Books by Youshaa Patel
What follows is a description of the book from the publisher's website:
How did Muslims acros... more What follows is a description of the book from the publisher's website:
How did Muslims across time and place define the line between themselves and their neighbors? Youshaa Patel explores why the Prophet Muhammad first advised his followers to emulate Christians and Jews, but then allegedly reversed course, urging them to “be different!” He details how subsequent generations of Muslim scholars canonized the Prophet’s admonition into an influential doctrine against imitation that enjoined ordinary believers to embody and display their religious difference in public life.
Tracing this Islamic discourse from its origins in Arabia to Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus, colonial Egypt, and beyond, this sweeping intellectual and social history offers a panoramic view of Muslim identity, revealing unexpected intersections between religion and other markers of difference across ethnicity, gender, and status. Patel illustrates that contemporary debates in the West over visible expressions of Islam, from headscarves and beards to minarets and mosques, are just the latest iterations in a long history of how small differences have defined Muslim interreligious encounters.
Peer Reviewed Articles by Youshaa Patel
Arabica, 2018
This bibliographical essay documents for the first time the treatises written on the Sunni Islami... more This bibliographical essay documents for the first time the treatises written on the Sunni Islamic doctrine of tašabbuh—the reprehensible imitation of others, especially non-Muslims. Since the formative period of Islam, tašabbuh has played an important role in shaping both Islamic orthodoxy and Muslim inter-religious relations. But due to a focus on the doctrine’s historical origins, existing scholarship has yet to identify the Islamic literary genre that I call “the treatises against imitation,” which was a post-formative development. To fill this scholarly lacuna, this study traces the genre’s historical evolution by creating an archive of available treatises against imitation, pre-modern and modern. Chronologically arranged and periodized, the bibliographical entries include descriptive summaries of each treatise, with references to published and/or manuscript editions and existing scholarship on the text and its author.
Islamic Law and Society, 2018
This article examines the canonization of the Prophetic hadith, " Whoever imitates a people becom... more This article examines the canonization of the Prophetic hadith, " Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them, " which became the keynote expression of tashabbuh (reprehensible imitation), a Sunni doctrine commonly invoked by religious authorities to distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims. First, I analyze how the Partisans of Hadith transmitted and classified the hadith, highlighting the pivotal role of Abū Dāwūd (d. 275/889) in canonizing the tradition. I then trace the divergent trajectories of its interpretation over time, especially the glosses of two brilliant Damascenes: Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) and Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī (d. 1061/1651). This study draws not only from hadith commentaries but also from treatises on law, ethics, and Sufism, illustrating how hadith interpretation takes place in multiple Islamic literary genres. A detailed appendix catalogues the collections of hadith that transmit the tradition; compares different narrations in order to date and locate its circulation; and visually maps its isnād networks.
Material Religion: Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, 2018
This article examines the nexus of Islam, difference, and the
senses. Amidst the diverse ethno-re... more This article examines the nexus of Islam, difference, and the
senses. Amidst the diverse ethno-religious landscape of
post-conquest Islam where communal boundaries often blurred,
religious and state authorities defined belonging in the Muslim
community through differences; they felt compelled to set apart
Muslims from non-Muslims and other “wayward” Muslims by
disciplining the physical body, including the sensorium. Building
upon a robust theory of the senses advanced by Abbasid Muslim
litterateur Jāḥiẓ (d. 868/9), I demonstrate how pre-modern (7th
– 14th centuries CE) Muslim discourses and practices of difference
configured the senses in specific ways, transforming body,
object and landscape into material signs of collective identity in
public life. Drawing upon literary and material sources, I narrate
four episodes set in the pre-modern Islamic Middle East where
Muslim authorities defined ritual and everyday quotidian practice
along lines of communal difference. Together, the episodes
highlight the multisensoriality of Muslim difference: the visibility
of Christian crosses; acoustic memories of the adhān (audible
call to prayer); the expensive taste of gold and silver metalware;
and, finally, sensory overload at commemorative public gatherings
(ʿīds)—holiday celebrations, tomb visitations, and funerals.
Articles and Book Chapters by Youshaa Patel
Hadith Commentary: Continuity and Change, 2023
This chapter is the most comprehensive Europhone study to date of the famous hadith of the Prophe... more This chapter is the most comprehensive Europhone study to date of the famous hadith of the Prophet:
"Islam began strange, and will [one day] return to being strange–just as it began–so blessed are the strangers (ghuraba)!"
How did pre-modern Muslim scholars imagine stranger-ness (ghurba) as a virtue—as something positive, not negative? How/when would Islam return to being strange? What is the connection of ghurba to orthodoxy, End Times, and jihad? The diverse group of all-star scholars whose interpretations of the hadith I explore include al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya, al-Shaykh al-Saduq, Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Shatibi, al-Ajurri, Ibn Ata’ Allah, Rumi, Ibn Rajab, and others. I also study the transmission networks (isnads) of two of the hadith’s most widely circulated narrations‑‑illustrating a geographic connection to 8th century Kufa. What about Kufa may have facilitated the hadith's circulation there? I conclude with a brief reflection on how modern-day extremists call themselves strangers (ghuraba) as a mark of distinction—something that I demonstrate is largely absent in the pre-modern jihad manuals I examine.
