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Academic Islamic Studies and Middle East, Central Asian, and
other Area Studies Sites
Table of Contents
Academic Islamic Studies Websites
Professors of Islamic Studies With Significant Websites
Major Figures in Academic Islamic Studies of Previous
Generations
Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed Islamic Studies Journals
Middle-East Studies and MES Websites
North African Studies
Central Asian Studies
Islamic Studies and Related Fields Email Listservs
In addition to the Islam and Islamic Studies Resources website of
Prof.
Godlas (here at the
University of Georgia), there are a number of other academic web sites for
the study of Islam:
Islamic Area
Studies Project at the University of
Tokyo.
Islamic
Studies Pathways, compiled by Prof. Gary R. Bunt of the University of
Wales, Lampeter, this site briefly describes and evaluates sites useful
for students of Islam.
Syllabi for
the Teaching of Islam This site includes a number of syllabi used by professors at
the
university level. (Link fixed, 2 April 2006.)
IslamWeb a project of professors
Carl Ernst and Charles Kurzman at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. (As of 2
April 2006, this page was last updated in April 2001.)
Carolina, Duke, Emory Institute
for the Study of Islam (CDEKISI) is a a cooperative project sponsoring, among other
things, seminar presentations at each of the participating institutions. (As of 2 April
2006, this site does not appear to have been updated since 2003.)
Yale
University Islamic Studies Program
Dr. Barbara R. Von
Schlegell's Islamic Studies Page (link fixed 18 August 2005) Professor Von Schlegell teaches at
the University of Pennsylvania.
Al-Khazina:
The Treasury, the Islamic Studies site of Professor Jerome Clinton at
Princeton.
Professor Jamal Elias teaches Islamic
Studies and is the chair of the Religion dept. at Amherst College.]
Professor Omid Safi
teaches Islamic Studies at Colgate University.
Prof.
Juan Cole's Academic Fields Page comprises useful links for scholars
in the areas of History as well as Middle East, South Asia, and Religious
Studies (including Islamic Studies, Sufism, Khalil Gibran, Unitarian
Universalist, and Baha'i Studies). See also --formatted for the web --
Prof. Cole's
academic papers in the field of Iranian and Baha'i Studies.
Professor Michael Sells of
the University of Chicago (formerly of Haverford College), whose
book Approaching the Qur'an and its use at University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill has recently been at
the center of controversy. For this, see Professor Sells' website
UNC-Approaching the
Qur'an Controversy. Note as well Sell's
Community of Bosnia
website. For many years Sells was one of the more prominent American scholars to
actively oppose the "ethnic cleansing" of Bosnia.
Prof. Carl Ernst of University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, was criticized along with Prof. Sells. See
Dr. Ernst's webpage UNC Summer Reading
Program on the Qur'an: A National Controversy.
Prof. Ibrahim
Kalin's Islamic Studies Website (link fixed 18 August 2005) See especially the link to his articles, which
primarily deal with topics in Islamic philosophy.
Professor
David Powers' Islamic History Course at Cornell has a number of useful
links.
Syllabi for
the Teaching of Islam (link fixed 18 August 2005) This site, compiled for the American Academy of
Religion, includes a number of syllabi used by professors at the
university level.
Ignaz Goldziher (d. 1921) a
brief
article at Wikipedia.
Joseph Schacht by
Prof. Bernard Lewis in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol.
33,
part 2 (1970), pp. 378-81.
Louis Massignon:
"Reflections on Louis Massignon and His Legacy of Dialogue," by Prof. Herbert Mason
The
mystical vision of Louis Massignon: Islam inspired scholar's gratitude, life work and
Christian faith in National Catholic Reporter, Dec 17, 2004 by Jerry Ryan.
Louis Massignon at
Wikipedia A detailed biography.
For scholars in all fields of study in the Western world, peer reviewed journals are
those of higher quality.
While there are numerous journals dealing with Islam, many of these are not peer
reviewed and often represent the views of
the organization that publishes the journal, and so the overall scholarly
quality of the articles in such journals may be quite low. In contrast, peer reviewed
journals have a
board of editors consisting of established scholars who in principle accept or reject
articles on the basis of
their scholarly merits. Although of course the biases of the members of the editorial
board
play a certain role in determining which articles are accepted for publication,
nevertheless the
criteria for the inclusion of such articles are generally those of the academic field
itself.
Hence articles published in peer reviewed journals are regarded more highly by the
scholarly community, especially in the West. Consequently, important research in any
field of study is published in peer reviewed journals. This is important for
scholars who wish to call scholarly attention to their work or impact the field and is
especially significant for younger
scholars who need to establish their credibility for the simple practical reason of
obtaining a teaching/research position
and later tenure (a secured position) at a university. See the short note titled What is a scholarly or
peer reviewed journal? at the library of the University of Nevada,
Reno. I am currently constructing a comprehensive list of peer reviewed journals in
Islamic Studies. What follows is a preliminary list of such journals that have
websites:
Journal
of Arabic and Islamic Studies Edited by Joseph N. Bell, et al.
