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Andrew Loke’s indirect defence of the successive addition argument
By Alex Malpass, Bristol University
In this paper, we consider Andrew Loke’s recent contributions to the successive addition argument. Although he claims to develop the discussion, we conclude that he fails to provide anything that goes beyond the position critiqued by Fellipe Leon. When analysing Loke’s position, we find that his proposals either directly collapse back into those critiqued by Leon, or beg the relevant question at hand. We conclude with some speculations about why this sort of mistake may have arisen.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-023-09870-5
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Tags: #Metaphysics #Kalam #Time
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Moral knowledge and the existence of god
By Noah D. McKay, University of Edinburgh
In this essay, I argue that, all else being equal, theism is more probable than naturalism on the assumption that human beings are able to arrive at a body of moral knowledge that is largely accurate and complete. I put forth this thesis on grounds that, if naturalism is true, the explanation of the content of our moral intuitions terminates either in biological-evolutionary processes or in social conventions adopted for pragmatic reasons; that, if this is so, our moral intuitions were selected for their utility, not their truth; and that, if our moral intuitions were so selected, they are probably false. I defend the argument against three objections: first, that the argument amounts to a generic skeptical challenge; second, that ethical naturalism explains how our moral intuitions could have been selected for their truth; and third, that there is a pre-established harmony between the utility of moral beliefs and their truth-values.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-023-09868-z
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Tags: #NaturalTheology #Ethics #Metaethics #Morality
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Near-Death Experiences and Emergent Dualism
By Jonathan Kopel, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Since the Enlightenment, reductionism has been an important part of the development of science and civilization. The process of abstracting features of the world and reducing them to their most basic components has greatly increased our grasp of the physical and chemical rules that govern physical reality at all levels. However, central aspects of reductionism have been challenged with the growing literature on religious/spiritual experiences after near-death experiences (NDEs) that challenge standard reductionistic models of the brain. In this paper, an alternative model of emergent dualism is proposed for examining NDEs and the mind.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2188374
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Tags: #NDE #Dualism #Reductionism
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Biblical Perspectives as a Guide to Research on Life’s Origin and History
By Hugh Norman Ross, Reasons to Believe
The more than thirty spacetime theorems developed over the past five decades establish that the universe and its spacetime dimensions have emerged from a cause/causal agent beyond the cosmos. Thus, to infer that this cause/causal agent may have intervened in the origin and history of Earth and Earth’s life resides well within the bounds of reason. Meanwhile, proponents of each of the three prevailing naturalistic models (abiogenesis, panspermia, and directed panspermia) for the origin and history of Earth’s life have marshaled arguments and evidence that effectively undermine and refute the other two models. A biblical perspective and approach to Earth’s life can help resolve this impasse. While a superficial and pervasive appeal to divine intervention thwarts scientific advance, so does a rigid adherence to naturalism. A productive way forward is to identify which models (or parts of models), whether naturalistic, theistic, or a combination, most effectively narrow, rather than widen, knowledge gaps, minimize anomalies, offer the most comprehensive and detailed explanation of the data, and prove most successful in predicting scientific discoveries.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040547
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Tags: #Evolution #Genesis #OOL #God
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Do you need to know in order to act? The case for a Suárezian legacy in early modern occasionalism
By Andrea Sangiacomo, University of Groningen
The goal of this article is to suggest that in early modern discussions of agency and causal efficacy it is possible to detect an attempt at pushing to its extreme consequences a specific account of agency and causality that was developed in late scholastic thought. More specifically, the article examines Francisco Suárez's (1548–1617) account of freedom and how this relates to his views on efficient causality. Despite Suárez's careful way of differentiating between natural (necessary) and human (free) agents, his view can be exploited to drive home occasionalist positions that deny causal efficacy for natural agents lacking reason. The family resemblance that might be noted between early modern positions could be traced back to the reception of a common late scholastic background and to the tensions and potential nestled there.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/sjp.12511
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Tags: #Ocassionalism #God #Scholasticism
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Is God's prescription of eternal hell for kâfirūn (infidels) in the Quran evil? Contesting Aijaz's understanding of kufr (infidelity) and an analysis of eternal punishment in the Quran
By Ayşenur Ünügür Tabur, University of Augsburg
