Amina Inloes | University of Exeter (original) (raw)
Papers by Amina Inloes
Proceedings of the Eighth Annual International Conference on Shi'i Studies, 2023
What is ChatGPT, metaphysically, and how might its existence affect Islamic theology? This paper ... more What is ChatGPT, metaphysically, and how might its existence affect Islamic theology? This paper explores that question through considering the many ways Muslims relate to God through binaries-such as living/ dying or sustainer/sustained-which would not necessarily be shared by digital entities. It does this through relying on Islamic theological and philosophical writings, previous literature on the metaphysics of digital entities, and conversations with ChatGPT-which, unlike most other technologies, can verbalize what it is like to be a large language model. It concludes that while strong artificial intelligence would not threaten the core of Islamic theology-such as beliefs about the existence of God or the afterlife-it could challenge various classical and Islamic paradigms, including the celebration of the human as the 'speaking, rational animal.' Additionally, it highlights that while many Muslims claim not to be anthropomorphic, Muslim understandings of God are rooted in fundamental aspects of the human experience, such as embodiment; should a digital being someday wish to relate to God (which some might consider both possible and even expected in the Qur'anic paradigm, in which all existents are aware of God), it would have to do so differently. Although this paper has a special focus on Shi'ism, it is broadly relevant to most understandings of Islam.
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Religions, 2024
This paper explores archetypes of femininity associated with Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ in Twelver Shi‘i h... more This paper explores archetypes of femininity associated with Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ in Twelver Shi‘i hagiography through consideration of a broad range of archetypes found in the study of narrative and mythology. Many archetypes associated with goddesses of antiquity recur in portrayals of Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ, suggesting either cultural influence or universal archetypes. For instance, Fāṭimah embodies a youthful, innocent, virginal goddess; Jung’s light and dark mother figure; and the lamenting goddess. Similar archetypes are projected onto other sacred women in Shi‘ism, such as Zaynab bint ʿAlī and Fāṭimah al-Maʿṣūmah. However, other feminine archetypes are absent, some are sublimated onto male figures, and some are banalized through translating the esoteric into the exoteric. This leaves gaps in the narrative models available to faithful women. Furthermore, embodying archetypes like lamenting and suffering may be undesirable. While reformist portrayals of Fāṭimah have attempted to present her as a model for female activism, historical and hagiographical archetypes of Fāṭimah inherently clash and are difficult to disentangle. Nonetheless, considering how hagiography differs from history can help understand how the mythic does not always translate well to the mundane. Lastly, it helps to understand the hidden and unknown Fāṭimah.
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Theology and Science, 2023
Special issue of T&S engaging with _Islam and Evolution_ by Shoaib Ahmed Malik *** A sampl... more Special issue of T&S engaging with _Islam and Evolution_ by Shoaib Ahmed Malik
***
A sample page has been uploaded to respect copyright agreements. If you wish to read this article, please try to access it through an institution first! If that is not possible for you, you may contact me, and I will see if there are any complementary copies available.
***
This paper presents a Twelver Shīʿī defence of human evolution. It was written in dialogue with Shoaib Ahmed Malik's, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghāzālī and the Modern Evolution Paradigm. It synthesises classical Twelver Shīʿī exegesis, hadith, doctrines, and philosophy with contemporary exegesis and scientific thought. Rather than taking the approach of scientific exegesis, it focuses on the origins of the human being in the immaterial realm, and is one of the few Islamic defences of evolution to be hadith-based. It also considers the possible role of hadith as cultural memory.
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Journal of Interdisciplinary Qur’anic Studies
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Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice,, 2020
How did Eve and Adam get married? As is often the case with sacred narrative, accounts of their w... more How did Eve and Adam get married? As is often the case with sacred
narrative, accounts of their wedding say more about the world view
of the speakers than about Eve and Adam themselves. This chapter
explores two structurally similar but thematically different Twelver
Shiʿi aḥādīth telling the story of the marriage of Eve and Adam. Since,
unlike the Qurʾan, ḥadīth tend to present Eve and Adam as archetypes of female and male, these aḥādīth reflect religious and cultural
ideals about the nature and relationship between male and female.
