Bottled Petrichor

Pleased to have on Dr. Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the LMU in Munich and host of the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast. What is Falsafa? What types of questions did its practitioners address and how did they go about doing so? What is Kalām? What types of questions did its practitioners address and how did they go about doing so? How did practitioners of these sciences view one another? How did non-Muslims in Muslim-ruled areas engage with and contribute to the study of philosophy? What is the decline narrative? And more!  Link to Professor Adamson's academia page: https://lmu-munich.academia.edu/PeterAdamson Link to the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast: https://www.historyofphilosophy.net/

Join me as I discuss the New Testament with Dr. Thomas Schmidt, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Fairfield University. What is the New Testament and what is its anatomy? What is the history of its writing/canonization? What was the status of the NT among early Christians and how did they refer to it? How does the NT relate to the Hebrew scriptures and other writings? How was the NT preserved? What is the Qur'an's understanding of the NT? And more! Link to Dr. Schmidt's Academia: https://fairfield.academia.edu/TCSchmidt Link to Dr. Schmidt's forthcoming publication, "The Book of Revelation and its Eastern Commentators": https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/book-of-revelation-and-its-eastern-commentators/4BF51EA09DB063BC6872DE481D291A62

I'm very pleased to have on Kerwin Holmes Jr., PhD student at the University of Virginia's Department of Religious Studies, to discuss Christianity. What is Christology? What did the early Christians believe about Jesus? What were the different councils and what did they accomplish? What are some of the various interpretive methodologies employed when approaching the Gospels?  What does a practising Christian scholar think of the Qur'an's conception of Christian belief? And more! Link to Kerwin's bio: https://religiousstudies.as.virginia.edu/grad-students/profile/kh2ea

I'm pleased to welcome Dr. Tamara Gray, founder of Rabata (https://www.rabata.org/) to discuss the philosophy of Islamic education in America. What is the purpose of education in general and of Islamic education in particular? How has the curriculum been organized/structured? What are some of the advantages of an online medium for education?  What is the role of Islamic scholarship today (original research, education, etc)?  What is the broader vision for your students' career plans?  And much more!  Link to Dr. Gray's biography: https://www.rabata.org/anse-tamara-gray/ Link to the institute: https://ribaat.rabata.org/  Link to A Compendium of the Sources on the Prophetic Narrative Volume 1 & Volume 2: https://daybreak-international-bookstore.myshopify.com/products/hard-cover-a-compendium-of-the-sources-on-the-prophetic-narrative

I'm pleased to welcome Shaykh Amin Kholwadia, founder of Darul Qasim (located in a suburb of Chicago, IL, USA) to discuss the philosophy of Islamic education in America. What is the purpose of education in general and of Islamic education in particular?  What is the role of Islamic scholarship today (original research, education, etc)? How should Muslim academics from Darul Qasim engage with academics in Islamic Studies/NELC departments at universities? What can be learned from the educational methodologies of these departments? What is the broader vision for your students' career plans? How do graduates of Darul Qasim compete with graduates from similar institutes? And much more! Link to the institute: https://darulqasim.org/ Link to Shaykh Amin's bio:https://darulqasim.org/about-us/leadership/

Join me as I discuss the translation of philosophical texts into Arabic with Dr. Elaine van Dalen, Assistant Professor of Classical Islamic Studies in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. When and where were texts first translated after the rise of Islam? What was the "translation movement" and what was the political and social context of the movement? What was the motivation behind translating texts of certain topics and how did the change in social/religious atmospheres engender the translation of other texts? What was the "Bayt al Ḥikmah"  and how has this been popularly understood? Who was translating? How was medicine practiced during these times? What was the status of medical knowledge of the human body like during this time? And more!

Join me as I discuss the Qurʼān and its variant readings with Dr. Shady Nasser, Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard. What do we mean when we talk about variant readings? How is the presence of such readings accounted for between Muslim and Western scholars? How and when were variant readings canonized? What methodology was applied to determine whether a variant reading was valid or not? How was "Qurʼān" defined between different people? What are the aḥruf? What do we mean when we talk about tawātur and how does it apply to the Qurʼān and the variant readings? What is the concept of the inimitability of the Qurʼān? How is the Qurʼān related to poetry? And more! Link to his forthcoming publication: https://brill.com/view/title/55138

Join me as I discuss pre-Islamic Arabia, epigraphy, and Arabic with Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad (twitter: @Safaitic). What is pre-Islamic Arabia and how can we know about it? How did pre-modern scholars approach the subject and what were their goals? How has the discovery of new inscriptions advanced our knowledge of pre-Islamic Arabia, the Qur'an, early-Islam, and the Arabic language? Why did people make inscriptions? How do we know an inscription is actually going back to a particular date?  What methodology is applied to determine the pronunciation of certain words in bilingual inscriptions and how important have such inscriptions been for the study of Arabic and other N.E languages? And much more! The professor also discusses some of his findings and the exciting stories behind them.    Link to Professor Ahmad Al-Jallad's Academia page: https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/AhmadAlJallad

Had a good conversation with Professor Jonathan Brown on the important questions. What defines being Muslim? How do we analyze the truth of Islam? What methodology do we use to conclude that the Qur'an is from God? To what extent can we, people of the modern world, take pre-modern figures as role models, especially if we feel we have to constantly contextualize their lives? How do we live in today's highly connected world in a moral and ethical way? And more!

