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Mary’s Prophethood Reassessed: Overlooked Medieval Islamic Perspectives in Contemporary Scholarship
By Halim Calis, Respect Graduate School
This paper offers a reevaluation of contemporary Western scholarship concerning the historical discourse on Mary’s prophethood within Islamic tradition. Recent research has primarily focused on Andalusian scholars, such as Ibn Ḥazm and al-Qurṭubī, and has neglected an essential aspect: the acknowledgement of Mary’s prophethood by Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ash‘arī, one of the founders of Orthodox Sunni theology. As a result, modern studies have reached conclusions lacking a solid foundation, due to their failure to consider this significant perspective. By incorporating this overlooked perspective, this study seeks to provide a more thorough and coherent understanding of the historical debates surrounding Mary’s prophethood.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040461
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Tags: #Islam #Seerah #History #Theology
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‘Where did you learn to write Arabic?’: A Critical Analysis of Some Ḥadīths on the Origins and Spread of the Arabic Script
By Joshua J Little, University of Groningen
According to some ḥadīths, the art of writing Arabic in the pre-Islamic Hijaz was learned from the city of al-Ḥīra (the capital of the Lakhmid kingdom) in southern Iraq, whilst al-Ḥīra in turn learned writing from the city of al-Anbār in central Iraq. Based on a combined isnād-cum-matn analysis, form-critical analysis, and geographical analysis of these ḥadīths, the earliest iteration of this material can be dated back to the middle of the eighth century CE (i.e., the early second century AH) in Kufa, but no earlier. A further historical-critical analysis also exposes the broader cultural and ideological tendencies at play behind the creation and elaboration of this material, including salvation history, a ‘great man’ theory of history, and—above all—the creation and elaboration of an Iraq-focused Arabian folk history in eighth-century CE Iraq. This small set of reports thus exemplifies the rich potential of ḥadīth in general as both a tool and an object of historical analysis: by applying my combined approach to ḥadīth, we can trace the creation, transmission, and elaboration of the material; we can locate its geographical origins; and we can identify the broader context that ultimately produced it.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etae008
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Tags: #Islam #Hadith #Arabic #History
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Thomas Aquinas and Some Neo-Thomists on the Possibility of Miracles and the Laws of Nature
By Ignacio Silva, Universidad Austral
This paper discusses how Thomas Aquinas and some Neo-Thomists scholars (Juan José Urráburu, Joseph Hontheim, Édouard Hugon, and Joseph Gredt) analysed the metaphysical possibility of miracles. My main goal is to unpack the metaphysical toolbox that Aquinas uses to solve the basic question about the possibility of miracles and to compare how his late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century followers solved the issue themselves. The key feature to differentiate the two approaches will reside in their use of different notions to account for the possibility of miracles, namely obediential potency for Aquinas and the laws of nature for the Neo-Thomists. To show why neo-Thomist scholars source to this notion, I also briefly discuss how the notion of the laws of nature emerged in the seventeenth century.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040422
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Tags: #Religion #Aquinas #Miracles #God
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Monotheism and Pluralism
By Rachel S. Mikva, Chicago Theological Seminary
Can monotheistic traditions affirm the comparable value of diverse religions? Can they celebrate our world's multiple spiritual paths? This Element explores historical foundations and contemporary paradigms for pluralism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Recognizing that there are other ways to interpret the traditions, it excavates the space for theological parity.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009273374
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Tags: #Islam #Christianity #Judaism #Pluralism
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Islam and the Challenge of Epistemic Sovereignty
By Joseph E. B. Lumbard, Hamad bin Khalifa University
