ITJ Library Collections

The ITJ Library offers researchers carefully curated manuscripts, primary sources, and research monographs essential for advanced scholarly inquiry into Islamic thought across its full historical and intellectual spectrum. The collections include the Classical Islamic Thought Collection (CITC), featuring foundational works from the formative period through the era of Ibn Khaldūn across disciplines such as theology, law, philosophy, literature, poetry, art, and science; the Critical Islamic Studies Collection (SISC), comprising influential works by Western and Western-influenced scholars whose research has shaped modern academic approaches to Islamic law, institutions, and intellectual history; and the Modern Islamic Thought Collection (MITC), which gathers key writings from post-Ibn Khaldūn reformists, revivalists, critical scholars, and Islamist thinkers who have contributed to contemporary debates on Islamic law, society, modernity, governance, and social change. Detailed descriptions and instruction for access follows.

(Full access is granted to registered members.)

About Classical Islamic Thought Collection (CITC)

Classical Islamic Thought refers to the full spectrum of intellectual, literary, artistic, scientific, and spiritual production created by Muslims from the formative period (7th century CE) to the late classical age (14th century CE), culminating in the work of Ibn Khaldūn. It encompasses not only religious and juridical scholarship, but also the humanities, arts, and sciences that flourished throughout the Islamic world.

This tradition includes contributions to:

• Qur’anic exegesis, jurisprudence, theology, and philosophy
• Arabic literature, rhetoric, poetics, and adab
• Sufism, ethics, and spiritual psychology
• Art, aesthetics, architecture, calligraphy, and visual culture
• History, biography, geography, and travel writing
• Science, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and optics
• Music theory, logic, linguistics, and philology

Works in Classical Islamic Thought are characterized by rigorous scholarship, refined expression, inter-disciplinary synthesis, and a global intellectual exchange that connected Greek, Persian, Indian, and other traditions with the evolving Islamic worldview.

The Classical Islamic Thought Collection (CITC) showcases representative works from across this civilizational spectrum.

Below is a sample of works that fall within this category.

I. Religious Sciences, Law, Theology, and Philosophy

• Al-Shāfiʿī – Al-Risāla, Al-Umm
• Al-Ṭabarī – Tafsīr, Tārīkh
• Al-Ghazālī – Iḥyāʾ, Tahāfut al-falāsifa
• Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) – Al-Shifāʾ, Al-Najāt
• Ibn Rushd (Averroes) – Bidāyat al-mujtahid, Commentaries on Aristotle
• Ibn Taymiyya – Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql
• Ibn ʿArabī – Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Fatūḥāt

II. Literature, Poetry, and the Arts of Expression (Adab)

1. Poetry

• Al-Mutanabbī (d. 965) — Dīwān of Al-Mutanabbī
• Abū Nuwās (d. 814) — Dīwān (wine poetry, love poetry)
• Al-Birūnī (as poet and scientist) — Occasional verse
• Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 1235) — Nazm al-sulūk (Sufi poetry)

2. Prose Literature & Adab

• Al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 868)
• Kitāb al-Bayān wa-l-tabyīn (Arabic rhetoric)
• Kitāb al-Ḥayawān (literature, zoology)
• Kitāb al-Bukhalaʾ (social satire)
• Ibn Qutayba (d. 889) — ʿUyūn al-Akhbār, Adab al-kātib
• Al-Tawḥīdī (d. 1023) — Al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa

3. Historiography, Biographical Literature, Geography

• Al-Masʿūdī (d. 956) — Murūj al-dhahab
• Ibn Ḥawqal (10th c.) — Ṣūrat al-Arḍ
• Ibn al-Athīr (d. 1233) — Al-Kāmil fī al-Tārīkh
• Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (d. 1377) — Riḥla (Travelogue)

III. Art, Aesthetics, Calligraphy, and Architecture

1. Aesthetics & Artistic Theory

• Ibn al-Haytham (as theorist of vision) — Kitāb al-Manāẓir (Optics; foundational for Islamic visual aesthetics)
• Al-Qādī al-Jurjānī (d. 1078) — Asrār al-balāgha (theory of eloquence and beauty)

2. Calligraphy & Manuscript Culture

While many calligraphic masters did not leave “books” in the same sense, their treatises and styles shaped classical aesthetic theory.

• Ibn Muqlah (d. 940) — Proportional scripts foundational to Islamic calligraphy
• Ibn al-Bawwāb (d. 1022) — Development of cursive script traditions
• Yāqūt al-Mustaʿṣimī (d. 1298) — Codification of canonical scripts

3. Architecture

Although architectural knowledge was often transmitted through guilds, the following are key:

• Ibn al-Haytham’s optical theory influenced light-and-space design principles.
• Treatises on geometry, used in architectural proportional systems (e.g., Thābit ibn Qurra, al-Būzjānī).

