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Patterns of parental involvement in schools of religious communities. A systematic review
By Katinka Bacskai et al, University of Debrecen
Research on family involvement has revealed its positive impact on children’s academic and nonacademic achievement over the past two decades. However, little is known about parental involvement in religious schools. During our review, we examined studies focusing on parental involvement with special attention to religious schools. 22 papers met the research criteria out of 123 abstracts screened from 85 databases. Management and decision-making participation in religious schools seem to be less important than in Epstein’s model. Religious schools have developed a special PI model where parents accept decisions based on staff competence, and teachers work to build a parent community and earn the trust of parents by being accountable for the children’s diverse development. Some studies point to inadequate implementation of the ideal model and are critical. The novelty of the analysis is that our analysis was open to schools of all religions. A limitation of the review is that we cannot be sure that all relevant studies were included in the examined databases. As such, further research is needed to better understand this phenomenon.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2024.2315550
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Tags: #Religion #Pedagogy #Faith #Sociology
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AL-SUHRAWARDĪ’S PHILOSOPHY CONTEXTUALIZED
By Frank Griffel, Yale University
When in 1868, Alfred von Kremer (1828–89) in his Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islams (“History of the Ruling Ideas of Islam”) introduced al-Suhrawardī for the first time to a Western readership, he presented him as a freethinking Sufi devoted to “theosophy.” In a long chapter on Sufism, al-Suhrawardī appears under the heading “anti-Islamic tendencies.” Von Kremer characterized al-Suhrawardī's thought as a balanced mixture of three sources: Neoplatonic philosophy, a Zoroastrian theory of light, plus Islamic monotheism. “According to the Arab biographers, his teaching was aimed at the destruction of the existing religion, which, however, they say of anyone who dared to oppose the ruling orthodox party.” Expressing views that openly contradict the ruling religion, von Kremer wrote, meant putting one's life in danger. In accordance with that explanation, al-Suhrawardī died as “a martyr for his convictions” after the all too powerful group of orthodox scholars obtained his death sentence from Saladin.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423923000139
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Tags: #Islam #History #Philosophy
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Mālikī Scholars on Christians in Umayyad al-Andalus: Juridical Dialogues and Discussions of “Mixed Families
By Ryo Takahashi, Hokkaido University
This essay deals with early Mālikī doctrine in Umayyad al-Andalus regarding the Christians. It focuses in particular on “mixed family” issues, that is, those arising from the marriage between a Muslim man and a Christian woman and their children, by analysing masāʾil (sing. masʾala, dialogues among jurists) and fatāwā (sing. fatwā, juridical answers for questions and lawsuits). These materials provide us with rich information about how Andalusī jurists quoted and selected their teachers’ opinions, and also about the contents of their own doctrines. I will especially deal with custody (ḥaḍāna) of children born to a Christian mother and with the religious affiliation of children whose Christian father converted to Islam. The sources analysed provide evidence that juridical discussions responded to social issues, including blurred religious identities and pressure to convert in “mixed family” contexts.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2024.2307815
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Tags: #Islam #History #Christianity #Shariah
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(Im)Piety: Islam, Pious Sinning and Regulated Transgressions
By Wael al-Soukkary, University of Canterbury
Much has been written about Islamic piety from anthropological and sociological perspectives. However, Islamic impiety has yet to be theorised, which is interesting given how widespread it is in Muslim-majority countries. This article argues that it is essential to examine and theorise impiety because the lives of believers constitute pious and impious experiences. However, the central argument of this paper is not that theorising impiety alongside piety is essential for understanding Muslim communities. Instead, pious and impious experiences are only sometimes easily distinguishable. This is to say, piety and impiety do not exist on separate planes of social experience and behaviour. In other words, it is not necessarily the case that certain practices and behaviours are demonstrably pure forms of impiety, even when they contradict Islamic orthodoxy and mainstream standards of pious behaviour. Instead, the article suggests that pious nuances may exist in the most impious practices and behaviours, which I call (im)piety.
