a recognized set of absolute, divine, or transcendent principles. Considered both theoretically and practically, the cultivated virtues are simultaneously a means of transforming and beautifying [...]
This post and that of Prof. Maria Dakake mark the official beginning of our respective but interrelated inquiries into contemporary Islamic moral theology. Over the course of the next two years, we will each facilitate an ongoing roundtable of Muslim [...]