New Books in Islamic Studies

Marshall Poe

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.

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#1405
Today · 1 hr 5 min
Radio ReOrient 15:3: The Othered Woman, with Shahed Ezaydi, hosted by Amina Easat-Daas and Chella Ward
In this episode, Amina and Chella had a wide ranging conversation with Shahed Ezaydi about her recent book, which explores the interconnectedness between white feminism and Islamophobia, and how Muslim women are frequently harmed by both. This episode took us into discussions around Iran, Afghanistan and Europe, and the Orientalism still prevalent in these exchanges. Shahed Ezaydi is an award-winning writer, specialising in features and reporting on culture, social issues and feminism. Shahed is
#1404
October 23 · 47 min
Theologies of Remembering: Modernity, Ambiguity, and Transcendence in Islamic Indonesia with Verena Hanna Meyer (U California Press, 2026)
The claim to moderate or modernist Islam in Indonesia is particularly contentious today, as these labels participate in the global politics of identity for Muslims past and present. Who gets to claim to be representative of an Islam that is modernist, progressive, or tolerant? What constitutes a traditionalist Islamic orientation? And why and for whom do these distinctions matter? In her new book Theologies of Remembering: Modernity, Ambiguity, and Transcendence in Islamic Indonesia (U Californi
#1403
October 18 · 1 hr 12 min
Islamic Ethics and Spiritual Sovereignty: Genres of Tradition in Muslim South Asia with Ali Altaf Mian (U Notre Dame Press, 2026)
Islamic Ethics and Spiritual Sovereignty: Genres of Tradition in Muslim South Asia (U Notre Dame 2026) explores the rich vast textual archive of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanavi, a South Asian Muslim theologian and Sufi.
#39
October 16 · 47 min
Governing Islam in Austria and Germany, with Farid Hafez
In this episode, hosts Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas were joined by Farid Hafez to discuss his most recently published book Governing Islam in Austria and Germany: From Colonial Times to the Present (Oxford UP, 2026). Hafez’s recent work centres on the comparative analysis of the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the German rule in Tanzania, Togo and Cameroon, and in particular their respective treatment of Muslims in each case to then in turn shed light on the current gover
#38
October 11 · 55 min
The French Médersa: Islamic Education and Empire in Northwest Africa with Samuel D. Anderson (Cornell UP, 2026)
The French Médersa: Islamic Education and Empire in Northwest Africa (Cornell UP, 2026) explores how the French state pursued a century-long project of bicultural Franco-Muslim education in its northwest African colonies, resulting in a new type of school, the médersa, that combined French and Islamic curricula. French officials frequently described these schools and their students as "hyphens," drawing connections between larger French and Islamic forces. Samuel D. Anderson highlights this hyph
#37
October 5 · 56 min
The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East with Nicholas Morton (Pegasus, 2026)
From their foundational era in 1097 to Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem almost a century later, the Crusader States transformed the Middle Eastern world. In an era shaped by many conflicts, this was not simply a war between Christianity and Islam, but an epic contest among multiple rival empires, dynasties, and cultures. Nicholas Morton's The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East (Pegasus, 2026) unfolds through a kaleidoscope of perspectives: a Byzantine renegade, a cr
#934
September 12 · 1 hr 24 min
Han Hsien Liew, "Preaching Pious Rulership in Medieval Islam: Ibn Al-Jawzi's Political Thought" (Edinburgh UP, 2026)
Han Hsien Liew’s fascinating and insightful new book, Preaching Pious Rulership in Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Jawzi’s Political Thought (Edinburgh UP, 2026) offers a new way of understanding the political thought of one of medieval Islam’s most influential preachers, Ibn al-Jawzi. Although Ibn al-Jawzi is often remembered primarily as a preacher, moralist, and religious scholar, Han Hsien challenges conventional accounts of medieval Islamic political thought by showing how piety, preaching, and emot
#933
September 9 · 1 hr 23 min
Ashish Koul, "Reinventing Caste: Islam and Hierarchy in Late Colonial India" (Stanford UP, 2026)
Reinventing Caste: Islam and Hierarchy in Late Colonial India (Stanford UP, 2026) reveals that caste, usually assumed to be a feature of Hindu society, was in fact a trans-religious phenomenon in colonial India, as it is today. Even in an Islamic religious milieu that was supposedly more egalitarian than hierarchical Hinduism, colonial Indian subjects thought and acted in terms of caste. Through a focus on one agrarian Muslim caste known as Arains, Ashish Koul shows how some Indian Muslims trans
#932
August 28 · 1 hr 10 min
Matthew Thomas Miller, "Feeling like Lovers: Affect in Medieval Sufism" (U California Press, 2026)
Matthew Thomas Miller's new book Feeling like Lovers: Affect in Medieval Sufism (U California Press, 2026), and is available as an open access book (see link below), considers how for many medieval Sufis, Sufism was the “path of love”, and God was the Beloved, and so one had to become a lover of the Beloved on this path. And though there remains a rich corpus of Sufi texts from theological, legal to philosophical that speak to and about this trajectory, Miller re-focuses our attention to the fel
#931
August 23 · 38 min
Travis Bruce, "Constructing the Medieval Maritime State: Identity, Violence, and Connection in the Mediterranean" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Constructing the Medieval Maritime State: Identity, Violence, and Connection in the Mediterranean (Oxford University Press, 2026) by Professor Travis Bruce explores how the small medieval kingdom of Denia in Spain became a powerful maritime state after the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate. Its rulers built authority, not only through war and seafaring raids but also by connecting Denia to wider Mediterranean trade, diplomacy, and culture. The rise and evolution of the taifa of Denia is
#930
August 12 · 47 min