Join me as I discuss the Bible, Qur’an, Midrash, and Tafsir with Dr. Michael Pregill. We discuss the state of Qur'anic studies today and how the field has changed over the past couple decades, as well as Dr. Pregill's new book, "The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur'an" (recently published by the Oxford University Press). We then move on to several discussions, including: who was the Qur'anic Sāmirī and how is he related to Aaron/Hārūn; Qur'anic "confusions"; how the fields of Late Antiquity, the Bible/Jewish and Christian tradition, and the tafsīr/Islamic tradition relate to the contemporary study of the Qur'ān; and more! Link to Dr. Pregill's bio: https://hcommons.org/members/mpregill/ Link to his book: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-golden-calf-between-bible-and-quran-9780198852421?lang=en&cc=us

I'm pleased to have on Dr. Emran El-Badawi, Associate Professor at the University of Houston and the founding executive director of the International Qur'anic Studies Association (IQSA). We discuss various theories of the origins of the Qurʼān, the Qurʼān and the Aramaic gospel traditions (which is also the title of his book), Ephrem the Syrian's homilies, the Qurʼān in conversation with Late Antiquity, approaching the Qurʼān as believing historians, and more!

Join me as I discuss the sīra and maghāzī literature with Dr. Sean Anthony. Who were the main figures involved in collecting and compiling data about the life and times of the Prophet? How reliable are these works? How do they incorporate Biblical motifs, hagiography, etc? Were elements of his biography ever used polemically? How much did early Muslims, be they scholars or laymen, know about the life of their Prophet? What is the current status of Western scholarship on the sīra and maghāzī literature? How can scholars from different backgrounds collaborate to further the study of this literature? And more!

Join me as I discuss race and Islamic history with Dr. Rachel Schine, a graduate of the University of Chicago and current Postdoctoral Associate in Arabic Literature and Culture at the University of Colorado Boulder. Can we speak about race when we talk about the past? How are different peoples depicted in the Qurʼān, Ḥadīth, and other literature? How were differences between human explained? Were these differences ever used in polemically? How did ideals of beauty intersect with conceptions of race? And more!

I'm pleased to have on Maulana Arif Kamal, faculty member at Darul Qasim. We discuss the compilation of the Qurʾān, its transmission, variant recitations, the seven aḥruf, and more! Maulana Arif also recites in different qirāʾāt (modes of recitation) for us on this episode!

Join me as I discuss the study of Islam between madrasa and university with Dr. Yasir Qadhi. We discuss the professor's experiences as a student in both types of institutions, the advantages of each, the direction Islamic institutions in the West need to take and more!

Second part of my discussion with Dr. Marijn van Putten, with a focus this time on the Qurʼān. We discuss the study of manuscripts, some of the doctor's main findings, the ways in which contemporary research agrees/disagrees with claims made by earlier scholars of the Qurʼān, and more!

Join me as I discuss the history of Arabic with Dr. Marijn van Putten of Leiden University. Dr. van Putten describes to me the field of historical linguistics and discusses topics such as Proto-Semitic, loan words, how Arabic was spoken in pre-modern times, the difference between Qur'anic and Classical Arabic, pronunciation variations, and more! This is a link to Dr. van Putten's publications page, which includes his very important work on the Uthmanic archetype ("The Grace of God" as evidence for a written Uthmanic archetype: the importance of shared orthographic idiosyncrasies"):   https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/marijn-van-putten/publications#tab-3. Follow him on twitter @PhDniX for insightful threads on a variety of subjects.

Join me as I discuss various topics in theology with Dr. Shadee Elmasry of safinasociety.org. How do we know God exists? How do we know that He communicates with people? Is creation just? How do we recognize the truth of a prophet? The Shaykh's opinion on human evolution and Islam is also discussed. And more!

Join me as I discuss Quranic exegisis (Tafsīr) with Dr. Sohaib Saeed, a graduate of Azhar University and SOAS and award-winning translator of Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī's monumental Tafsīr (name of translation is "The Great Exegesis: al-Tafsir al-Kabir: The Fatiha"). What's the status of the field of Tafsīr? Who are its major figures and what are their major works? What are common misconceptions when it comes to this field? Does every verse need an interpretation? How binding are the interpretations of the exegetes? We also briefly touch upon "abrogation" (naskh) and "circumstances of revelation" (asbāb an-nuzūl).  Follow Dr.Saeed on twitter @tafsirdoctor Link to his translation: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Exegesis-al-Tafsir-al-Kabir-Fatiha/dp/191114121X

Join me as I conclude my discussion with Dr.Mutter. Arabization and the fall of languages. Hybrid religions in rural areas. When does conversion become religiously motivated? When does the apocalyptic fervor die down? Abdul Malik and the Apocalypse. Were Muslims ever seen as a sign of the Apocalypse by non-Muslims? What was the relationship between the rulers and the ruled? How did Muslims view non-Muslims? Arab superiority and the Abassid Revolution. Where did the designation "Muslim" come from? How accurately do the Muslim histories portray historical events? What is relied upon when writing the history of this period? What is a documentary source and what is a narrative source? What evidence do we have from the early time period of Islam's history? What types of histories do we have and how were they transmitted? Why can't we find enough historical texts from this time period? Revisionism. How do early non-Muslim sources depict Muslims and how do their depictions differ from the way Muslims depict themselves in later narrative sources? Where does the skepticism of Sirah and Hadith emerge from? Is the Sirah a valid way of knowing the life of the Prophet? What histories do historians rely on when they write textbooks on Islamic history? Advice for aspiring historians in the field of early-Islam.