New Books in Islamic Studies

Chen examines the Chinese Nationalist government's distinctive support for private Muslim teachers schools between the 1920s and 1940s, and explores the complex relationship between these institutions and the Chinese state during the Republican period. In 1933, the government issued the Teachers Schools Regulations, mandating that all teachers schools be state-run. However, the Nationalists viewed private Muslim teachers schools as valuable allies in their efforts to assert influence in China’s Muslim-dominated northwestern frontier region and deliberately refrained from enforcing the 1933 Teachers Schools Regulations on them. Instead, the government applied the 1933 Amended Private Schools Regulations, which did not specifically address teachers schools, to govern Muslim teachers schools. By charting the evolving dynamics between the Nationalist state and Chinese Hui Muslims, Hui Muslims in the Shaping of Modern China: Education, Frontier Politics, and Nation-State (Routledge, 2025) reevaluates the Hui Muslims’ role in shaping modern China. Offering crucial context on the role of Islam in modern China, this book is a valuable resource for scholars and students of Chinese history, as well as for policymakers and journalists interested in religion in China. Bin Chen is Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University, and his research interests include China’s modern transition and Islam in China. His publications have appeared in The Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Modern Chinese History, International Journal of Asian Studies, and others. Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Zaid Adhami, scholar of American Islam and author of Dilemmas of Authenticity, explores how modern demands for personal authenticity shape doubts and recommitments among American Muslims. He discusses ethnographic fieldwork, authenticity’s double edge, competing claims of revivalist piety and individualized faith, and how identity as inheritance versus chosen belief creates dilemmas in lived religious practice.

Their names are Mohamed, Samira, sometimes Matthieu or Sophie. They were born and bred in France and are highly qualified, but they have decided to go and live in London or New York, Montreal or Brussels, Geneva or Dubai. Many were discriminated against on the French job market, or stigmatized simply because of their religion or the sound of their names. Whether devout or not, they felt unloved and unwanted in France, but abroad they have found a sense of peace and fulfilment that their native country failed to give them.Based on extensive original research, France, You Love It but Leave It: The Silent Flight of French Muslims (Polity, 2025) by Dr. Olivier Esteves, Dr. Alice Picard, and Dr. Julien Talpin sheds new light on the silent and largely unacknowledged flight abroad of French Muslims. It explores their motivations, their experiences in France and abroad, and their sense of Frenchness, torn between gratitude and bitterness. This book isn't just about an unreported brain-drain - it is also about the deleterious effects of Islamophobia in a country that balks at the very mention of the concept. And it highlights a pressing issue that many nations with Muslim minorities need to confront. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

P. C. Saidalavi, Assistant Professor of Sociology and author of Seeking Allah's Hierarchy, researches Muslim barber communities in South India. He explores how lineage, piety, jurisprudence, labor relations, migration, and patronage shape intra-communal hierarchies. The conversation traces fieldwork, barbers' dignity projects, and how Islamic values are used to justify and contest social standing.

Alaina M. Morgan, historian and assistant professor studying Black and Muslim diasporas. She explains the “Atlantic Crescent” linking Black, Afro-Caribbean, and South Asian Muslim encounters. Topics include newspapers as layered archives, transnational figures like Abdul Basi Naim, Nation of Islam internationalism and Malcolm X, and Bermuda as a hub for diasporic circulation and political organizing.

Adam Bursi, scholar of early Islamic history and author of Traces of the Prophets, discusses relics, tombs, and sacred spaces in eighth–ninth century sources. He maps debates over prophetic traces, contested hadiths about tomb mosques, stories of hidden or stolen relics, and tactile practices like rubbing and perfuming holy objects. The conversation traces how early material devotion shaped later shrine cultures.

Christopher J. Bonura, an Assistant Professor of History and expert in late antique apocalyptic literature, discusses the influential Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. He reveals how this seventh-century text reflected Christians' political realities under Islamic rule. The conversation dives into its Syriac origins, the narrative's impact across cultures, and how it reshaped perceptions of the Roman Empire in apocalyptic thought. Bonura also highlights the text's adaptations in Byzantine and Armenian contexts, showcasing its enduring relevance in political theology.

In The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims (U California Press, 2023), Khaled A. Beydoun details how the American War on Terror has facilitated and intensified the network of anti-Muslim campaigns unfolding across the world. The New Crusades is the first book of its kind, offering a critical and intimate examination of global Islamophobia and its manifestations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and regions beyond and in between. Through trenchant analysis and direct testimony from Muslims on the ground, Beydoun interrogates how Islamophobia acts as a unifying global thread of state and social bigotry, instigating both liberal and right-wing hate-mongering. Whether imposed by way of hijab bans in France, state-sponsored hate speech and violence in India, or the network of concentration camps in China, Islamophobia unravels into distinct systems of demonization and oppression across the post-9/11 geopolitical landscape. Lucid and poignant, The New Crusades reveals that Islamophobia is not only a worldwide phenomenon—it stands as one of the world's last bastions of acceptable hate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Imran Mulla, a journalist at Middle East Eye and author with a history background from Cambridge, dives into the fascinating aftermath of the Ottoman caliphate's abolition in 1924. He discusses the bold attempts by Indian Muslims and the wealthy Nizam of Hyderabad to revive the caliphate. Topics include the cultural background of Abdülmecid II, the Khilafat movement's ties to anti-colonialism, and the intriguing marriage alliance intended to unite the Ottomans and Hyderabad's royal family. Mulla even speculates on what an Indian caliphate could have looked like.

Sri Lanka has long sat astride the monsoon winds between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea – a small island at the centre of a very big story. For over a thousand years, Muslim pilgrims, merchants, scholars, and soldiers have passed through “Lanka” or “Sarandib”, leaving traces in Arabic, Tamil, Persian, Malay, Ottoman Turkish, Urdu, Dhivehi, and Sinhala. Serendipitous Translations: A Sourcebook on Sri Lanka in the Islamic Indian Ocean (University of Texas Press, 2026) brings together many of those voices for the first time in English. From medieval travellers marvelling at Adam’s Peak to modern novelists and newspaper editors wrestling with reform, nationalism, and civil conflict. Dr. Nile Green holds the Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History at UCLA. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he is the celebrated author of ten monographs and the editor of seven books and several journal issues, with a particular focus on Islam and the Indian Ocean world. He also hosts the excellent podcast Akbar’s Chamber: Experts Talk Islam. Dr. Ahmed AlMaazmi is Assistant Professor of History at the United Arab Emirates University. His research explores the intersections of empire, occult sciences, slavery, law, environmental infrastructures, and material culture in the Arabian Peninsula and the wider Indian Ocean world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies