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Fasting in Early Sufi Literature
By Atif Khalil, University of Lethbridge
This article offers an analysis of conceptions of fasting in early Islamic spirituality. By drawing on the literature of Sufism, with special attention to the writings of al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988), al-Makkī (d. 386/996), al-Kharkūshī (= Khargūshī; d. 407/1016), al-Hujwīrī (d. ca. 465/1071), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and al-Sīrjānī (d. 470/1077), it thematically outlines (1) the value placed on fasting in early tradition, (2) the dangers believed to lie in the practice, and finally, (3) the need to transcend, in the final scheme of things, any attachment one may form with it, through ‘detachment from detachment’. In the process, the article aims not only to decipher and make sense of the various aphorisms and stories that make up the early literature of taṣawwuf, but also to resolve their apparent contradictions.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etae003
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Sufism #History
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On the concepts of time, space, vacuum and domain of investigation among contemporary physics, philosophy and theological reflection
By Paul Di Sia, University of Padova
Contemporary theology is realizing the importance of integrating the knowledge of modern/contemporary physics into the metaphysical and ontological categories usedto consider God and the God-world relationship. Time is a complex notion with different meanings, characterized by a plurality of uses. The concept of time opens upto broader conceptions than those of physics, mathematics and philosophy and reveals that the human being, the earth and the cosmos are not the center of space or time.The concepts of space, time and matter, to which the concept of vacuum is connected,are of central importance in any modern physical theory, and particularly in thetheories of unification. It is being discovered that spacetime is absent at the most fundamental level and only emerges at an appropriate limit. This emerging image oftime leads to new conceptual challenges that must be faced in parallel with philosophy and theological research to achieve its correct understanding. It is acomparison of the viewpoints of the three investigative domains concerned with understanding the nature of consciousness, namely science, philosophy and metaphysics. This thought process is connected to the intuitions of the contemplative and mystical traditions.
Link: https://doi.org/10.22091/JPTR.2024.10113.2974
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Tags: #Religion #Metaphysics #Theology
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The Role of Artificial Intelligence in the Study of the Psychology of Religion
By Khader I. Alkhouri, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The study of the psychology of religion encompasses various aspects of human experiences and beliefs, including the influence of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). This article aims to examine the impact of AI on religious practices and rituals, highlighting its potential to reshape how individuals engage with spirituality. By exploring AI-powered religious applications, virtual communities, and online services, we seek to understand the transformation of traditional religious practices and raise important questions about authenticity, inclusiveness, and the role of technology in the psychology of religious contexts. Moreover, ethical considerations and challenges arising from the integration of AI into religion will be addressed. As researchers delve into this intersection, it is crucial to strike a balance between technological advancements and preserving the fundamental aspects of spirituality, personal growth, and genuine human connection. This article contributes to the existing literature by shedding light on the potential implications of AI in the realm of religious experiences, calling for further exploration of its ethical dimensions and unintended consequences. Ultimately, understanding the influence of AI on the psychology of religion prompts us to reflect on the nature of spirituality, belief formation, and the human experience itself.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030290
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Tags: #AI #Religion #Psychology
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Redefining Qurʾānic Hermeneutics: Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Jābrī and Nasr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd’s Humanistic Interpretations
By Ali Mostfa, Université Catholique de Lyon
This article presents the innovative endeavor by Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Jābrī and Nasr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd in interpreting the Qurʾān through a humanistic lens. Their approach marks a pivotal shift, viewing the Qurʾān as a dynamic text that actively engages with the human interpreter. This human-centric perspective underpins their hermeneutical method, which employs lexicography, philology, and semantics to unearth the layered meanings within the Qurʾānic narrative. The article delves into the nuances of their methodologies, drawing parallels and distinctions, and underscores their profound impact on modern Qurʾānic hermeneutics.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030278
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Tags: #Quran #Hermeneutics #History
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Two New Successive Addition Arguments
By Ibrahim Dagher, Yale University
One of William Lane Craig's key arguments for the finitude of the past is the Successive Addition Argument (SAA). Malpass (2021) has recently developed a novel challenge to the SAA, utilising a thought experiment from the work of Fred Dretske, which is meant to show that it is possible to count to infinity, to argue that there is a counterexample to the SAA's second premise. In this paper, I contend that the Malpass-Dretske counterexample should not worry advocates of the SAA. First, I argue that one objection Malpass considers—the Potential Infinite Objection—reveals an interesting fact: the SAA's second premise is unnecessarily strong and can be weakened whilst still yielding the same conclusion. Second, I show how another one of the objections considered by Malpass—the Accumulation Objection—is successful, provided some clarification to the SAA's premises. The upshot of both analyses is that we generate two ‘new’ Successive Addition arguments that not only move the dialectic forward, but shed light on deeper assumptions and motivating intuitions concerning the Kalām.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/heyj.14292