The search for knowledge has been central to the Islamic tradition from its inception in the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (aḥādīth). The injunctions to obtain knowledge and contemplate the signs of God in all things undergird a culture of ultimate questions in which there was an underlying epistemic unity among all fields of knowledge, from the religious sciences to the intellectual sciences to the natural sciences. Having lost sight of the underlying metaphysic that provides this epistemic unity, many thinkers in the modern period read the classical Islamic texts independently of the cognitive cartography and hierarchy of which they are a part. This approach leads to further misunderstandings and thus to a sense of hermeneutical gloom and epistemic subordination characteristic of coloniality. Postcolonial theory provides effective tools for diagnosing the process by which this epistemic erosion produces ideologically and epistemically conscripted subjects. But as it, too, arises from within a secular frame, it is only by understanding the cognitive cartography of the sciences within Islam that epistemic confidence and sovereignty can be reinstated.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040406
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Tags: #Islam #Epistemology #Secularism
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Incompatible and incomparable perfections: a new argument against perfect being theism
By Jashiel Resto Quiñones, Purdue University
Perfect being theism is the view that the perfect being exists and the property being-perfect is the property being-God. According to the strong analysis of perfection, a being is perfect just in case it exemplifies all perfections. On the other hand, the weak analysis of perfection says that a being is perfect just in case it exemplifies the best possible combination of compatible perfections. Strong perfect being theism accepts the former analysis while weak perfect being theism accepts the latter. In this paper, I argue that there are good reasons to reject both versions of perfect being theism. On the one hand, strong perfect being theism is false if there are incompatible perfections; I argue that there are. On the other hand, if either no comparison can be made between sets of perfections, or they are equally good, then there is no best possible set of perfections. I argue for the antecedent of this conditional statement, concluding that weak perfect being theism is false. In the absence of other analyses of perfection, I conclude that we have reason to reject perfect being theism.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-024-09910-8
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Tags: #God #Theism #Metaphysics
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Non-belief as self-deception?
By Lari Launonen, University of Helsinki
The suppression thesis is the theological claim that theistic non-belief results from culpable mistreatment of one's knowledge of God or one's evidence for God. The thesis is a traditional one but unpopular today. This article examines whether it can gain new credibility from the philosophy of self-deception and from the cognitive science of religion. The thesis is analysed in terms of the intentionalist and the non-intentionalist model of self-deception. The first proposed model views non-belief as intentional suppression of one's implicit knowledge of God. It is less feasible psychologically but has a good theological fit with Paul's and Calvin's versions of the thesis. This model also helps the argument for the culpability of non-belief. The second model views suppression as a process of subconscious motivated reasoning driven by a desire to avoid an uncomfortable truth. It fits Pascal's view that one's desire for or against God determines whether one sees general revelation as providing sufficient evidence for God. There is some empirical and anecdotal evidence for both models, but obvious cases of non-resistant non-belief present a major problem for the suppression thesis. Also, it is hard to see what might motivate anyone to deceive oneself about God's existence.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412524000052
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Tags: #God #Atheism #Theism #Metaphysics
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On the Superiority of Divine Legislation Theory to Divine Command Theory
By Mark C. Murphy, Georgetown University
The view that human law can be analyzed in terms of commands was subjected to devastating criticism by H.L.A. Hart in his 1961 The Concept of Law. Two objections that Hart levels against the command theory of law also make serious trouble for divine command theory. Divine command theorists would do well to jettison command as the central concept of their moral theory, and,
following Hart’s lead, instead appeal to the concept of a rule. Such a successor view—divine legislation theory—has the attractions of divine command theory without the unacceptable limitations of command theories that Hart
identifies.
