Publications

• “Update of archaic doctrine should accompany censure”
  • An opinion piece I wrote for the Orlando Sentinel
  • MoosaUpdate of archaic doctrine copy
• Stanford University Baccalaureate Celebration Address
  • On June 16, 2001 I gave the graduation address at Stanford University, arguing for a global, transcendent understanding of humanity.
  • MoosaSpeechStanford2001
• On Educating Oneself 
  • A short think-piece I wrote on the importance of education and my own personal journey
  • MoosaOnEducatingOneself
• “Reformer or Pragmatist?: A Response to the Stanford Journal of International Relations Interview with F.W. de Klerk”
  • This is a response piece I wrote dealing with South African politics and society
  • MoosaonDeKlerk
• “Inside the Madrasa: A Personal History,” Boston Review, January 2007
• “Pilgrims at Heart, New York Times, 2006
• “Islamic Reform or Designer Fundamentalism?” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2006. 139-144
• “Abu Hamid al-Ghazali” Le Nouvel Observateur: Les nouveaux penseurs de l’islam, avril/mai 2004, 41
• “Muslims Ask: Does Cloning Distort Creation?” Voices Across Boundaries, Winter 2003-4, 34-37
• Human Cloning in Muslim Ethics
• “Configuring Muslim Thought: On the Need to be Earnest about History and Transcendence,”ISIM Newsletter 12, June 2003, 30-31
• “Bush’s War Against Islam is Real,” Herald-Sun (December 17, 2002) (reprinted in several Knight Ridder publications.)
• “Unfair to Direct Blame at Islam,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (November 7, 2002).

• A review by Muhammad Yaseen Gada of my book, What is a Madrasa?
  • MuhammadYaseenGadaWhatIsAMadrasaReview
• Review of Against Islamic Extremism by Muhammad Saʿid al-ʿAshmawy
  • Muhammad Said Al-Ashmawy
• Norms in the Madrasa-Sphere: Between Tradition, Scripture, and the Public Good
  • This is a speech I gave looking at the Deoband school of thought in contemporary and modern Islam, and how it reflects broader themes of law, ethics, and tradition in modern Islam
  • MoosaNormsMadrasaSphere
• America Agonizes over Islam
  • MoosaAmericaAgonizesoverIslam
  • I wrote this piece after 9/11, looking at how US foreign and domestic policy makers struggle to engage Muslim states and societies, and how much of this is driven by a new sort of Christian identity-politics resurgence in the United States.
• My Foreword to Adis Duderija’s book, Imperatives of Progressive Islam.

• “The Unbearable Intimacy of Language and Thought in Islam”
  • In this book chapter, I analyze the thought of al-Ghazālī and look at the plurality of discourses surrounding language and religion in the Islamic tradition.
  • The Unbearable Intimacy of Language and Thought in Islam
• “The Spirit of Islamic Humanism”
  • In this article, I look at contemporary problems of violence in Islam, and how we can criticize it using Muslim tradition.
  • SpiritofIslamicHumanism
• Book review of Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age by Muhammad Qasim Zaman
  • MoosaZamanReview.
• This is a speech I delivered at Stanford  University 2001
  • MoosaSpeechStanford2001MoosaZamanReview
• Social Change in Islam is a vital topic socialchange
• New Voices of Islam by Farish A. Noor
  • This book features interviews with many contemporary Muslim intellectuals, including me.
  • MoosaNewVoices
• “Aesthetics and Transcendence in the Arab Uprisings,” in Middle East Law & Governance 3 (2011) 171-180.
• “The Human Person in Iqbal’s Thought,” in Muhammad Iqbal: Essays in the Reconstruction of Modern Muslim Thought, eds. H.C. Hillier & Basit Bilal Koshul (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), pp.12-32.
• “Political Theology in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring,” in The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring: A Season of Rebirth? eds Charles Villa-Vicencio, Erik Doxtader, and Ebrahim Moosa, (Georgetown University Press, 2015), 101-119.
• “Transitions in the ‘Progress’ of Civilization: Theorizing History, Practice, and Tradition.” In Voices of Change, ed. Omid Safi. General editor, Vincent J. Cornell Voices of Islam, 5, 115-130. (Westport & London: Praeger, 2007)
• “The Unbearable Intimacy of Language and Thought in Islam.” In How Should We Talk About Religion? Perspectives, Contexts, Particularities, ed. James Boyd White (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press), 2006. 300-326.
• “The Debts and Burdens of Critical Islam” in Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralismed. Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 111-127.
• “Contrapuntal Readings in Muslim Thought: Translations and Transitions.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, March 2006, Vol. 74. No. 1, 107-118.
• “Rejoinder to Paul J. Griffiths’ Response.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, March 2006, Vol. 74. No. 1, 122-124.
• “Response to Robert Segal,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, March 2006, Vol. 74, No. 1, 172-174.
• “The Spirit of Islamic Humanism,” The Humanist Imperative in South Africa, ed. John W de Gruchy (Stellenbosch: Sun Media, 2011), 107-116. 