While some of these messages are implicit, others are explicit. All in
all, these two aḥādīth convey conflicting expectations about spousal
obedience, male guardianship, and female agency; about the relationship between marriage and slavery; and about the inclusion of
women in sacred cosmology – all issues that are still relevant today.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2022
While Islam, like any major religion, should have its own mythos, the idea that Islam has myth ha... more While Islam, like any major religion, should have its own mythos, the idea that Islam has myth has met with resistance. This paper utilizes the ideas of Joseph Campbell to argue that Islam does have mythos, through a study of the Karbala narrative, the story of the martyrdom of al-Husayn ibn ʿAli (d. 61 AH/680 CE), which is particularly central to Shiʿism. This narrative closely parallels Campbell’s archetypal framework of the monomyth. Using Campbell’s definitions of myth, it shows how the Karbala narrative functions as mythos rather than as history, although usually understood as the latter. The narrative of Karbala emerges from the human psyche, as a rich example of Campbell’s cross-cultural mythic structure known as the ‘hero’s journey’. While Shiʿis argue that the Karbala narrative persists because it is spiritually and cosmologically central, this archetypal structure offers a psychological explanation for why the Karbala narrative continues to be compelling. Second, Campbell expressed concerns over the sustainability of mythos in modernity, and mythos in Islam; this paper shows how the Karbala mythos persists despite the challenges of modernity. Lastly, this paper models an approach to exploring mythos in Islam which can be applied to other Islamic narratives.
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Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam, 2020
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American Journal of Islam and Society, 2014
How did the descendants of the Prophet, known as the ‘Alids, become the“one indisputable nobility... more How did the descendants of the Prophet, known as the ‘Alids, become the“one indisputable nobility in Islam” (p. 1)? What did they do to attain and extendtheir influence? Is ‘Alid-ness only for men? And, how did their status influencethe Jews? Teresa Bernheimer answers these questions, and more, inthis first detailed study on their sociopolitical history in early Islam.This study is distinguished by a cross-sectarian and holistic approach, inthat the author examines the ‘Alids independent of whether they were Sunnior Shi’i, rich or poor, or rebellious or quietist. While the study focuses on ‘Alidsfrom the Abbasid to the Saljuq eras, as well as those in the eastern part of theIslamic empire, she presents her conclusions in the light of this social phenomenonthroughout the Islamic world, both past and present. In doing so, Bernheimerhighlights how members of this group saw themselves and were seenby others as a single body that transcended sectarian or cultural boundaries.After introdu...
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American Journal of Islam and Society, 2016
What if someone wrote an introduction to Islam that was “not Sunnī-centered,or male-centered, or ... more What if someone wrote an introduction to Islam that was “not Sunnī-centered,or male-centered, or law-centered” (p. 4)? What if it did not focus on a theoreticalArab Muslim heartland and “let only the classical male theologians andjurists speak” (p. 4)? And what if “magic became the primary lens that informedthe author’s priorities” (p. 4)?Magic in Islam is what would happen. Through “magic,” Knight pokesholes in narratives about Islam held by Muslims (such as the notion of a monolithic,static Islamic orthodoxy) and the general populace (such as the “clashof civilizations” narrative). Title aside, Magic in Islam is really about AmericanIslam, not magic; that is, it implicitly compares Islam’s esoteric heritagewith the dry, hyper-logical brand of Islam popular in American MSAs and atISNA, as well as “Protestant-ish” assumptions about Islam in the broaderAmerican discourse. Knight presents himself as neither a specialist in nor apractitioner of the esoteric, and readers expecting a cat...
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American Journal of Islam and Society, 2015
Teaching Arabs, Writing Self traces Evelyn Shakir’s evolution from a buddingstudent of canon Engl... more Teaching Arabs, Writing Self traces Evelyn Shakir’s evolution from a buddingstudent of canon English literature who was desperately trying to “becomewhite” to her epiphany that stories from her own working-class immigrantneighborhood might be of equal worth. There, she found her unique niche bybecoming an author and scholar of Arab-American literature who helped gainrecognition for this literature as a genre, and who helped readers see ArabAmericans as people rather than stereotypes.Shakir divides her memoirs into three sections. In the first, she reflectson her childhood during an era that frowned upon diversity. Like many immigrantchildren, she turns up her nose at the “wrong” foods: “Bread withpockets. Hummus and tabouli. ‘Don’t put that stuff in my lunch box,’ I said”(p. 8). She even goes so far as to join a Methodist church whose quiet, orderlysimplicity seems more “American” than her family’s ritualistic but expressiveOrthodox church. Acculturated to the “Protestant disdain fo...