Link: https://doi.org/10.37977/faithphil.2022.39.3.1
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Tags: #Religion #DCT #Law #Metaphysics
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The Vagueness of Religion
By Andrew C Dole, Amherst College
A concept is vague if it admits of borderline cases—cases in which it is not clear whether the concept applies. Thus vague concepts are concepts without sharp boundaries. I argue that religion is vague, and I draw conclusions from this claim for both framing up conceptions of religion and studying it. One result will be to undermine arguments to the effect that any account of religion that does not sharply demarcate the religious from the nonreligious is somehow defective. Another will be that admitting the existence of borderline cases relieves us of the obligation to seek high levels of precision in our various usages of the term. And a third will be that is it not at all clear that any periods of human history can be characterized as times “before religion” on any but the narrowest of definitions.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfae017
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Tags: #Religion #Theology #Epistemology
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From Aslamat al-Maᶜrifa to al-Takāmul al-Maᶜrifī: A Study of the Shift from Islamization to Integration of Knowledge
By Mourad Laabdi and Aziz Elbittioui, Qatar University
Over the past half-century, the study of Islam in the Muslim world has been preoccupied with three global projects: maqāṣid al-sharīᶜa (the higher objectives of revealed law), al-wasaṭiyya al-islāmiyya (Islamic moderation), and aslamat al-maᶜrifa (Islamization of knowledge). Of these three, the latter has been the most substantial enterprise due to its ambitious work plan, extensive scope, and far-reaching influence. However, in recent decades, the Islamization of knowledge project has undergone significant developments culminating in its reformulation as ‘knowledge integration’ (al-takāmul al-maᶜrifī). This paper traces and analyzes the key manifestations of this notable transformation. Firstly, it surveys the various contexts of eschewing the concept of ‘Islamization’ and adopting ‘integration’. Secondly, it examines the conceptualization of the construct of ‘al-takāmul al-maᶜrifī’ within pre-modern and contemporary Islamic contexts. Thirdly, it investigates the practical implementation of knowledge integration with a special focus on the domain of higher education. The question that brings all three sections together is whether the knowledge integration model embodies a true paradigm shift or is a mere name change while bearing on the old rationale and approach of Islamization. The present paper argues that, under the banner of al-takāmul al-maᶜrifī, a shift from an internally focused intellectual effort to one that envisions new opportunities for epistemological renewal is recognizable at the individual level. However, institutionally, the application of this paradigm is still pending full and effective realization.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030330
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Tags: #Islam #Religion #Epistemology #Pedagogy
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Evaluating Strong Emergentism: An Argument for Non-Physical Substential Strong Emergentism
By Mohammad Mehdipour and Abdolrasoul Kashfi, University of Tehran
Physicalists and dualists have been unable to give a convincing answer to the mind-body problem, because they sacrifice, respectively, the mental causation and the close relationship between mind and body. Consequently, some recent philosophers, like Timothy O'Connor and Jonathan Jacobs, have turned to the idea of strong emergentism considereing the mind as an emergent but physical substance that has independent causal powers. If this answer is defensible, it will be a promising approach to solve the mind-body problem. However, there are significant challenges facing the idea of strong emergentism. In this article, we have two objectives: firstly, to address these challenges and to show that even the most serious one, the Collapse Problem, cannot threaten a particular understanding of strong emergentism. Secondly, we argue that O'Connor and Jacobs's proposal, although thought-provoking, is not comprehensible and can only be understood clearly when we consider the emergent substance to be not merely physical.
Link: https://doi.org/10.22091/JPTR.2024.10175.2983
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Tags: #Physicalism #Dualism #Metaphysics
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The Qur’anic Story of Joseph in Five Acts: A Playscript Translation of Sūrat Yūsuf (Q. 12)
By Shawkat M. Toorawa, Yale University
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2023.0559
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Tags: #Quran #Islam #Exegesis
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The Meaning and Usage of laʿalla in the Qur’an
By Devin J. Stewart, Emory University