Journal of Religion, 2018
The late Shahab Ahmed begins his tome What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic with a disor... more The late Shahab Ahmed begins his tome What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic with a disorienting scenario: a Muslim drinking wine. While most see this sinful act as incompatible with Islam, Ahmed argues that drinking wine is, in fact, Islamic. It takes him about six hundred pages to explain why.
Book Reviews and Encyclopedia Articles by Youshaa Patel
Islamic Law and Society, 2015
In Muslim society, the religiously sanctioned cultural practice of female seclusion is intended t... more In Muslim society, the religiously sanctioned cultural practice of female seclusion is intended to shield female bodies from the penetrating male gaze. The norm of female seclusion complements sartorial norms, sanctioned by Islam, that regulate female dress, such as the headscarf. In tandem, regulations governing seclusion and dress function to indicate a female's sexual availability and, in the view of religious scholars, prevent social discord (fitnah).
Reviews of The Muslim Difference by Youshaa Patel
Journal of Islamic Studies, 2023
This is a beautifully written and judiciously argued book on how Muslims have historically negoti... more This is a beautifully written and judiciously argued book on how Muslims have historically negotiated identity and difference (or in the author's words: 'a genealogy of Muslim difference-a narrative of how Muslims have defined the line between themselves and others' [p. 4]). Youshaa Patel traces the interpretive history of the Aad;th, 'Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them', across fourteen centuries of conversation among traditionists, Sufis, and jurists. His aim is to demonstrate that Muslims have understood and embodied identity in different styles that reflect a profound understanding of 'imitation' (tashabbuh), especially on the part of the learned elite (ulema). I highlight below some key aspects of this book: its astute argument, its creative use of sources, and its nimble attention to questions of materiality and historical context. I shall also discuss the epilogue wherein Patel departs from his descriptive-analytical voice to offer some constructive advice to contemporary Muslims, especially his coreligionists in the United States. Finally, I wish to register my 'small difference' from Patel's argument and approach, particularly concerning his deployment of a mixture of psychoanalysis and ego psychology. But before all this, a summary of this rich volume is in order. The Muslim Difference commences with an autobiographical preface that allows the reader to develop a sense of both the broader significance of the Aad;th at hand (man tashabbaha bi-qawmin fahuwa minhum) and the credentials of its esteemed commentator. The introduction seeks to convince the reader that this Aad;th is an exemplary discursive site for analysing the dialectic of Muslim difference in a diachronic framework. Already in the introduction one begins to recognize that Patel possesses deep insight into the texts and sociopolitical worlds of four Muslim theorists of difference: the fourteenth-century Eanbal; jurist Ibn Taymiyya (ch. 5), the seventeenth-century Sh:fi6; Sufi jurist Najm al-D;n al-Ghazz; (ch. 7), the nineteenth-century Egyptian reformist theologian MuAammad 6Abduh (ch. 8), and the twentieth-century Austrian Jewish convert to Islam MuAammad Asad (with whom the book begins and ends). The first four chapters furnish readers with important contexts needed to appreciate Patel's argument. We witness here a scholar proficient in philology, history, and theory as we come to realize how a single Aad;th text illuminates the immense complexity of difference-making, orthodoxy, and innovation in the Islamic tradition. The philological, historical, and theoretical context found in chapters one through four is also necessary for understanding how Ibn Taymiyya, Ghazz;, 6Abduh, and Asad took up contrasting positions in an ongoing conversation
Other Documents by Youshaa Patel
"Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them" isnad map
Teaching Documents by Youshaa Patel
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Books by Youshaa Patel
How did Muslims across time and place define the line between themselves and their neighbors? Youshaa Patel explores why the Prophet Muhammad first advised his followers to emulate Christians and Jews, but then allegedly reversed course, urging them to “be different!” He details how subsequent generations of Muslim scholars canonized the Prophet’s admonition into an influential doctrine against imitation that enjoined ordinary believers to embody and display their religious difference in public life.
Tracing this Islamic discourse from its origins in Arabia to Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus, colonial Egypt, and beyond, this sweeping intellectual and social history offers a panoramic view of Muslim identity, revealing unexpected intersections between religion and other markers of difference across ethnicity, gender, and status. Patel illustrates that contemporary debates in the West over visible expressions of Islam, from headscarves and beards to minarets and mosques, are just the latest iterations in a long history of how small differences have defined Muslim interreligious encounters.