Link: https://doi.org/10.55831/ajis.v8i3.627
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Tags: #Islam #Muslims #Sociology
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Knowledge of the Milky Way in the Arabic Cultural Region between the 8th and 15th Centuries
By Andreas Eckart, University of Cologne; Mesut Idriz, University of Sharjah
We use a comparison of texts by several Arabic authors from the 8.-15. century inorder to explore the role of Milky Way in the early Islamic civilization until the 15th century. We refer to texts by Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Rahiq, Ibn Majid, and al-Marzouqi.First we discuss the description of the Milky Way given by al-Marzouqi in the 21.chapter of his Kitab al-Azminah wa al-Amkinah. Al-Marzouqi also points out how theMilky Way can be used to determine the direction of prayer.Second we discuss Ibn al-Haytham's finding that in comparison with the Moon theMilky Way has no measurable parallax, must belong to the realm of the stars.We compare the situation at Ibn al-Haytham's time to that of the Great Debate in 1920.
Link: https://doi.org/10.55831/ajis.v8i3.637
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Tags: #Islam #History #Arabic
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Ḥall ul-fuṣūṣ and its Main Tenets: A Reading into Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī's Commentary on Fuṣūṣ ul-ḥikam
By Dr. Leila Chamankhah, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology (TIET)
Although it is difficult to pinpoint an exact time as to when waḥdat al-shuhūd (the unity of witnessing) or any other relevant idea originated, a number of scholars ascertain that it was Qāḍī ʿAḍud a-Dīn Ījī (d. 756 or 760/1355 or 56), the prominent metaphysician, mutakallim, jurist, and the poet of the eighth century1, who should be regarded as the first one who used waḥdat al-shuhūd. Ījī was also a contemporary of the famous Kubrawī Sufi, ʿAlāʾ u-Dawla Simnānī (d. 736/1355), who believed in waḥdat al-shuhūd and might have taken it from Ījī. Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī (d. 786-87/1385), who brought Islam to Kashmir through Sufism, was an indirect student of Simnānī. He paid special attention to the ʿirfān of Ibn ʿArabī by writing a commentary on the latter's al-Fuṣūṣ ul-ḥikam, called Ḥall u-fuṣūṣ, which played an important role in the further merging of the teachings of al-Shaykh al-Akbar into Kubrawī Sufism. However, there exists a number of scholars who believe that Hamadānī's stance was somewhere in between waḥdat al-wujūd and waḥdat al-shuhūd.
This paper is an attempt to locate Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī in Islamic Sufism by contextualizing him in the intellectual history of Sufism in Kashmir and beyond through focusing on his Ḥall ul-fuṣūṣ to evaluate how he elaborated on the legacy of al-Shaykh al-Akbar. Pertinent to this is the study of the terms wujūd and shuhūd in the teachings of Ibn ʿArabī to understand how Hamadānī understood and used them in his mysticism.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12477
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Tags: #Islam #Sufism #Mysticism #History
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The Sufi Writing Tradition in Arabic
By Arin Salamah-Qudsi, University of Haifa
This paper addresses Sufi writing in its contemporary third/ninth-fifth/eleventh century CE context, looking at how writing was shaped by other Sufi and non-Sufi forms. Beginning with an overview of the Sufi writing tradition in Arabic during Sufism's formative period, between the early third/ninth and the late sixth/twelfth centuries, the article goes on to discuss early Sufi piety and the ways it challenged common conceptions and epistemological paradigms of early medieval Islamic thought. Looking at the mid fourth/tenth century case of al-Niffarī shows how mystical piety interacterd with a deep-rooted tradition in Arabic literature to forge the unique dynamics of what we know today as Sufi writing.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad025
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Tags: #Islam #Sufism #History
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Oral Reading Traditions and Scriptural Hermeneutics: The Exegetical Significance of the Pausal Systems in the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾān
By Tareq Moqbel, University of Oxford
