New Releases

Minarets on the Horizon:

Muslim Pioneers in Canada Murray Hogben 2021. Pp. 304. PB. Can.$34.95. Kindle. Can.$9.99 Mawenzi House Publishers Ltd., Toronto, Canada

Journalist and professor Murray Hogben has been a Muslim since 1956. He served as secretary (of the then-new) Muslim Society of Toronto and later on as secretary of the Islamic Society of Kingston, a volunteer Muslim chaplain at several prisons and secretary of the Kingston Police’s Race Relations Advisory Committee. During his career, he spent decades as a canoeing instructor and arts and crafts director at Muslim girls and boys’ camps.

This book gives a detailed look at Muslims in Canada, starting with the pioneer settlers from Syria/Lebanon and the Balkans in the early 20th century and moving on to the more modern midcentury arrivals from South Asia and Africa.

Told in their own words, the stories in this collection give us a rare insight into their lives.

Medicine and Shariah: A Dialogue in Islamic Bioethics

Aasim I. Padela (ed.) and Ebrahim Moosa (foreword) 2021, Pp. 266. HB. $75.00 University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Ind.

“Medicine and Shariah” brings together experts from various fields, including clinicians, Islamic studies experts and Muslim theologians, to analyze the interaction of those physicians and jurists who are forging the emerging field of Islamic bioethics.

The volume begins by furnishing the concepts and terms needed to map out the discourse. Of course, there are opinions that may be questioned, such as a license for even porcine-based vaccines.

It will be of interest to bioethicists and scholars of Islam; those interested in the dialectics of tradition, modernity, science and religion; and, more broadly, scholarly and professional communities working at the intersection of Islamic tradition and contemporary healthcare.

Islamophobia: What Christians Should Know (and Do) about Anti-Muslim Discrimination

Jordan Denari Duffner 2021. Pp. 280. PB. $22.00 Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y.

This book argues that Christians should be at the forefront of efforts to end Islamophobia, which has risen astronomically, especially during the past two decades. While focusing largely on Islamophobia in the U.S., Duffner also discusses the issue’s international and historical roots and connection to Christianity, before positing a Christian response. Case studies and interviews are interwoven with multidisciplinary research to produce a compelling volume of interest to academics and lay audiences alike.

A Catholic scholar of Muslim-Christian relations, she provides the historical context, shares compelling stories and argues that Christianity calls Christians to combat religious discrimination even when it isn’t directed toward their own faith community.

Curriculum Renewal for Islamic Education: Critical Perspectives on Teaching Islam in Primary and Secondary Schools

Nadeem A. Memon, Mariam Alhashmi and Mohamad Abdalla (eds.) 2021. Pp. 278. HB. $160.00. PB. $48.95. eBook. $44.05 Routledge, Philadelphia, Pa.

This compilation highlights the necessity for redesigning the Islamic education curriculum in the K-12 sector globally. From public schools that integrate Muslim perspectives to be culturally responsive, to public and private schools in Muslim-minority and -majority contexts that teach Islamic studies as a core subject or teach from an Islamic perspective, the contributors highlight the unique global and sociocultural contexts that support the disparate trajectories of Islamic education curricula.

This book will be appreciated by researchers, doctoral students and academics in the fields of secondary education, Islamic education and curriculum studies.

The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs

Marc David Baer 2021. Pp. 560. HB. $35.00. Kindle. $18.99 Basic Books, New York, N.Y.

The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic, Asian antithesis of the Christian, European West. But the reality was starkly different, says Baer, a professor of international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His book reveals that the empire’s multiethnic, multilingual and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe’s heart.

Baer argues that the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans. Recounting their remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, he traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic and Byzantine heritages. The Ottomans pioneered religious toleration even as they used religious conversion to integrate conquered peoples. But in the 19th century they embraced exclusivity, which led to ethnic cleansing, genocide and the empire’s demise after the First World War.

“The Ottomans” vividly reveals the dynasty’s full history and its enduring impact on Europe and the world.

A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years

‘Abd al-Latíf al-Baghdãdí Tim Mackintosh-Smith (ed. and trans.) 2021. Pp. 300. HB. $30.00. Kindle. $27.00 NYU Press, New York, N.Y.

Polymath and physician al-Baghdadioffers a description of everyday life in Egypt at the turn of the 13th century, before presenting a harrowing account of the famine and pestilence years of 1200-02. The book, intended for the Abbasid caliph al-Nasir, offers detailed descriptions of Egypt’s geography, plants, animals and local cuisine, including a recipe for a giant picnic pie made with three roast lambs and dozens of chickens.

This bilingual Arabic-English text is also a pioneering work of ancient Egyptology, with detailed observations of Pharaonic monuments, sculptures and mummies.

In My Mother’s Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home

Mona Hajjar Halaby 2021. Pp. 290. PB. $10.99 Thread Books (http://thread-books.com/)

Amoving and heart-rending journey of a daughter (Hallaby) discovering her roots and recovering her mother’s beloved past — a narration that should tear up all human hearts. It’s also an intimate and tender account of daily life for Palestinians, which, she says, helped her find her own self.

She writes: “Refugees are like seeds that scatter in the wind, and land in different soils that become their reluctant homes, my mother once told me. As a small child, I looked up at my mother and clutched her hand. The puffiness of her palm reminded me of a loaf of warm pita bread, and when she laced her fingers into mine like a pretzel, I felt safe. I would have walked with her to the ends of the earth.”

Islamophobia in Higher Education: Combating Discrimination and Creating Understanding

Shafiqa Ahmadi and Darnell Cole (eds.) 2020. Pp. 180. PB. $29.95 Stylus Publishing, Sterling, Va.

There has been an alarming increase in reports of anti-Muslim bigotry and discrimination since the 2016 presidential elections. The fear of Islam in general, and of Muslims in particular, not only compels non-Muslims to treat Muslims differently, but also to trade some of their civil rights and liberties under the guise of national security.

Contributors argue that to address these issues, institutions require a nuanced understanding of the laws and policies that institutionalize Islamophobia, as well as a greater understanding of the diverse college students that self-identify as Muslim. This volume would be a good addition to college and university libraries, higher education administrations, campus student life and education administration reading material.

First Scientist: Ibn Al-Haytham

Bradley Steffens 2021. Pp. 130. PB. $24.95 Blue Dome Press, Clifton, N.J.

Award-winning author Bradley Steffens introduces Ibn al-Haytham in this first full biography ever written about him. Though not a household name as far as the history of science goes, given that his major contributions have gone largely unnoticed and uncredited, Ibn al-Haytham (965-1040) is finally being recognized as the world’s first true scientist.

Centuries before better-known researchers such as Roger Bacon (d.1292), da Vinci (d.1519) and Galileo (d.1642) were even born, Ibn al-Haytham investigated eyesight and the propagation of light in a profound manner, the likes of which had never before been fully utilized. Importantly, he documented his findings in his seven-volume magnum opus “Book of Optics,” written during 1011–1021. By systematically using experiments to test his hypotheses, Ibn al-Haytham changed the course of history by giving humanity a new and effective way of establishing facts about the natural world — an approach known today as the scientific method. ih