The 2025 American Academy of Religion marks a century since The Scopes Trial. The trial’s afterlives, especially its reincarnations as Inherit the Wind, attest to its potency as a vehicle for epistemological, political, and moral critique. The present moment of national and global crises calls for creative re-engagement with Proverbs 11:29, which promises the wise will triumph over the foolish, who will be left with nothing to inherit but the wind. The defense has invited Hochmah, the feminine figure of wisdom who appears throughout the book of Proverbs, to plead the case. "Do you think everything in the Bible should have literal interpretation?" asked Darrow when he put Hochmah on the stand. In her spirit, this dramatic, interactive roundtable will invite panelists and attendees to Re-Inherit the Wind by bringing Jewish feminist wisdom to bear on the moral crises we now face.
In-person November Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book
All time are listed in Eastern Time Zone.
Together, these panelists adopt a textual approach that uncovers both the construction of caste in premodern Buddhist texts and the ways that later Buddhists engaged with the literary tradition. Panelist 1 re-examines the characterization of the Buddhist tradition’s stance toward caste by placing early Buddhist texts within the historical context of the development of Brahmanical caste ideology. Panelist 2 analyzes the production of caste categories in Mahāyāna Sutras through discourses about smell, meat-eating, and purity. The next two panelists consider how modern South Asian thinkers engaged with the premodern Buddhist textual tradition. Panelist 3 positions B.R. Ambedkar as a philologist, whose engagement with Pali and Sanskrit literature was guided by his anti-caste work. Panelist 4 broadens the focus from Ambedkar to also include Anagarika Dharmapala and Dharmanand Kosambi, illustrating how caste remained an integral component of all three modernist subcontinental Buddhist reformers.
Papers
This paper argues that the seemingly ambivalent attitude of the early Buddhist tradition toward caste is in fact an artifact of a modern scholarly misunderstanding of the history of the caste system. The prevailing assumption has been that the caste system was of hoary antiquity by the time of the Buddha, and that therefore “the Buddha,” if he spoke about caste at all, must have taken a stand one way or the other about it. I will argue instead that the beginnings of caste ideology were coalescing among reactionary Brahmans at the same time as the early Buddhist texts were being composed. By reading Tipiṭaka texts alongside roughly contemporaneous Brahmanical text, we gain a clearer picture of how Buddhist rhetorical strategies against conservative and reactionary Brahmans contributed to the shape of an emerging caste ideology.
Because smell is often used in a metaphorical sense, one might be inclined to read instances of fragrant virtue as just that—a metaphor. However, olfaction, as it is described within the earliest Buddhist texts to argue for vegetarianism, breaks down our cleanly divided modern categories of literal and metaphorical. Smell is used within these sūtras, and within premodern South Asian texts more generally, as “a way of knowing things about the world. People can use smells in order to tell whether a particular source of smell is pure or impure…low caste or high caste” (McHugh, 2012, 90). In this way, what a smell implies about one’s identity is of paramount importance. This paper explores how smell is used within Mahāyāna sūtras as a marker of caste. In particular, the paper contends that the sociological concept of “odorphobia” can help illustrate how malodor signifies low-caste stature within these Buddhist texts.
The paper reads B.R. Ambedkar as a philologist through his engagement with Pali and Sanskrit towards the making of Buddhist texts. By tracing a genealogy of key sacred texts, the essay specifically focuses on how liturgical languages engage with caste hierarchy. The object of analysis in the paper is the category of caste and how it continues to function from antiquity to the mid-twentieth century. I historicize Ambedkar’s engagement with language (Choudhury, 2018; Bronkhorst, 2019) and read it with other philological interpretations of early Buddhism (Norman, 2006), alongside recent scholarship on Ambedkar (eds. Jondhale and Beltz, 2004; eds. Rathore and Verma, 2011). This long historical thread culminates in a (casteless?) The Buddha and His Dhamma (Ambedkar, 1957) based on which I argue that Ambedkar reformulates the idea of what it means to be sacred through his decades-long engagement with Buddhism.
Caste figured little in studies of Buddhist traditions across Asia because caste seemingly had little effect on Buddhist communities outside the subcontinent. Yet, as perhaps the identifying, if not defining, feature of South Asian societies, caste proved an inescapable phenomenon for modernist subcontinental Buddhist thinkers such as Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933), Dharmanand Kosambi (1876-1947), and BR Ambedkar (1891-1956). While the semantic ambiguity of jāti allows the linguistic term to become mapped onto various forms of exclusion and difference, we must not forget that caste mattered in the primary social circles of these three thinkers. This paper explores the various ways in which they hoped to build a strong South Asian Buddhist community by positioning the religion around, or beyond, caste discourses. Despite their respective efforts to distance themselves from its practice and its reach, caste remained an integral component in their various social calculations and interactions.
These papers argue that sites of discipline have key roles in shaping religious and American identities. With an undercurrent that these are sites of violence, these papers illustrate how asylums and prisons have policies of recognizing religions, practices of ensuring religious freedom, and goals of cultivating religious norms. One paper argues that nineteenth-century asylums shaped norms of white patriarchic authority, in a larger context of authorizing wealth through slavery. A second paper asks us to reconsider the nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint prison experience, including the limits of pluralism and tolerance in prisons and in respect to the larger US society. A third paper moves to the twenty-first century, when the Michigan Department of Corrections recognized a white supremacist movement as a religion; the paper illustrates sincere religious belief in a context of violence inside and outside the prison, and complicates the boundary between racial extremism and religious pluralism.
Papers
19th-century US historians have long recognized that both the insane asylum and the home have functioned as sites for disciplining bodies and minds into model citizens. Less attention has been given to the relationship between the asylum and the home and how both used religion to shape their residents into model citizens. This paper examines the synergistic relationship between the Southern home and the asylum and how their reality challenged their idealized archetypes as site of patriarchal authority. It also highlights how religion shaped and was shaped by the ideals of normativity – necessarily gendered/racialized – these sites were built to instill. As the niece of Duncan Cameron, one of the wealthiest slaveowners in North Carolina, Anna Cameron Kirkland’s story is an example of how religious discipline was used in the home and the asylum to discipline upper-class white women.
Six years after the Missouri Mormon War of 1838, Mormon leaders Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were assassinated by a mob on June 27, 1844. Their murders at Carthage Jail, Illinois, were a tragic moment in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and within larger American religious history more broadly. Besieged church members living in Nauvoo and the surrounding environs lost their two most senior leaders to religious and political violence, which demonstrated the limitations of pluralism and tolerance in Jacksonian America. Their deaths also proved the need for greater religious freedom and protections for spiritual beliefs and practices in the United States.
My objective in this paper is to introduce and contextualize the nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint prison experience and resulting writings within the larger fields of prison literature and incarceration studies.
In 2023, the Michigan Department of Corrections became the first state agency mandated to recognize the Christian Identity movement as a protected religious group entitled to hold group services within its facilities. The recognition of the controversial white-racial theology animates a number of issues concerning religious sincerity and governance in the prison context. This presentation focuses on the dynamic tensions between external authorities (in the form of the courts and prison officials) and internal authorities (in the form of long-believing inmates and religious leaders) in determining sincere adherence. Pulling from court and church records, as well as extensive interviews with incarcerated adherents, this presentation combines historical analysis and contemporary evidence to argue that while Identity Christians can be sincere believers, their recognition complicates the boundary between racial extremism and religious pluralism in prisons.
Respondent
In this round table, discussants will present about the wholesale destruction of universities in Gaza. They will also examine “the Palestine exception” in Israel and the United States that has included pedagogical impediments: faculty firings and rescinded job offers, banning of BDS initiatives, invasive interrogation of departments, syllabi and curriculum, and cancellation of outside speakers.
This panel examines the intersections of religious freedom, education, academic freedom, and concepts of liberal democracy. Religion has played a role in promoting freedom of thought and expanding educational opportunities, but also in restricting who has access to the goods of education and liberal democracy and what communities, students, and scholars can say. These papers argue for an expanded concept of religion and religious studies that enhances freedom of individuals and communities in a pluralistic society. The speakers will argue for the good of academic exchange and freedom even in a highly restrictive prison setting; the promise of Catholic Social Teaching to defend practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion; religious ethical thought that promotes the goods of public education; and protection of religious freedom that recognizes values of equity and community, rejecting uncritical ideas about “religion” drawn from Protestant Christianity. Authors will address both theoretical approaches and relevance to pedagogy.