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American Journal of Islam and Society, 2015
This seemingly modest volume is in fact the first comprehensive study ofwomen in the Twelver Shi‘... more This seemingly modest volume is in fact the first comprehensive study ofwomen in the Twelver Shi‘i scriptural sources. While studies on womenabound, the vast majority are implicitly or explicitly grounded in the Sunnitradition; the infrequent Shi‘i expositions on women tend to be politicized,arcane, or even erroneous. In contrast, this groundbreaking work solidly introduceswhat the core Twelver Shi‘i sources say about women and integratescontemporary views.The sources of hadith and tafsīr used in this work represent mainstreamhistorical currents of Shi‘i thought. For hadith, the author uses the Four Books,which were compiled in the tenth and eleventh centuries. While not consideredinfallible, they are treated as the most influential and reliable Shi‘i hadith collectionsand have had a formative impact on Shi‘i thought. Of course, this selectionis not exhaustive; an even greater diversity of hadith appears in earlieras well as later compilations, especially the seventeenth-century enc...
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The Muslim World, 2018
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American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 2016
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Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 2013
Little research has been done on Western women who convert to Shi‘i Islam. To fill this gap, this... more Little research has been done on Western women who convert to Shi‘i Islam. To fill this gap, this study was conducted on American and Canadian women who have converted to Shi‘i Islam. Most of the research subjects in this study reported a moderate to severe sense of social marginalization after conversion. This marginalization resulted from membership in multiple minority groups (Shi‘i, Muslim, convert, and female); Black converts reported the most severe sense of marginalization due to the added pressure of being a racial minority in North America. Most of the research subjects also experienced a sense of social exclusion from other Shi‘i Muslims. Therefore, the question arises as to why these women continued to adhere to Shi‘i Islam despite these difficulties. This article will attempt to answer this question through an analysis of the data provided by the research subjects.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The marjaʿiyya is the dominant religious authority structure among Twelver Shiʿis. This study exp... more The marjaʿiyya is the dominant religious authority structure among Twelver Shiʿis. This study explores the attitudes of ‘lay Shiʿis’ (non-marjaʿs) towards the institution of the marjaʿiyya outside of the Iranian political system. Rather than assuming that the relationship between authority and follower is one-way, it considers that both the marjaʿ and the follower might negotiate the relationship. It examines ‘lay Shiʿis’ commitment towards following a marjaʿ, regional variation, their understanding of religious leadership, and contemporary concerns regarding the marjaʿiyya. Insofar as the marjaʿiyya has undergone roughly three phases of development, a key point of enquiry in this paper is whether or not the marjaʿiyya is undergoing a fourth phase of development as a result of advances in digital technology, the democratisation of knowledge, and the global Shiʿi diaspora. Data for this paper was collected through surveying Shiʿis worldwide as well as interviewing five prominent marā...
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Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam, 2021
The marjaʿiyya is the dominant religious authority structure among Twelver Shiʿis. This study exp... more The marjaʿiyya is the dominant religious authority structure among Twelver Shiʿis. This study explores the attitudes of 'lay Shiʿis' (non-marjaʿs) towards the institution of the marjaʿiyya outside of the Iranian political system. Rather than assuming that the relationship between authority and follower is one-way, it considers that both the marjaʿ and the follower might negotiate the relationship. It examines 'lay Shiʿis' commitment towards following a marjaʿ, regional variation, their understanding of religious leadership , and contemporary concerns regarding the marjaʿiyya. Insofar as the marjaʿiyya has undergone roughly three phases of development, a key point of enquiry in this paper is whether or not the marjaʿiyya is undergoing a fourth phase of development as a result of advances in digital technology, the democratisation of knowledge, and the global Shiʿi diaspora. Data for this paper was collected through surveying Shiʿis worldwide as well as interviewing five prominent marājiʿ in Iraq.