Arabic

• “al-Tajdid wa ’l-hadatha: dirasa muqarana fi mawqif Fadl al-Rahman wa Hasan Hanafi min al-turath,” in Jadal al-ana wa ’l-akhar: qira’at  fi fikr Hasan Hanafi. In Arabic. (“Renewal and Modernity: A Comparative Study in the Approach of Fazlur Rahman and Hasan Hanafi towards the Islamic Heritage,” in The Dialectic of Self and Other: Readings in the Thought of Hasan Hanafi) ed. Ahmad  ‘Abd al-Halim (Cairo: Madbuli, 1997), 109-114.

• Interrogating Healthy Conflict Journal of Religious Ethics
  MoosaInterrogatingHealthyConflict
• “Norms in the Madrasa-Sphere: Between Tradition, Scripture and the Public Good”
  • In this keynote address, I give a historical overview of some elements of Islamic thought in madrasa institutions in the subcontinent and discuss how they relate to current ethical and theological debates.
  • MoosaNormsMadrasaSphere
• “‘The child belongs to the bed’: illegitimacy and Islamic Law
  • In this article, I take on how we can understand discourses on illegitimacy in Islamic law throughout history.
  • The child belongs to the bed illegitimacy and Islamic law“
• Muslim Ethics and Biotechnology”
  • In this book chapter, I analyze how different groups of Muslim thinkers, drawing on different lines of tradition, grapple with contemporary issues of technology, science, and ethics.
  • MuslimEthicsBiotechnologyMoosa
• “Muslim Family Law in South Africa: Paradoxes and Ironies”
  • In this book chapter, I take a critical look at the different ways interpretations of Muslim family law manifest in South Africa, contextualized with some recent history.
  • MPLParadoxRSA.“
• On Reading Shāṭibī in Rabat and Tunis”
  • I wrote this piece for The Muslim World, investigating historical contexts for understanding how shariah fits into contemporary Muslim thought and societies.
  • MoosaShatibiRabatMusWorld
• “Translating Neuroethics: Reflections from Muslim Ethics”
  • MoosaNeuroethics
  • This is a commentary on how neuroimaging fits into a Muslim schema of the ethical.
• “Muslim Ethics in an Era of Globalism: Reconciliation in an Age of Empire”
  • MoosaMuslimEthicsInaGlobalisingWorld copy
  • This book chapter considers how globalization provides challenges and opportunities for historically rooted Muslim concepts of the ethical.
• “Muslim Political Theology: Defamation, Apostasy, and Anathema”
  • MoosaDefamationGrendabook copy
  • In this book chapter, I look at contemporary cases of blasphemy to explore the historical, theological architecture of this concept in Muslim history and tradition.
• “Ethical Landscape: Laws, Norms, and Morality”
  • Moosa, Ebrahim – Ethical Landscape – Laws, Norms, and Morality
  • In this book chapter, I provide a global overview of different ethical challenges and debates Muslims face, ranging from family matters to sexuality and intimacy.
• “The poiesis Imperative” by Adis Duderija
  • DuderijaonMoosaProgIslamPoiesisImperative
