Jonathan A. C. Brown is the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Associate Director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding. He received his BA in History from Georgetown University in 2000 and his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2006. He has studied and conducted research in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, South Africa, India, Indonesia, and Iran. His book publications include The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon (Brill, 2007); Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oneworld, 2009); Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2011); and Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenges and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy (Oneworld, 2014). He has published articles in the fields of Hadith, Islamic law, Salafism, Sufism, Arabic lexical theory, and Pre-Islamic poetry and is the editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Law. His current research interests include modern conflicts between Late Sunni Traditionalism and Salafism in Islamic thought.
When Mohamed Salmawi, the spokesman for the committee appointed to draft Egypt’s post-coup constitution, appeared before the press on 29 October, the message was clear. There would be no place fo..