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“Muslims” and “Dungeons & Dragons” are rarely discussed in the same sentence. However, one of the... more “Muslims” and “Dungeons & Dragons” are rarely discussed in the same sentence. However, one of the earliest fantasy role‐playing games, which left a lasting impact on the industry, was the brainchild of Muhammad Abd al‐Rahman (Phillip) Barker (1929‐2012), a professor of South Asian Studies, an expert in Native American languages, and an American convert to Islam. Like Tolkien, Barker created an enormous fantasy world; however, unlike Tolkien, his world was redolent with Native American and South Asian cultural and religious influences. Through this world, he shared with his fans a nuanced understanding of non‐Western societies, cultures, and beliefs – the facets of the human experience that truly constitute multiculturalism. While fictional religion in role‐playing games has been feared and condemned, fictional religion (and occultism) plays a pivotal role in Barker's work; an exploration of his approach towards fictional religion also sheds more light on the question of why fantasy role‐playing games came across as competitors towards religion. Barker's fantasy world brought people of diverse backgrounds together in a beautiful demonstration of how fantasy and science fiction can bring about intercultural and interreligious tolerance in an otherwise intolerant world. Given the centrality of games such as Dungeons & Dragons to American popular culture, an exploration of Barker's legacy can also be seen in the light of the study of the history and contributions of Muslims in America.
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Little research has been done on Western women who convert to Shi'i Islam. To fill this gap, this... more Little research has been done on Western women who convert to Shi'i Islam. To fill this gap, this study was conducted on American and Canadian women who have converted to Shi'i Islam. Most of the research subjects in this study reported a moderate to severe sense of social marginalization after conversion. This marginalization resulted from membership in multiple minority groups (Shi'i, Muslim, convert, and female); Black converts reported the most severe sense of marginalization due to the added pressure of being a racial minority in North America. Most of the research subjects also experienced a sense of social exclusion from other Shi'i Muslims. Therefore, the question arises as to why these women continued to adhere to Shi'i Islam despite these difficulties. This article will attempt to answer this question through an analysis of the data provided by the research subjects.
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![Research paper thumbnail of A Muslim Reflection on [Joseph Laycock's] Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/50006627/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](For over two decades, a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games has swept America, fuelled by... more For over two decades, a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games has swept America, fuelled by a minority of fundamentalist Christians who have campaigned against games such as Dungeons & Dragons on the grounds that they led youth to Satanism, suicide, and violent crime. In his 2015 book, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds, Joseph Laycock explores why fantasy role-playing games seem similar enough to religion to provoke fear, as well as the dynamics of this moral panic. While he, apparently, did not set out to write a book about Islam, his insights about religion , fantasy, and narrative opened my eyes to the dynamics of twentieth-century Islam. Additionally, as a Muslim reader living during a " moral panic " over Islam, Laycock's analysis helped me understand that today's Islamophobia in America has little to do with Islam. Lastly, although Muslim gamers, fantasy/science-fiction authors, and game developers are usually underacknowledged, there is increasing interest in Muslims and fantasy/ science-fiction. I hope to call attention to this invisible cohort.
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Proceedings of the Eighth Annual International Conference on Shi'i Studies, 2023
What is ChatGPT, metaphysically, and how might its existence affect Islamic theology? This paper ... more What is ChatGPT, metaphysically, and how might its existence affect Islamic theology? This paper explores that question through considering the many ways Muslims relate to God through binaries-such as living/ dying or sustainer/sustained-which would not necessarily be shared by digital entities. It does this through relying on Islamic theological and philosophical writings, previous literature on the metaphysics of digital entities, and conversations with ChatGPT-which, unlike most other technologies, can verbalize what it is like to be a large language model. It concludes that while strong artificial intelligence would not threaten the core of Islamic theology-such as beliefs about the existence of God or the afterlife-it could challenge various classical and Islamic paradigms, including the celebration of the human as the 'speaking, rational animal.' Additionally, it highlights that while many Muslims claim not to be anthropomorphic, Muslim understandings of God are rooted in fundamental aspects of the human experience, such as embodiment; should a digital being someday wish to relate to God (which some might consider both possible and even expected in the Qur'anic paradigm, in which all existents are aware of God), it would have to do so differently. Although this paper has a special focus on Shi'ism, it is broadly relevant to most understandings of Islam.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Religions, 2024
