American Journal of Islam and Society Vol 41 No 1-2.indb


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Editorial Note

D A V I D  H .  W A R R E N

This issue of the American Journal of Islam and Society comprises four 
main research articles, each of which engage themes of Muslim collectiv-
ity, community, and umma from different vantage points. We begin with 
Rezart Beka’s contribution, “The Reconceptualization of the Umma and 
Ummatic action in Abdullah Bin Bayyah’s Discourse.” The Mauritanian 
Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah is arguably among the most well-known 
members of the Sunni Muslim scholarly elite, the ulama, alive today. 
Beka explores this scholar’s discourse of reform and the kind of Islamic 
politics he has argued for in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring, 
which Bin Bayyah articulates by way of rethinking the role and func-
tion of the Muslim umma in the modern context. Important elements 
of this discourse include Bin Bayyah’s view of how an understanding 
of the global Muslim umma fits into the global community and global 
challenges, be they in the realm of interfaith relations or international 
politics. This discourse is particularly significant in the light of Bin 
Bayyah’s close relationship with the Emirati state and the role of the 
United Arab Emirates in supporting counter-revolutionary forces during 
the Arab Spring, and since.

We then turn to Ossama Abdelgawwad’s work, “An Egyptian 
Ethicist: Muḥammad ʿ Abd Allāh Drāz (1894-1958) and His Qurʾān-Based 
Moral Theory.” In this article, we see Abdelgawwad take a comparative 



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ethics approach to this major thinker from the early twentieth century, 
his key text La Morale du Koran, and his theory of “moral obligation” in 
society. In the article, we see Abdelgawwad distinguish between different 
forms of ethical reasoning, ranging from societal command to divine 
command, and navigate a range of European thinkers and philosophers 
including Kant, Rauh, and Bergson. Abdelgawwad then argues that Draz 
adapts Western ethical theories while reinterpreting specific Qur’anic 
passages and Islamic literature to arrive at a sophisticated and original 
contribution to Muslim ethics.

As our third research article for this issue, we then have a co-au-
thored study by Mujtaba A. Isani, Daniel Silverman, and Joseph J. 
Kaminski, “The Other Legitimate Game in Town? Understanding Public 
Support for the Caliphate in the Islamic World.” The authors’ point of 
departure is to consider the fact that, while old claims about appar-
ent incompatibilities between Islam and democracy have been largely 
swept away as a result of public polling showing continued desire for 
democracy across Muslim-majority countries, Muslim public support 
for the Caliphate has yet to be explored in great detail at the quan-
titative level of public surveys. To address this question, the authors 
make use of existing cross-national surveys, as well as their own, to 
argue that the merits of both democracy and the Caliphate (concep-
tualized in different ways), are generally judged on their respective 
abilities to potentially provide services, welfare, and justice. That is, 
in instrumental terms.

The fourth and final research article in this issue is Ashwak Hauter’s, 
“The Reparative Work of the Imagination: Yemen, ‘Afiya, and Politics 
of the Umma.” Here, Hauter examines the work of Yemeni artists and 
filmmakers in reaction to a context of mental health crises, war, and 
displacement. Hauter’s interviews and analysis highlight the ways that 
her interlocutors use their art to explore new imaginings of Yemeni his-
tory and identity. Notably, Hauter analyzes this reimagining as an act 
of repair, which considers Yemen and Yemenis’ place within the wider 
Muslim umma above and beyond the modern world of nation-states.

This issue of the American Journal of Islam and Society also includes 
a number of insightful book reviews, including editor Ovamir Anjum’s 



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review essay engaging Joel Hayward’s recent work The Warrior Prophet: 
Muhammad and War and Celene Ibrahim’s author response to a review 
authored in a previous issue on her book, Women and Gender in the 
Qur’an.

David H. Warren 
Lecturer of Middle East Studies and Arabic 
Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri 

Assistant Editor, American Journal of Islam and Society

doi: 10.35632/ajis.v41i2.3540