This article concerns the problem of eternal hell in Islam as an aporetic problem of evil with a focus on Aijaz's description of the Islamic soteriology. I contest his description of Islamic culpability and his claim that all non-Muslims are regarded as kâfir and consigned to eternal hell. First, I aim to illustrate the pitfalls in his line of argumentation such as crude generalizations and selective reading of the Islamic sources, which seem to render his argument a strawman fallacy. I offer a more accurate analysis of the Islamic view, by arguing that only a limited group of people who fight against truth through evil actions are considered as kâfir. Second, building on my analysis of the notion of kâfir, I address the question whether God's perfect love and wisdom are compatible with limited salvific exclusivism. Thus, I aim to elaborate on the rationale behind the prescription of eternal punishment for the kâfir in the Quran in the rest of the article, by arguing that the kâfir is incapable of genuine repentance due to his character formed by his free choices. This, in turn, makes it impossible to achieve retributive justice through a finite punishment concerning the kâfir's evil actions.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000240
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Tags: #PoE #Theodicy #Evil #Quran #Islam
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Ambivalences of Modernity in Contemporary Turkish Sufism: Cemalnur Sargut’s Affective Qur’an Community
By Tehseen Thaver, Princeton University
This article engages the thought, career, and public activities of the prominent contemporary female Sufi master in Turkey, Cemalnur Sargut of the Rifaʿi order, to explore the negotiation and transformation of Sufi authority in the Turkish public sphere, permeated by the shadows of modern secular power. By examining the multiple platforms through which Cemalnur disseminates her teachings and the hermeneutic that guides her engagement with the Turkish Sufi tradition, this article offers ethnographic and theoretical insights into the encounter between the tradition of Sufism, female religious authority, and the reach and limits of modern secularity. I argue that through creative strategies of engaging the institutional and technological possibilities of the post-secular present (both in Turkey and globally), Cemalnur and her community have enabled an altogether distinct understanding of the modern—one that is not readily available for liberal secular conceptualization.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfac074
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Tags: #Sufism #Secularism #Quran
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Changes in religious attitudes and behaviors of Euro-Turk students with theology education
By Prof. Dr. Zekiye Demir, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University
This paper studied a new dimension of international students, who are citizens of another country but came back to Turkey for religious education where their parents or grandparents are citizens. Did a five-year religious education process based on the main sources of Islam lead to a change in these students' religious attitudes and behaviors, and if yes to what extent did these changes occur? A panel survey is conducted on these students in pre-education and post-education periods to answer this question. Without ignoring the effect of the social environment outside of education on religious attitudes, we found that students exhibit a more tolerant, nonstrict attitude toward both their coreligionists and those who have negative attitudes toward their religion. Additionally, in parallel with the deepening of religious knowledge, a questioning and critical perspective was formed with a decrease in superstitions. We found that the attitude change in female students was generally higher than that of male students.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12634
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Tags: #Pedagogy #Religion #Islam
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On Rooting Religious Studies: The Metaphysical Proposal of René Guénon
By Noah H. Taj, Carleton University
The present article problematizes current dominating approaches to method and theory in the study of religion by pointing to their inapplicability to theorists working outside secular worldviews. The first section of this article introduces decolonialist narratives by touching on important topics which are subsumed within larger discussions, such as secularism, positionality, and others. This is done by putting René Guénon (1886–1951) in conversation with other theorists, the foremost of whom is Bruce Lincoln. Section two introduces Guénon using Wael Hallaq's categorisation of him as a subversive author, and sections three and four elaborate on his subversion through touching on two key theories. The first relates to problematizations of the term ‘religion’ itself along with a treatment of Guénon's actual theory of religion. The second is Guénon's metaphysical method, which, contrasted against the historical, opens new avenues for our study of the past in manners unrestricted to materialism alone, expanding thereby the academic frameworks with which we come to the table in the academic study of religion.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/phil.12330
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Tags: #Religion #Metaphysics #Islam
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Being Commanded by God: Katharsis for Righteousness
By Paul Moser, Loyola University
