Entries by simar

Nasrin Rouzati’s Review of Faruque and Rustom (eds.), From the Divine to the Human: Contemporary Islamic Thinkers on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic (Studia Islamica, 2025)

From the Divine to the Human: Contemporary Islamic Thinkers on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic, edited by Muhammad U. Faruque and Mohammed Rustom, is a fresh and insightful engagement with one of the most challeng- ing questions of human thought, namely evil and human suffering, from an Islamic perspective. The volume takes a new […]

ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī’s Laṭāʾif al-Minan and the Virtue of Sincere Immodesty

The essay below analyzes the substance and rhetoric of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī’s (d. 973/1565) book Laṭāʾif al-minan wa-l-akhlāq (Subtle Blessings and Morals). While giving particular attention to the text’s introduction and concluding sections, in my analysis here I use the Laṭāʾif as a case study to illustrate how Sufi authors like al-Shaʿrānī attempted to relieve […]

The Fragrant Secret: Language and Universalism in Muusaa Ka’s The Wolofal Takhmīs

Are all languages equal? Does the revelation of the Qur’an in Arabic elevate that language above all others? What is the goal of using language, and particularly of using it Islamically? The early twentieth-century Wolof-language poem The Wolofal Takhmīs takes on these questions in verse. In arguing that Wolof and Arabic are equally viable languages […]

The Brain and the Making of the Modern Mind, Renovatio, Spring

Few today would deny that the brain holds a preeminent place in the scientific imagination. In modern science, the brain is often seen as the organ of consciousness, thought, and identity. This view, rooted in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science, suggests that who we are —our emotions, memories, imagination, and even sense of free will—is […]

Was That Layla’s Fire?: Metonymy, Metaphor, and Mannerism in the Poetry of Ibn al-Fāriḍ

Regarded as one of the greatest poets of the Arabic language, and the greatest and most influential Arabic Sufi poet, ‘Umar ibn ‘Alī ibn al-Fāriḍ, set the standard for Arabic Sufi poetry after him. Known as the “Sultan of the Lovers” (Sulṭān al-‘Āshiqīn), ibn al-Fāriḍ’s works inspired numerous commentaries, especially amongst the school of Ibn […]

Food insecurity among Toronto Muslim households during COVID and the role of key Muslim charitable institutions

Food insecurity, which is a growing issue in Canada, affecting one in eight households, has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, impacting one in seven households (Tarasuk and Mitchell 2020). Ethnic and racialized communities, particularly Muslim households, are disproportionately affected. This chapter explores the potential of Muslim philanthropy, guided by Islamic food-related principles (Iftar, Fidya, […]

Sufism Amongst the Cameleers – By Abu Bakr Sirajuddin Cook

This talk aims to introduce the Cameleer manuscripts in Australia and highlight their adherence to Sufism. After an introduction to the importance of the Cameleers in Australia and the difficulties of the existing assertions of Sufism amongst the Cameleers. We will provide an overview of the existent Cameleer manuscripts which, despite their rarity, provide an […]

Methodological toolkit By Britta Timm Knudsen

By Britta Timm Knudsen This document represents the ‘Methodological toolkit’ for the Horizon2020 Project ECHOES; European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Cities. The ECHOES Project brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines and nationalities and entails cases in cityscapes from Asia, Africa and South America and from Northern, Western, Southern and Eastern Europe. ECHOES […]

An unknown astronomical work on planetary theory from the Renaissance: Giulio Cesare Luchini’s Delle revolutioni delle sfere celesti libri IX (ca. 1581)

This joint paper with Pietro D. Omodeo explores a little-known 1581 manuscript from Padua by Giulio Cesare Luchini, offering an early example of the vernacular reception of Copernicus in Italy. Luchini’s adaptation of Copernicus’s reciprocation mechanism—also known as the Ṭūsī couple, in acknowledgment of its inventor in Islamic astronomy—offers a fresh perspective on how Renaissance […]