Papers
The current political moment, with its renewed debates about school choice and the Department of Education, offers an opportunity for Christian ethicists to contribute to discussions about the purpose and value of public education. Traditionally, discourse about religion and schools revolves around a narrow set of topics, like school prayer or state funding for religious schools. However, religion plays a much broader role, from the moral values expressed implicitly or explicitly in curricula and disciplinary codes to issues of justice raised by vast funding disparities. I argue that Christian ethicists can respond to today’s movement to divest from public education by offering a moral alternative distinct from the neoliberal paradigm that has dominated educational reform efforts. I then briefly make a case for an abolitionist vision of public education grounded in the concept of imago dei and an understanding of collective liberation with deep roots in Christian ethical traditions.
The "Dear Colleague Letter" published by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights sent educational institutions scrambling to remove forward-facing language about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and restructure race-specific programming. Understandably, these institutions--public and private alike--are concerned to protect their students, who depend on the Department for federal financial aid. However, I argue that Catholic institutions should defend their commitment to DEI as grounded in Catholic Social Teaching and as thereby protected by the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause. I offer a reading of the USCCB's 2018 document "Open Wide Our Hearts: A Pastoral Letter Against Racism" which denounces racism as a structural evil that violates the imago dei, and calls on all Catholic educational institutions to actively combat racism. Conservative Catholics have partnered with Republicans for years in successfully claiming religious exemptions from federal laws. This approach could also be useful to defend DEI.
Drawing from four semesters teaching religious studies inside two Florida-state prisons, this paper explores academic freedom within prison and the role that religious studies can play within the carcel system. By investigating the intersection of religion and freedom of thought in such restricted spaces, I ask: can knowledge set us free? Those who teach in (Dubler, 2014; Gellman, 2022) and write about these spaces (Erzan, 2017; Sullivan, 2009; Stoddard, 2021) recognize the challenges of working in a constrained world—one with misconceptions and limited resources for teachers and students. However, when engaged appropriately, knowledge can expose new narratives thereby opening new worlds, possibilities, and opportunities for those who pursue it. Religion, both in a personal sense and as an academic framework, may offer freedom for students behind bars.
This paper argues that, under what I call "obsessive liberalism," religious practices will be protected in proportion to their perceived similarity to those of the mainstream. Obsessive liberalism, I argue, imagines a universal liberal subject, from whom all rights of the individual and group derive and who ought to hold rights exactly equal to all other liberal subjects. Under obsessive liberalism, moreover, the solution to liberalism's problems is, always, more liberalism. Identifying examples of obsessive liberalism in the extant literature, this paper seeks after a framework based in dual values of equity and, in some cases, of rights springing from peoples, not from the individual liberal subjects that make them up. In either case, such a framework holds the potential to make possible the cognizability of non-protestantized religious practices and beliefs under the law, leaning in particular upon the example of Native peoples living under US settler law.
This book review panel will focus on recent books on Mandaeanism by Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley (1800 Years of Encounters with Mandaeans), Sandra van Rompaey (Mandaean Symbolic Art), and Edmondo Lupieri (John of the Mandaeans).
Revisiting classic books in Mormon Studies
Although the field of Mormon Studies is only fifty years old, it has steadily developed in how it addresses crucial questions and issues. The goal of this panel is to assess how the field has evolved on these central questions over the past decades. Presenters will discuss themes including gender, methodology, sexuality, and race through the lens of five classic works from the 1980s through the 2000s.
1984: Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, The Mormons, and the Oneida Community by Lawrence Foster (University of Illinois Press)
1985: Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition by Jan Shipps (University of Illinois Press)
1987: Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina Fielding Anderson (University of Illinois Press)
1991: Mormonism and the Bible by Phil Barlow (Oxford University Press)
2003: All Abraham’s Children by Armand Mauss (University of Illinois Press)
Buddhist monastic education has traditionally integrated textual study, ritual training, and communal service. However, contemporary monastic institutions increasingly prioritize scholastic study, marginalizing ritual practice and creating tensions between traditional responsibilities and modern Buddhist networks. This panel examines how monastic training continues to rely on ritual expertise while adapting to local and global changes.
