Here’s a third selection from an article that I wrote for Richard C. Martin, et al., eds.,  Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of “Muslim Identity”:   The Ottoman Empire and Its Immediate Aftermath In its classic Ottoman form, the millet system dates from the reign of Mehmed II (r. 1451-1481), and endured until the nineteenth century.  By the end of Mehmed’s reign, Orthodox Christian, Armenian Christian,... Read more

    A recurring trope among critics of religious belief is the claim that scientific inquiry was stifled by the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages and only began to flourish again when theology was dethroned in the Renaissance, thus restoring freedom of thought.  (The insinuation is that religion has always been an obstacle to science, and that, even today, if religion were to disappear, scientific progress would accelerate.)   James Hannam’s The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle... Read more

    Here’s a second selection from an article that I wrote for Richard C. Martin, et al., eds.  Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of “Muslim Identity”:   But there also existed from the start a sense of distinct Islamic peoplehood, beyond ethnicity.  It was compounded of both genuine reality and idealistic aspiration.  “Let there be from among you,” says the Qur’an, “an umma summoning to good and... Read more

    Some links that have recently caught my attention and that you might find interesting:   The Daily Caller:  “Tom Perez’s Russia Comments Have People Flashing Back to Mitt Romney 2012”   The Wall Street Journal:  “Romney’s Russia Vindication:  He was right about the Kremlin in 2012, not that Democrats admit it.”   CNN:  “Romney was right about Russia”   Salon.com:  “Russia pressured Trump to nix Mitt Romney as Secretary of State: report: Russia allegedly told Trump to pick a... Read more

    I would like to wish everyone out there a happy Pioneer Day.   I’ve thought from time to time about the significance of the pioneer experience for the culture and faith of today’s Latter-day Saints, and here’s one thing that occurs to me:   That process of crossing the plains built a sense of “peoplehood” that has, historically (and, I hope, still today), made membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints distinctly different from membership... Read more

    A staple criticism deployed against religious faith in general by some skeptics is the assertion that science and human thought were stifled in the medieval West by the cold, dead, theocratic hand of the Roman Catholic Church — which, they imply, merely offers one particularly clear illustration of the general and inevitable warfare between science and religion.   James Hannam’s The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution (Washington DC: Henry Regnery, 2011) is simply... Read more

    From a rough, unfinished manuscript of mine:   Humor is in short supply among fanatics, and is something carefully avoided by most pretenders to sanctity.  Yet George Q. Cannon remembered Joseph’s “sense of gentle humor.”[1]  Likewise, his modern biographer Robert Remini, a preeminent scholar of Jacksonian America and a non-Mormon, writes that he “came to like the man very much,” not only because he possessed “compelling charisma, charm, persuasiveness,” but partly because Joseph Smith was “joyously funny.”  “I... Read more

    Here’s the first part of an article that I wrote for Richard C. Martin, et al., eds.  Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of “Muslim Identity”:   In Islamic societies, religion, rather than language and ethnicity, has typically defined political, social, and personal identity.  Obviously, Muslims have always been aware of linguistic, ethnic, and territorial divisions, but, through much of Islamic history, these have seemed relatively unimportant... Read more

    Current estimates put the age of the Earth at roughly 4.543 billion years, which means that my memories of its formation are probably just reflections of what my parents told me about it.   The Earth was formed out of debris surrounding what is called the solar protoplanetary disk.  There was, of course, no life at the very beginning. Temperatures were extremely hot, with frequent volcanic activity and a hellish environment.  (This period of Earth’s history, until 4 billion years... Read more

    The worst sin in Islam is shirk (شرك).  The word isn’t pronounced like the English verb to shirk, as in “shirking one’s responsibilities.”  Rather, it’s pronounced exactly like the English adjective sheer — or, if you prefer, like the English verb to shear, as in “shearing a sheep” — except that there’s a k at the end.   The term shirk is often rendered as polytheism or even idolatry.  And, roughly, that’s probably alright.  Relatively adequate.  Accordingly, a mushrik is... Read more