Peer Reviewed Articles by Youshaa Patel
senses. Amidst the diverse ethno-religious landscape of
post-conquest Islam where communal boundaries often blurred,
religious and state authorities defined belonging in the Muslim
community through differences; they felt compelled to set apart
Muslims from non-Muslims and other “wayward” Muslims by
disciplining the physical body, including the sensorium. Building
upon a robust theory of the senses advanced by Abbasid Muslim
litterateur Jāḥiẓ (d. 868/9), I demonstrate how pre-modern (7th
– 14th centuries CE) Muslim discourses and practices of difference
configured the senses in specific ways, transforming body,
object and landscape into material signs of collective identity in
public life. Drawing upon literary and material sources, I narrate
four episodes set in the pre-modern Islamic Middle East where
Muslim authorities defined ritual and everyday quotidian practice
along lines of communal difference. Together, the episodes
highlight the multisensoriality of Muslim difference: the visibility
of Christian crosses; acoustic memories of the adhān (audible
call to prayer); the expensive taste of gold and silver metalware;
and, finally, sensory overload at commemorative public gatherings
(ʿīds)—holiday celebrations, tomb visitations, and funerals.
Articles and Book Chapters by Youshaa Patel
"Islam began strange, and will [one day] return to being strange–just as it began–so blessed are the strangers (ghuraba)!"
How did pre-modern Muslim scholars imagine stranger-ness (ghurba) as a virtue—as something positive, not negative? How/when would Islam return to being strange? What is the connection of ghurba to orthodoxy, End Times, and jihad? The diverse group of all-star scholars whose interpretations of the hadith I explore include al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya, al-Shaykh al-Saduq, Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Shatibi, al-Ajurri, Ibn Ata’ Allah, Rumi, Ibn Rajab, and others. I also study the transmission networks (isnads) of two of the hadith’s most widely circulated narrations‑‑illustrating a geographic connection to 8th century Kufa. What about Kufa may have facilitated the hadith's circulation there? I conclude with a brief reflection on how modern-day extremists call themselves strangers (ghuraba) as a mark of distinction—something that I demonstrate is largely absent in the pre-modern jihad manuals I examine.
Book Reviews and Encyclopedia Articles by Youshaa Patel
Reviews of The Muslim Difference by Youshaa Patel
Other Documents by Youshaa Patel
Teaching Documents by Youshaa Patel
How did Muslims across time and place define the line between themselves and their neighbors? Youshaa Patel explores why the Prophet Muhammad first advised his followers to emulate Christians and Jews, but then allegedly reversed course, urging them to “be different!” He details how subsequent generations of Muslim scholars canonized the Prophet’s admonition into an influential doctrine against imitation that enjoined ordinary believers to embody and display their religious difference in public life.
Tracing this Islamic discourse from its origins in Arabia to Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus, colonial Egypt, and beyond, this sweeping intellectual and social history offers a panoramic view of Muslim identity, revealing unexpected intersections between religion and other markers of difference across ethnicity, gender, and status. Patel illustrates that contemporary debates in the West over visible expressions of Islam, from headscarves and beards to minarets and mosques, are just the latest iterations in a long history of how small differences have defined Muslim interreligious encounters.
senses. Amidst the diverse ethno-religious landscape of
post-conquest Islam where communal boundaries often blurred,
religious and state authorities defined belonging in the Muslim
community through differences; they felt compelled to set apart
Muslims from non-Muslims and other “wayward” Muslims by
disciplining the physical body, including the sensorium. Building
upon a robust theory of the senses advanced by Abbasid Muslim
litterateur Jāḥiẓ (d. 868/9), I demonstrate how pre-modern (7th
– 14th centuries CE) Muslim discourses and practices of difference
configured the senses in specific ways, transforming body,
object and landscape into material signs of collective identity in
public life. Drawing upon literary and material sources, I narrate
four episodes set in the pre-modern Islamic Middle East where
Muslim authorities defined ritual and everyday quotidian practice
along lines of communal difference. Together, the episodes
highlight the multisensoriality of Muslim difference: the visibility
of Christian crosses; acoustic memories of the adhān (audible
call to prayer); the expensive taste of gold and silver metalware;
and, finally, sensory overload at commemorative public gatherings
(ʿīds)—holiday celebrations, tomb visitations, and funerals.
"Islam began strange, and will [one day] return to being strange–just as it began–so blessed are the strangers (ghuraba)!"
How did pre-modern Muslim scholars imagine stranger-ness (ghurba) as a virtue—as something positive, not negative? How/when would Islam return to being strange? What is the connection of ghurba to orthodoxy, End Times, and jihad? The diverse group of all-star scholars whose interpretations of the hadith I explore include al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya, al-Shaykh al-Saduq, Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Shatibi, al-Ajurri, Ibn Ata’ Allah, Rumi, Ibn Rajab, and others. I also study the transmission networks (isnads) of two of the hadith’s most widely circulated narrations‑‑illustrating a geographic connection to 8th century Kufa. What about Kufa may have facilitated the hadith's circulation there? I conclude with a brief reflection on how modern-day extremists call themselves strangers (ghuraba) as a mark of distinction—something that I demonstrate is largely absent in the pre-modern jihad manuals I examine.