Bringing together an international team of scholars, this panel explores vernacular traditions and global dialogues on ritual training in Buddhist monasticism. Papers address diverse case studies: monks at the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies (CIBS) in Ladakh balancing ritual obligations with academic study; monastic music and its transmission despite modernization; vows and ritual commitments as pedagogical and ethical frameworks; and Vajrayāna ritual training at Sera Jey Monastery, where secret Hayagrīva practices shape monastic identity.
Together, these papers challenge the perceived divide between ritual and scholasticism.
Papers
In contemporary Ladakh, becoming a monk extends beyond ritual mastery or preserving tradition—it now includes higher education, engagement with global Buddhist discourse, and career possibilities beyond the monastery. This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and surveys, examines how monks at the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies (CIBS) navigate the dual demands of scholastic training and ritual obligations, balancing academic study with responsibilities as ritual specialists in their home monasteries. This paper argues that monastic education at CIBS is a dialogical process, shaped by the interplay of ritual expertise and transnational Buddhist movements.
Monastic rituals in Ladakh are accompanied by sacred music, enshrined in the ritual text known as dbyangs-yig. In Ladakhi monasteries (gonpas), monks perform these rituals with musical precision and religious sanctity, preserving centuries-old traditions. While these practices have historically remained intact, recent shifts have led to degradation in ritual performance, particularly due to the absence of standardized musical notation and the evolving role of monastic education. Around Leh, the capital of Ladakh, four major Gelukpa monasteries exert a strong musical influence, shaping the ritual practices of more remote monastic communities. Increased interaction between monks from these monasteries has further contributed to shifts in ritual transmission and pedagogy. This paper examines historical and social transformations in monastic music and ritual performance, situating these changes within broader discussions on Buddhist education, vocational training, and the evolving role of ritual expertise in contemporary monasticism.
Vow-making is a fundamental yet often overlooked ritual in Buddhist monastic training, shaping both individual practice and communal ethics. This paper examines vow-making as a living ritual that structures monastic discipline, moral cultivation, and the path of awakening. Drawing on Buddhist hermeneutics of practice, it explores how vows are studied, embodied, and ritually renewed in monastic education, focusing on Chapter 40 of the Flower Adornment Sutra and Samantabhadra’s ten vows.
Engaging both scriptural analysis and personal monastic experience, this paper interrogates authenticity, authority, and agency in vow-making, demonstrating how these commitments serve as a dynamic practice of ethical formation and spiritual development. By examining vow-making as a repetitive yet evolving ritual, this study highlights its continued relevance in contemporary monastic education, where monks and nuns negotiate the tensions between tradition, modernity, and the pursuit of awakening.
Sera Jey, one of the major colleges of Sera Monastic University, was founded in Tibet in 1419 as a premier center for Gelug monastic scholarship, emphasizing sūtra study within the Nālandā tradition. However, despite this strong scholastic orientation, Most Secret Hayagrīva (rta mgrin yang sangs)—an explicitly tantric deity in yab-yum form—remains central to monastic life at the re-established Sera Monastery in India. His image is found not only in temples but also in hostels, restaurants, and offices, reflecting his institutional significance.
This paper examines the monastic rituals associated with Hayagrīva, particularly the annual serviceability retreat (las rung) and fire puja (sbyin sreg), both attended by the entire sangha. These rituals reinforce communal identity, forge ritual bonds, and negotiate the role of Vajrayāna within a monastic curriculum traditionally centered on scholasticism, highlighting the continued importance of esoteric practices in contemporary Gelug monasticism.
As an unbroken fully-ordained Buddhist nun's lineage, Chinese bhikṣuṇī has not only continued but also thrived throughout Buddhist history. Among its prosperous status, Chinese Bhiksuni in Taiwan serves as an exceptional case. Having a conducive environment and versatile characteristics, Taiwanese Bhiksuni is called the “Infinite Sky of Bhikṣuṇīs”. They take on the roles as torchbearers in Buddhism and religious professionals in society, illuminating themselves by practicing Buddha’s teaching personally and illuminating others by actualizing the teaching in society. Taiwanese bhikṣuṇīs’ accomplishments reflect their fruitful education systems and pedagogy.
