The Martin Review of Books

An eclectic space to capture thoughts on books

Books Everywhere

The Ramadan Booklists

In Ramadan of 2020, during that initial period of pandemic quarantine, I decided to share a book a day via social media. I saw it as an opportunity to share with others the books that had entered my life. During those months of Ramadan to follow I’ve tried to carry on this tradition of documenting those books that were recent acquisitions, enamoring reads, or works that had had a significant influence on my thinking or personal formation. Below is an archive of those shared lists.

Academic Book Reviews

“Thinking Beyond the Boundaries: A Response to Tehseen Thaver’s Beyond Sectarianism,” Religious Studies Review, vol. 51, no. 2 (June 2025), 423-425. Link Download

Book Review of Ralph Wüstenberg, “Islam as Devotion: A Journey into the Interior of a Religion,” Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society vol. 49, no. 1 (June 2022), pp. 271-272. Link Download

Book Review of Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst and Brannon Wheeler, eds., “Words of Experience: Translating Islam with Carl W. Ernst,” Journal of Sufi Studies 11 (2022), pp. 145-148. Link Download

Book Review of Timur Yuskaev, “Speaking Qur’an: An American Scripture,” Religious Studies Review, vol. 46, no. 3 (September 2020), p. 429. Link Download

Book Review of Christian Krokus, “The Theology of Louis Massignon: Islam, Christ, and the Church,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, vol. 54, no. 4, Fall 2019, pp. 619-620. Download

Book Review of Shahab Ahmed, “Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in Early Islam,” Religious Studies Review, vol. 43, no. 4 (December 2017), p. 414. Link Download

Book Review of Gerhard Böwering & Bilal Orfali, “The Comfort of the Mystics: A Manual and Anthology of Early Sufism,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 136, no. 3 (2016), pp. 658-659. Link Download

Book Review of Mona Siddiqui, “Hospitality and Islam: Welcoming in God’s Name,” Reading Religion: Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Published online 30 June 2016, http://readingreligion.org/books/hospitality-and-islam.

Book Review of Mohammad Hassan Khalil, “Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, and the Fate of Others,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 135, no. 3 (2015), pp. 31-32. Link Download

Book Review of Saeko Yazaki, “Islamic Mysticism and Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī: The Role of the Heart,” Journal of Sufi Studies, vol. 2, no. 2 (2013), pp. 207-209. Link Download

Book Review of Todd Lawson, “Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam: Qur’an, Exegesis, Messianism, and the Literary Origins of the Babi Religion,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, vol. 30, no. 1 (2013), pp. 102-104. Link Download

Book Review of Gavin Picken, “Spiritual Purification in Islam: The Life and Works of al-Muḥāsibī,” Journal of Sufi Studies, vol. 1, no. 2 (2012), pp. 247-249. Link Download

Book Review of Sophia Vasalou, “Moral Agents and Their Deserts: The Character of Mu‘tazilite Ethics,” Review of Middle East Studies, vol. 43, no. 2 (Winter 2009), pp. 291-293. Link Download

Book Review of Abdullah Saeed, “Interpreting the Qur’an: Towards a Contemporary Approach,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, vol. 24, no. 1 (Winter 2007), pp. 117-120. Link Download

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