This study examines the use of laʿalla in the Qur’an, arguing that its most common meaning is ‘so that’ rather than ‘perhaps’, the common dictionary meaning. A few Western scholars have realised this, mainly on the basis of their independent inspection of the Qur’anic text, despite the fact that this meaning did not appear in any of the available dictionaries, grammars, and reference works in European languages until recent years. This interpretation of laʿalla is supported not only by the general sense indicated by contextual reading, but also by syntactic analysis of passages in which laʿalla appears. The present study corroborates and refines earlier analyses and shows that the interpretation of laʿalla as ‘so that’ is supported by several Arabic grammatical and lexical works. Furthermore, it finds that in the Qur’anic context, laʿalla is strongly connected with rhyme; it generally serves to introduce verse-final clausulae that rhyme, most often, but not always, in -ūn.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2023.0557
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #Exegesis
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Propagating Gender Norms in an Islamic Republic: Three Pakistani Alims and their Online tafsīrs
By Attash Sawja, Boston University
This article analyses the commentaries of three contemporary Pakistani scholars – Dr Israr Ahmad, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, and Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza – on three Qur’anic themes as addressed in three specific verses: the creation story (Q. 4:1), women and legal testimony (Q. 2:282), and marital relationships (Q. 4:34). It emerges that the approaches taken by all three scholars differs considerably to those of earlier, premodern interpreters. For example, none of the three quote earlier authoritative opinions or engage in grammatical discussion, while only one uses ḥadīths to make his point. All three selectively bring in modern ideas to reinforce existing exegetical opinions and interpretations, and only rarely challenge these. While the three scholars deviate from the wider, inherited exegetical tradition in maintaining that women are not spiritually inferior or secondary to men, they do not challenge any other inherited concepts. In their discourse, they propagate the idea that men (i.e. husbands and fathers) are in charge of the family unit, the fundamental building block of society, because of their innate psychological and physiological features, and hence have greater responsibilities towards their households and society, while women, although spiritually equal, have different roles. None of the three scholars seem to consider the impact of changing socio-economic realities in Pakistan in their exegeses on the three themes addressed here, giving the impression that the normative values and customs of an Islamic society are independent of these changes. Finally, Ghamidi takes a more flexible approach in his question-and-answer sessions as compared to his tafsīr musalsal, giving the impression that the genre is more about conserving the meaning of the scripture.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2023.0556
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #Exegesis
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Authority with Textual Materials – Power of the Written Qur’an
By Hanna Nieber, University of szeged
The article studies the performance of Islamic authority through texts. It combines this with a close investigation of the textuality of these texts—that is, their letterforms as well as shapes of words and sentences—and their material affordances. Given that Muslims understand the Qur’an to be powerful, this article argues that it is the concrete possibilities that textuality provides which feed into Islamic authority. This article takes an ethnographic encounter in Zanzibar Town in which I was repeatedly prompted to visually follow the textual aids of my interlocutor, Hakimu Saleh, in order to gain access to that which is “hidden between the words” as starting point. I investigate how Hakimu Saleh used these occasions to perform his authority as a knowledgeable Islamic healer through “material citations.” I then explore the singularity of the Qur’an to examine the textuality of kombe, a practice in which the Qur’an is used as a decidedly textual artifact to be washed off for patients to ingest. In doing so, I show how practices tapping into the power of the materially textual Qur’an feed into other practices with material text, including those that support the performance of authority in an Islamic context.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2024.2303905
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran
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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: #Islam #Sufism #History
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From Daʿwah to Shahādah: A Move beyond Vatican II and the Common Word
By Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour, University of Bristol
The Second Vatican Council and the Common Word document constitute turning points in the history of Christian–Muslim Relations. Nostra Aetate and Lumen Gentium appealed to a shared Abrahamic heritage between Christianity and Islam, and the Common Word appealed to a God-based theology, as opposed to the long-standing Prophet-based theology. Authorities in both traditions did so in the search for a shared theological foundation. While the article recognizes the vitality of the two steps, it equally recognizes that there is still much that can be done to advance Christian–Muslim relations. In this context, this article aims to achieve three primary goals: first, to demonstrate the successes of the two initiatives; second, to critically engage with them by examining their limitations; and third, to suggest “practical theology” as a medium through which the aspirations of Vatican II and the Common Word can reach a greater audience. In doing so, it proposes the concept of shahādah “bearing witness”, as opposed to the Islamic concept of daʿwah “making invitation” and the Christian concepts of preaching and messianism.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040469