This paper aims to investigate contemporary pedagogy and its outcomes of Chinese bhiksuni education in Taiwan by taking a representative Bhiksuni Sangha, the Luminary International Buddhist Society香光尼僧團(LIBS), as a case study. Based on the case study, the dissertation mirrors the general condition of contemporary Chinese bhikṣuṇī education in Taiwan, and will envision the future trajectory and contribution of Chinese bhikṣuṇī education.
Buddhist monastic education has traditionally integrated textual study, ritual training, and communal service. However, contemporary monastic institutions increasingly prioritize scholastic study, marginalizing ritual practice and creating tensions between traditional responsibilities and modern Buddhist networks. This panel examines how monastic training continues to rely on ritual expertise while adapting to local and global changes.
Bringing together an international team of scholars, this panel explores vernacular traditions and global dialogues on ritual training in Buddhist monasticism. Papers address diverse case studies: monks at the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies (CIBS) in Ladakh balancing ritual obligations with academic study; monastic music and its transmission despite modernization; vows and ritual commitments as pedagogical and ethical frameworks; and Vajrayāna ritual training at Sera Jey Monastery, where secret Hayagrīva practices shape monastic identity.
Together, these papers challenge the perceived divide between ritual and scholasticism.
Papers
In contemporary Ladakh, becoming a monk extends beyond ritual mastery or preserving tradition—it now includes higher education, engagement with global Buddhist discourse, and career possibilities beyond the monastery. This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and surveys, examines how monks at the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies (CIBS) navigate the dual demands of scholastic training and ritual obligations, balancing academic study with responsibilities as ritual specialists in their home monasteries. This paper argues that monastic education at CIBS is a dialogical process, shaped by the interplay of ritual expertise and transnational Buddhist movements.
Monastic rituals in Ladakh are accompanied by sacred music, enshrined in the ritual text known as dbyangs-yig. In Ladakhi monasteries (gonpas), monks perform these rituals with musical precision and religious sanctity, preserving centuries-old traditions. While these practices have historically remained intact, recent shifts have led to degradation in ritual performance, particularly due to the absence of standardized musical notation and the evolving role of monastic education. Around Leh, the capital of Ladakh, four major Gelukpa monasteries exert a strong musical influence, shaping the ritual practices of more remote monastic communities. Increased interaction between monks from these monasteries has further contributed to shifts in ritual transmission and pedagogy. This paper examines historical and social transformations in monastic music and ritual performance, situating these changes within broader discussions on Buddhist education, vocational training, and the evolving role of ritual expertise in contemporary monasticism.
Vow-making is a fundamental yet often overlooked ritual in Buddhist monastic training, shaping both individual practice and communal ethics. This paper examines vow-making as a living ritual that structures monastic discipline, moral cultivation, and the path of awakening. Drawing on Buddhist hermeneutics of practice, it explores how vows are studied, embodied, and ritually renewed in monastic education, focusing on Chapter 40 of the Flower Adornment Sutra and Samantabhadra’s ten vows.
Engaging both scriptural analysis and personal monastic experience, this paper interrogates authenticity, authority, and agency in vow-making, demonstrating how these commitments serve as a dynamic practice of ethical formation and spiritual development. By examining vow-making as a repetitive yet evolving ritual, this study highlights its continued relevance in contemporary monastic education, where monks and nuns negotiate the tensions between tradition, modernity, and the pursuit of awakening.
Sera Jey, one of the major colleges of Sera Monastic University, was founded in Tibet in 1419 as a premier center for Gelug monastic scholarship, emphasizing sūtra study within the Nālandā tradition. However, despite this strong scholastic orientation, Most Secret Hayagrīva (rta mgrin yang sangs)—an explicitly tantric deity in yab-yum form—remains central to monastic life at the re-established Sera Monastery in India. His image is found not only in temples but also in hostels, restaurants, and offices, reflecting his institutional significance.