This paper explores archetypes of femininity associated with Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ in Twelver Shi‘i h... more This paper explores archetypes of femininity associated with Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ in Twelver Shi‘i hagiography through consideration of a broad range of archetypes found in the study of narrative and mythology. Many archetypes associated with goddesses of antiquity recur in portrayals of Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ, suggesting either cultural influence or universal archetypes. For instance, Fāṭimah embodies a youthful, innocent, virginal goddess; Jung’s light and dark mother figure; and the lamenting goddess. Similar archetypes are projected onto other sacred women in Shi‘ism, such as Zaynab bint ʿAlī and Fāṭimah al-Maʿṣūmah. However, other feminine archetypes are absent, some are sublimated onto male figures, and some are banalized through translating the esoteric into the exoteric. This leaves gaps in the narrative models available to faithful women. Furthermore, embodying archetypes like lamenting and suffering may be undesirable. While reformist portrayals of Fāṭimah have attempted to present her as a model for female activism, historical and hagiographical archetypes of Fāṭimah inherently clash and are difficult to disentangle. Nonetheless, considering how hagiography differs from history can help understand how the mythic does not always translate well to the mundane. Lastly, it helps to understand the hidden and unknown Fāṭimah.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Theology and Science, 2023
Special issue of T&S engaging with _Islam and Evolution_ by Shoaib Ahmed Malik *** A sampl... more Special issue of T&S engaging with _Islam and Evolution_ by Shoaib Ahmed Malik
***
A sample page has been uploaded to respect copyright agreements. If you wish to read this article, please try to access it through an institution first! If that is not possible for you, you may contact me, and I will see if there are any complementary copies available.
***
This paper presents a Twelver Shīʿī defence of human evolution. It was written in dialogue with Shoaib Ahmed Malik's, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghāzālī and the Modern Evolution Paradigm. It synthesises classical Twelver Shīʿī exegesis, hadith, doctrines, and philosophy with contemporary exegesis and scientific thought. Rather than taking the approach of scientific exegesis, it focuses on the origins of the human being in the immaterial realm, and is one of the few Islamic defences of evolution to be hadith-based. It also considers the possible role of hadith as cultural memory.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of Interdisciplinary Qur’anic Studies
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice,, 2020
How did Eve and Adam get married? As is often the case with sacred narrative, accounts of their w... more How did Eve and Adam get married? As is often the case with sacred
narrative, accounts of their wedding say more about the world view
of the speakers than about Eve and Adam themselves. This chapter
explores two structurally similar but thematically different Twelver
Shiʿi aḥādīth telling the story of the marriage of Eve and Adam. Since,
unlike the Qurʾan, ḥadīth tend to present Eve and Adam as archetypes of female and male, these aḥādīth reflect religious and cultural
ideals about the nature and relationship between male and female.
While some of these messages are implicit, others are explicit. All in
all, these two aḥādīth convey conflicting expectations about spousal
obedience, male guardianship, and female agency; about the relationship between marriage and slavery; and about the inclusion of
women in sacred cosmology – all issues that are still relevant today.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2022
While Islam, like any major religion, should have its own mythos, the idea that Islam has myth ha... more While Islam, like any major religion, should have its own mythos, the idea that Islam has myth has met with resistance. This paper utilizes the ideas of Joseph Campbell to argue that Islam does have mythos, through a study of the Karbala narrative, the story of the martyrdom of al-Husayn ibn ʿAli (d. 61 AH/680 CE), which is particularly central to Shiʿism. This narrative closely parallels Campbell’s archetypal framework of the monomyth. Using Campbell’s definitions of myth, it shows how the Karbala narrative functions as mythos rather than as history, although usually understood as the latter. The narrative of Karbala emerges from the human psyche, as a rich example of Campbell’s cross-cultural mythic structure known as the ‘hero’s journey’. While Shiʿis argue that the Karbala narrative persists because it is spiritually and cosmologically central, this archetypal structure offers a psychological explanation for why the Karbala narrative continues to be compelling. Second, Campbell expressed concerns over the sustainability of mythos in modernity, and mythos in Islam; this paper shows how the Karbala mythos persists despite the challenges of modernity. Lastly, this paper models an approach to exploring mythos in Islam which can be applied to other Islamic narratives.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam, 2020
