Competing readings of Islamic history
THE LEGITIMACY OF this reading derives solely from its status as successor to the rule of the Prophet. History is,…
Chronological alienation
AT THE TIME I had prepared a study on further education for the University of Denver, the basic premise of…
A stiff-necked God!
IN ARABIC CULTURE there is a commonly used phrase: “Even the whole Earth cannot change my word,”[1] which Arab men…
Diagnosing the Arab Muslim Mentality as a Precursor to Reform
ATTEMPTS TO DIAGNOSE the factors contributing to paralysis and obstacles to Arab reform date back more than two centuries. They…
Arkoun and the defeat of reason in Islam – 1
‘Fundamentalism’ did not originally have the negative connotation it has today. Now, however, it has come to mean merely the…
Psychological reflections on the phenomenon of Salafism
IN THE SAME CONTEXT, and subsequent to the salaf – as represented by the Companions, the Tābiʽūn,[1] the great Imams…
Orientalism and the historicization of the Islamic heritage – 2
HEREIN LIES the basic difference between ourselves and the Orientalists; it is a difference of an epistemological basis not an…
Hadith, the biggest scam in Islamic history – 1
A PERPLEXING ISSUE indeed. All the criteria for accepting the validity of a hadith focus upon the chain of transmission…
The abrogation and alteration of the Sharīʻa
SIMILARLY THERE ARE what they considered to be rational arguments – that God does not change His opinion like mortals…
A critique of the Muslim mind
ONE OF the ramifications of the cultural clash with the triumphant militant West in 1798 was the appearance of some…