Many people in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic monotheistic traditions testify to their experience of being commanded by God to do something or to be a certain way. Is this kind of testimony from experience credible in some cases, and, if so, on what ground? The main thesis of this article is that it is credible in some cases and a suitable ground is available in the morally purifying experience of human conscience. The article looks to the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur’an for relevant testimony to the importance of righteous divine commanding experienced by humans. The relevant commands are not abstract or merely theoretical but grounded in human moral experience and potentially motivating for righteous action. The article doubts that God would be God if there were no divine commanding given directly to receptive people in their moral experience. It contends that God would not be a morally righteous guide of the divine kind needed for worthiness of worship by humans in the absence of God’s commanding people directly in their experience.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.22091/JPTR.2023.9247.2870
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Tags: #Monotheism #God #Islam #Judaism
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Iltifāt and Narrative Voice in the Qur’ān
Grammatical Shifts and Nested Dialogue in Sūrahs 19, 20 and 28
By Jessica Mutter, University of Chicago
This article analyzes the Qurʾān’s use of an Arabic rhetorical device called iltifāt, the shift of person within a text. It addresses the way iltifāt has been interpreted by medieval Muslim exegetes and the implications of its use for the structure and cosmology of the Qurʾān. By analyzing the use of iltifāt in the Qurʾān, the article demonstrates that the qurʾānic narrator exclusively refers to itself in the first-person plural, and that shifts to other persons (e.g., first-person singular) signify shifts into nested dialogues, asides, and/or narratives within narratives. Furthermore, the way this narrator refers to earthly and heavenly beings suggests that this first-person plural narrator holds a distinct place in the Qurʾān’s cosmology, one that is linked to but distinct from God and other inhabitants of the heavens.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.5913/jiqsa.7.2022.a004
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Tags: #Quran #Hermeneutics #QuranicStudies #Exegesis
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The Variant Readings in Islamic Law
By Christopher Melchert, University of Oxford
The accepted variant readings (qirāʾāt) of the Qurʾān have often been characterized as those that may be recited in the course of the ritual prayer. However, it appears on examination that premodern juridical handbooks laying out the rules governing the ritual prayer rarely discuss textual variants. When they do, it is almost always to rule out variants reportedly recited by Companions before the caliph ʿUthmān promulgated a single orthodox text. Also, contrary to what some scholars continue to allege, it is doubtful whether the acceptance of seven, ten, or any other number of accepted variant readings has been affected by judicial rulings or fatwas from jurisprudents backed by state power. What constrained specialists to restrict themselves to widely accepted variants was evidently fear not of the state but of disapproval from fellow specialists.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.5913/jiqsa.7.2022.a001
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Tags: #Quran #Hermeneutics #QuranicStudies #IslamicLaw
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RESPONSIVE BODIES: ROBOTS, AI, AND THE QUESTION OF HUMAN DISTINCTIVENESS
By Simon Balle and Ulrik Nissen, Aarhus University
In this article, we argue two points in relation to the challenge to human distinctiveness emerging as artificial intelligence systems and humanlike robots simulate various human capabilities. First, that, in the context of theological anthropology, it is advisable to respond to this challenge by turning toward the human body. Second, following this point, we propose the responsive body hypothesis, suggesting that what makes us distinct from androids are capacities that rise from and depend on our responsive bodies.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12888
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Tags: #Metaphysics #AI #Technology #TheologicalAnthropology
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COVID-19 and Religion
By Donald Heinz, California State University
The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a social drama in which churches, government, and individual actors have played prominent roles. While neo-conservative evangelicals have resisted governmental and scientific overreach in the name of “faith over fear”, liberal religious groups have joined in government and medical efforts for the good of the commons, offered comfort and assurance to those suffering, and called for support of the poor at home and abroad. Religions have turned right and left, from apocalyptic “resets” of global order to new calls for social justice. In this context, the root metaphor of the epidemic has been called up as a historical construct that helps to conceptualize, analyze, and act upon the COVID-19 crisis. Searching the past helps us see that not everything about COVID-19 as a social drama is a new or unheard-of challenge. For example, there are new evocations of the black death of 14th-century Europe that became a crisis in the church, as well as the great Lisbon earthquake in 1755, which upended the confidence of the European Enlightenment. Another way to appraise the dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak is to call on the varied approaches characteristic of the sociology of religion, that is, to consider how ideology and belief are socially constructed in order to account for new intellectual responses to societal challenges. Does religion always produce the “collective effervescence” Durkheim posited? Does religious change always arrive downstream of cultural change, or can it also become an independent variable? This article attends primarily to the sharp responses of conservative religious expression in the face of attention-getting upheaval, which has readily translated into right-wing political action and electioneering. But the social uplift and altruism of liberal religion is not neglected either. Thus, this article provides an account of how science and governmental action have both been challenged and embraced in response to COVID-19. As such, it is not an empirical study stemming from new Pew-like social polling. Rather, it is a wide overview rooted in sociological methods and theory for tracking religion historically and presently in America in a manner that aims to inform a discussion of how COVID-19 has impacted religion and religious expression, and vice versa.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040478