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Tags: #God #Religion #WLC #Kalam
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The Forgotten Proof: The Existence of God and Universal Consent
By Peter Harrison, University of Queensland
During the early modern period, the proof of God’s existence based on universal consent (consensus gentium) was widely regarded as the most powerful argument that could be deployed against atheism. Yet from the mid-eighteenth century the argument began to disappear from the roster of arguments for God’s existence. Modern readers, moreover, find it difficult to see what makes this a proof at all and wonder why it was ever thought to be persuasive. This article offers a history of the consensus gentium principle, showing why it was long regarded as logically compelling and explaining its relation to the three better-known “classical” proofs of God’s existence. Consideration of the varying fortunes of this argument yields important insights into the changing nature and status of proofs for God’s existence and especially how these changed during the early modern period. It also shows why the burden of proof has gradually shifted over the past four centuries so that it is now belief in God rather than atheism that is thought to require rational justification. The history of this argument thus sheds light on the emergence of a distinctive feature of secular modernity, in which belief in the existence of God has become just one possibility among others. The article concludes with a brief consideration of modern vestiges of the argument in Rudolf Otto’s sense of the numinous, in revivals of Reidian reliabilism associated with reformed epistemology, and in the work of some practitioners of the cognitive science of religion.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1086/727614
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Tags: #God #Religion #Atheism #CSR #History
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Another Wittgensteinian response to the evolutionary argument against naturalism
By Zoheir Bagheri Noaparast, Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt
In “The evolutionary argument against naturalism: a Wittgensteinian response,” DeVito and McNabb (Int J Philos Relig 92(2):91–98, 2022, 10.1007/s11153-022-09832-3) propose a Wittgensteinian argument against Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism. In their paper, they seek to establish symmetry between a component of Plantinga’s premise and the premise of the radical skeptic. The first premise of Plantinga’s argument assumes the possibility of doubting the reliability of our cognitive abilities. The Radical skeptic doubts we have rational grounds to refute being brains in vats. DeVito and McNaab use hinge epistemology and Pritchard’s strategy against the radical skeptic to undermine Plantinga’s premise. This paper offers an alternative argument based on hinge epistemology against Plantinga’s argument. Relying on the various types of certainties Wittgenstein discussed, I argue that some scientific facts are among our certainties and hinges. Evolution (i.e., the theory of evolution by natural selection) is a well-established scientific fact and a hinge. As a result, in Plantinga’s first premise, we have two hinges: evolution and the reliability of our cognitive abilities. I will argue that given that hinges cannot trump one another, we can have these two hinges in place, and therefore, by endorsing hinge epistemology, there is another argument that shows why Plantinga’s argument cannot undermine naturalism if one accepts evolution.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-024-09904-6
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Tags: #EAAN #Naturalism #Plantinga #Evolution
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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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Education for Religion: An Islamic Perspective
By Ayman Agbaria, University of Haifa
This essay proposes a novel approach to religious education, one that stands in stark contrast to the often rigid and dogmatic nature of traditional religious instruction. The proposed approach seeks to cultivate deep awareness within students regarding their inherent limitations and their role as entrusted stewards in the grand design of God. It encourages students to move away from the temptation of godlike aspirations, such as the pursuit of boundless power and knowledge, instead positioning life on Earth as a divine destiny offering opportunities for growth, learning, and realizing one’s God-given potential. This form of religious education embraces doubt, uncertainty, and ambiguity, recognizing them as sources of motivation and meaning in a profound journey of faith. Inspired by John Hick’s and Abdolkarim Soroush’s works, this approach transcends traditional religious literacy, focusing on an encounter with the transcendent noumenal Real, and it is characterized by a sense of speechless awe, wonder, and astonishment before the riddles of existence and the beauty of the world. Ultimately, this essay underscores the importance of approaching religion as a system of relationships rather than as an ideology with all-encompassing answers.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030309
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Pedagogy
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Kafka’s Antizionism through a Comparative Analysis of ‘Jackals and Arabs’ with Judeo-Christian Texts, the Alexander Romance, and the Qur’an
By Ismail Lala, Gulf University for Science and Technology