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Christianity
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Does God Intervene in Our Lives? Special Divine Action in Aquinas
By Mirela Oliva, University of St. Thomas
Does God intervene in our lives? In this paper, I respond “yes” and work out a Thomistic account of special divine action in human life. I argue that God intensifies His action in moments that are particularly significant for our salvation. In such moments, God intervenes in a contingent mode and reorients our lives for the sake of our final good. First, I present Aquinas’ terminological choice of specialis and intervenire and address concerns expressed in the contemporary divine action debate against the term “intervention”. Second, I discuss the special divine action as a subtype of the special providence that rules over human beings. The special providence mirrors the special place of humans in the created order on account of their reason and freedom. Third, I show that divine interventions occur through irregular contingency. I refer to several interventions: test, habitual grace, God’s moving of the will, God’s enlightenment of the intellect, and punishment. Since it occurs contingently, the special divine action can be known through interpreting signs (a kind of conjectural knowledge). Fourth, I show that not all contingencies are divine interventions. To differentiate between them, I introduce an orientational criterion of interpretation: the transfiguration of a person’s life toward her final good.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040417
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Tags: #Religion #Aquinas #DivineAction #God
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Continuity and Change of Traditional Islamic Law in Modern Times: tarjīḥ as a Method of Adaptation and Development of Legal Doctrines
By Ahmed Gad Makhlouf, University of Vienna
In addition to ijtihād (independent legal reasoning), tarjīḥ (weighing up and preference) serves as a fundamental instrument of traditional Islamic law's operational work and was used on different levels. In modern times, tarjīḥ is still applied not only by individual scholars but also by collective fiqh institutions. However, the conception of tarjīḥ is undergoing a transformation in its current application. In the scope of this article, the first purpose is to provide a comprehensive overview of the conception and the diverse practical forms of the tarjīḥ in traditional Islamic law. The focus then lies on setting out how to apply tarjīḥ in modern Islamic jurisprudence. This article also aims to illustrate the conceptual and operational changes of tarjīḥ, paying special attention to the relation between tarjīḥ and ijtihād. Overall, this article intends, on the one hand, to contribute to the study of present Islamic law's developments; on the other hand, it examines the continuity and change of tarjīḥ from traditional Islamic law to contemporary fiqh institutions. It is argued that tarjīḥ in the modern age is not only used as a method of weighing and choosing a legal view that among the diverse views of pre-modern law most closely adapts to the current social circumstances, but that it is also integrated in the process of development of new legal doctrines.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/ojlr/rwad010
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Tags: #Islam #IslamicLaw #Shariah
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Divine authority as divine parenthood
By Nicholas Hadsell, Baylor University
In this article, I argue that God is authoritative over us because he is our divine, causal parent. As our causal parent, God has duties to relate to us, but he can only fulfil those duties if he has the practical authority to give us commands aimed at our sanctification. From ought-implies-can reasoning, I conclude that God has that authority. After I make this argument, I show how the view has significant advantages over extant arguments for divine authority and can help solve other significant problems in philosophy of religion.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412524000027
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Tags: #God #Morality #Ethics #Religion
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A Defense of Global Theological Voluntarism
By Justin Morton, University of California
In this paper, I challenge the recent consensus that global versions of theological voluntarism—on which all moral facts are explained by God’s action— fail, because only local versions—on which only a proper subset of moral facts are so explained—can successfully avoid the objection that theological voluntarism entails that God’s actions are arbitrary. I argue that global theological voluntarism can equally well avoid such arbitrariness. This does not mean that global theological voluntarism should be accepted, but that the primary advantage philosophers have taken local views to have over global views is, in fact, no advantage at all.
