Publications

• Ebrahim Moosa, “Ghazālian Insights on Scholarly Critique and Freedom,” in Free Speech, Scholarly Critique and the Limits of Expression in Islam, ed. Liyakat Takim (Proceedings of the 9th AMI Contemporary Fiqhī Issues Workshop 1-2 July 2021). (Birmingham, UK:AMI Press, 2022), 152-168. GhazalianI nsights on Scholarly Critique & Freedom

• In Divine Action: Challenges for Muslim and Christian Theology Moosa, Ebrahim – A Theological Gaze at the Human Condition – Considering Divine Action and Human Responsibility (Eds) John Sanders, Klaus von Stosch (Brill Schöningh: Paderborn, 2022), pp. 189-209. 

• Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute on 17 January 2022 published dialogues between anthropologists and scholars of the study of religion and theology. I had an exchange with the distinguished anthropologist Prof Khaled Furani. See the dialogue at the end of the document or separately JRoyal Anthropological Institute2022 dialoguesAnthropologyTheology. FuraniMoosaDiaglogueAnthropologyTheology
• Book Review of Modern Things on Trial, by Leor Halevi MoosaReviewModernThings
• “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.

• Moosa, Ebrahim. “Rahman, Fazlur.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford University Press, 2014—. Article published January 30, 2024; last modified, (blank). doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.898.
• “Decolonizing the Politics of Love: A Ghazālian Genealogy of Love in Islam,” Political Theology, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1462317X.2024.2304442
• Going Rogue on Islam: Derrida’s Muslim Hauntology and Nationalism’s Specters in Religion, populism, and modernity: confronting White Christian nationalism and racism, eds. Atalia Omer & Joshua Lupo, (Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, 2023), 245-280.
• “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.
  •  MoosaThe Sunni Orthodoxy – Ebrahim Moosa
• 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)