Kafka explores many elements in ‘Jackals and Arabs’ that are found in the Judeo-Christian tradition of Gog and Magog, the Alexander Romance, and the Qur’anic story of Dhu’l-Qarnayn. A comparative analysis of these works reveals Kafka’s criticism of the Zionist movement. Kafka rejects Zionist exceptionalism and separatism through the narrator’s rejection of the jackals’ cause. Kafka’s jackals are compared to Gog and Magog, who are portrayed as corruptors of the land in the aforementioned texts. The categorisation of corruptors of the land is significant because this reverses Zionist claims of a profound connection to the land, which Kafka, likewise, reverses when the jackals claim that the desert is their home from which the Arabs should be removed. Zionist avowals of Arab backwardness are countered by Kafka as he makes the Arabs superior, which is also how the indigenous population are depicted in the Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions since they are contrasted with the barbarity of Gog and Magog. Finally, the Zionist trope of the European Jewish hero who flees persecution is inverted by Kafka who confers on the narrator a quasi-prophetic/royal status similar to that of Dhu’l-Qarnayn and Alexander the Great.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030282
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #History
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God and Space
By William Lane Craig, Houston Christian University
This paper inquires into the nature of God’s relationship to space. It explores two different views, one that God transcends space or exists aspatially and the other that God exists throughout space and so is spatially extended. It seeks to adjudicate the debate between these competing perspectives by weighing the principal arguments for and against each view.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030276
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Tags: #Quran #WLC #Theism
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On Proofs for the Existence of God: Aristotle, Avicenna, and Thomas Aquinas
By Xin Liu, Nanjing University
In this paper, I examine Aristotle’s cosmological proof of God’s existence, Avicenna’s metaphysical proof, and Thomas Aquinas’s five-way proof. By comparing these proofs, I argue that philosophers and theologians take different approaches to proving God’s existence not only because they follow different epistemological principles but, more fundamentally, because they construct different metaphysical frameworks in which God as the Supreme Being plays different roles and is thus clarified differently. The proof of God’s existence is also of theological significance. This paper makes an original contribution by showing that, despite Avicenna’s harsh criticism, Aquinas returns to Aristotelian cosmological proof. Moreover, Aquinas goes beyond Aristotle by identifying God not only as the First Mover but also as the Creator. The theme of God’s existence bridges philosophy and theology, and it also clearly reflects the interplay and mutual influence of Greek philosophy, Arabic Aristotelianism, and Latin Scholastics.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020235
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Tags: #God #Avicenna #Aristotle #Aquinas
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The Problem of Evil, God’s Personhood, and the Reflective Muslim
By Zain Ali, University of Auckland
Is it correct to think of God as a perfectly good personal agent? Not so, argue John Bishop and Ken Perszyk. Bishop and Perszyk, in their most recent work, God, Purpose, and Reality: A Euteleological Understanding of Theism (2023), outline a series of challenges that bring into question this concept of God—i.e., as a perfectly good personal agent, who is unique, unsurpassably great, all-powerful, and all-knowing. I aim to critically evaluate one of these challenges, namely the Normatively Relativised Logical Argument from Evil (NRLAFE). The NRLAFE has God’s perfect goodness as its target. Bishop and Perszyk argue that people who are committed to certain values about what constitutes right relationship amongst persons, might reasonably judge God as lacking perfect goodness. They also contend that the relevant values will likely be endorsed by theists. My aim in this paper is twofold: first, I aim to assess the Bishop-Perszyk argument from evil, in light of the tradition of Islamic Theism. The tradition of Islamic Theism is as broad as it is deep, and within the tradition there are a variety of ways in which God has been conceptualised. This includes debates as to whether we can view God as a personal agent. Second, I contend that we have available to us, from within and beyond the tradition of Islamic Theism, a set of resources that: (a) permit us to understand God as being a personal agent; and (b) allow us to resist the NRLAFE while endorsing the value commitments that Bishop and Perszyk have in mind. The perspective I bring to this paper is that of a reflective Muslim—i.e., a person of the Islamic faith who acknowledges that people of other religious and non-religious persuasions are as educated and concerned with seeking truth and avoiding error as they themselves are.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020225
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Tags: #God #Religion #PoE #Theism
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AVERROES’ “EPISTLE ON DIVINE KNOWLEDGE” AS A DIALECTICAL WORK: BETWEEN FORBIDDEN INTERPRETATION AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRAINING
By Yehuda Halper, Bar-Ilan University
Averroes’ “Epistle on Divine Knowledge” presents four different dialogues on two textual levels. These dialogues, the syllogistic structure of the arguments in them, and their use of contradictories indicate that the “Epistle on Divine Knowledge” is structured nearly entirely in accordance with the descriptions of dialectic we find in Averroes’ commentaries on Aristotle's Topica. Accordingly, Averroes’ solution to the question of how God can have universal knowledge of particular things is a dialectical account of the distinction between Divine and human knowledge. Moreover, at a crucial point in the “Epistle on Divine Knowledge” Averroes refers to Aristotle, Metaphysics Β, which he considers to a dialectical exposition of questions on metaphysics. This reference suggests that Averroes sees the “Epistle on Divine Knowledge” as a kind of dialectical inquiry aimed at answering questions that arise at the outset of studying metaphysics. So, while it is possible to view the “Epistle on Divine Knowledge” as a dialectical interpretation of Quran 67:14, its primary purpose is to introduce its readers to metaphysical speculation. Thus it does not violate Averroes’ legal prohibition given in the Decisive Treatise against declaring dialectical interpretations in books available to the general public.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423923000127
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Tags: #Averroes #Quran #Aristotle #Metaphysics
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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