Link: https://doi.org/10.37977/faithphil.2022.39.3.5
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Tags: #God #Theism #Metaphysics #Voluntarism
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Mobilising a Decolonial–Islamic Praxis: Covenants in Islam and Muslim–Indigenous Relations
By Halim Rane, Debbie Bargallie and Troy Meston, Griffith University
Islam was an important factor in the decolonisation of Muslim countries from European colonial rule during the 19th and 20th centuries. However, Muslims are among the migrant-settler populations of Australia, Canada, the United States, and other British colonial states that continue to dispossess and disenfranchise Indigenous populations. This article contributes to the debate on “decolonising Islam”. It contends that covenants with God and between people in Islam’s pre-eminent sources, the Qur’an and sunnah, are antithetical to colonialism and reinforce a praxis-orientated decolonial–Islamic agenda. This article focuses on three aspects of decolonisation, addressing: (1) supremacist ideology; (2) human existence and coexistence; and (3) claims of entitlement. Using Australia as the primary case study, it examines Islamic obligations towards Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial states, emphasising the potential of covenants to promote mutual recognition and dialogue towards redressing injustices and building respectful coexistence.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030365
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #Politics
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Why Evolution Does Not Make the Problem of Evil Worse
By Rope Kojonen, University of Helsinki
Does evolutionary history with all its apparent contingency, wastefulness, animal suffering and innumerable extinctions make the problem of natural evil worse? In this article, I argue that it does not. I respond to two main ways in which the evolutionary problem of evil might make things worse: (1) by increasing the scale of suffering to include billions of additional creatures over hundreds of millions of years, and (2) due to the apparent cruelty of evolution by natural selection as a method of creation. I argue that both problems fail to make a difference when considered in depth. Instead, the problem of natural evil is based mostly on factors that do not depend on evolutionary biology, such as the existence of animal mortality and suffering, as well as chance and
contingency in the world.
Link: https://doi.org/10.37977/faithphil.2022.39.3.3
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Tags: #Religion #Evolution #PoE #Evil
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The Theological Significance of the History of Science: John Templeton and the Promotion of Science and Religion
By Peter N Jordan, University of Oxford
This article examines the rationale behind philanthropist John Templeton’s investment in the field of science and religion. His support stems in part from the conviction that historical developments in science are finally leading us to the right understanding of God’s relationship to the created order. The older, mechanical picture of nature that science purportedly gave us implies that God is distant from nature, whereas more recent discoveries are revealing nature’s complexity, elusiveness, intangibility, unpredictability, and creativity and imply God’s intimate presence to, and involvement in, nature. This newer theological picture is consistent with a theological tradition to which Templeton had been exposed since childhood. Believing that science is finally uncovering theological truths about God and God’s relationship to the world, Templeton sought to shape science and (especially) religion so that comparable breakthroughs might continue to flow in the future.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfae021
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Tags: #Science #Religion #Theology #God #History
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Imagination, Secularism and the University: The Presence and Consequences of Islamic Education
By Mujadad Zaman, Independent Researcher
This paper asks the question, ‘What does Islamic education mean for the 21st century university?’ To begin with, the paper addresses the modern university as an institution facing numerous challenges, which can be conceived of by understanding the nature of the ‘academic imagination’. In so doing, this argument draws on the fundamental elements of thought itself by foregrounding imagination as a primary route by which knowledge is conceived, created and disseminated. At root, it is an argument that suggests that to understand the university is to apprehend its imaginative functions. ‘Problems of the imagination’ are thereafter defined as ‘depth perception’, ‘vertigo’ and ‘paralysis’, respectively. In light of these challenges, the rise of Centers of Islamic Theology in Germany, and Islamic education as a discipline in particular, are considered as uncharted paths towards a discussion of the dilemmas of contemporary academia. Methodologically, the paper is a philosophical reflection on the role of the future of the university and the place of Islamic Theology and Islamic education therein. As such, use of the contemporary literature on higher education, as well as classical works on Islamic education, shall be employed for the purposes of the argument. In so doing, this paper turns the normative discussion of contemporary Islamic education on its head: from how we may make room for such education in the modern university, to consider how its presence may help the institution and its imaginative conundrums.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030330
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Tags: #Islam #Religion #Secularism #Pedagogy
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Textual Understanding and the Dialectics of Intent in the Works of Qur'anic Exegetes
By Bilqāsim Ḥimām
This article explores the ways a number of exegetes deal with ideas of authorial intent and textual (mis)understanding, on the basis that the Qur’anic discourse is a set of intentions, or rather an ‘intentional discourse’ (al-khiṭāba al-qaṣadiyya). In their view, the Qur’an is a discourse, rather than a monologic, linear text. As a speech act that uses the power of the spoken utterance, it is able to use language in a ways that allow it to convey its intended meanings fully, thereby guiding the recipient to a complete understanding of the speaker’s intention.