The oral reading traditions of the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾān have a number of affinities. Recent literature shows that these parallels include orthoepic features, the pluriformity of the oral reading traditions, as well as the representation of non-standard oral traditions in written form. The present article takes this comparative effort one step forward. It explores how pauses influence the exegesis of the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾān. That is, it examines the impact of the Masoretic pausal accent signs and the pausal suggestions in the Quranic waqf and ibtidāʾ (pausing and beginning) literature on exegesis. Examining several case studies, the article points out parallels in the ways both reading traditions employ pauses in exegesis. Without denying the differences between the two systems, some of which are highlighted in the article, it is found that both seem to operate in conceptually similar ways.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad039
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Hermeneutics #History
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Rulers Making Boundaries Clear in the Medieval Islamic West: The Cordoban Umayyads and the Almohads
By Ann Christys, Society for the Medieval Mediterranean; Maribel Fierro, Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean-CSIC
Four events that took place in the medieval Islamic West (al-Andalus and North Africa west of Egypt, second/ninth–eighth/fifteenth centuries) illustrate how rulers intentionally drew clear boundaries between individuals and between groups in ways that were sometimes striking. The first case has to do with the ruler’s body, the second with the way horses were mounted in the army, and the third and fourth – less surprisingly – with clothing and naming. The rulers who strove to make boundaries clear in such cases were the ethnically Arab Cordoban Umayyads (138/756–422/1031) and the ethnically Berber Almohad/Muʾminid caliphs (524/1130–668/1269). The aim of this article is to analyse what the contexts behind the rulers’ actions, the groups affected by their decisions and the boundaries they erected reveal about their concerns and anxieties.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2024.2306087
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Tags: #Islam #History #Culture
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19th Century Polemic at Shahjahanpur: Muḥammad Qāsim Nānawtawī's Philosophy of Khilāfat-Allāh and his Response to the Critics of Islam in regard to Kaʿbah
By Atif Suhail Siddiqui, Yale University
This article1 is focused on Muḥammad Qāsim Nānawtawī's two important books Ḥujjat al-Islām and Qiblah Numā. These books are Nānawtawī's response to Christian missionaries and Hindu critic of Islam. Nānawtawī's polemics led the foundation of neo-ʿilm al-kalām (neo-Islamic scholastic theology) in South Asia. This article is an effort to trace Nānawtawī's corpus in polemics and the dialectics, which he covered in these books. Most of his works include his critiques and strong arguments against Christian and Hindu critics of Islam. However, this article is concise and covers a limited part of Nānawtawī's dialectical discussions. This article focuses on a precise response to a Hindu critic of Islam, man's merits and his status among all creatures and thus, man's selection by God as His khalīfah (vicegerent) on the earth.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12476
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #History #Kalam
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Layers of Authority in Shāh Walī Allāh's Persian Interlinear Qur’ān Translation
By Nihal Ahmad Khan, Hartford International University
This article explores the genealogy of the Persian Qur’ān translation of the eighteenth-century Indian scholar Shāh Walī Allāh (d. 1762/3). Firstly, I argue that this translation engendered a populist engagement with the Qur’ān, which allowed Walī Allāh to decentralize the interpretive agency of the Mughal scholarly class, all the while building his own authority. Including the Arabic text with the Persian translation allowed lay Muslims to recite the text, but with the new caveat of understanding it. Secondly, I argue that Walī Allāh's amalgamation between ‘under-the-line’ and ‘succinct summary’ models in his interlinear translation affirmed the inimitability doctrine. This is the belief that the Qur’ān is inherently defined as an Arabic text, in word and meaning. Thirdly, I argue that the inclusion of the Arabic text in this translation prevented the potential emergence of a hegemonic interpretation by a subversive political authority. The results of this hypothesis can be observed in relation to nineteenth-century British efforts of translating Islamic law texts into English common law in India; and twentieth-century attempts by secular nationalists in producing a Turkish-only Qur’ān in modern Turkey. Walī Allāh's Qur’ān translation also carved a path for later Urdu and English Qur’ān translators to follow.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12481
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #Exegesis
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Ghafla in Ghazālī's Scale of Action Meaningful Word or Device of Argument?
