Essays · Long Reads

Articles

Sustained reflections from contributors writing across the Islamic intellectual tradition.

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Theology and Kalām14 min

Kalām in the Age of Cognitive Science

The classical kalām tradition developed a precise vocabulary for the mind, intention, and perception. Reading it alongside contemporary cognitive science reveals not a rivalry, but a sustained conversation across centuries.

Tofael NuruddinMarch 12, 2025
Technology and Ethics11 min

The Ethics of Machine Translation of the Qurʾān

When a model translates the divine speech, what is preserved and what is lost? An inquiry into the limits of statistical inference before the inimitable.

Faatima UddinFebruary 28, 2025
Fiqh and Uṣūl16 min

The Architecture of Uṣūl al-Fiqh

Legal theory as a discipline of attention: how the early uṣūliyyūn built an instrument for hearing the sharīʿah without drowning it in argument.

Rafiul MuntakimJanuary 30, 2025
Islamic Civilization9 min

Marginalia of a Damascene Codex

What a 13th-century reader wrote in the margins of his Tafsīr al-Baghawī, and what these silent annotations tell us about a culture of reading.

Aaishah LombardJanuary 16, 2025
Cognitive De-Colonization13 min

Decolonizing the Curriculum of ʿIlm

The modern university inherits a partition of knowledge that the Islamic tradition never accepted. What would it mean to teach ʿilm whole again?

Aaishah LombardDecember 22, 2024