Younus Y. Mirza, "The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries" (Fortress Press, 2025)
Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been historically revered throughout the Islamic tradition. This began already in the Qur'an, where she is called by the name "Maryam." The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries (Fortress Press, 2025) examines the varied appearances of Maryam in different Islamic cultural and theological contexts. The chapters in this history extend from Maryam's scriptural mentions in the Qur'an and the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, her appearances in medieval debates re
#929
August 10 · 56 min
Daniel Majchrowicz, "A Journey to Mecca and London: The Travels of an Indian Muslim Woman, 1909–1910" (Indiana UP, 2025)
Descended from Mughal nobility, Akhtar al-Nisa Begum Nawab Sarbuland Jung grew up in Hyderabad in southern India, where she lived a quiet, private, and privileged life at the heart of the state's royal court. In 1896, at the age of 20, she married Nawab Muhammad Hamidullah Khan Sarbuland Jung, a prominent lawyer and the scion of a leading Muslim reformist movement. In 1909, the wealthy couple embarked on a four-month journey through the Middle East and Europe, performing the hajj in Mecca
#928
August 5 · 1 hr 5 min
Muslims and the Minority Question across the Indian Ocean: A Conversation With Roy Bar Sadeh
In this conversation, we are entering an Indian Ocean world connected by steamships, telegraphs, pilgrimage routes, and print. From Bombay and the Gulf to Cairo and Mecca—and onward to Moscow and Geneva—merchants, scholars, activists, and political exiles debated a question that still feels urgent: how can different communities live together without being reduced to permanent majorities and minorities? Bombay sits near the center of our story. Under British rule, it was a major imperial
#927
August 2 · 49 min
Paulina Banas, "Visualizing Egypt: European Travel, Book Publishing, and the Commercialization of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century" (American University in Cairo Press, 2025)
Following Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 campaign in Egypt, new possibilities of travel and improvements in printing technology saw an emergence of publishing ventures in France and Britain dedicated to the production of albums and travel accounts featuring images of Muslim Egypt and Islamic architecture and catering to a growing European fascination with the East. In her debut book, Visualizing Egypt: European Travel, Book Publishing, and the Commercialization of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Ce
#926
July 29 · 56 min
Rahim Thawer and Maryam Khan eds., "Queer and Muslim: On Faith, Family, and Healing" (U Regina Press, 2026)
Rahim Thawer and Maryam Khan's new edited volume Queer and Muslim: On Faith, Family and Healing (U Regina Press, 2026) is a powerful anthology that brings together writers, activists, and scholars who meditate, reflect, and share stories of queer Muslim life, that contains the complexity of rage, grief and resilience but also joy, love, and healing. In the process, Thawer and Khan deconstruct the limitations of western centric formulations of mental health and wellness, which is often individual
#925
July 3 · 1 hr
Xian Aubin Wang, "Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024 (Cornell University Press, 2026) by Dr. Xian Aubin Wang investigates decades of contentious relations between the Communist party-state of China and the Muslim community of southern Yunnan centered on the village of Shadian, site of an incident of state violence in 1975 that resulted in 1600 civilian deaths. Examining the causes and legacies of the Shadian massacre, Dr. Wang draws on an extensive review of inter
#924
July 1 · 58 min
Aditi Chandra, "Unruly Monuments: Disrupting the State at Delhi's Islamic Architecture" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Unruly Monuments: Disrupting the State at Delhi's Islamic Architecture (Cambridge University Press, 2025) examines how Delhi's Sultanate and Mughal architecture, dating from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, became modern monuments and were assimilated and ordered into public consciousness as spaces for tourism, leisure, and intellectual contemplation during the colonial and early postcolonial eras (1828-1963). It examines the resistance that challenges this ordering, rendering mon
#923
June 30 · 1 hr 8 min
Chiara Formichi, "Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia" (Stanford UP, 2025)
In her most recent publication, Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia (Stanford UP, 2025), Chiara Formichi argues that Muslim women in Java and Sumatra, from the late 1910s to the 1950s, were central to Indonesia's progress as guardians and promoters of health and piety through gendered activities of care work. While sidelined in the Dutch colonial project of hygienic modernity, women's labor of social reproduction became increasingly visible during the Japanese
#922
June 25 · 1 hr 9 min
Marta Dominguez Diaz, "Tunisia's Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
Tunisia’s Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority (Edinburgh UP, 2025) tells the captivating story of those Andalusians, descendants of Muslims expelled from Spain in the seventeenth century, who sought refuge in Tunisia. Rather than simply replicating Iberian traditions, Andalusian culture in Tunisia stands as a vibrant and evolving phenomenon, shaped by complex dynamics of interaction and adaptation over four centuries. The book dismantles the romanticised view of Andalu
#921
June 23 · 1 hr 10 min
Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer, "Boundaries of Belonging: Sectarianism and Statecraft in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Examining sectarian divergence in the early modern Middle East, Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer's study provides a fresh perspective on the Sunni–Shi'i division. Drawing on Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and European sources, Boundaries of Belonging: Sectarianism and Statecraft in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2026) explores the paradox of an Ottoman state that combined rigid ideological discourses with pragmatic governance. Through an analysis of key figures, events, pe

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