New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 264 pp. $99. Published in the Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2023. Hughes, a professor of religious studies at the University of Rochester, views the genesis of Islam through a religious studies lens. He characterizes Islam's "quest for normativity" in its...
by Robert Spencer. New York: Bombardier Books, 2021. 548 pp. $45. Published in the Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2023. The Qur'an is not an easy read, even in translation: its chapters are out of order, and its contents often obscure; verses do not follow logically one...
In the lead-up to the recent Victorian election, Premier Daniel Andrews announced grants of more than $8 million to the Victorian Islamic community. A social media video posted by his office celebrated this news in a way that can only be described as joyful. In the...
The following is an edited version of a ‘Political Animals’Podcast with Jonathan Cole Cole: Welcome to the Political Animals. I am your host, Jonathan Cole. I am an academic writer and translator, specializing in Political Theology, the intersection between religion and politics. Joining me in this episode...
This article was published in the Middle East Quarterly, 29(3): 1-8. An underestimated, unappreciated, and oft-denied driver of the Arab-Israeli conflict is Islamic religious antisemitism. How deeply entrenched is this religious bigotry, and can it prevent, or slow down, the nascent reconciliation between Israel and the...
In an episode of the Political Animals Podcast Jonathan Cole talks to Mark Durie. They explore the theological relationship between Christianity (and Judaism) and Islam, with a particular focus on explaining the large presence of Biblical material in the Qur'an and whether this constitutes theological...
Two horrific acts of murder took place in Europe in October 2021, within a few days of each other. One was the stabbing of English MP David Amess by a UK citizen with a Somali heritage, Ali Harbi Ali. The other was the killing of...
Dhimmitude is an Islamic phenomenon. It describes the condition of submission to Islamic dominance, yet without conversion to the Islamic faith. Under classical theological formulations, developed in the first centuries of Islam, the region where Islam rules is known as Dar al-Islam ‘the House of Islam’....