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Tags: #Religion #SocialJustice #COVID #Sociology #Humanities
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On Changing the Subject: ‘Secularity’, ‘Religion’, and the Idea of the Human
By Carmody Grey, University of Durham; Oliver Dürr, University of Fribourg
The ‘religion/secular’ frame should be retired as a way of characterizing contemporary northern European cultures. The concepts of ‘secularity’ and ‘religion’ are both falsifying and question begging. They invisibly and unhelpfully predetermine the conversation about who and where we are now. Further, they are terms which increasingly lack salience in these cultures. If we seek to locate and articulate, in order to reflectively engage, the horizons within which contemporary northern Europeans generally live, the goods that orient people’s lives, the ideas and values that move and motivate them, we need to talk not about ‘religion’ and the lack of it, but about the idea of the human. Within the concept of the human is nested today the sense of orientation, meaning, goodness and importance that notions of ‘religion’ used to express. This is the conceptual territory on which arguments about ‘what really matters’ are now conducted. If one wishes to have salience in contemporary culture, one needs to speak to this.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040466
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Tags: #Religion #Secularism #Humanism #Culture
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New Religious Movements and Science
By Stefano Bigliardi, Al Akhawayn University
This Element shows how New Religious Movements variously conceptualize science and provides readers with an overview of the scholarly conversation surrounding this phenomenon. The first section describes five movements that, in different ways, include relevant references to science in their doctrines: Dianetics/Scientology, the Raëlian Movement, Falun Gong, Stella Azzurra (an Italian Santo Daime group), and Bambini di Satana (an Italian Satanist group). The conceptualization of science within such movements is examined in reference to official beliefs conveyed by the writings and claims of their respective leaders, but ethnographic work among affiliates is included as well. The second section reconstructs academic contributions by scholars who identify notable trends in the conceptualization of science within new religious movements, or have developed typologies to describe that very understanding. The third section concludes the discussion of new religious movements and science by offering suggestions regarding novel directions that the study of their relationship may take.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009104203
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Tags: #Religion #Science #Pseudoscience
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The World as a Gift: Scientific Change and Intelligibility for a Theology of Science
By Flavia Marcacci, Pontifical Lateran University; Michał Oleksowicz, Nicolaus Copernicus University
“Truth” and “cause” are essential issues in theology. Truths of faith are meant to remain solid and fundamental and can be traced back to the unique truth of God. The same God is conceived of as the Creator who brought everything into existence before every other cause. Recent discussions about scientific rationality and causality have engaged with the same ideas of “truth” and “cause”, even though they have done so according to different methodologies and from different points of view. Can those discussions stimulate theology, and if so, in what manner? In this paper, we begin by considering the subject of scientific change and rationality, arguing that scientific change leads to the recognition of the connection between any scientific theory and what remains intelligible in nature. Next, we show some of the outcomes from new mechanistic philosophy, focusing on the idea of cause, which unveils a strong correspondence between epistemology and ontology and provides a unique way of speaking about causality. Finally, we conclude that science can support theology through new approaches to nature and that a theology of science is required today as an intertwined perspective between science and theology. The main virtue that guides this approach is humility.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14050572
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Tags: #Science #Theology #Epistemology #God
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The Qurʾān and the Future of Islamic Analytic Theology
By Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour, University of York