IV. Science, Medicine, Mathematics, Astronomy, and Technology

1. Science and Natural Philosophy

• Al-Birūnī (d. 1048)
• Al-Qānūn al-Masʿūdī (astronomy)
• al-Āthār al-bāqiya (anthropology, history)
• Kitāb al-Hind (comparative religion & ethnography)
• Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen)
• Kitāb al-Manāẓir (Optics; experimental science)

2. Medicine

• Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) — Al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb
• Al-Rāzī (Rhazes) (d. 925) — Al-Ḥāwī, Kitāb al-Judrī wa-l-ḥaṣba
• Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288) — Sharḥ tashrīḥ al-Qānūn (pulmonary circulation)

3. Mathematics & Astronomy

• Al-Khwārizmī (d. 850) — Al-Jabr wa-l-muqābala (Algebra)
• Omar Khayyam (d. 1131) — Risālah fī sharḥ mā ashkala (geometry; also a poet)
• Al-Tūsī (d. 1274) — Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa (astronomy)

V. Culmination: end of an era

• Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) — Al-Muqaddima

About Critical Islamic Studies Collection (CISC)

Critical Islamic Studies (CIS) refers to a body of scholarship—primarily emerging from European and American Orientalist traditions—that studies Islam, Islamic law, institutions, and intellectual history using philology, historical criticism, textual analysis, and comparative methods developed in Western academia.
CIS works characteristically:
• Treat Islamic texts (Qur’an, Hadith, fiqh, historiography) as historically produced documents open to critical scrutiny.
• Use linguistic, manuscript, and historical reconstruction techniques to understand the formation and evolution of Islamic ideas and institutions.
• Approach Islamic tradition not primarily from within a faith-affirming perspective, but from external academic frameworks, aiming to situate Islam within broader Near Eastern, Mediterranean, or comparative religious histories.
• Often challenge traditional narratives and dating of Islamic sources, institutions, and legal doctrines.
Thus, CIS describes a critical, historicist, and largely secular academic lineage, associated with Orientalist scholarship but extended by later Western-based academics.

A sampling of representative scholars of this category and and their key works would consist of:

Classical Orientalists

These scholars established the philological and critical foundation of Western Islamic Studies.

Ignaz Goldziher (1850–1921)
• Muhammedanische Studien (Muslim Studies)
• Groundbreaking critical analysis of Hadith origins, arguing that many traditions reflect early Islamic political/theological debates rather than the Prophet’s historical teachings.
Joseph Schacht (1902–1969)
• The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence
• An Introduction to Islamic Law
• Advanced the argument that Islamic law developed post-Prophetically, using isnād analysis to question early authenticity claims.
C. H. Becker (1876–1933)
• Works on Islamic institutions and administration.
• Pioneered placing Islamic history within comparative sociology and economic history.
Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930)
• The History of the Qur’ān
• A foundational critical study of Qur’anic chronology, textual structure, and compilation.
Louis Massignon (1883–1962)
• La Passion d’al-Hallaj
• A central figure in Western study of Islamic mysticism, combining philology with phenomenological methods.

Mid-20th Century to Late Orientalists / Critical Historians

These scholars continued the Orientalist tradition with more refined philological and historiographical methods.
Patricia Crone (1945–2015)
• Hagarism (with Michael Cook)
• God’s Rule; Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law
• Challenged established narratives of early Islamic state formation and legal development.
Michael Cook
• Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought
• Research on early Islamic ethics, history, and Qur’anic studies.
John Wansbrough (1928–2002)
• Qur’anic Studies
• The Sectarian Milieu
• Developed the theory of late canonization and literary formation of Islamic scripture within a sectarian Near Eastern environment.
Andrew Rippin (1950–2016)
• Pioneering figure in Muslim exegetical studies and early Qur’an commentary traditions.

Contemporary Critical Scholars (U.S. and Europe)

These scholars are not “Orientalists” in the older sense but continue the tradition of critical historical analysis of Islamic thought and institutions.
David S. Powers
• Muhammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men
• Zayd
• Critical studies of inheritance law, kinship, and legal institutions in early Islam, often using manuscript evidence to propose textual revisions or redactional histories.
Fred M. Donner
• Muhammad and the Believers
• Reexamined the earliest Islamic community as a broad monotheistic movement.
Harald Motzki (1948–2019)
• Introduced isnād-cum-matn analysis to reassess Hadith transmission with more historically granular methods.
Gerald Hawting
• The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam
• Emphasizes the sectarian context of early Qur’anic discourse.
G. R. Hawting, Chase F. Robinson, Robert Hoyland
• Works on early Islamic historiography and interactions with late antiquity.

About Modern Islamic Thought Collection (MITC)

Modern Islamic Thought refers to the intellectual, reformist, political, theological, and cultural movements in the Muslim world that emerged after the classical period, beginning roughly in the 15th century but taking distinct and recognizable shape from the 19th century onward, as Muslim thinkers confronted new historical conditions:

• European colonialism and modernity
• the decline and transformation of traditional institutions
• scientific and technological change
• global political realignments
• new conceptions of state, society, and law

Modern Islamic thought includes reformist, modernist, revivalist, traditionalist, Islamist, liberal, Salafi, and critical academic voices. It is a diverse arena in which Muslims reconsidered inherited traditions, debated secularism and religion, reworked concepts of law and governance, and articulated new visions of social, political, and moral order.