Journal of Qur'anic
Studies, published biannually by Edinburgh University Press, includes articles in
English and Arabic (link fixed 18 March 2006).
The Muslim World (link fixed 18 August 2005) Edited by
Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi', Hartford Seminary.
Journal of Islamic Studies Edited
by Farhan Ahmed Nizami, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.
Der Islam covering the
history and culture of the Islamic Orient. The scholarly journal of the German
Orientalist Society, edited
by Jürgen Paul, comprised of articles in German and English.
Die Welt des
Islams (link fixed 18 August 2005): International journal for the study of modern Islam (from the 18th century
on), edited by Stefan Wild, Werner Ende, and Michael
Ursinus, published by Brill, and comprised of articles in English, French, and
German. Unfortunately the web page for this journal is limited and does not include
important information such as where prospective contributors should send their articles.
American Journal of Islamic
Social Sciences (AJISS) (link fixed 18 August 2005) published by the Association of Muslim
Social Sciences (AMSS) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought
(IIIT), this journal endeavors to link Muslim intellectuals and scholars
worldwide.
Islam and
Christian-Muslim Relations, edited by John Esposito and David Thomas.
Journal
of the History of Sufism edited by Thierry Zarcone,
Ekrem Isin, Arthur Buehler.
Transcendent
Philosophy, a publication of the Institute of Islamic Studies, London, editor in
chief, Seyed G. Safavi. (Link fixed, January 4, 2002; 18 March 2006.)
A large list
of scholarly journals (some of which have websites) dealing with Islamic
law, the Middle East, and Islam is located at the website of CIMEL (Centre of Islamic
and Middle Eastern Law).
The
Changing Face of Medieval Near Eastern Studies: Challenges and
Strategies by Prof. Josef Meri of the University of California,
Berkeley, originally published in Middle
East Studies Association
Bulletin, Winter 1999. Prof. Meri discusses problems facing the
field and
presents solutions.
Middle East Studies Association
(MESA) is the main academic organization for the study of the Middle
East.
Contending
Visions of the Middle East : The History and Politics of Orientalism by Professor
Zachary Lockman deals with the history and current status of the academic study of the
Middle East and Islam. Professor
Lockman's perspective contrasts with that expressed by Dr. Martin Kramer (see below).
Ivory
Towers on Sand:
The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America (link fixed April 1, 2006) by Dr.
Martin Kramer, editor of
the Middle
East Quarterly and past director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and
African Studies at Tel Aviv University. This is an informative website devoted to Dr.
Kramer's highly significant and controversial book by the same title. In his book, Dr.
Kramer crosses
swords with
the entire field of Middle East Studies as it is practiced in the U.S.
Read the author's
introduction to Ivory Towers on Sand (link fixed April 1, 2006) and Chapter 3, Islam
Obscured, which
includes among other things critiques of Edward Said and John Esposito. In
addition, scholars, students, and administrators would do well
to peruse Dr. Kramer's
personal website if for no other reason than to learn from its professional
quality design. Style aside, his site is particularly rich in content,
especially his online
reader, consisting of a selection of articles that he has written and which is
divided into four categories: Islamism, Hizbullah, Arab
Predicaments, and Jews and Muslims.
Kramer, whose mentor was Bernard
Lewis, seems poised to fill at least partially the shoes of Professor Lewis.
Regardless of
whether or not
one agrees with his strident pro-Israeli perspective, no student of
Middle East studies
and contemporary Islam can afford to ignore him.
Dr. Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum (which publishes the Middle East
Quarterly) is probably the most visible
and active pro-Israeli scholar involved in the current debate over the presentation of
the Middle East and Islam in academia in the United States. A prolific writer, Dr.
Pipes has put online numerous categorized articles on the
Middle East and Islam that he has written, as well as his many book
reviews. Over 150 of Dr. Pipes' book reviews are also available on Amazon.com (link fixed 18 August 2005). In the Fall of 2002,
Dr. Pipes started the now infamous
website Campus Watch, which is designed to
inform the world about various American universities and scholars whose views on the
Middle East are neither representative of [the generally pro-Israeli views held by] the
American people nor of the policies of the U.S. government. Many scholars of Middle East and Islamic Studies have viewed this website as a McCarthyesque tactic designed to intimidate and "blacklist."
MESNET (link fixed 18 August 2005)
constructed by Daniel Martin Varisco, professor of Anthropology at Hofstra
University,
is the website of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological
Association. See especially the well-organized page of links MES
Links (link fixed 18 August 2005; 18 March, 2006) Middle East Anthropology and Archeology on the Internet.
MENALIB The
Middle East Virtual Library (MENALIB), which is an information portal for Middle East
and
Islamic Studies. "It provides access to online information and to digital records of
printed and other offline media." MENALIB, and especially its subsite, AlMISBAH, is
certainly one of the best and most
comprehensive
online resources for Middle East and Islamic Studies. It is about time that librarians
finally
took the initiative and used their skills to create a real, professional quality online
library for Middle
East and Islam Studies. While more online content, more thorough annotations, and a
subject index with many more
categories would be appreciated, MENALIB is certainly on the right track. Other Middle
East and Islamic Studies
librarians should now be able to go to those who hold the purse strings at
their own institutions, point to the poor or non-existent quality of their own Middle
East
or
Islamic Studies online website/library (poor in quality relative to MENALIB), and shame
them
into funding something comparable. Perhaps if American institutions were to put
sufficient money into facilitating online access to information about the Middle East
and
Islam in the manner that MENALIB has, the American people would make somewhat more
informed
decisions when they give the green light to their representatives in Washington to
spend more billions to send
American troops to another Middle Eastern or Muslim country.
