In her new ethnographic study Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran (Duke University Press, 2023), Seema Golestaneh guides her readers through processes and praxes of mystical experience and knowledge acquisition amongst Sufi communities in contemporary Iran. The book focuses on the central conceptual paradigm of “ma‘rifat”, which Golestan ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Nov 23
Sarah Hoiland, "Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club" (Temple UP, 2025)
A righteous sister identifies herself as a biker. She might wrench, or maintain, her own bike, and she prefers to ride with other righteous sisters. Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club (Temple UP, 2025) is Dr. Sarah Hoiland’s insightful ... Show More
44m 53s
Nov 19
Christina Jerne, "Opposition by Imitation: The Economics of Italian Anti-Mafia Activism" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
For more than 150 years, Italy has been home to a resilient and evolving resistance against the pervasive influence of mafias. While these criminal organizations are renowned for their vast international business enterprises, the collective actions taken to oppose them are less k ... Show More
56m 40s
Oct 2024
Francesco Piraino, "Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism and the New Age" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
Francesco Piraino’s Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism and the New Age (University of Edinburgh Press, 2024) is a vital contribution to the growing field of Sufism in the Global North which often encompasses studies of North America and western Europe. This monograph study, the ... Show More
1h 3m
Aug 24
Omid Safi, “Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition” (Yale UP, 2018)
It's often touted that Rumi is one of the best-selling poets in the United States. That may be the case but popular renderings of the writings of this 13th-century Muslim have largely detached him from the Islamic tradition, and specifically Sufi mysticism. In Radical Love: Teach ... Show More
1h 17m
Apr 2021
Ziad Elmarsafy, "Esoteric Islam in Modern French Thought: Massignon, Corbin, Jambet" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
In his new book Esoteric Islam in Modern French Thought: Massignon, Corbin, Jambet (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2021) Ziad Elmarsafy maps the intellectual and personal genealogies of three French specialists of Islam, Louis Massignon, Henry Corbin, and Christian Jambet and the way ... Show More
53m 30s
May 2024
Exploring Qāsim Nānotwī's Engagement with the Akbarian Tradition: Interpreting Waḥdat al-Wujūd by Shazad Khan
<p>This paper proposes to delve into the profound legacy of the Akbarian tradition, an intellectual tradition rooted in the works of Ibn ʿArabī, which extensively contemplates the central doctrine of tawḥīd (the oneness of God) and has exerted a lasting influence on subsequent Is ... Show More
18m 52s
Jun 2024
Exploring Sufism and Philosophy in Shia Seminaries by Dr Seyed Amir Hossein Asghari
<p>On the 8th of May, The Department of Mysticism and Spirituality hosted a seminar by AMI's visiting fellow, Seyed Amir Hossein Asghari, exploring Sufism and Philosophy in Shi'i Seminaries. He examined the relationship between the School of Najaf and the School of Separa ... Show More
44m 40s
Jul 2025
Ep. 38 -The Mystical Teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi
Omid Safi discusses Sufi teachings from one of the greatest muslim mystics, an Andalusian sage named Ibn ‘Arabi."When Ibn 'Arabi comes, he sits with all of himself. When he's listening, he listens with all of himself. When it's time to go, he gets up with all of himself. All of h ... Show More
55m 46s
Jun 2024
Tahera Qutbuddin, trans., "Nahj al-Balāghah: The Wisdom and Eloquence of ʿAlī" (Brill, 2024)
Nahj al-Balagha is among the most powerful, consequential, and linguistically brilliant masterpieces of Arabic and of Islamic thought and literature. Based on the orations, letters, and sayings of wisdom of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661), the first Imam or successor to Prophet Muham ... Show More
1h 43m
Oct 2024
Emrah Yildiz, "Zainab's Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders" (U California Press, 2024)
Emrah Yildiz's new book Zainab’s Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders (University of California Press, 2024) is a masterful ethnographic study that maps the religious, political, and economic traffics from Tehran to just outside Damascus to the shrine of Sayy ... Show More
1h 10m