The little-known and undated manuscript that will be the focus of the second part of this essay, the Buku Doa dan Jampi, was apparently written in the nineteenth century. It uses different short and long phrases in dealing with supplications (doa-doa), incantations or spells (jampi dan petua), and rituals. One supplication begins “in the name of the Restorer of Health, in the name of the All-Sufficing, in the name of the Forgiver…” According to Islamic teachings, these Arabic terms are among the beautiful names of Allah, extensively used in talismans and amulets to protect a child, heal a patient, increase property, and so on...

Perhaps the main takeaway students and scholars of Islam should derive from Shahab Ahmed's What Is Islam? is that instead of avoiding definitions of Islam, blithely insisting that the sheer diversity of Muslim thought, practice, and experience makes such an enterprise impossible, we should tackle the question head-on and consider what that diversity really means for the problem of definition. But how to move forward? How best to explore the implications of such an argument, operationalizing the consequences of his observations in practical terms?

Some traditions report that the sword Dhū’l-Faqār was granted to ʿAlī by Muḥammad. Although some argue that the sword reached Muḥammad after the battle of Badr in 624, various reports claim that it was sent down from heaven. The sword was originally depicted as being double-edged, but from the medieval era onwards, that image was replaced with that of a sword with a bifurcated point, now recognizable as the sign of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib worldwide...