Bruce B. Lawrence Reader

Bruce B. Lawrence is Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religion at Duke University and author of numerous books, most recently The Koran in English: A Biography.Ali Altaf Mian is Assistant Professor of Religion and Izzat Hasan Sheikh Fellow in Islamic Studies at the University of Florida.

“Few people can talk about God, scripture, humanity, art, and piety as Bruce B. Lawrence can: elegantly, eloquently, and effortlessly. Both general and specialist audiences will find this reader compelling for its clarity and pedagogy. Gems of the Qur'an dance alongside mystical insights, seamlessly joined to world events and to Muslim societies and beyond, over time. An exemplary scholar tells us how history shapes ideas and people, especially the manifold ways we experience the sublime.” - Ebrahim Moosa, Mirza Family Professor of Islamic Thought and Muslim Societies, University of Notre Dame “In bringing together Bruce B. Lawrence's pieces, this volume raises awareness of his original, significant, and exceptionally broad contributions to the study of religion and especially Islam.” - Marcia Hermansen, Director of Islamic World Studies at Loyola University Chicago “Ali Altaf Mian, finding in Lawrence a brilliant mind and expansive attitude toward Islam, has collected here a remarkable selection of Lawrence’s most significant articles. . . . This collection is an impressive array of scholarship on the Muslim world, worth reading from cover to cover, even by insiders with a more than passing knowledge of Islam.” - Janet M. Powers (Religion) "The Bruce B. Lawrence Reader is a window into the mind of a master scholar who has spent a lifetime learning and teaching that Islam has much to offer to the world if understood properly. . . . It was a joy to read this edited collection and I would recommend it to any serious students of Islam." - Mansur Ali (Muslim World Book Review)

• Preface / Bruce B. Lawrence  ixAcknowledgments / Bruce B. Lawrence  xiiiIntroduction / Ali Altaf Mian  1Part I. Theorizing Islam in World History1. Introduction to Shattering the Myth: Islam beyond Violence (1998)  292. Islam in Afro-Eurasia: A Bridge Civilization (2010)  543. Muslim Cosmopolitanism (2012)  784. Genius Denied and Reclaimed: Hodgson's The Venture of Islam (2014)  90Part II. Revaluing Muslim Comparativists5. Al-Biruni: Against the Grain (2014)  1036. Shahrastani on Indian Idol Worship (1973)  1137. Introduction to Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah (2005/2015)  1248. Mystical and Rational Elements in the Early Religious Writings of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1979)  141Part III. Translating Institutional Sufism9. Can Sufi Texts Be Translated? Can They Be Translated from Indo-Persian to American English (1990)  16510. "What Is a Sufi Order? 'Golden Age' and 'Decline' in the Historiography of Sufism," from Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond (2002), Coauthored with Carl W. Ernst  17511. Sufism and Neo-Sufism (2010)  19112. "Allah Remembered: Practice of the Heart," from Who Is Allah? (2015)  218Part IV. Deconstructing Religious Modernity13. "Fundamentalism as a Religious Ideology in Multiple Contexts" and Conclusion, from Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age (1989)  23314. "The Shah Bano Case," from On Violence: A Reader (2007)  25515. Introduction to Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden (2005)  26216. Muslim Engagement with Injustice and Violence (2013)  274Part V. Networking Muslim Citizenship17. Preface and Conclusion, from New Faiths, Old Fears: Muslims and Other Asian Immigrants in American Religious Life (2002)  30718. "W.D. Mohammed: Qur'an as Guide to Racial Equality," from The Qur'an: A Biography (2006)  32719. Introduction to Muslim Networks from Hajj to Hip Hop (2005), Coauthored with miriam cooke  33320. "AIDS Victims and Sick Women: Qur'an as Prescription for Mercy," from The Qur'an: A Biography (2006)  345Part VI. Reflecting the Divine Other in Words and Images21. Approximating Sajʿ in English Renditions of the Qur'an: A Close Reading of Sura 93 (al Duhā) and the Basmala (2005)  35322. Epilogue to The Qur'an: A Biography (2006)  37023. A Metaphysical Secularist? Decoding M.F. Husain as a Muslim Painter in Exile (2011)  37424. Conclusion, from Who Is Allah? (2015)  39525. The Future of Islamic Studies: Bruce B. Lawrence, Interviewed by Ali Altaf Mian (2018)  409Afterword / Yasmin Saikia  432Bruce B. Lawrence's Writings  441Index