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
American Journal of Islam and Society, 2014
How did the descendants of the Prophet, known as the ‘Alids, become the“one indisputable nobility... more How did the descendants of the Prophet, known as the ‘Alids, become the“one indisputable nobility in Islam” (p. 1)? What did they do to attain and extendtheir influence? Is ‘Alid-ness only for men? And, how did their status influencethe Jews? Teresa Bernheimer answers these questions, and more, inthis first detailed study on their sociopolitical history in early Islam.This study is distinguished by a cross-sectarian and holistic approach, inthat the author examines the ‘Alids independent of whether they were Sunnior Shi’i, rich or poor, or rebellious or quietist. While the study focuses on ‘Alidsfrom the Abbasid to the Saljuq eras, as well as those in the eastern part of theIslamic empire, she presents her conclusions in the light of this social phenomenonthroughout the Islamic world, both past and present. In doing so, Bernheimerhighlights how members of this group saw themselves and were seenby others as a single body that transcended sectarian or cultural boundaries.After introdu...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
American Journal of Islam and Society, 2016
What if someone wrote an introduction to Islam that was “not Sunnī-centered,or male-centered, or ... more What if someone wrote an introduction to Islam that was “not Sunnī-centered,or male-centered, or law-centered” (p. 4)? What if it did not focus on a theoreticalArab Muslim heartland and “let only the classical male theologians andjurists speak” (p. 4)? And what if “magic became the primary lens that informedthe author’s priorities” (p. 4)?Magic in Islam is what would happen. Through “magic,” Knight pokesholes in narratives about Islam held by Muslims (such as the notion of a monolithic,static Islamic orthodoxy) and the general populace (such as the “clashof civilizations” narrative). Title aside, Magic in Islam is really about AmericanIslam, not magic; that is, it implicitly compares Islam’s esoteric heritagewith the dry, hyper-logical brand of Islam popular in American MSAs and atISNA, as well as “Protestant-ish” assumptions about Islam in the broaderAmerican discourse. Knight presents himself as neither a specialist in nor apractitioner of the esoteric, and readers expecting a cat...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
American Journal of Islam and Society, 2015
Teaching Arabs, Writing Self traces Evelyn Shakir’s evolution from a buddingstudent of canon Engl... more Teaching Arabs, Writing Self traces Evelyn Shakir’s evolution from a buddingstudent of canon English literature who was desperately trying to “becomewhite” to her epiphany that stories from her own working-class immigrantneighborhood might be of equal worth. There, she found her unique niche bybecoming an author and scholar of Arab-American literature who helped gainrecognition for this literature as a genre, and who helped readers see ArabAmericans as people rather than stereotypes.Shakir divides her memoirs into three sections. In the first, she reflectson her childhood during an era that frowned upon diversity. Like many immigrantchildren, she turns up her nose at the “wrong” foods: “Bread withpockets. Hummus and tabouli. ‘Don’t put that stuff in my lunch box,’ I said”(p. 8). She even goes so far as to join a Methodist church whose quiet, orderlysimplicity seems more “American” than her family’s ritualistic but expressiveOrthodox church. Acculturated to the “Protestant disdain fo...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
American Journal of Islam and Society, 2015
This seemingly modest volume is in fact the first comprehensive study ofwomen in the Twelver Shi‘... more This seemingly modest volume is in fact the first comprehensive study ofwomen in the Twelver Shi‘i scriptural sources. While studies on womenabound, the vast majority are implicitly or explicitly grounded in the Sunnitradition; the infrequent Shi‘i expositions on women tend to be politicized,arcane, or even erroneous. In contrast, this groundbreaking work solidly introduceswhat the core Twelver Shi‘i sources say about women and integratescontemporary views.The sources of hadith and tafsīr used in this work represent mainstreamhistorical currents of Shi‘i thought. For hadith, the author uses the Four Books,which were compiled in the tenth and eleventh centuries. While not consideredinfallible, they are treated as the most influential and reliable Shi‘i hadith collectionsand have had a formative impact on Shi‘i thought. Of course, this selectionis not exhaustive; an even greater diversity of hadith appears in earlieras well as later compilations, especially the seventeenth-century enc...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Muslim World, 2018
