Category: Society & Culture
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Panegyric Poetry and the Poetics of Panache: Exploring the Rich Heritage of Mappila Songs
The word Mappila (sometimes pronounced as Moplah) comes from the ancient Dravidian language, meaning “great child” (maha, “great” and pilla, “child”). The Mappilas today are for the most part descendants of foreign traders from the Middle East who visited the southwestern coast of India, known as the Malabar Coast, through Indian Ocean trade routes.
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7 Modern Deadly Sins and Misunderstandings: Clarity
Understanding and Critiquing Certain Common Sense Moralisms in Modern Society Previously, we discussed the moralism of determining when exclusivity functions and certain misjudgments we make regarding the moral weight of things. The following discussion ties into another issue in conceptualizing popular sentiments in modern ethics – namely, our severe lack of moral clarity, sincerity and…
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Navigating Defilement: Thoughts on the Navigating Differences Statement
On May 23, 2023, a public statement was released titled, “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam.” Traditionally studied scholars, post-Salafi preachers, celebrity imams, small-town masjid imams, Muslim academics, well-known bloggers, and a slew of people from other diverse backgrounds signed onto the statement. The signatories are not names that you would expect…
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Lessons on the Pitfalls of Modernity in ‘The Road to Mecca’
Muhammad Asad’s autobiographical account The Road to Mecca (1954) is a fine work that moves between various genres, including historical narration, adventure tale and conversion story, presenting numerous entertaining anecdotes. More intriguing, however, is the unique and fascinatingly nuanced insight that Asad (formerly Leopold Weiss), gives into a soulless and lost Europe of the early…
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Why I Translated al-Sulami’s ‘Futuwwa’ Into Japanese
When I give lectures on Japanese culture in Turkey, I often receive the following question: “How are the Japanese so moral when they have no religion?”
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Andrew Tate and the Ethics of Sincerity in Digital Engagement
There is an obvious question for consideration here: why do some people come out in support of Tate while others come out against him? Why do some people seemingly materialize out of thin air to say we must have a good opinion of him, while other more progressive-leaning individuals come out to say Tate deserves…
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Erotica, Social Media, and the Spirituality of It All
The story always ends with the Princess being awakened with a kiss from Prince Charming. And so, they lived happily ever after. It is the typical bedtime story told to our young girls. Is it surprising, then, that they grow up to continue reading these stories — beyond a kiss?
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Towards An Islamic Theory of Culture Part III: It Starts and Ends With Tawḥīd
The theocentricity of Islam is distinguished from other faith traditions through the principle of tawḥīd (absolute monotheism). Faruqi argues that tawḥīd is not merely a tenet of creed, but also a philosophical foundation. All matters of a Muslim’s life, his belief, spiritual and social obligations, are all in service of tawḥīd. When taking Islam as…
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Is it Possible to Create a Japanese Islamicate Culture?
In history, Islam showed itself to be culturally friendly… In China, Islam looked Chinese; in Mali, it looked African. Sustained cultural relevance to distinct peoples, diverse places, and different times underlay Islam’s long success as a global civilization.
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Vampires, Witches and the Walking Dead in Ottoman Lands
“’On the Night of Karakoncolos, the obur would awaken to feast on human blood. Relatives of the victim would urgently seek out a village elder with expertise in finding the creatures. They then would go to the grave from whence the obur had emerged and exhume the body…’ [reported] Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi, on one…