Sherman Jackson

Summary Statement of Research Interests

My research interests begin in classical Islamic Studies, including law, theology and intellectual history, and extend to placing this legacy in conversation with the realities of modern Islam in the West, most especially Muslim communities in America. This implicates issues of race, immigration, liberalism, democracy, religion in the modern world, pluralism, constitutionalism, Muslim radicalism and related areas of inquiry, again, all in conversation with the classical and post-classical legacies of Islam.

I am now in the early stages of a major book, tentatively entitled: “Beyond Good and Evil: Shari’ah and the Challenge of the Islamic Secular.”

• (Spring 2022) REL 599. Special Topics – Theodicy in Islam, TBA – TBA
• (Fall 2022) AMST 337. Islam in Black America: From Slavery to Hip Hop, TTh, 02:00pm – 03:20pm
• (Fall 2022) REL 650. Readings in Islamic Texts – Language and the Law, TBA – TBA
• (Spring 2023) REL 599. Special Topics – Grammar, Rhetoric and Islamic Law, TTh, 02:00pm – 03:20pm

Book

• Jackson, S. A. (2015). Initiative to Stop the Violence: Sadat’s Assassins and the Renunciation of Political Violence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Jackson, S. A. (2012). Sufism for Non-Sufis? Ibn ‘Atâ’ Allâh al-Sakandarî’s Tâj al-‘Arûs. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Jackson, S. A. (2009). Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Jackson, S. A. (2005). Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Towards the Third Resurrection. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Jackson, S. A. (2002). On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abû Hâmid al-Ghazâlî’s Faisal al-Tafriqa. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
• Jackson, S. A. (1996). Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihâb al-Dîn al-Qarâfî. (Vol. 1) Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Book Chapters

• Jackson, S. A. (2013). Islamic Reform Between Islamic Law and the Nation-State. The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics New York: Oxford University Press.
• Jackson, S. A. (2011). Muslims, Islam(s), Race and American Islamophobia. Oxford University Press.

Journal Article

• Jackson, S. A. (2015). IslamicLaw, Muslims and American Politics. Islamic Law and Society. Vol. 22, pp. 253-291.
• Jackson, S. A. (2011). Jihad :Between Law, Fact and Orientalism. Mélanges d l’Université Saint Joseph. Vol. 62 (1), pp. 133-48.

• USC Endowed Chair, King Faisal Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture and Professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity, 08/16/2011 –
• Among 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World, 2012 – 2013
• Among 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World, 2009 – 2010