Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami · 4 Comments

Want to Understand the Possible Implications of the Legislative Prayer Case?

Then you should read these two posts by Kevin Walsh.

In the first post, Kevin explains the way in which Justice Kagan’s dissent lines up in important ways with the views of Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson in his opinion for the Fourth Circuit in Joyner v. Forsyth County (Justice Kagan explicitly relies on some language in Joyner, but the similarities in outlook run deep).

The second post discusses a pending cert. petition–the Elmbrook School District case out of the Seventh Circuit in which Judges Easterbrook, Posner, and Ripple authored dissents from the court’s en banc opinion–and what might happen to it in light of the Court’s holding in Greece.

Both issues are discussed at length in the article that Kevin and I wrote together–Judge Posner, Judge Wilkinson, and Judicial Critique of Constitutional Theory (see in particular Parts I(B) and II(C)). You should read that too!

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Gilham, “Loyal Enemies: British Converts to Islam, 1850-1950”

In June, Oxford University Press will publish Loyal Enemies: British Converts toLoyal Enemies Islam, 1850-1950, by Jamie Gilham. The publisher’s description follows.

Loyal Enemies uncovers the history of the earliest British converts to Islam who lived their lives freely as Muslims on British soil, from the 1850s to the 1950s. Drawing on original archival research, it reveals that people from across the range of social classes defied convention by choosing Islam in this period. Through a series of case studies of influential converts and pioneering Muslim communities, Loyal Enemies considers how the culture of Empire and imperialism influenced and affected their conversions and subsequent lives, before examining how they adapted and sustained their faith. Jamie Gilham shows that, although the overall number of converts was small, conversion to Islam aroused hostile reactions locally and nationally. He therefore also probes the roots of antipathy towards Islam and Muslims, identifies their manifestations and explores what conversion entailed socially and culturally. He also considers whether there was any substance to persistent allegations that converts had “divided” loyalties between the British Crown and a Muslim ruler, country or community. Loyal Enemies is a book about the past, but its core themes–about faith and belief, identity, Empire, loyalties and discrimination– are still salient today.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Diamond, “Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon”

In July, Cambridge University Press will release Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon, by James A. Daimond (University of Waterloo, Ontario). The publisher’s description follows:

Jewish thought since the Middle Ages can be regarded as a sustained dialogue with Moses Maimonides, regardless of the different social, cultural, and intellectual environments in which it was conducted. Much of Jewish intellectual history can be viewed as a series of engagements with him, fueled by the kind of “Jewish” rabbinic and esoteric writing Maimonides practiced. This book examines a wide range of theologians, philosophers, and exegetes who share a passionate engagement with Maimonides, assaulting, adopting, subverting, or adapting his philosophical and jurisprudential thought. This ongoing enterprise is critical to any appreciation of the broader scope of Jewish law, philosophy, biblical interpretation, and Kabbalah. Maimonides’s legal, philosophical, and exegetical corpus became canonical in the sense that many subsequent Jewish thinkers were compelled to struggle with it in order to advance their own thought. As such, Maimonides joins fundamental Jewish canon alongside the Bible, the Talmud, and the Zohar.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Sayyid, “Recalling the Caliphate”

Next month, Oxford University Press releases Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonisation and World Order, by S. Sayyid (University of Leeds). The publisher’s description follows:

As late as the last quarter of the twentieth century, there were expectations that Islam’s political and cultural influence would dissipate as the advance of westernization brought modernization and secularization in its wake. Not only has Islam failed to follow the trajectory pursued by variants of Christianity, namely confinement to the private sphere and depoliticisation, but it has also forcefully re-asserted itself as mobilizations in its name challenge the global order in a series of geopolitical, cultural and philosophical struggles. The continuing (if not growing) relevance of Islam suggests that global history cannot simply be presented as a scaled up version of that of the West. Quests for Muslim autonomy present themselves in several forms – local and global, extremist and moderate, conservative and revisionist – in the light of which the recycling of conventional narratives about Islam becomes increasingly problematic. Not only are these accounts inadequate for understanding Muslim experiences, but by relying on them many Western governments pursue policies that are counter-productive and ultimately hazardous for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. “Recalling the Caliphate” engages critically with the interaction between Islam and the political in context of a post colonial world that continues to resist profound decolonization. In the first part of this book, Sayyid focuses on how demands for Muslim autonomy are debated in terms such as democracy, cultural relativism, secularism, and liberalism. Each chapter analyzes the displacements and evasions by which the decolonization of the Muslim world continues to be deflected and deferred, while the latter part of the book builds on this critique, exploring, and attempts to accelerate the decolonization of the Muslim Ummah.