Asma Afsaruddin

Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures in the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her recently-published book Contemporary Issues in Islam (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) discusses in greater detail the fraught relations between Islam and politics, as well as issues of gender, reinterpretations of the Sharia, jihad, and interfaith and intercultural relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.

(A)theologies, Archive, Culture, Israel-Palestine, Politics/LawDecember 10, 2015

Debunking the Myth That Democracy Is “Incompatible” With Islam

By Asma Afsaruddin

An excerpt from Asma Afsaruddin’s new book, “Contemporary Issues in Islam.”

(A)theologies, Archive, StoriesJanuary 8, 2015

How Do We Talk About Islam After Charlie Hebdo?

By Asma Afsaruddin

It’s all too depressingly predictable and sickeningly familiar.

(A)theologies, Archive, Politics/LawDecember 12, 2013

Egypt and the Problem of Religion

By Asma Afsaruddin

Which side in Egypt is currently on the side of the angels and which not? One likes to assume that in any, particularly political, conflict the good guys can be easily separated from the bad guys; ordinarily the former is assumed to play by the rules of the game…

(A)theologiesMay 20, 2013

Inventing “Jihad”

By Asma Afsaruddin

Last week, in the wake of Russian-led investigation, it was reported that when Tamerlan Tsarnaev was in Russia he was, in fact, more eager to wage war than the Islamist contacts he had traveled to find. Accounts reveal that he arrived in Russia with “an avid interest in waging jihad.”

Books, RD10QMay 15, 2013

Waging Patience, Not Violence

By Asma Afsaruddin

For several years after 9/11, it was one of my favorite pastimes to browse the bookstores in airports in particular to check out the latest screed that had been published on the topic. All of this stoked a desire in me to write a book-length monograph soberly exploring the many dimensions of jihad as evident in different genres of Arabic language primary sources and to anchor these understandings in specific historical circumstances.