  • This is a review essay on my works. Duderija unpacks what I term the “poiesis imperative,” or the need for poetics – critical, creative thinking – in contemporary Muslim thought and practice.
• Recovering the Ethical: Practices, Politics, Tradition in The Shariʿa: History, Ethics and Law, ed. Amyn B. Sajoo (London; New York: I.B. Tauris/Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2018), 39-57.
• “Technology in Muslim Moral Philosophy”, Journal of Religion and Health, 2016DOI 10.1007/s10943-016-0192-0
• “Colonialism and Islamic Law,” Muhammad Khalid Masud, Armando Salvatore, and Martin van Bruinessen (eds), Islam and Modernity. Key Issues and Debates. (Edinburgh University Press, 2009): 158-181.
• “Interface of Science and Jurisprudence: Dissonant Gazes at the Body in Modern Muslim Ethics,” in God, Life and the Cosmos: Christian and Islamic Perspectives eds. Ted Peters, Muzaffar Iqbal & Syed Nomanul Haq (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 329-356.
• “The Poetics and Politics of Law after Empire: Reading Women’s Rights in the Contestations of Law,” in Journal for Islamic and Near Eastern Law (JINEL) 1:1 (Fall/Winter 2001/2002): 1-46.
• “The Dilemma of Islamic Rights Schemes,” The Journal of Law and Religion 15: 1-2 (2000-2001): 185-215.
• “Prospects of Muslim Law in South Africa: A History and Recent Developments,” in Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law 3 (1996): 130-155. An updated and partially modified version of this essay appeared as “Shaping Muslim Law in South Africa: Future and Prospects,” in The Other Law: Non-State Ordering in South Africa, eds. Wilfried Schärf & Daniel Nina, (Cape Town: Juta, 2001), 121-147.
• “Languages of Change in Islamic Law: Redefining Death in Modernity,” Islamic Studies 38:3 (1999): 305-342; reproduced in Perspectives in Islamic Law, Justice and Society, ed. R. S. Khare (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 161-197.
• “Shaykh Ahmad Shakir and the Adoption of a Scientifically-Based Lunar Calendar,” Islamic Law & Society 5:1 (1998): 57-89
• “Transacting the Body in the Law: Reading Fatawa on Organ Transplantation,” Afrika Zamani: Revue d’Histoire Africaine/A Journal of African History Special Issue, ‘The Civil Status and Biographies of God in Contemporary Africa,’ 5-6 (1997 & 1998): 291-317.
• “ ‘The Child Belongs to the Bed:’ Illegitimacy and Islamic Law,” in Questionable Issue: Illegitimacy in South Africa (eds.) Sandra Burman & Eleanor Preston-Whyte (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1992), 171-184.
• “Brain Death and Organ Transplantation – An Islamic Opinion,” South African Medical Journal (SAMJ) 83: 6 (June 1993): 385-386.
• “Brain Death in Islamic Ethico-Legal Deliberation: Challenges for Applied Islamic Bioethics,” Bioethics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2011).
• “Muslim Ethics and Biotechnology,” The Routledge Companion to Religion and Science (London and New York: Routledge, 455-465).

