BOOK REVIEWS EDUCATIONAL VISION
SHORT TAKES
New Directions in Islamic Education: Pedagogy and Identity Formation Abdullah Sahin 2014. Pp. 304. HB. $54.95 Kube Publishing Ltd., Markfield, Leicester, UK Abdullah Sahin, who has researched the learning and teaching of Islam within the Muslim majority and minority contexts in the modern world, offers a combination of empirical analysis of the existing situation in Islamic education, its authentic and intellectual theological grounding, and its practical solutions. This book, which grew out of the author’s doctoral dissertation, provides insight into the curriculum and ethos of traditional Islamic seminaries and a way to enable a creative conversation with modern educational theory and practice. The author proposes a psychological model to investigate the formation of Muslim religiosity and faith development in the modern world. He maintains that without grounding their research in such a model, Muslim educators cannot assess the impact of their teaching on the religious agency of the learners.
Pre-Islamic Carpets and Textiles from Eastern Lands Friedrich Spuhler 2014. Pp. 186 + 60 illus. HB. $55.00 Thames & Hudson, New York, N.Y. The fourth volume in Thames & Hudson’s series catalogues Kuwait’s al-Sabah collection featuring carpets and textile fragments from the pre-Islamic and early Islamic world. The Sasanian fragments fill a substantial gap in the early history of pile carpets, dating from the 2nd to the 8th century CE, and make a valuable contribution of the understanding of local artistic traditions. The book’s second half documents post-Sasanian and Sogdian silks dating from the 6th to the 10th century.
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THE LIGHT FROM AFRICA Educating Muslim Women: The West African Legacy of Nana Asma’u, 1793-1864 Beverly Mack and Jean Boyd 2013. Pp. 240 + photographs & illustrations. $22.95 Kube Publishing Ltd., Markfield, Leicester, UK
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ana Asma’u, a devout and learned Muslim scholar — daughter of the renowned scholar Usman dan Fodio — observed, recorded, interpreted, and influenced major public events that happened around her. Her example as an educator is still followed. The system she set up in the first quarter of the 19th century for the education of rural women has not only survived in its homeland — through the traumas of the colonization of West Africa and the establishment of the modern state of Nigeria — but also is being revived and adapted elsewhere, notably among Muslim women in the United States. Beverly Mack and Jean Boyd, in their third book on Asma’u, introduce readers to Asma’u’s upbringing and critical junctures in her life from several sources, mostly unpublished, her own firsthand experiences presented in her writings, the accounts of contemporaries who witnessed her endeavors, and the memoirs of European travelers. For the account of her legacy, the authors have depended on extensive field studies in Nigeria, and documents pertaining to the efforts of women in Nigeria and the United States to develop a collective voice and establish their rights as women and Muslims in today’s societies. Daughters are still named after her, her poems move people profoundly, and her memory remains a vital source of inspiration and hope.
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ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2014
The Muslim Heritage of Bengal: The Lives, Thoughts and Achievements of Great Muslim Scholars, Writers and Reformers of Bangladesh and West Bengal Muhammad Mojlum Khan 2013. Pp. 384. $30.95 Kube Publishing Ltd., Markfield, Leicester, UK Muhammad Mojlum Khan offers a look into the Muslim history, culture and heritage of Bengal from the early 13th century to modern times through 42 biographies of eminent Muslims of Bengal beginning with Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji, the Muslim conqueror of Bengal, and ending with Begum Rokeya, an influential educator of Bengal during the early 20th century. Parallel Histories: Muslims and Jews in Inquisitorial Spain James S. Amelang 2013. Pp. 207. PB. $25.95 Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, La. Amelang explores not only the expulsions but also challenges of maintaining religious beliefs and practices by Muslims and Jews living under repression in Spain. The experiences of these two groups who were forced to convert to Christianity varied: while the converted Jews ultimately assimilated into the mainstream, the Muslim counterparts, the morisco, were expelled in 1609. The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction Amanda H. Podany 2013. Pp. 168. PB. $11.95 Oxford University Press USA A compact book that covers 3,000 years from around 3500 BCE, with the founding of the first Mesopotamian cities, to the conquest of the Near East by the Persian King Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE. Islam In Perspective Sultan Ahmad Pp. 322. PB. $18.54 AuthorHouse, Bloomington, Ind. In 62 chapters, Dr. Sultan Ahmad introduces the fundamentals and teaching of Islam, offering a fare that can be shared in Friday sermons.
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Correction: The title of Eric Broug’s new book, reviewed in the Nov./Dec. 2013 issue, is Islamic Geometric Design (publishers Thomas & Hudson USA). It was erroneously listed as “Islamic Geometric Patterns,” which is the title of the author’s previous book.
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