By Adrien Leites, Sorbonne Université
Ghafla is remarkably absent from research on Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111).1 Ghazālī, however, uses the word widely. To start lighting up this use, we will conduct a search on ghafla in Ghazālī's Scale of Action (Mīzān al-‘amal). The Scale was written before the much larger Revival of the Sciences of Religion (Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn),2 while the relationship between the two works remains unclear.3 The Scale, on the other hand, is described by contemporary researchers as dealing with a specific discipline, itself connected with philosophy.4 Our search will enable us to check this description.
For the linguistic meaning of ghafla, we may be content with translation. The word is commonly translated as...
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12482
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Tags: #Ghazali #Metaphysics #Religion #Islam
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“The Maqāṣid Are the Qibla of the Jurists”: A Critical Analysis of Contemporary References to and Usages of Abū Ḥāmid Al-Ghazālī’s Dictum
By Eva Kepplinger, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg
Modernity reveals an intense preoccupation with the Intentions of the Sharia (maqāṣid al-sharīʿa) and reflections of premodern scholars on this legal concept. Within contemporary research in this field, the famous scholar Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), who is counted among the pioneers of premodern contributions to the maqāṣid, occupies a special position. In addition to his general treatment of the maqāṣid, one dictum of his in particular is often referred to in the modern literature on the maqāṣid. The quotation reads: “The maqāṣid are the qibla of the jurists”, which he mentioned in his book Kitāb Ḥaqīqat al-qawlayn and is indicative of the central position of the maqāṣid in al-Ghazālī’s (legal) thought. My investigation of the contemporary, primarily Arabic, literature on the maqāṣid which cites this popular dictum reveals that the quote is used for many reasons and in various contexts; however, a fuller engagement with the quote itself and in the context of al-Ghazālī’s thought, as well as in his book, takes place very rarely, if at all, and even then, it is cursory. In order to embed al-Ghazālī’s dictum in the wider frame of his thought, this article first presents his general maqāṣid-related thought and consequently expounds on it in the context of his book. To better understand the usage of the quote in modern scholarship, the current maqāṣid literature that refers to the dictum is analyzed and categorized, showing how authors deploy it and to what end.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020165
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Tags: #Ghazali #Islam #Shariah #Law
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The Aristotelian Proof Revisited: A Reflection
By Tyler McNabb, Saint Francis University
McNabb and DeVito have recently argued that Graham Oppy’s objections to the First Way are found wanting. In response, McNabb and DeVito restructured the First Way on behalf of St Thomas. More recently, Joseph Schmid and Daniel Linford argue that the restructured argument given by McNabb and DeVito is problematic, claiming that it is either valid but unmotivated or it is plainly invalid. In this paper, I argue that McNabb and DeVito’s schematic glossing of the First Way is both valid and motivated.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/nbf.2023.7
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Tags: #Religion #God #Metaphysics
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Blind Man, Mirror, and Fire: Aquinas, Avicenna, and Averroes on Thinking
By Zhenyu Cai, Peking University
In Islamic tradition, the Falsafa school is well known for its naturalistic account of religion. When Falsafa’s theory of religion made its way to the Latin West, it was embraced and developed into the so-called “double truth theory” in Latin Averroism. However, this theory quickly lost its influence in the Latin tradition, primarily due to the critique by Thomas Aquinas. One of the key aspects of Aquinas’s critique is his criticism of the emanation theory of concepts and the doctrine of the unity of the intellect, which in turn undermines the foundation of Falsafa’s theory of religion, particularly their theory of natural prophecy. This paper aims to revisit the debate between Aquinas and Falsafa regarding the theory of intellect as the basis for natural prophecy, with a focus on highlighting Falsafa’s perspective. In particular, I examine how Aquinas’s arguments overlook the key insights that underpin Falsafa’s doctrine of the intellect.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020150
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Avicenna #Aristotle
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NONREDUCTIVE THEORIES OF SENSE-PERCEPTION IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF KALĀM
By Fedor Benevich, University of Edinburgh