Urdu

• معاصراسلامیفكركےاخلاقیچلنجز
• Contemporary Islamic Thought

• “Expressions of Political Quietism in Islamic History”
  • This book chapter, co-authored with my graduate student, Nicholas Roberts, explores the various manifestations of “quietism” throughout Muslim history.
  • MoosaRobertsPoliticalQuietisminIslam_Sunni_and_Shi’i_Practi…_—-_(Part_I_The_Concept_of_Political_Quietism_Its_Problematics_and_the_Isla…)
• “Disruptions and Connections: Rediscovering and Remaking the Muslim Tradition in Late Modernity”
  • This is one of my most recent pieces, in which I wrestle with how the idea of tradition has changed in different modern Muslim historical experiences.
  • MoosaDisruptionsTraditionUpdated2
• “Worlds ‘Apart’: Tablīghī Jamāʿat in South Africa under Apartheid, 1963-1993”
  • In this book I provide an overview of how this Muslim group has operated in South Africa.
  • worldsapartBrillBook
• Islam in South Africa
  • An encyclopedia article on Islam and its history in South Africa.
  • South Africa – Oxford Islamic Studies Online
• Abū Isḥāq al-Shāṭibī
  • An encyclopedia article on the towering Muslim jurist.
  • Shāṭibī, Abū Isḥāq – Oxford Islamic Studies Online
• Revival and Reform in Islam
  • This is an encyclopedia article I wrote on the long-refined concepts of revival and reform, tajdīd and iṣlāḥ, in Islam.
  • Revival_and_Reform
• “The Sunni Orthodoxy”
  • This is a historical look at Sunni Islam, its functions, doctrines, and traditions.
  • MoosaSunniOrthodoxy
• Review of The Reconciliation of the Fundamentals of Islamic Law
  • This is a book review I wrote on Imran Ahsan Nyazee’s translation of Al-Shāṭibī’s classic work, Al-Muwāfaqāt. 
  • MoosaReviewShatibiTranslation copy
• “Political Theology in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring: Returning to the Ethical”
  • In this book chapter I take a historical look at the ruptures wrought by the “Arab Spring,” and argue that missing from the discourse and actions of those involved is a focus on the ethical
  • MoosaPoliticalTheologyofArabSpring
• “History and Normativity in Traditional Indian Muslim Thought: Reading Shari`a in the Hermeneutics of Qari Muhammad Tayyab (d.1983),Ebrahim Moosa History and Normativity” in Rethinking Islamic Studies: From Orientalism to Cosmopolitanism, Carl W. Ernst & Richard C. Martin (eds.), (University of South Carolina Press, 2010): 281-301.
• “Worlds ‘Apart’: The Tabligh Jamat under Apartheid 1963-1993,” Journal for Islamic Studies 17 (1997): 28-48, reproduced in Muhammad Khalid Masud (ed.) Travelers in Faith: Studies of the Tabligh Jamat  as a Transnational Islamic Movement for Faith Renewal (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 206-221.
• “Discursive Voices of Diaspora Islam in Southern Africa,” Jurnal Antropologi dan Sosiologi  21(April 1992/93): 29-60, reproduced as “Islam in South Africa,” in Living Faiths in South Africa, eds. John de Gruchy & Martin Prozesky, (Cape Town, David Philip, 1995), 129-154.
• “Islam,” in A Southern African Guide to World Religions John W. de Gruchy & Martin Prozesky eds. (Cape Town: David Philip, 1991), 203-237.

• Ron Shaham, The Expert Witness in Islamic Courts: Medicine and Crafts in the Service of the Law, in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient JESHO 54 (2011) 270-309.
• “Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith. By Vartan Gregorian, Brookings Institution Press, 2003 in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, December, 2006, 74:4.
• “Islamic Reform or Designer Fundamentalism?” Review Essay of Tariq Ramadan’s Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) in Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2006. 139-144.
• Abdolkarim Soroush, Reason, Freedom, & Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) Iranian Studies: Bulletin of the Society for Iranian Cultural and Social Studies, 37:3 (September 2004): 547-552.
• Muhammad Sa`id al-`Ashmawy. Against Islamic Extremism: The Writings of Muhammad Sa`id al-`Ashmawy ed. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1998) International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES), 33: 4 (2001): 640-642.
• Abdullah Saeed. Islamic Banking and Interest (Leiden: Brill, 1996), Religious Studies Review 26 (2000): 290.
• Steven Vertovec & Ceri Peach eds. Islam in Europe: The Politics of Religion and Community (London/New York: Macmillan Press and St. Martin’s Press, 1997), Politikon, 27:1 (2000): 167-170.
• Brannon Wheeler. Applying the Canon in Islam (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1996), Journal of the American Academy of Religion 67:4 (December, 1999).
• Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee. Theories of Islamic Law (Islamic Research Institute & International Institute of Islamic Thought), Journal for Islamic Studies 18-19: (1998/99): 132-139.
• Kevin Reinhart, Before Revelation: The Boundaries of Muslim Moral Thought, (Albany: State University of New York), Middle East Studies Association BULLETIN, 30:2 (1996).
• Abdulkader Tayob. Islamic Resurgence in South Africa: The Muslim Youth Movement (Cape Town: UCT Press, 1995), Journal for Islamic Studies 15 (1995).
• Mahmood Mohamed Taha. The Second Message of Islam (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1987), Journal for Islamic Studies 13 (1993).
• Islam and Civil Society in South Africa: Prospects for Tolerance and Conflict Resolution, conference report The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 11:4 (Winter 1994)