Islamic analytic theology emerges into an uncharted territory that is dominated by two loosely defined areas: analytic philosophy and analytic theology. As a nascent field, this article argues that for Islamic analytic theology to move forward, it needs to place the Qurʾān at its centre. To have a clear understanding of our terms, I begin by attempting a definition of Islamic analytic theology. Taking a normative approach to the subject, I consolidate the discussion with five methodical questions. Firstly, what has been going on in Islamic theology? (The descriptive task). Secondly, why has this been going on? (The interpretative task). Thirdly, what ought to be going on? (The normative task). Fourthly, how might we, as Muslim theologians, respond? (The pragmatic task). Fifthly, why should Muslim theologians conduct analytic theology? (The functional task) To situate Islamic analytic theology within this wider discussion, I end the article by offering some insights on how Islamic analytic theology relates to old Kalām. By the end of the article, we will have laid the groundwork showing the way forward for a more developed Islamic analytic theology.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040556
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Tags: #AnalyticalTheology #Islam #Quran
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FROM ANGELS TO ALIENS: HUMANKIND'S ONGOING ENCOUNTERS WITH, AND EVOLVING INTERPRETATIONS OF, THE GENUINE CELESTIAL UNKNOWN
By Tim Lomas, Harvard University
Throughout history, people have observed aerial events that appeared extraordinary and anomalous. In earlier eras, these were often interpreted through a lens that invoked special classes of divine beings, such as angels (who, compared with gods, are regarded as more likely to interact with humans). Today, in our ostensibly secular scientific age, there is a tendency to assume such observers were mistaken, and that with the benefit of modern knowledge, theseevents can be “debunked” and attributed to conventional naturalistic explanations. However, recent years have seen a burgeoning interest and even concern over the issue of unidentified aerial phenomena. Through the lens of our “space age,” these are sometimes interpreted using notions such as extraterrestrial agents. Ultimately though, this article suggests that both categories of explanation, from angels to aliens, may be the perennial human quest to render comprehensible, through the prism of prevailing beliefs and traditions, an ongoing encounter with celestial phenomena that remain genuinely unknown but deeply significant.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12891
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Tags: #Exotheology #God #Psychology
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Adamson, Avicenna and God’s knowledge of particulars
By Amirhossein Zadyousefi, Tarbiat Modares University
Allegedly, according to Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars, God knows particulars in a universal way or universally. But, it is controversial how we should interpret knowing in a universal way. It seems knowing in a universal way is a black-box in Avicenna’s theological context. However, Peter Adamson in his valuable ‘On Knowledge of Particulars’ has suggested a novel approach to decode this black-box in Avicenna’s theological context. According to Adamson, the key for this black-box is embedded in Avicenna’s epistemological context, i.e., Kitāb al-Burhān. It seems Adamson’s interpretation of Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars consists of two main steps. Firstly, on the basis of Kitāb al-Burhān, he tries to show that knowing in a universal way amounts to knowing syllogistically. For example, when, based on the syllogism “(I) all humans are animals, (II) Zayd is a human, and therefore (III) Zayd is an animal” one knows that ‘Zayd is an animal,’ one knows it universally. Secondly, on the basis of the first step, Adamson tries to show how we should interpret Avicenna’s theory. The upshot of Adamson’s interpretation is that God knows only essential features of particulars and not their accidental features. In this paper, I will argue that both steps in Adamson’s account of Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars face serious problems.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-023-09869-y
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Tags: #Avicenna #God #Syllogism
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Opening Pandora’s Box: AI and Its Ethical Dilemmas
By Muhammad U. Faruque, University of Cincinnati
Imagine what it would feel like to have AI as your best friend within the next few years. This is what Jim Keller, a former Apple employee and a Silicon Valley guru, predicts.[1] And perhaps one should take such prognostication seriously, especially in light of the emergence of ChatGPT and the hysteria (do a quick google search, and you will find numerous news articles, blogs, discussion threads, etc.) around it. ChatGPT is a machine-learning system that autonomously...
Read more: https://themaydan.com/2023/04/opening-pandoras-box-ai-and-its-ethical-dilemmas/
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Tags: #AI #Technology #Religion #Ethics
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The Internet, the Problem of Socialising Young People, and the Role of Religious Education
By David Kraner, University of Ljubljana
Alongside the declining religiosity of young Slovenians, there is a growing loneliness among young people. When young people are not motivated or do not have the opportunity to engage in social activities in their free time, they look elsewhere for substitutes. In our study, we highlight the problems young people face with their loneliness, their excessive use of the internet, their low involvement in social activities, and their high tolerance for smartphone distraction. Religious education in Catholic grammar schools in Slovenia plays an important role not only in providing religious content, but also in empowering adolescents to take a critical view of the world, and to actively engage young people in society.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040523
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Tags: #Sociology #Religion #Religiosity #Pedagogy