This paper examines the monastic rituals associated with Hayagrīva, particularly the annual serviceability retreat (las rung) and fire puja (sbyin sreg), both attended by the entire sangha. These rituals reinforce communal identity, forge ritual bonds, and negotiate the role of Vajrayāna within a monastic curriculum traditionally centered on scholasticism, highlighting the continued importance of esoteric practices in contemporary Gelug monasticism.
As an unbroken fully-ordained Buddhist nun's lineage, Chinese bhikṣuṇī has not only continued but also thrived throughout Buddhist history. Among its prosperous status, Chinese Bhiksuni in Taiwan serves as an exceptional case. Having a conducive environment and versatile characteristics, Taiwanese Bhiksuni is called the “Infinite Sky of Bhikṣuṇīs”. They take on the roles as torchbearers in Buddhism and religious professionals in society, illuminating themselves by practicing Buddha’s teaching personally and illuminating others by actualizing the teaching in society. Taiwanese bhikṣuṇīs’ accomplishments reflect their fruitful education systems and pedagogy.
This paper aims to investigate contemporary pedagogy and its outcomes of Chinese bhiksuni education in Taiwan by taking a representative Bhiksuni Sangha, the Luminary International Buddhist Society香光尼僧團(LIBS), as a case study. Based on the case study, the dissertation mirrors the general condition of contemporary Chinese bhikṣuṇī education in Taiwan, and will envision the future trajectory and contribution of Chinese bhikṣuṇī education.
This panel brings together papers across several traditions and areas of concern: from Buddhist ethical narratives to the Qur'anic wisdom and questions of warfare.
Papers
The concept of ḥikmah (wisdom) appears twenty times in nineteen different verses across twelve chapters in the Qur’an, yet its interpretation has undergone significant evolution over the centuries. Classical exegetes such as al-Ṭabarī (d. 923) and Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373) viewed wisdom primarily through a prophetic and theological lens, linking it to divine revelation and religious instruction. Their interpretations emphasize ḥikmah as a form of guidance granted to prophets, with a strong focus on legalistic and doctrinal teachings. In contrast, the rationalist theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1209) expanded the meaning of wisdom beyond prophecy to include intellectual discernment, ethical reasoning, and philosophical inquiry. This rationalist shift is further developed in modern exegesis, particularly in the works of Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935) and al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀshūr (d. 1973), who reframe ḥikmah as an essential ethical and social principle applicable to all believers. By tracing these exegetical shifts, this paper explores the broader transformation of Islamic thought, from a strictly theological understanding of wisdom to a more human-centered, rational, and ethical perspective.
In this paper, I use Paul Ricœur's philosophical framework to explore how the Śyāma Jātaka and its cultural adaptations establish filial piety as the basis for moral development. Comparing narratives from India to China, I show how Ricœur's concepts of moral indebtedness, narrative identity, and the pursuit of the good for and with others help explain the ethical message of these Buddhist tales. This paper explores how the evolution from the nameless ascetic in the Rāmāyaṇa to the eponymous Śyāma or Sanzi in Buddhist texts embodies the transition from subject to moral actor, with what Ricœur calls “ipseity” – selfhood formed through narrative. I claim that Ricœur's concept of the truth invocation scenes where filial piety triumphs over death represents “pietas” that “joins the living and the dead,” and how narrative concordant discordance fosters moral change across cultural divides.
The ethical frameworks derived from classical Islamic sources such as the ḥadīth may not always exhibit a consistent resource for ethical guidance. One example of such inconsistency can be observed by the examination of early texts like the Kitāb al-Jihād (Chapter on Jihād) extracted from an eighth century ḥadīth collection called Musannaf of ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Sanʿānī (d.827). Notably, the pragmatism demonstrated by ḥadīth transmitters concerned with the spoils of war complicates the ethical assumptions associated with the ḥadīth corpus. This essay proceeds in three parts: First, I focus on five sections of the chapter titled Kitāb al-Jihād. Second, I reconstruct the way early Muslims perceived war. Third, I underscore the textual problems faced by scholars in recovering ethical arguments of war from classical Islamic sources like the ḥadīths of Kitab al-Jihād.