Heresy and the Formation of Medieval Islamic Orthodoxy

Ahmad Khan is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the American University in Cairo. He previously held positions at Oxford and Hamburg universities and was the Arcapita Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York. His publications include Reclaiming Islamic Tradition: Modern Interpretations of the Classical Heritage (2016). His research focuses on Islamic thought and history in the pre-modern and modern periods.

• List of figures; List of tables; Preface; Acknowledgments; Notes on the text; Part I. History of Orthodoxy: 1. Introduction; 2. Discourses of heresy I (800-850); 3. Discourses of heresy II (859-950); Part II. Heresy and Society: 4. Regionalism and topographies of heresy; 5. Ethnogenesis and heresy; 6. Politics: rebellion and heresy; 7. Religion and society; Part III. Unmaking Heresy: Orthodoxy as History-Writing: 8. Manâqib: narratives of orthodoxy I; 9. Masânîd: narratives of orthodoxy II; Part IV. The Formation of Classical Sunnism: 10. Consensus and heresy; 11. Conclusion; References; Index.

'In important parts of the Middle East and South Asia's vast Sunni Muslim population, Islam and the school of practice initiated by Abū Ḥanīfa have long been nearly synonymous. However, for the medieval clerics who first spoke of 'Sunni Islam', Abū Ḥanīfa was a heretic. This rich and careful study details how Sunni Islam expanded to admit Abū Ḥanīfa and the broad diversity of thought and practice found in the Muslim world today.' Jonathan A.C. Brown, Georgetown University