Herbert Berg (religion)

Herbert Berg, a scholar of religion, was trained at the University of Toronto's Centre for the Study of Religion in the late 1980s and early 1990s; he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and is Director of the Graduate Liberal Studies program.

Although also recognized as a specialist on the Nation of Islam, Berg's primary work shares much in common with scholars who study the earliest histories of modern religious movements. In this regard, he uses social theory to study the historical sources and context of the early texts of Islam.

Works by Herbert Berg

* Guest editor of the quarterly journal "Method & Theory in the Study of Religion" (1997), special issue devoted to assessing the scholarly contributions of John Wansborough

* "The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam: The Debate over the Authenticity of Muslim Literature from the Formative Period" (Routledge/Curzon, 2000)

* "Method and Theory In The Study Of Islamic Origins" (Brill, 2003), editor

* "Early African American Muslim Movements and the Qur’an." "Journal of Qur’anic Studies", 8.1 (2006): 22–37.

* "Context: Muhammad." "Blackwell Companion to the Qur’ān", edited by Andrew Rippin, 187–204. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.

* "Mythmaking in the African American Muslim Context: The Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, and the Muslim Society of America." "Journal of the American Academy of Religion", 73.3 (2005): 685–703.

* "Ibn `Abbās in `Abbāsid-Era Tafsīr." "Abbasid Studies: Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies, Cambridge 6–10 July 2002", edited by James E. Montgomery, 129–146. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 135. Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2004.

* "Competing Paradigms in the Study of Islamic Origins: Qur’ān 15:89-91 and the Value of Isnāds." "Methods and Theories in the Study of Islamic Origins", edited by Herbert Berg, 259–290. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003.

* "Weaknesses in the Arguments for the Early Dating of tafsīr." "With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam", edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W. Goering, 329–345. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

* "Elijah Muhammad and the Qur’ān: The Evolution of His Tafsīr." "Muslim World" 89 (1999): 42–55.

* "Elijah Muhammad: An African American Muslim mufassir?" "Arabica: Revue d’études Arabes" 45 (1998): 320–46.

* "The Implications of, and Opposition to, the Methods and Theories of John Wansbrough." "Method & Theory in the Study of Religion" 9.1 (1997): 3–22. Reprinted in "The Quest for the Historical Muhammad", edited by Ibn Warraq, 489–509. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2000.

* "Tabarī’s Exegesis of the Qur’ānic Term al-kitāb." "Journal of the American Academy of Religion" 63.4 (1995): 761–774.

ee also

*Islamic scholars