In this article, I will argue that various scholars of kalām unanimously agree that sense-perception is something beyond the physical processes in the sense organs. There may be something happening in our eyes when we see a red apple, but seeing a red apple is not tantamount to it. We will see that some scholars of kalām argue that sense-perception is akin to being aware or conscious of the object of perception, and, hence, distinct from the physical process in the sense organs. One group will go so far as to accept that sense-perception is not even dependent on any physical processes in the body. Another group will accept that sense-perception presupposes that various physical conditions obtain, yet still regard sense-perception as something distinct from the occurrence of those conditions. I am suggesting that these nonreductive theories of sense-perception are the reason why Arabic-Islamic philosophers, starting from the eleventh century CE, consistently reject the Aristotelian-Avicennian theory of sense-perception.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423923000115
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Tags: #Islam #Kalam #Philosophy #Aristotle #Avicenna
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Al-Ḫūnaǧī on essentialist and externalist propositions and inferences from the impossible
By Behnam Zolghadr, LMU Munich
Afḍal al-Dīn al-Ḫūnaǧī (d. 1248) is one of the most influential Arabic logicians who departed from and argued against Avicenna in various places in his logical works. This paper is about al-Ḫūnaǧī’s account of inferences from the impossible. In this paper, we will overview his formulation of inferences about three main occurrences of impossibility in logic and language: propositions with impossible subjects, syllogism about impossible situations, and implications from a contradictory pair. All these are based on a distinction between two ways of reading the subject term of a proposition which al-Ḫūnaǧī borrowed from Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, namely the essentialist and the externalist. Later Arabic logicians raised a crucial objection to al-Ḫūnaǧī’s account of the essentialist reading. They argued that all universal propositions are false in this reading. If that is true, many of al-Ḫūnaǧī’s proofs will be trivially valid and redundant. I will argue that the falsity of these propositions does not preclude their truth.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2024.2309872
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Tags: #Islam #Logic #Arabic #Avicenna #Razi
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On the incoherence of molinism: incompatibility of middle knowledge with divine immutability
By Farid al-Din Sebt and Mahdi Esfahani, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (IHCS); Ebrahim Azadegan, Sharif University of Technology
We argue that there is an incompatibility between the two basic principles of Molinism, i.e., God’s middle knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, and divine immutability. To this end, firstly, we set out the difference between strong and weak immutability: according to the latter only God’s essential attributes remain unchanged, while the former affirms that God cannot change in any way. Our next step is to argue that Molinism ascribes strong immutability to God. However, according to Molinism, some counterfactuals of freedom need to be actualized by divine will. We argue that this claim does entail a change in God because it attributes a knowledge to God that involves moving from possibility to actuality through divine will. Therefore, claiming God knows counterfactuals of freedom leads us to reject the strong sense of divine immutability. Further, we argue that assuming God’s knowledge encompasses counterfactuals of freedom cannot be consistent even with weak immutability because, according to Molinism, a change in God’s knowledge requires a change in His essence. We conclude that Molinism is incoherent.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-024-09906-4
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Tags: #Molinism #God #Metaphysics
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Critical Reflections on Current Status of Scholarship in Islamic Psychology – Challenges and Solutions
By G. Hussein Rassool, Charles Sturt University
Islamic psychology, aimed at synthetising Islamic values with psychological theories, faces significant challenges despite its promise. This article presents a comprehensive review of the literature, revealing significant challenges that impede the development of an authentic Islamic psychology. The critical analysis, conducted through a qualitative review, is based on primary and secondary sources. The review critically challenges the issues of blind imitation, partialism, apologism, contradiction, epistemological biases and deconstructionism within contemporary Islamic psychology scholarship. The article emphasises their impact on knowledge creation and thought development in Islamic psychology. The key insights and recommendations resulting from the analysis of Islamic psychology scholarship include raising awareness of epistemological biases, critically evaluating assumptions, engaging directly with primary sources, embracing diverse perspectives, promoting collaboration and interdisciplinary approaches, and emphasising empirical validation. Implementing these recommendations can lead to a more authentic, inclusive and evidence-based approach to Islamic psychology. By addressing these challenges, the article suggests pathways toward the development of authentic Islamic psychology, fostering a more robust and integrated understanding that aligns with Islamic values.
