American Journal of Islam and Society Vol 40 No 3-4.indb


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Editorial Note

O V A M I R  A N J U M

This issue of the American Journal of Islam and Society comprises four 
main research articles, each shedding light on the diverse ways in which 
the Islamic legal and theological tradition has shaped and intersected 
with premodern and modern societies. To start closer to home: Sam 
Houston’s contribution entitled “The “Metaphysical Monster” and 
Muslim Theology: William James, Sherman Jackson, and the Problem of 
Black Suffering” places American Muslim scholar Sherman A. Jackson’s 
important monograph Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering in con-
versation with the work of American pragmatist philosopher William 
James and suggests that Jackson’s account parallels James’s account 
of religion in that it speaks of the “practical effectiveness” of the “web 
of beliefs” constituting Islamic doctrines of God. Theology, therefore, 
becomes not only an account of the revealed truth but also a praxis of 
inculcating certain habits of seeing and acting in the world. For Jackson, 
the monumental theodical challenge of black suffering becomes a site to 
explore, and teach, the wide and diverse terrain of Islamic theological 
reflection. This exploration allows Houston to meditate on the category 
of “experience” itself and its role in the verification of belief. In Houston’s 
estimation, Jackson exposes the uncritical role played by “experience” in 
Black philosopher of religion William R. Jones’s thought. This critique, 



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incidentally, can be extended to the thought of James as well. This allows 
Houston to highlight the theoretical as well as practical dimensions of 
the work of an American Muslim theologian.

Our next article explores the practical engagement of the official 
ulama as spokespersons of the Islamic legal and theological tradition 
in a different field: post-2011 Egypt. In his article entitled, “Ideals and 
Interests in Intellectuals’ Political Deliberations: The Arab Spring and the 
Divergent Paths of Egypt’s Shaykh al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyib and Grand 
Mufti Ali Gomaa,” Muhammad Amasha calls into question the common-
place generalizations about the ulama as being either pro-revolution or 
pro-regime by examining the politics of two prominent members of the 
pro-establishment ulama class. Whereas Ali Gomaa’s Arab Spring poli-
tics, Amasha argues, “can be seen as an effort to cater to those in power 
to protect his religious authority, either through struggles to attain offi-
cial religious positions or by obstructing revealing information harmful 
to his religious legitimacy,” by contrast the Shaykh al-Azhar’s Ahmad 
al-Tayyib’s politics “fluctuated between accepting the status quo and 
being critical of those in power.”

Syamsuddin Arif in his “Rethinking the Concept of Fiṭra: Natural 
Disposition, Reason and Conscience,” turns our attention to an under-
studied dimension of Islamic psychology: the role of innate human 
nature, or fiṭra, in the motivation behind human action. Drawing on 
recent Western as well as Islamicate scholarship, it attends to the bio-
logical, epistemological, and ethical dimensions of this Qur’anic concept, 
suggesting that it be treated not only as the natural tendency for humans 
to act or think in a particular way, but specifically as the religious, ethical, 
and rational instinct.

Finally, Fateh Saeidi’s “The Early Sufi Tradition in Hamadān, 
Nahāwand, and Abhar: Stories of Devotion, Mystical Experiences, and 
Sufi Texts” explores the history of the development of early Sufism in 
Hamadān, Nahāwand, and Abhar through an analysis of three significant 
but understudied early Sufi texts: Karāmāt Sheikh abī ʻalī al-Qūmsānī 
by Ibn Zīrak al-Nahāwandī (d. 471/1078), Ādāb al-fuqarāʼ by Bābā 
Jaʻfar al-Abharī (d. 428/1036), and Rawḍat al-murīdīn by Ibn Yazdānyār 



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al-Hamadānī (d. 472/1079). This study thus makes valuable contribution 
to our knowledge of the development of Iraqi Sufism from the third/
ninth to the fifth/eleventh century.

Ovamir Anjum 
Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies 

Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies,  
University of Toledo, Ohio 

Editor, American Journal of Islam and Society

doi: 10.35632/ajis.v40i3-4.3255