The Modern Islamic Thought Collection (MITC) might consist of thinkers from the post-classical era (after Ibn Khaldūn) through the 21st century who shaped modern understandings of Islam in relation to modernity, authority, reform, and globalization. The explanatory list is organized by major intellectual currents to reflect the breadth of modern Islamic thought.

I. Early Modern Precursors (15th–18th centuries)

• Ibn Taymiyya’s Post-Classical Influence (14th century onward); although Ibn Taymiyya belongs to the classical period, his ideas profoundly shaped modern reformist and Salafi currents.
• Al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505)
• Al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān
• Tadrīb al-Rāwī (Hadith sciences)
• Shah Waliullah al-Dihlawi (d. 1762)
• Hujjat Allāh al-bāligha

Key figure linking classical jurisprudence and later revivalist/modernist movements.

Najdī / Early Wahhābī Movement (18th century)

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1792)

Kitāb al-Tawḥīd

II. Reformist and Modernist Thinkers (19th–early 20th centuries)

Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (d. 1897)

Al-Radd ʿalā al-Dahriyyīn

al-ʿUrwa al-Wuthqā (with ʿAbduh)
A pioneer of political reform and anti-colonial intellectual resistance.

Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905)

Tafsīr al-Manār (with Rashīd Riḍā)

Risālat al-Tawḥīd
Promoted rationalist reform, educational renewal, and legal reinterpretation.

Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935)

Tafsīr al-Manār

al-Khilāfa aw al-Imāma al-ʿUzma

Shiblī Nuʿmānī (d. 1914)

Sīrat al-Nuʿmān, al-Fārūq
South Asian reformist historian and educational thinker.

Iqbal (Muhammad Iqbāl, d. 1938)

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

Persian and Urdu philosophical poetry (e.g., Asrār-i Khudī)
A major philosophical voice rethinking metaphysics, selfhood, and political destiny.

III. Revivalist and Islamist Thinkers (20th century)

Abul A‘la Mawdudi (Maududi, d. 1979)

Tafhīm al-Qurʾān

Islamic Law and Constitution
Theorist of Islamic political order and foundational figure of modern Islamism.

Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966)

Fi Zilāl al-Qurʾān

Maʿālim fī al-Ṭarīq (Milestones)
Major influence on modern Islamist and activist intellectual currents.

Hasan al-Bannā (d. 1949)

Majmūʿat al-Rasāʾil
Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, shaping modern political Islam.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi (d. 2022)

Fiqh al-Zakāt

Fiqh al-Awlawiyyāt
A central contemporary jurist-legislator in modern Sunni thought.

IV. Modern Salafi, Reformist, and Neo-Traditional Currents

Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani (d. 1999)’ Groundbreaking work in hadith criticism and Salafi reform.

Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis (d. 1940), Pioneer of Algerian educational reform and national awakening.

Contemporary neo-traditionalist figures (e.g., early 20th–21st century)

Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-Maraghi – Tafsīr al-Maraghi

Abdullah bin Bayyah (21st century juristic methodology, Fiqh al-Silm)

V. Critical, Liberal, and Academic Modern Thought (20th–21st centuries)

[These thinkers challenge or reinterpret inherited traditions using philosophical, hermeneutical, or historical-critical approaches]

Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988); Islam and Modernity, Major Themes of the Qur’an, A central figure in modernist hermeneutics.

Muhammad Arkoun (d. 2010); Rethinking Islam, Developed the concept of “Applied Islamology.”

Abdolkarim Soroush (contemporary); The Expansion of Prophetic Experience, A major Iranian reformist intellectual.

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (d. 2010); Naqd al-Khiṭāb al-Dīnī, Pioneered hermeneutical approaches to Qur’anic interpretation.

Ali Shariati (d. 1977); Man and Islam, Hajj, Fusion of Islamic thought and revolutionary political philosophy.

Mohammed Arkoun, Hassan Hanafi, Mohammed Abed al-Jabri; Important contributors to contemporary Islamic philosophy and intellectual critique.

VI. Modern Political, Social, and Ideological Movements

The MITC may also include influential texts by thinkers associated with:

• Pan-Islamism
• Islamic constitutionalism
• Islamist political activism
• Islamic socialism
• Islamic feminism
• Post-colonial Islamic critique

Examples include works by:

• Malek Bennabi – The Question of Ideas in the Muslim World
• Amina Wadud – Qur’an and Woman
• Fatima Mernissi – Beyond the Veil
• Taha Jabir al-Alwani – Usul al-Fiqh al-Islami

About Current and Contemporary Authors Collection

The ITJ Library hosts curated digital collections of scholarly works by current and contemporary authors and rights holders who wish to make their research available to a qualified academic readership. Authors and rights holders interested in depositing their work in the ITJ Library Collections are invited to contact us to receive detailed instructions for submitting digital materials.

Contributors must hold the appropriate intellectual property rights to deposit the materials they submit. All deposited works will be preserved and made accessible exclusively to registered readers of the ITJ Library for research, teaching, and learning purposes.

Materials hosted in the ITJ Library Collections are provided for non-commercial use only. Any reproduction, redistribution, or use beyond these purposes is prohibited without the explicit permission of the rights holder.

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