TUE 10/8 - Dr. Simon Wood - The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate

Join us on Tuesday, October 8th at 5:30 as Dr. Simon Wood joins in conversation with Dr. Abla Hasan. Simon's most recent work of translation brings the 1923 work The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate by Muhammad Rashid Rida to English-speaking professors and students for the first time.

About the Book:
A translation of Muhammad Rashid Rida’s best-known work, which examines the compatibility of Islamic political and legal tradition with modern thought.

Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865–1935) was a prominent Muslim intellectual and reformer. Born in a village near Tripoli in present-day Lebanon, he was renowned for his founding of Al-Manar, an independent and successful Islamic magazine in which he published The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate as a series beginning in 1922. The work showcased Rida’s faith in the Islamic tradition as the origin of notions such as self-determination and popular sovereignty, as well as his opposition to Western politics. A realist, he nevertheless argued that a revived Caliphate was viable and held the keys to Muslim empowerment and universal salvation.

This skillful translation by Simon A. Wood will make The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate accessible for the first time to English-speaking scholars and students of political theory and the modern Middle East.

About Simon A Wood:
Simon A. Wood is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at UNL, where he has been faculty since 2004. He has degrees from the University of Otago (pronounce: oh-taa-go) in New Zealand, and Temple University in Philadelphia. His teaching and research focus on modern Islam and comparative religious studies. His books include:

-The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate (Yale UP, 2024). This book is a translation and introduction of a 1923 book on the caliphate written in Arabic by Rashid Rida, a seminal Syrian Muslim intellectual.

-Fundamentalism: Perspectives on a Contested History (U of South Carolina Press, 2014). This book is an edited volume that discusses how the idea of religious fundamentalism has influenced our understanding of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

-Christian Criticisms, Islamic Proofs: Rashid Rida’s Modernist Defense of Islam (Oneworld, 2008; paperback 2012). This book is a translation and introduction of Rashid Rida’s 1905 book about Christianity and Islam.

About Abla Hasan:
PhD in Philosophy of Language from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2013; MA in Philosophy as a Fulbright grantee from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2009. Dr. Hasan obtained her BA in Philosophy from Damascus University/Syria in 2000, followed by a Diploma of High Studies from Damascus University in 2001. She is a native speaker of Arabic. She teaches Arabic language and culture at UNL and she is the Program's Founder and Coordinator. Her teaching and research focus on Qur'anic Studies, Qur’anic Hermeneutics, Islamic feminism, and Arabic studies. She has published with Brill, Analize, Ar-Raniry, JIL, Disputatio, Al-Manarah, E-logos and other peer- review international journals. She is the author of: Decoding the Egalitarianism of the Qur'an: Retrieving Lost Voices on Gender (Lexington: 2019), the author of On Pain and Suffering: a Qur’anic Perspective (Lexington: 2022), and the author of The Qur’anic Dilemma: A Hermeneutical Investigation of al-Khidr (Routledge: 2022).Abla Hasan is the recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences Engagement Award for 2021, the recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award for 2022, the recipient of the 2023 Rev. Dr. Michael Combs Award for Scholars of Equality and Justice, and the recipient of UNL's first annual Women’s and Gender Justice Award 2023.