Paul Powers

Paul Powers teaches a range of courses about Islam and Religious Studies. His courses include “Introduction to Islam,” “Islamic Political and Social Movements,” “Religion and Violence,” “Religious Fundamentalism,” “So You Think You’re Secular?” and “Mysticism and Religious Experience.” Many of these courses explore theoretical and methodological questions about the nature and study of religion, as well as gender-related issues and questions about the nature of “modernity.”

Academic Credentials

PhD 2001 University of Chicago Divinity School, History of Religions/Islamic Studies

MA 1992 University of Chicago Divinity School, BA 1990 Carleton College

Teaching

Fall 2024 Courses:

RELS 201 History and Theory
TTH 9:40AM - 11:10AM
History of the field. Psychological, literary, anthropological, sociological, and historical approaches to the study of religion. Readings by major theorists. Should normally be taken no later than the junior year.

RELS 275 Introduction to Islam 
TTH 1:50PM - 3:20PM
Beliefs, practices, and history of Muslim societies from their origins in seventh-century Arabia to their complex current expressions throughout the world. The Qur’an; the Prophet Muhammad; ritual practice; law; politics; gender roles/relations. The many debates and voices of dissent that have helped define the varieties of Islamic culture. Focus on the Middle East/North Africa will be supplemented by attention to other contexts, including America.

Research

Prof. Powers’ research interests have focused on pre-modern Islam, especially Islamic law. He has published articles in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Religion and Violence, and Islamic Law and Society, and has contributed chapters to several edited volumes in Islamic legal studies, including The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law. He has traveled extensively in the Muslim world, including Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, and India.

His first book, Intent in Islamic law: Motive and Meaning in Medieval Sunni Fiqh (Brill, 2006), explores how Islamic law deals with subjective states and the legal and moral implications of the intentions that partly shape human actions.

More recently, Prof. Powers published his second book, Religion and Violence: A Religious Studies Approach (Routledge, 2021). This project explores the relevance of classic religious studies theories (e.g., Marx, Durkheim, Weber) for increasing our understanding of the relationship between religion and violence. A central argument of the book is that we need to overcome a long-standing, overly-simplistic tendency to think of religion as a cause of violence and instead recognize the complex and varied ways that religious beliefs, practices, and traditions contribute to the multifaceted management of violence. 

Prof. Powers has begun work on a new project, a book intended to introduce readers to the foundational concepts of Islamic legal discourses. After some 25 years of studying and teaching about Islamic law, this book addresses “the things I wish I had known when I started.” Various chapters will explicate pre-modern Muslim jurists’ understandings of human nature, their basic philosophy of language, legal agency (who is subject to the law), the nature of actions, and the constituent elements of a legal judgment (hukm/ahkam).