Who Speaks for Islam?

Jihad Beyond Islam: open access book | Islam, Muslims, and an Anthropologist. I am pleased to inform you that my publisher Berg has decided to join the Social Science Open Access Repository and to make my first book, Jihad Beyond Islam(2006) available legally for download with no costs but strictly under the Creative Common License.

The husband of a dear friend has just published a book called Home Boy. The New York Times seems to love it. Naqvi’s smart and sorrowful debut is at once immigrant narrative, bildungs roman and New York City novel, with a dash of the picaresque. Immigrant stories are often appealing not only because they dramatize the longing to trade oppression for freedom and prosperity, but also because they have the perfect antagonist: America itself. Set in Manhattan just after Sept. 11, 2001, this novel follows three bright and likable college- age Pakistani men — AC, Jimbo and Chuck. Before 9/11,…

My friend G. Willow Wilson has her new book, Butterfly Mosque, excerpted in the NY Times. Lives – Engagement in Cairo – NYTimes.com. Marwa, a woman a year or two older than I, began reciting a prayer for her grandfather’s soul. The other girls cupped their hands in front of their faces. I did the same. It’s a strange feeling, praying into your hands, filling the air between them with words. We think of divinity as something infinitely big, but it is also infinitely small — the condensation of your breath on your palms, the ridges in your fingertips, the…