AlMadina Research Center (Markaz
al-Madina al-Munawwara li-Dirasat wa-Buhuth al-Istishraq) created and operated by
Dr. Mazen Mutabagani, has as its focus the study of Orientalism
(istishraq), which is the term used to refer
to the study of Islam by Western
scholars. A Muslim view of Orientalism, such as that which Dr. Mutabagani provides,
should be useful not only to Muslim scholars who are trying to navigate through the
often turbulent waters of Western scholarship on Islam but also to Western scholars
who would like to add to their scholarship viewpoints that are not Eurocentric. Dr.
Mutabagani is an Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, Department
of Orientalism, Faculty of Da’wa-Al-Madina, Muhammad Ben Saud Islamic Universiy, Saudi
Arabia.
This extensive website, although primarily in Arabic, also has some material in
English.
MEDEA Database MEDEA (European Institute for Research on
Mediterranean and
Euro-Arab Co-operation) is a hypertext encyclopedic database for much that is significant in the political arena of
the Middle East today. It contains information such as amounts of monetary aid to Israel and Egypt, important UN
Security Council resolutions, and names of many significant political leaders in the Middle East and North Africa
today.
Arab World Project website,
constructed after 9/11 by the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education
(NITLE) and
funded by the Mellon Foundation, is a comprehensive online presentation of the Arab
world. It is divided up into the following teaching and learning modules:
history, ethnicity and identity, Islam, Arab Americans, literature and philosophy,
popular culture and the performing arts, family and society, art and architecture, the
Arabic language, and lastly, geography, demographics, and resources (link fixed 18 March, 2006).
While Islam extends far beyond the Middle East, a good place to look
for academic resources for the study of Islam are the various Middle East
Studies centers in the US and Europe.
Center for Middle East
Studies at the University
of Texas at Austin. This contains an excellent set of links to each
of the countries of the Middle East.
Harvard's Center of
Middle Eastern Studies In particular, see their Internet
Resources on the Middle East page (link fixed 18 August 2005). Among its contents are sections
for general resources, religion, news, poetry, music, computing,
languages, and organizations related to the Middle East.
Middle East Resources at the University of California, Berkeley
Middle East Studies: Columbia University
Middle
East Links (link fixed 18 August 2005; 18 March, 2006) Compiled at Macquarie University in
Australia.
On-line Journals for the Middle East
MERIA, the
Middle East Review of International Affairs, is an on-line
scholarly publication of the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
Their journal, both current and back
issues, often contains articles that are
relevant to the Islamic dimensions of Middle Eastern political affairs.
Arab Net is a comprehensive index
of links for the entire Arab world.
American
Institute for Maghreb Studies
Central Asian Studies
World Wide Excellent comprehenisve guide maintained at Harvard.
Bibliography
of Recent Literature on Central Asia (link fixed 18 August 2005) compiled by the Harvard Central
Asian Studies center.
Once you sign up for a "listserv" discussion group, you will receive
instructions on how to participate. In general a listserv discussion group
is like emailing a message to a large group of people with a similar
interest. The listserv, however, automatically sends your message to
everyone on the list.
The following list servs are mostly moderated,
which is to say that if people write in a manner demeaning to others,
"flame," or "go ballistic" in the course of the discussion, their posts
will often be censored. Members are free to participate or simply "lurk"
and observe the discussions.
Islam-L, For scholarly discussion of the history of Islam.
To Subscribe: Send an e-mail with the text "subscribe islam-l YourLastName
YourFirstName"
to listserv@listserv.louisville.edu
Posting Address: islam-l@listserv.louisville.edu
Adabiyat e-list: Scholarly discussions of Persian, Arabic, Urdu and Turkish
literatures.
To Subscribe: Send an e-mail with the text "subscribe adabiyat" to
majordomo@listhost.uchicago.edu
Posting Address: adabiyat@listhost.uchicago.edu
MENA-H
Discussion list on Middle East-North Africa History
To Subscribe: Send an e-mail with the text "sub MENA-L YourFirstName Your LastName"
to listserv@ulkyvm.louisville.edu>
Posting Address: MENA-H@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
Turkoloji - Turkology Communication and Discussion Group
Turkology Communication and Discussion Group is an e-mail group on Turkish language,
literature, history, art etc.
To Subscribe: Send a blank e-mail to turkoloji-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>
Posting Address: turkoloji@yahoogroups.com
Turkoloji Website
Islamic Studies Section of American
Academy of Religion Listserv Scroll down on the page of this link to find information
about subscribing to this scholarly list serv on Islam. The members are primarily
professors of Islamic Studies in American universities.
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