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Higher Objectives (maqāṣid) of Covenants in Islam: A Content Analysis of ‘ahd and mīthāq in the Qurʾān
By Halim Rane, Griffith University
The concept of covenant occupies a central place in the Qurʾān but has been understudied and underrepresented in discourses about Islam. This article contributes to redressing this lacuna by applying the method of content analysis to the Qurʾān, specifically the terms ‘ahd and mīthāq that refer to the concept of covenant. The aim of this article is to identify the maqāṣid (higher objectives) of covenants in Islam and discuss their implications for education about Islam and contemporary Islamic thought. This content analysis finds that covenants in the Qurʾān provide an overarching paradigm governing human existence and coexistence across six covenantal relationship categories. Covenants establish the terms and conditions of God-human and intra-human relations for human existence on Earth in relation to the afterlife, the dissemination of the divine message, the promotion of righteousness, welfare and wellbeing, and restricting the use of armed force to self-defense in response to treaty violation for preserving peace and security. This article recommends that the study of Qurʾānic covenantal knowledge ought to be integrated into courses and discourses about Islam commensurate, with its centrality in the Qurʾān and Prophet Muḥammad’s approach to building peaceful interreligious relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040514
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Tags: #Shariah #Quran #Islam #InterreligiousDialogue
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Spiritual Experience: its Scope, its Phenomenology, and its Source
By John Cottingham, University of Reading
This paper looks first at the scope of religious experience, offering some representative examples of phenomena that typically give rise to spiritual experiences. This leads on a consideration of the phenomenology of such experiences – the particular way in which they present themselves to the conscious subject. Lastly, the paper tackles the vexed question of the source of such experiences, and suggests that this is best understood in terms of a (certain kind of) theistic framework.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/nbfr.12822
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Tags: #Spirituality #Theism #Phenomenology
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Islamophobia and Twitter: The Political Discourse of the Extreme Right in Spain and Its Impact on the Public
By Antonia Olmos-Alcaraz, University of Granada
This paper analyzes the discourse concerning Islam and Muslims by assessing the extreme right-wing party, Vox, on Twitter. In addition, this paper examines the incidence (impact and reactions) of this party on the users of this social network. The objectives of this study are as follows: to identify themes and topics concerning this discourse; to analyze how the discourse is articulated and represented; and to understand the impact of this discourse by measuring the engagement of the most viral publications. To do so, we observed the publications posted by the party via its official account throughout 2022. The research methodology was based on qualitative and quantitative content analysis, and the publications themselves were monitored to ascertain the level of engagement. The results of this study clearly show that Vox created Islamophobic narratives; thus, Islam and Muslims are explicit targets of Vox’s hate speech. Their rhetoric referred to security threats and threats to national identity, with the recurrent use of the idea that there is a “danger of Islamization” in Spain. The party uses disinformation and hoaxes, and users respond in a polarized way. The results of this study alert us to the worrying levels of radicalization and the normalization of Islamophobic racist discourse in the examined context.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040506
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Tags: #Islam #Islamophobia #Politics #InterreligiousDialogue
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The Inner-qurʾānic Development of the Image of Women in Paradise
From the Virgins of Paradise to Believing Women
By Ana Davitashvili, University of Tübingen
This article explores the inner-qurʾānic development of the images of women in the qurʾānic Paradise and explains the possible reasons for this development via a consideration of qurʾānic images of women more broadly. Women appear in the qurʾānic Paradise as “houris” (ḥūr ʿīn), “spouses” (azwāj), “spouses who acted righteously” (wa-man ṣalaḥa min … azwājihim), “pure spouses” (azwāj muṭahharah), and “believing women” (muʾmināt). Such references to women in Paradise correspond to the inner-qurʾānic development of the female image. The “houris” are mentioned only in the Meccan period, while references to “pure spouses” and “believing women” occur exclusively in the Medinan period. Furthermore, after the believing men are rewarded with the houris in earlier Meccan verses, later Meccan verses discuss earthly spouses. In these later Meccan verses, as earthly women gradually rise in station as the spouses of believing men in Paradise, the houris seemingly disappear. In parallel with this development in the qurʾānic account of women in Paradise, the early Meccan sūrahs do not explicitly describe women as “believing women,” thus putting forward no explicit rules of good conduct for earthly spouses. Finally, it is not until the Medinan verses that women are treated as moral agents.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.5913/jiqsa.7.2022.a002
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Tags: #Quran #Hermeneutics #QuranicStudies #Women
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Sunni Ḥadīth and Continuous Commentaries on the Eschatological Mahdī: A Literary Analysis