Link: https://doi.org/10.55831/ajis.v8i3.641
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Tags: #Islam #Psychology #Sociology
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The Paradoxes of Modern Islamic Discourses and Socio-Religious Transformation in the Digital Age
By Sahar Khamis, University of Maryland
The introduction of the internet brought about many transformations in the political, social, cultural, and educational fields worldwide. This phenomenon of digital transformation introduced a myriad of positive, negative, and paradoxical impacts. This critical essay tackles some of the significant transformations and paradoxes which the introduction of the internet invited in modern Muslim societies, with a special focus on two specific domains. First, the realm of religious authority or obtaining authoritative religious knowledge in the age of the internet. Second, the realm of shifting gendered Islamic identities in the age of cyberspace. In exploring these complex and hybrid phenomena, special attention is paid to the tensions between the opposing forces of tradition and modernity, diversity and cohesion, hegemony and resistance, and globalization and localization in cyberspace, and their numerous and far-reaching effects.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020207
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Tags: #Islam #Feminism #Modernism
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Ruʾūs al-Jibāl Arabic in Context: A Proposal for an Expanded Typology of Southeastern Arabian Dialects
By Mark Daniel Shockley, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics
This paper seeks to clearly outline the features that distinguish Ruʾūs al-Jibāl Arabic (also called Šiḥḥī Arabic, Musandam Arabic) spoken on the Omani peninsula from surrounding dialects. Comparison with nearby Arabic varieties yields a few areal features (in segmental phonology) that establish a dialect continuum from the coasts of northern Oman to Musandam. A large number of phonological similarities between Ruʾūs al-Jibāl Arabic and Dhofari Arabic are then documented here for the first time. This robust but discontinuous link re-frames many of the peculiarities of Ruʾūs al-Jibāl Arabic as vestiges of a coastal southern Arabian dialect group. This finding fits a wellknown ancient pattern of northward population movements out of south Arabia, and allows for a more effective delineation of innovations unique to Ruʾūs al-Jibāl . It also offers a direction forward for an expanded framework for the classification of the Arabic dialects of southeastern Arabia, incorporating Oman's peripheries at Dhofar and Musandam.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad026
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Tags: #Islam #Arabic #History
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The Morphosyntax of Objects to Participles in the Qurʾān
By Marijn van Putten, Leiden University
This paper examines how Quranic text treats the construction of a participle in predicative position when it is followed by a direct object. While the medieval grammarians typically say that the participle may be either followed by the object in the accusative or form a construct phrase with it regardless of the definiteness of the object, close examination of the behaviour of participles in predicative positions in the Quranic text shows that a clear correlation presents itself. Indefinite objects are marked with the accusative, whereas definite objects are formed through a genitive construction. This thus means that the linguistic register of the Qurʾān, different from other forms of Classical Arabic, represents a kind of differential object marking on the objects of predicative participles, differentiating between indefinite and definite objects.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad029
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Hermeneutics #History
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Integrating Intercultural Philosophy into the High School Curriculum: Toward a Deliberative Pedagogy of Tadabbur in Diasporic Muslim Education
By Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar and Yousra Makki, Hamad bin Khalifa University
This article explores the pedagogical aspects of intercultural philosophy and identifies instructional strategies for Islamic school curricula in diaspora. It combines Western teaching methods peculiar to deliberative pedagogy with the Islamic notion of Tadabbur, Arabic for ‘to deliberate’ and ‘carefully consider’ the outcomes. It aims to provide insights into implementing intercultural philosophy as pedagogy and highlights examples of its application in Muslim educational contexts. How can intercultural philosophy be implemented in class, especially in the high school curriculum in diaspora? It emphasizes the potential benefits and compatibility of intercultural philosophy from a Muslim educational perspective. It offers practical insights and examples for educators who seek to integrate intercultural philosophy into their curricula. Bridging the gap between East and West provides a unique perspective on incorporating diverse philosophical traditions using the same teaching strategies. More specifically, this article introduces Tadabbur through instructional strategies such as Think–Pair–Share and the 5E instructional model, which use deliberative pedagogy. Intercultural philosophy, therefore, contributes to the cultural and religious diversification of curriculum theorizing and implementation.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020189
