Vincent Cornell is an American scholar of Islam. From 2000 to 2006 he was a professor of history and director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

. He was an advisor to the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentary '' Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet'' (2002), produced b
Unity Productions Foundation
He left Arkansas in 2006 to become a professor of history at

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

, in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. Sufism and Islamic philosophy are among his specialities. His books are available in over 2,200 libraries. As a Muslim and self-described "critical traditionalist", Cornell has publicly deplored what he calls the

superficiality What social psychologists call "the principle of superficiality versus depth" has pervaded Western culture since at least the time of Plato. Historical sketch Socrates sought to convince his debaters to turn from the superficiality of a worldview ...

of modern-day Islamic practices, which he sees as removed from the religion's traditions of deliberation. In his view, context should be taken into account in interpreting the sacred texts of Islam, and that in the globalized world of shifting ideas, Muslims cannot isolate themselves from reflexivity. He is critical of the spread of

Wahhabism Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...

in the last several decades—a phenomenon he attributes to a "corporate" form of organized Islam fueled by petro dollars. Nevertheless, he cautions against a simplistic view that "demonizes" the role played by the Saudi monarchy, which he sees as compelled to promote Wahhabism.

References

External links

Interview by public radio program ''Speaking of Faith''
Living people 21st-century Muslim scholars of Islam University of Arkansas faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Emory University faculty {{Sufism-stub