Author: Muhammed Nafih Wafy

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"Abolition de l'esclavage" by François-Auguste Biard, 1849 (photo: 1. www.assemblee-nationale.fr2. langlois.blog.lemonde.fr, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org)

"A Slave Between Empires: A Transimperial History of North Africa"

Decolonising Maghreb history

M’hamed Oualdi presents the story of a manumitted-slave-turned-dignitary in the Ottoman province of Tunis and the posthumous conflicts over his estate as a case study to deconstruct the modern history of Tunisia and the wider Maghreb region. Muhammed Nafih Wafy read the bookMore

Enlightenment in the Islamic world: Refuting the 'westernisation' narrativeThe West and the Middle East: Casting a long shadow – Napoleon's intervention in EgyptAicha 'Lella Saida' Manoubiya: Tunisia's feminist icon
The siege of Baghdad, 1258 (source: Sayf al-vâhidî et al. Public domain)

Book review: Ahmed El Shamsy's "Rediscovering the Islamic Classics"

How the printing press saved Islamic classics from near extinction

Ahmed El Shamsy's "Rediscovering the Islamic Classics" examines how a handful of reformist editors and intellectuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries harnessed printing press technology to save a rich body of classical Islamic texts from the brink of extinction. By Muhammed Nafih WafyMore

Review of Leor Halevi's "Modern Things on Trial": Bottom-up fatwas – Rashid Rida and laissez-faire SalafismRationality in Islamic theology: Muslims – believers caught between reason and revelationInterview with pioneering Islamic thinker Fehmi Jadaane: What is the essence of Islam, and does it need reforming?The maqamas of Ibn Naqiya in German translation: The picaresque poet from Baghdad
Grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb during the open debate with President of Cairo University Mohamed Osman Khosht (photo: Al-Azhar Alumni UK; https://www.facebook.com/pg/WAAGUK/photos/?ref=page_internal)

President Sisi, the Grand Imam and Al-Azhar

Egypt’s eternal conundrum – reforming religious thought

How long can Al-Azhar University mount guard over orthodox Islamic learning, fending off Sisi’s attempt to assert control while also curtailing the influence of oil-rich Gulf states? By Muhammed Nafih WafyMore

President Sisi and Al-Azhar: Wresting religious authority from the Grand ImamIslam, Al-Azhar and the terrorists′ ideology: If the cap fitsInterview with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar University: "What the Islamist armed movements are doing is wrong"
Islamic reformer Muhammad Rashid Rida and his publication Al-Manar (source: Wikipedia)

Review of Leor Halevi's "Modern Things on Trial"

Bottom-up fatwas – Rashid Rida and laissez-faire Salafism

Leor Halevi’s latest work examines how Muhammad Rashid Rida with his pro-capitalist and open-market fatwas promoted a version of "laissez-faire Salafism" at the turn of the 20th century. Muhammed Nafih Wafy read the bookMore

Islam in the Middle East: The curse of religiosityIslam's internal debate on reform: The battle for interpretational supremacyIslamism in the past and the present: From anti-colonialism to global jihad
Activist-writer and novelist Bushra al-Maqtari (photo: private)

Bushra al-Maqtariʹs "Voices from a forgotten war-torn country"

Yemenʹs chronicles of death and destruction untold

Bushra al-Maqtariʹs "What you left behind? Voices from a forgotten war-torn country" is a poignant record of the ongoing war in Yemen, woven with excruciatingly painful accounts of its hapless victims. By Muhammed Nafih WafyMore

Interview with Wafa′a Alsaidy, co-ordinator of Medecins du Monde in Yemen: At the expense of the Yemeni peopleInterview with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Tawakkul Karman: "We need to bring back the Arab Spring!"Female Yemeni artists: Making art in times of war
"Welcome" in Persian, written on the window of a refugee reception centre in Tubingen, Germany (photo: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Gollnow)

When East meets West

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Debunking the ʹclash of civilisationsʹ myth

Cultural discourse is littered with narratives that build on a number of false dichotomies, the most enduring being the exclusivity of East and West. The clash of civilisations, the superiority of one over the other, is an entrenched myth that not even globalisation and communications technology have managed to shatter. By Muhammed Nafih WafyMore

Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations": The precarious concept of the "other"Essay by Naika Foroutan: A dialogue of cultures instead of a clash of civilisations"The Clash of Civilisations": Where Huntington Got It Wrong
Female students – at Grace Valley "Wafiyya" College of Arts in Science in Malappuram, Kerala, India (source: Grace Valley College.com)

Islamic education in India

All-female madrassas: Of women, by women and for women

A new breed of women-only Islamic seminaries in India are making the rarefied area of higher studies in Islamic theology accessible to girls, while introducing an eclectic blend of traditional religious studies and modern secular education. By Muhammed Nafih WafyMore

Women and Arab-Islamic education: The doyennes of learningTaha Hussein and the democratisation of education in Egypt: The sea of knowledgeGender equality in the Middle East: To the benefit of all