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Tags: #Islam #Pedagogy #Philosphy
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Spiritual oneness and the cognitive science of religion
By Veronica Campos and Daniel De Luca-Noronha, Jesuit School of Philosophy and Theology
In a 2008 paper, Justin Barrett designed a conceptual scale to measure the level of counterintuitiveness of concepts, “Barrett’s counterintuitiveness coding and quantifying scheme”. According to Barrett, the higher a concept scores in this scale, the more counterintuitive it is. The scale is meant as an auxiliary tool for one of the mainstream theories in the cognitive science of religion, namely, the Minimal Counterintuitiveness Hypothesis. For a concept to be adherent, i.e., to survive across cultures and across time, it has to score points in the counterintuitiveness scale, but it has to score low. Concepts that score too high or that don’t score at all are non-adherent. In this paper the case is made that at least some varieties of religious belief involve concepts that resist accurate measuring. The case study presented here features Spiritual Oneness, the belief that “all things are one”, frequently prompted by mystical experiences and frequently described as being very adherent. We purport that the failure of Barrett’s scale to allow for an examination of the concepts at stake in Spiritual Oneness is to be explained by the fact that the background assumptions about counterintuitiveness underpinning the scale are too narrow.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-024-09902-8
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Tags: #Religion #CSR #Spirituality
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An Occasionalist Reading of Al-Ashʿarī's Theory of Kasb in Kitāb al-Lumaʿ
By Zeyneb Betul Taskin PhD, Indiana University
This paper offers an occasionalist reading of al-Ashʿarī's theory of kasb in Kitāb al-Lumaʿ against Richard Frank's reading. Frank argues that according to al-Ashʿarī human beings have causal power that is created by God over their acts. Binyamin Abrahamov argues against Frank's reading because while al-Lumaʿ does not support this interpretation, the text suggests al-Ashʿarī's denial of causal efficacy from the created power. I expand Abrahamov's claims through a deeper comparison of al-Lumaʿ and Frank's analysis. First, I argue that the only textual evidence might be al-Ashʿarī's use of the verb waqaaʿ bi when al-Ashʿarī says that acquisition come through a created power. A mere employment of this word does not indicate a causal relation between the created power and acquisition. Moreover, al-Ashʿarī uses waqaaʿ bi to describe the concurrence of the so-called natural causes while he never attributes causal efficacy to them. Another problem in Frank's reading is that the attribution of causal efficacy to the created power not only takes al-Ashʿarī's theory out of the boundaries of occasionalism, but also approaches it to mere conservationism. Second, I agree with Abrahamov's occasionalist reading according to which the relation between the created power and acquisition can be a conditional relation.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12478
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Occasionalism #Kalam
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Ḥuṭṭ awlawīya lil-ʻilm! Sherif Gaber's YouTube Videos and His Views on Science and Religion
By Stefano Bigliardi et al, Al Akhawayn University;
This article examines the YouTube videos of Egyptian activist Sherif Gaber, an important voice among contemporary critics of religion who have a Muslim background. We scrutinize his ideas, with a focus on Gaber's conceptualization of science, and advance a proposal on how to critically yet moderately engage with Gaber's arguments.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12480
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #ExMuslims
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Loving the imageless: Descartes on the sensuous love of God
By Zachary Agoff, University of Pennsylvania
Descartes claims that we can love God sensuously. However, it is prima facie unclear how this is possible, given that he is also committed to the impossibility of sensing or imagining God. In this essay, I show that Descartes has the metaphysical and psychophysical resources necessary to alleviate this tension. First, I discuss Descartes’s account of the intellectual love of God, demonstrating that the intellectual love of God constitutively involves the love of God’s creation. Second, I argue that an image of God’s creation is sufficient for communicating the intellectual love of God to the body, so as to produce a sensuous love of God. And third, I discuss Descartes’s reasons for developing an account of the sensuous love of God.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2023.2268642
