...This chapter analyzes the locations and contexts for the development of Islamic studies in US universities. It attributes the field's growth in part to exaggerated concerns about national security. It criticizes the field's location within institutions, pointing out that across time—from the first...

... that the quantitative turn has produced a narrow, mechanical field unable to move forward in ways that attend to the diversity of the social and political world. As the field has emphasized technical skills over moral imperatives, and as the institutional contexts of US universities has changed, the result has been...