Jonathan Brown – Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World

Jonathan BrownMarch 5, 201243 min0 comments

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Hadith Sunnah Islamic Modernism Sharia Sufism Salafism Islamic Scholarship East-West Relations

About this lecture

In this wide-ranging conversation, Georgetown University professor Dr. Jonathan A. C. Brown discusses his book *Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World*, exploring what Hadith are, why they are central to Islamic law, theology, and Sufism, and how Muslim scholars developed sophisticated methods of source criticism centuries before the modern West. Dr. Brown also examines the impact of Western Orientalist scholarship on the Muslim world, the differences between modernist and traditionalist Salafism, and the personal and intellectual challenges of being both Western and Muslim.

Jonathan AC Brown is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies in the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He received his BA in History from Georgetown University in 2000 and his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2006. Dr. Brown has studied and conducted research in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Indonesia and Iran, and he is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His book publications include The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon (Brill, 2007), Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oneworld, 2009) and Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011). He has published articles in the fields of Hadith, Islamic law, Sufism, Arabic lexical theory and Pre-Islamic poetry and is the editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. Dr. Brown’s current research interests include the history of forgery and historical criticism in Islamic civilization, comparison with the Western tradition; and modern conflicts between Late Sunni Traditionalism and Salafism in Islamic thought.

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