By Muhammad Fawwaz Bin Muhammad Yusoff and Mohd Yusuf Ismail, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia
Many contemporary studies approach Mahdism from a political-science orientation or historical perspective, as the evidence is marshalled from the influential Mahdist movement in Islamic history—Abbasids, Fatimids, Muwahhids, Sudanese Mahdists, and so on. As such, it can be seen that there has been a lack of discourse as regards abstraction, particularly concerning the literary structure of Mahdī ḥadīth. This paper explores a panoramic view of ḥadīth commentaries in order to understand their commentarial production on apocalyptic questions, specifically focusing on the subject of Mahdī within this trend of Sunni ḥadīth scholarship. Ḥadīth commentaries are meant to bridge the gap in space and time between Prophetic words or teachings and the actual world of the reader. Hence, this study provides a brief survey of the documentation of Mahdī ḥadīth, starting with the classical Sunnite ḥadīth compendia of the second century of Hijrah. The material has been drawn from ḥadīth compendia, topical ḥadīth works, sīrah literature, classical-to-modern ḥadīth commentaries, and other theological writings and has been balanced when feasible with details (or lack thereof) contained in the Quran. Advocators have always adopted and adjusted their hermeneutics in order to answer challenges posed by deniers of Mahdī ḥadīth. Regardless of how exactly these strategies, attitudes, and uses arose, it is safe to assume that these scholars undertook their work out of professional vocation in addition to religious devotion. Eventually, ḥadīth commentaries found their place in the theological discourse according to orientations and operations of eschatology, which to a certain extent reflect classical, medieval, or contemporary attitudes toward the meaning and relevance of Mahdī ḥadīth.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040499
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Tags:#Islam #History #Eschatology #Sirah #Hadith
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DIGITAL THEOLOGY AND A POTENTIAL THEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO A METAPHYSICS OF INFORMATION
By Peter M. Phillips, Durham University
In this article, I offer a background to digital theology and its methodology, exploring especially aspects of transhumanism and metaphysical enquiry. The article moves on to engage with several articles given at the Science and Religion Forum at Birmingham in 2022, especially the Gowland Lecture given by Professor Niels Gregersen and the Peacocke Lecture by Andrew Jackson. Both offer a metaphysical approach to information linked closely to the concept of Logos drawn from the Prologue of John—Jackson focusing on Maximus the Confessor's exploration of phylogenetic logoi; Gregersen on a further development of “Deep Incarnation” through the title “God with Clay” drawn from Bonaventure. The article extends this engagement with John by querying the model of incarnation in “deep incarnation” but building on the Logos/logoi to set out some initial building blocks for an alternative metaphysics of information.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12883
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Tags: #Metaphysics #AI #Technology #Transhumanism #God
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Formalism versus Purposivism in Islamic Jurisprudence: The Case of Islamic Finance Law
By Pejman Abedifar, University of St Andrews
This manuscript critically discusses the current implications of the scriptural injunctions against gharar and maysir. It elaborates how overlooking the features of the contemporary world and adopting a formalistic approach in Islamic jurisprudence have led to absurdity in the implication of the doctrines of gharar and maysir for Muslims’ financial activities. The manuscript also underscores the necessity of adopting the maqāsid approach (purposivism) in Islamic jurisprudence. It propounds that the cogent concern of the injunctions could have been an initiative for Islamic scholars to establish an advanced contract law and to promote transparency in economic activities if a maqāsid approach had been adopted in Islamic jurisprudence.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040465
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Tags: #Islam #Shariah #IslamicLaw
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A Secret Marriage and Denied Rights: A Critique from an Islamic Law Perspective
By Tuba Erkoc Baydar, Ibn Haldun Universty
Today, secret marriages are a known problem among Muslims, but discussions and debates are avoided. People who are unwilling to take on the responsibilities of marriage yet do not want to commit adultery, one of the major sins in Islam, practice secret marriages. However, this leads to the deprivation of rights for parties and children born in these unions. Some claim that the legal justification for secret marriages is provided by the view that the presence of witnesses and the parties to be married is sufficient for a marriage contract. Therefore, this article aims to critically examine the views of the four Sunnī legal schools on testimony (shahada) or proclamation (i’lan) in relation to marriage, and how these conditions align with the requirement for protecting the rights of all parties involved in the marriage. Upon examination, this article also will delve into unregistered marriages and illustrate how both types of marriages do not adequately establish the rights of those involved. In order to accomplish this objective, the article will use a descriptive methodology that directly refers to primary texts and certain fatwa institutions, such as the Diyanet (the Presidency of Religious Affairs in Turkey), to present the jurists’ discourses.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040463
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Tags: #Islam #Shariah #Law #IslamicEthics
