News

The LA Review of Books has published my review of Reza Aslan's latest, Zealot: The Life and Tmes of Jesus of Nazareth.But the better story in Zealot is the cautionary one, warning us against turning away from this world, against shrinking in the face of power, against making gods out of good men and women. These are the people we need. And we need them here.Read more here.

Today marks the end of my eight-day MFA faculty residency at Oregon's Pacific University. Wonderful writers, students, and incredible programming. Thank you to everyone. Congrats to the graduates!

Hussein Rashid writes a strong and kind introduction to an interview he and I did for The Revealer.It is this care and attention to detail he paid in reaching out to me that I believe exemplifies his work on Light without Fire: The Making of America's First Muslim College. Despite being listed in the acknowledgements of the book, I have not spoken to Korb since that time three years ago, until the publication of the book. However, even at that point it was obvious that he understood the wariness and weariness of the American Muslim community. Any story he would tell would have to be about people, and to get to know people meant cultivating relationships and networks.Listen here.

Joseph Richard Preville of Muscat Daily News interviewed me about Light without Fire. He says this about the book: "It is a sympathetic portrait of a small community of faith on its journey to build an academic home in America. Korb's immersion in this community helps us to understand the hopes, the struggles, and the joy of its members."I say this: "The founders believe that a deep training in the liberal arts and a dedication to seeking sacred knowledge in every subject is the best way to prepare students to participate in our democracy and the national project more broadly. First and foremost, the school and the scholars are a daily reminder that America is home."

Zaytuna College is featured in a story today in USA Today.Abass Darab closes his eyes, unwraps the prayer beads from around his wrist and clutches them in his lap. A half-minute or so later, he opens his eyes. He is ready, he says, "to help people know what my school stands for." ... Zaytuna is "trying to participate in this bigger story, this bigger historical narrative of religious minorities having a place here," says Scott Korb, a New York-based religious studies and writing professor and author of Light Without Fire: The Making of America's First Muslim College, which chronicles the school's first years.

At the the New Yorker's books blog, Page-Turner, Rollo Romig has written an insightful reflection on Light without Fire.A good teacher is hard to find, but it's easier when there are good institutions where you can look for one. Back in 2000, a Catholic nun named Marianne Farina noticed a gap in the world of religious higher education. She issued a challenge to her friend, a forty-two-year-old Muslim teacher named Sheikh Hamza Yusuf. "You're one-fourth of the world's population. Where are the Muslim colleges?" she asked. "You need to do it."Yusuf has written a thoughtful response in the comments section following the piece.(Also, read about Romig's own conversion to Islam and his first Ramadan fast here.)

This week I appeared on Napa, California, radio host Jeff Schechtman's program Conversations. Listen here.

Illume Magazine is running a recent interview with me about Light without Fire. Here's a little snippet.What attracts me to writing about religion? Religion offers us one way to managae and celebrate our lives and to face the reality of death. It tries to answer big questions. And the effort any of us makes to produce some meaning in the world is worth noticing in one another. Religion's not the only way we do this, and it's certainly not the only thing worth noticing in one another—but I'm taken with it.Illume has also published this recent review by Bay Area Muslim blogger Bushra Burney, originally from her website Caffeinated Muslim.

I recently spent time talking about Life without Fire on the popular podcast Greed for Ilm, hosted by Walid Darab. Have a listen.

I'm pleased to say I've joined the faculty of Pacific University's low-residency MFA program. Looking forward to late-June in Oregon.

CSPAN's Book TV coverage of the Light without Fire release has been placed in the video archives. I was in conversation with Imam Khalid Latif of the Islamic Center at New York University.Watch here.