Islam

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – That the Qur’an recognizes the virgin birth, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus is something worth remembering on Easter. In a nativity scene about Jesus’s supernatural precociousness, the Qur’an has him speak in the cradle, saying, (Mary 19:33): “So peace be upon me, the day I was born, and […]

Islam

Spirituality without Prophets: Ibn Tufayl and the story of the feral child of philosophy

contributors

By Marwa Elshakry and Murad Idris | – (Aeon) – Ibn Tufayl, a 12th-century Andalusian, fashioned the feral child in philosophy. His story Hayy ibn Yaqzan is the tale of a child raised by a doe on an unnamed Indian Ocean island. Hayy ibn Yaqzan (literally ‘Living Son of Awakeness’) reaches a state of perfect, […]

Islam

Muhammad: an anticlerical hero of the European Enlightenment

contributors

By John Tolan | – Publishing the Quran and making it available in translation was a dangerous enterprise in the 16th century, apt to confuse or seduce the faithful Christian. This, at least, was the opinion of the Protestant city councillors of Basel in 1542, when they briefly jailed a local printer for planning to […]

Qur'an

On how Everything Sam Harris says about Islam is Wrong: Part 2 on “Unbelievers”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – This is the second installment in a series on Sam Harris’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad book, “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Religion” (Norton, 2005). Part 1 is here. On page 31, Harris says, “It is clear, however, that Muslims hate the West in […]

Featured

Why Muslim Survivors of N. Zealand Massacre can Forgive: Islam is about Compassion

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I confess that I was weeping uncontrollably as I posted the videos and the AFP wire service story on the memorial service in Christchurch, New Zealand for the 50 shot dead in a horrific Islamophobic massacre. I’m a big Polynesia fan and the Maori music is so haunting and beautiful. […]

Islam

Building Bridges: Juan Cole Interview on Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires

Juan Cole

Andrew C Condon interviewed me in this podcast on my new book abut peace themes in the Qur’an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Andrew is with the Bridge Initiative, aimed at combating Islamophobia, of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) at Georgetown University Building Bridges Interview with Juan Cole […]

Featured

Dear Sen. Anning re: Mosque Shooting: The Qur’an Forbids Murder and Commands Peacemaking

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A far right wing senator in Australia, Fraser Anning, issued a despicable and widely condemned statement after fascist white supremacists from Australia murdered 49 persons at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He referred to the mass murder merely as “vigilantism,” as though it were an understandable policing of a neighborhood […]

Qur'an

New Historicism: A Manifesto for Writing the History of the Qur’an

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In borrowing the term “the New Historicism” from literary studies, I do not mean to take over all its theses. Rather, I am making an analogy. Just as Stephen Greenblatt came to require a historical context for studies of Shakespeare, rebelling against the contextless New Criticism at Yale in the […]

Qur'an

New Archeological Evidence for the Kaaba, Sanctuary of Peace, in Early Islam

Juan Cole

During the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, believers circumambulate the square ‘House of God’ called the Kaaba. It is said to have predated Islam, and to have been cleansed of idols by the Prophet Muhammad in January of 630, when the town of Mecca swung to his leadership by acclamation. There is some new archeological evidence […]