Sherman Jackson

In a recent article published in Issue 6 of the Michigan State Law Review, Dr. Jackson published a concise essay on literalism both in the Islamic juridical interpretation as well as the influence and assumptions of Western thoughts concerning religion on Islam. Here’s a small excerpt:

It was in the nineteenth century that the “scientific” study of Islam approached maturity in the West. This was also the period during which the hegemonic rise of the hard sciences and “higher criticism” in religious studies opened a new chapter in the age-old conflict between “reason” and revelation. Among the most important by-products of this development was the rise of religious Fundamentalism, in which Christian—more specifically Protestant—scholars and theologians moved to erect a dike of literalism around the Bible to stave off doctrinal erosion and compromise. To their opponents, secular and Christian “progressives” alike, literalism came to represent the antithesis of both modernity and reason. This attitude would soon permeate the academy where it informed the study of religion in general and Islam more particularly. As the Western academy settled into its new “post-religious” identity, almost every criticism that could be directed at religion in general was assumed a fortiori to apply to Islam. Literalism, in this context, as the Believer’s last-ditch effort to find refuge from the deluge of modern secularism, came to be identified with any and every serious commitment to Islam.

For the complete article, click here. Hat tip to Hood for the info.

It’s funny, how this article makes me think and recount on the many encounters I have had [and continue to] with groups of people with curious notions of diversity. In America and in today’s world, perhaps with a hat tip to globalization, diversity has not come to mean the acceptance of those who look different, think different and act different than you but rather it is a carefully masked system of unification. That, in their minds, diversity is a process by which we will all eventually think and feel and experience the world the same. How arrogant this is! As usual, Dr. Jackson has a noteworthy piece. Read on it here.

This article seems to be a continuation of Dr. Jackson’s topic he spoke of last year at NYU: Public minimum and private maximum. Read about it here.

I found this article of particular interest as it examines perhaps two “competing” ideologies regarding the notion of salvation. Read it here.

More from Dr. Jackson’s blog at OnFaith. Read it here.

Here is an enlightening post that Dr. Jackson wrote on his blog recently.

I would highly recommend reading the new book, September 11 In History, A Watershed Moment?, edited by Mary L. Dudziak. The book features a very well written essay by Dr. Sherman Jackson, Islam(s) East and West: Pluralism between No-Frills and Designer Fundamentalism (Duke University Press). Highly recommended. Order from Amazon or Duke.

Here’s an interesting article from Islamica Magazine. Check it out here.