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Tags: #God #Descartes #Metaphysics
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Evil and responsibility in the Quran
By Bakinaz Abdalla, Nile University
The Quran contains numerous references to evil and some of these indicate that the responsibility of some instances of evil, which I call self-inflicted evil, lies with human beings rather than God. This idea of evil leads to an exploration of two interconnected issues in philosophical and theological discussions, moral responsibility and desert, along with the related tension between freedom of action and divine determinism. The article delves into this tension as it appears from the Quran and prevailing standpoints in Islamic theology. I propose that the tension between freedom of action and divine determinism resists a satisfactory reconciliation, which ultimately affects the plausibility of the idea of evil as self-inflicted. I further propose that embracing the contradictions arising from verses expressing freedom and responsibility, on the one hand, and those indicating divine determinism, on the other, could be a viable approach for the theologian.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523001026
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Tags: #Quran #Islam #Theodicy #PoE
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Ancient Feminine Archetypes in Shi‘i Islam
By Amina Inloes, The Islamic College
This paper explores archetypes of femininity associated with Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ in Twelver Shi‘i hagiography through consideration of a broad range of archetypes found in the study of narrative and mythology. Many archetypes associated with goddesses of antiquity recur in portrayals of Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ, suggesting either cultural influence or universal archetypes. For instance, Fāṭimah embodies a youthful, innocent, virginal goddess; Jung’s light and dark mother figure; and the lamenting goddess. Similar archetypes are projected onto other sacred women in Shi‘ism, such as Zaynab bint ʿAlī and Fāṭimah al-Maʿṣūmah. However, other feminine archetypes are absent, some are sublimated onto male figures, and some are banalized through translating the esoteric into the exoteric. This leaves gaps in the narrative models available to faithful women. Furthermore, embodying archetypes like lamenting and suffering may be undesirable. While reformist portrayals of Fāṭimah have attempted to present her as a model for female activism, historical and hagiographical archetypes of Fāṭimah inherently clash and are difficult to disentangle. Nonetheless, considering how hagiography differs from history can help understand how the mythic does not always translate well to the mundane. Lastly, it helps to understand the hidden and unknown Fāṭimah.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020149
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Shiasm
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Becoming Child of the Moment through Deleuzian Philosophy and Sufism
By Murat Sariyar, Bern University of Applied Sciences
My goal here is to make use of Deleuzian philosophy as a springboard for cultivating “being a child of the moment,” which is a phrase stemming from Sufism. Being fully present and aware in each moment is associated with surrendering oneself to the divine will and accepting whatever comes in the present moment without resistance. Unlike approaches that translate Deleuzian insights into theological concepts, the way of proceeding here involves traversing his philosophy, similar to traversing the phantasy in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Consequently, it neither fully adopts nor rejects Deleuzian philosophy but offers a parallax view that aims at deepening one’s connection with transcendence. The underlying premise is that strengthening this connection can be enhanced by engaging with an immanent philosophy that acknowledges non-representable singularities, provided its limitations are clearly delineated to prevent absorption into the depths and intricacies of that philosophy. To this end, the contrasting perspectives of eternity as a realm of potentialities and eternity as a timeless dimension detached from worldly connections are emphasized. During the writing process, the publication of MM Knight’s book “Sufi Deleuze” added a tangible ally and opponent, thereby lending further justification to the article’s title in retrospective. At the end, I will also delve into the relationship between Deleuzian philosophy and Derridean ontology, the realms of mysticism, and the existential aspect of death, and elucidate why Deleuzian philosophy can serve as a pivot for character development.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2022-0241
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Sufism #IbnArabi
