Category Archives: Blog

Even before I started contributing to the Islamopedia Initiative while teaching at Harvard, I was a bit of a fatwa fanatic–hooked on collecting fatwas from around the world in a number of languages. When I was studying Islamic law at Columbia, I was focused on the practice of Islamic law in the former Soviet Union. These days, however, I’m as equally preoccupied with Islamic law in Sudan. Shari’a and Islamism in Sudan: Conflict, Law and Social Transformation, the latest book by Carolyn Fleuher-Lobban, is a welcome and helpful resource in trying to map the complex landscape of Islamic jurisprudence in Sudan and South Sudan. Here’s a blurb from the book jacket:

A country known mostly for the international attention paid to its humanitarian crisis and civil conflict, Carolyn Fleuhr-Lobban puts the spotlight on Sudanese society itself, and the impact that the mobilization, manipulation, and then demobilization of Islamic law has had throughout Sudan. She thus offers an unprecedented analysis of the initial policies implemented and the frameworks set in place in order to influence both private and public spheres. She then goes on to demonstrate the pervading impact this has had on family law, including marriage, adoption and divorce laws and procedures, as well as the effects on criminal law and other sectors of Islamic law and society…

For more information on this current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, please click here.

As I’m planning out my next trip to Sudan, I’m feeling grateful for the warm hospitality I received from a number of Sudanese Sufi sheikhs, while doing research there this winter…

This week, I’ve been busy reading Ibn Rushd by the sea in Beirut. As my students and I begin discussing his treatise on the relationship between religion and philosophy, we’ll be contemplating and debating his argument that there’s no conflict between demonstrative and scriptural truth…

Now since this religion is true and [it] summons to the study which leads to knowledge of the Truth, we the Muslim community know definitely that demonstrative study does not lead to [conclusions] conflicting with what Scripture has given us; for truth does not oppose truth but accords with it and bears witness to it…

— Ibn Rushd (ابن رشد), On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy

For more than two millennia, ink has been the principal medium of painting and calligraphy in China. Since the early twentieth century, however, the primacy of the “ink art” tradition has increasingly been challenged by new media and practices introduced from the West. Ink Art examines the creative output of a selection of Chinese artists from the 1980s to the present who have fundamentally altered inherited Chinese tradition while maintaining an underlying identification with the expressive language of the culture’s past…

For more information on this current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, please click here.

Last night, while walking home from tai chi practice in Beirut with a friend, we were stopped by an older man sitting at an outdoor cafe.

“How are you? I haven’t seen you in such a long time,” he said to my friend, “and by the way, you know we need to talk about Ibn Rushd.”

I had no idea my tai chi friend knew anything about Ibn Rushd–the 12th century philosopher who’s on my syllabus this semester. She looked just as confused as I was.

“I think you’re confusing me with someone else,” she said. As she turned to continue our stroll through downtown Beirut, I felt compelled to stay put.

“It’s strange you mentioned Ibn Rushd,” I said, “because I’m teaching a class on him next week.”

“Listen, every year we have a conference named after Ibn Rushd in Marseille, and we’re hoping to do one next year in Beirut,” he replied. After inviting me to participate, he leaned back in his seat, and took a long drag from his cigarette.

“Then again, who knows if any of us will be here next year,” he said, suggesting that there was no point in planning that far ahead. After all, just yesterday in Lebanon–an officer was assassinated, thirteen kidnapped nuns were released, targeted gas stations were closed, and an MP called for all kidnappings to stop. A lot can happen in Lebanon in a day–not to mention a year…

Today in Beirut, my students and I finished reading al-Ghazali’s “Deliverance from Error” (al-Munqidh min ad-Dalāl). After spending several weeks discussing the influence of Greek philosophy on medieval Christian and Muslims thinkers–like Augustine and al-Ghazali–we’re finally moving on…

From that light must be sought an intuitive understanding of things Divine. That light at certain times gushes from the spring of Divine generosity, and for it one must watch and wait…

— al-Ghazali

The life of clouds is a parting and a meeting.
A tear and a smile…

— Khalil Gibran

Nutritional Health and Happiness: A Four-Part Course Exploring the Medicinal Powers of Herbs

with Tashi Chodron

Rubin Museum of Art
Wednesdays: April 9-30
6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

In the Tibetan tradition foods, herbs, and spices have powerful effects on physical and mental well-being. Join us for a four-part course exploring the nutritional wisdom of the Himalayan region and discover how to incorporate it into your own life.

The Rubin Museum’s Tashi Chodron, together with Tibetan physician Dr. Dawa Ridak, Café Serai chef Ali Loukzada, and chef and cookbook author Sandra Garson, will lead hands-on demonstrations, lively discussions, and focused visits to the exhibition Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine. The course will conclude with a celebratory sampling of delicious dishes created by chefs Loukzada, Garson, and Chodron.

For more information, or to purchase tickets online–please click here.

学而不思则惘，思而不学则殆。

(Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.)

— Confucius

Starting off my Monday mornings in Beirut in Chinese class helps me to wake up my mind for the day and week ahead…

I passed by this graffiti–sponsored by the Lebanese Red Cross–on my walk home today from volunteering at the Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon/St. Jude in Beirut…

We have to heal our wounded world.
The chaos, despair, and senseless destruction
we see today are a result of the alienation that people feel from each other and their environment…

— Michael Jackson

Today, while volunteering at the Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon/St. Jude in Beirut, the children and I tried to repair the wounded world above.

“Lebanon is broken,” one of the girls cried–unaware of the deeper resonance of her words, as she went to write them on the board…

While the kids and I were busy studying the globe, Syrian shells were striking a number of Lebanese border towns up north. If only repairing the world was as easy as piecing together a puzzle…

To make an online donation to support the life-saving cancer treatment of my young friends here in Beirut, please click here.

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?

— Rumi

Earlier today, the designer who owns one of my favorite boutiques in Beirut gifted me this lovely bag–which is a map of Riyadh labeled in Arabic. Generosity is a beautiful thing…