Berkeley Institute for Islamic Studies 2021-02-17T13:36:25-08:00

Latest essays

Niccolò Machiavelli (d. 1527 AD), an Italian Renaissance diplomat, is most noted for The Prince, but his real masterpiece is his Discourses. Machiavelli wrote The Prince as a treatise to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Duke of Urbino, and it was not published until five years after Machiavelli’s death. Machiavelli wrote the treatise hastily because he[...]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Sa%27di%27s_Argument_Comes_to_Blows%22_by_Aqa_Riza_(LTS1995.2.86).jpg

Anwit Shahi analyzes the online debates between factions of the Muslim community[...]

On the 21st of the month of Ramadan, in 40 AH (661 AD), the caliph, judge, warrior, ascetic, and sage ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib succumbed to his fatal wounds. He was the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muḥammad, and he is considered the fourth Rashidun caliph by Sunni Muslims and the first Imam by[...]

“He began teaching us the knowledge of ourselves, of God and the devil, of the measurement of the earth, of other planets, and of the civilization of some of the planets other than earth. He measured and weighed the earth and its water; the history of the moon, the history of the two nations, black[...]

One of the boldest icons of the Nation of Islam (NOI) is a simple blackboard.[...]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rutherford_discours_1919.jpg and Alam Khan Publications

According to the Detroit Police Department, and the Detroit Free Press, W.D. Fard, the founder of the Nation of Islam, possessed a work that he described as The Bible of Islamism. He was photographed with the book when detectives detained him on November 23, 1932. A mysterious quote, “God is a liar,” and a page number, were the sole clues that [...]

Bilal Muhammad examines the debate within Islam about the crucifixion of Jesus.[...]

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Academic RESEARCH

In 1914, Fred Dodd, known now as W.D. Fard, briefly married Pearl (or Pearle) Allen.[1] [2] Just over five months later, on September 23rd, 1914, Fard and Pearl Allen divorced. The divorce petition suggests that Fard objected to Pearl’s [...]

Arabic Manuscript

Despite the influence of Sharīf al-Murtaḍā’s Amālī, the paratextual features of its manuscript copies are seldom discussed. This paper compares such features in two 17th and 19th-century manuscripts.   Abstract A number of Sharīf [...]

Numerous studies of Mamlūk books congeal around luxury manuscripts. Doris Behrens-Abouseif’s monograph offers a new window into the production and reception of ordinary books in the Mamlūk world.[...]

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