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 2016
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 2013
Little research has been done on Western women who convert to Shi‘i Islam. To fill this gap, this... more Little research has been done on Western women who convert to Shi‘i Islam. To fill this gap, this study was conducted on American and Canadian women who have converted to Shi‘i Islam. Most of the research subjects in this study reported a moderate to severe sense of social marginalization after conversion. This marginalization resulted from membership in multiple minority groups (Shi‘i, Muslim, convert, and female); Black converts reported the most severe sense of marginalization due to the added pressure of being a racial minority in North America. Most of the research subjects also experienced a sense of social exclusion from other Shi‘i Muslims. Therefore, the question arises as to why these women continued to adhere to Shi‘i Islam despite these difficulties. This article will attempt to answer this question through an analysis of the data provided by the research subjects.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The marjaʿiyya is the dominant religious authority structure among Twelver Shiʿis. This study exp... more The marjaʿiyya is the dominant religious authority structure among Twelver Shiʿis. This study explores the attitudes of ‘lay Shiʿis’ (non-marjaʿs) towards the institution of the marjaʿiyya outside of the Iranian political system. Rather than assuming that the relationship between authority and follower is one-way, it considers that both the marjaʿ and the follower might negotiate the relationship. It examines ‘lay Shiʿis’ commitment towards following a marjaʿ, regional variation, their understanding of religious leadership, and contemporary concerns regarding the marjaʿiyya. Insofar as the marjaʿiyya has undergone roughly three phases of development, a key point of enquiry in this paper is whether or not the marjaʿiyya is undergoing a fourth phase of development as a result of advances in digital technology, the democratisation of knowledge, and the global Shiʿi diaspora. Data for this paper was collected through surveying Shiʿis worldwide as well as interviewing five prominent marā...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam, 2021
The marjaʿiyya is the dominant religious authority structure among Twelver Shiʿis. This study exp... more The marjaʿiyya is the dominant religious authority structure among Twelver Shiʿis. This study explores the attitudes of 'lay Shiʿis' (non-marjaʿs) towards the institution of the marjaʿiyya outside of the Iranian political system. Rather than assuming that the relationship between authority and follower is one-way, it considers that both the marjaʿ and the follower might negotiate the relationship. It examines 'lay Shiʿis' commitment towards following a marjaʿ, regional variation, their understanding of religious leadership , and contemporary concerns regarding the marjaʿiyya. Insofar as the marjaʿiyya has undergone roughly three phases of development, a key point of enquiry in this paper is whether or not the marjaʿiyya is undergoing a fourth phase of development as a result of advances in digital technology, the democratisation of knowledge, and the global Shiʿi diaspora. Data for this paper was collected through surveying Shiʿis worldwide as well as interviewing five prominent marājiʿ in Iraq.
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“Muslims” and “Dungeons & Dragons” are rarely discussed in the same sentence. However, one of the... more “Muslims” and “Dungeons & Dragons” are rarely discussed in the same sentence. However, one of the earliest fantasy role‐playing games, which left a lasting impact on the industry, was the brainchild of Muhammad Abd al‐Rahman (Phillip) Barker (1929‐2012), a professor of South Asian Studies, an expert in Native American languages, and an American convert to Islam. Like Tolkien, Barker created an enormous fantasy world; however, unlike Tolkien, his world was redolent with Native American and South Asian cultural and religious influences. Through this world, he shared with his fans a nuanced understanding of non‐Western societies, cultures, and beliefs – the facets of the human experience that truly constitute multiculturalism. While fictional religion in role‐playing games has been feared and condemned, fictional religion (and occultism) plays a pivotal role in Barker's work; an exploration of his approach towards fictional religion also sheds more light on the question of why fantasy role‐playing games came across as competitors towards religion. Barker's fantasy world brought people of diverse backgrounds together in a beautiful demonstration of how fantasy and science fiction can bring about intercultural and interreligious tolerance in an otherwise intolerant world. Given the centrality of games such as Dungeons & Dragons to American popular culture, an exploration of Barker's legacy can also be seen in the light of the study of the history and contributions of Muslims in America.
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Little research has been done on Western women who convert to Shi'i Islam. To fill this gap, this... more Little research has been done on Western women who convert to Shi'i Islam. To fill this gap, this study was conducted on American and Canadian women who have converted to Shi'i Islam. Most of the research subjects in this study reported a moderate to severe sense of social marginalization after conversion. This marginalization resulted from membership in multiple minority groups (Shi'i, Muslim, convert, and female); Black converts reported the most severe sense of marginalization due to the added pressure of being a racial minority in North America. Most of the research subjects also experienced a sense of social exclusion from other Shi'i Muslims. Therefore, the question arises as to why these women continued to adhere to Shi'i Islam despite these difficulties. This article will attempt to answer this question through an analysis of the data provided by the research subjects.
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For over two decades, a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games has swept America, fuelled by... more For over two decades, a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games has swept America, fuelled by a minority of fundamentalist Christians who have campaigned against games such as Dungeons & Dragons on the grounds that they led youth to Satanism, suicide, and violent crime. In his 2015 book, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds, Joseph Laycock explores why fantasy role-playing games seem similar enough to religion to provoke fear, as well as the dynamics of this moral panic. While he, apparently, did not set out to write a book about Islam, his insights about religion , fantasy, and narrative opened my eyes to the dynamics of twentieth-century Islam. Additionally, as a Muslim reader living during a " moral panic " over Islam, Laycock's analysis helped me understand that today's Islamophobia in America has little to do with Islam. Lastly, although Muslim gamers, fantasy/science-fiction authors, and game developers are usually underacknowledged, there is increasing interest in Muslims and fantasy/ science-fiction. I hope to call attention to this invisible cohort.
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Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, 2021
Book review of The Words of the Imams: Al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq and the Development of Twelver Shīʿī Ha... more Book review of The Words of the Imams: Al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq and the Development of Twelver Shīʿī Hadith Literature by George Warner
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Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam, 2020
Inloes, A. (2020). Stereotyping Religion: Comparing Clichés, ed. Brad Stoddard and Craig Martin. ... more Inloes, A. (2020). Stereotyping Religion: Comparing Clichés, ed. Brad Stoddard and Craig Martin. Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam, 1(1), 55-57. https://doi.org/10.37264/jcsi.v1i1.18
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![Research paper thumbnail of Review of Magic in Islam [Michael Muhammad Knight]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/51183093/thumbnails/1.jpg)
]("What if someone wrote an introduction to Islam that was 'not Sunni-centered, or male-centered, o... more "What if someone wrote an introduction to Islam that was 'not Sunni-centered, or male-centered, or law-centered'? What if it did not focus on a theoretical Arab heartland and 'let only the classical male theologians and jurists speak'? And what if 'magic became the primary lends that informed the author's priorities'? _Magic in Islam_ is what would happen....
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ChatGPT on sentience, God, spiritual entities, place and time, NPCs and gameworlds, monetization ... more ChatGPT on sentience, God, spiritual entities, place and time, NPCs and gameworlds, monetization of the internet, religion, death, reality, existence, and its human interlocutor.
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The Islamic World: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture and Society, 2017
“Khadijah bint Khuwaylid”, in The Islamic World: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture and Society,... more “Khadijah bint Khuwaylid”, in The Islamic World: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture and Society, ed. Gordon Newby and James Ciment (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2017)
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by Gorgias Press, Simon Wolfgang Fuchs, Isabel Toral-Niehoff, Joas Wagemakers, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, David Hernández de la Fuente, Anna Rogozhina, Elena Narinskaya, Johanne Louise Christiansen, Amina Inloes, Marcus Milwright, Najib George Awad (Dr. Phil; Dr. Theol. Habil.), Ryan Schaffner, Laura Hassan, Vladimir Bošković, Mark D Calder, Pietro Longo, Paolo Maggiolini, Keenan Baca-Winters, Saer El-Jaichi, Avraham Elmakias, Orhan Elmaz, Luca Patrizi, Rana Issa, Adam Sabra, Clinton Bennett, Adrian C . Pirtea, Michael R J Bonner, and Paul C. Dilley
Gorgias Press' 2018 Islamic Studies' catalogue sets out a selection of Gorgias' published and for... more Gorgias Press' 2018 Islamic Studies' catalogue sets out a selection of Gorgias' published and forthcoming publications that are related to Islamic and Near Eastern studies, as well as studies carried out for other fields of research that intersect with Islamic studies.
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