Qur’anic Arabic is a specialised language that can be understood primarily through an appreciation of authorial intention (mabdaʾ al-qaṣad). This is the most significant element in intentional discourses, in contrast to other genres such as literature, in which the reader’s understanding of the text is guided by both linguistic and semantic conventions and personal reader reception. In the case of the Qur’an, a failure to confine oneself to seeking to understand the speaker’s intended meaning leads to misunderstandings, and thus represents the most prominent threat to an accurate understanding of its message.
Misunderstandings can arise from issues such as the recipient’s lack of linguistic and rhetorical competence, or their lack of sufficient knowledge of the characteristics and qualities of the author of the discourse, not to mention the effect of personal assumptions. Exegetes have therefore attempted to arrive at a taxonomy of the degrees of textual understanding and misunderstanding of authorial intent in the Qur’an, and the range and scope of their analysis will be addressed in this article.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2023.0562
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #Exegesis
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The Translational Challenges Presented by Qur’anic Oaths: A Study of Q. 79 and Q. 100
By M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, University of London
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2023.0558
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Tags: #Quran #Exegesis #Islam
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What Were the Most Popular tafsīrs in Islamic History? Part 1: An Assessment of the Manuscript Record and the State of tafsīr Studies
By Samuel J. Ross, Texas Christian University
Hitherto, the field of tafsīr studies has been beset by several challenges that have hindered its ability to produce a reliable historical outline of the genre. These challenges include: (1) the voluminous nature of our sources, both in terms of the sheer number of works and their individual length; (2) the fact that the overwhelming majority of works continue to be available only in manuscript form; (3) the tendency of previous scholarship to focus on the ‘classical’ period, leaving the post-classical tafsīr tradition largely unexplored, especially the ḥawāshī; and (4) our limited knowledge about which works were historically popular, when, where, and for whom.
This article shares the findings of a multi-year project to convert the most important union catalogue of Arabic tafsīr manuscripts, al-Fihris al-shāmil, into a searchable database and to use this database to pose and answer questions that were hitherto difficult to explore. These questions include: (1) What were the most longitudinally popular commentaries on the Qur’an as suggested by counts of extant manuscripts and their geographic distribution today? (2) To what extent have academic scholars studied these works? It is hoped that these findings will assist the field in planning future scholarly projects and in ultimately developing a more reliable outline of the tafsīr tradition.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2023.0555
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #Exegesis
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Qur’anic Understandings of the Divine Name Yhwh
By Abdulla Galadari, Khalifa University
Although the Qur’an never explicitly mentions the name yhwh, this study demonstrates that it reveals cognizance not only of the divine name but also of the elaboration of its meaning by paralleling interpretations found in some of the earliest rabbinic traditions, evidently building on traditions that were circulating amongst Jewish communities of Late Antiquity. I propose that the absence of an explicit mention of yhwh in the Qur’an points to the Qur’an’s oral rather than literary genesis. This study analyses Pharaoh’s inquiries about who and what the Lord is (in Q 20.49–55; 26.23–28). The Qur’an responds to these questions, whereas in the Exodus account, Pharaoh’s questioning about yhwh remains unanswered. The Qur’an appears to interpret the meaning of yhwh as God’s continuous generative action, the originating cause of every thing, and God’s existence, transcendence and omnipresence, echoing some explanations of the divine name in the earliest rabbinic traditions. Thus, the Qur’an engages with some of its audience by referencing Jewish understandings of the divine name. By reframing and reinterpreting some biblical stories, the Qur’an provides exegetical contributions to these narratives, highlighting its unique and critical role in the broader religious discourse during Late Antiquity.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2024.2303905
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #Bible
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‘Where did you learn to write Arabic?’: A Critical Analysis of Some Ḥadīths on the Origins and Spread of the Arabic Script
By Joshua J Little, University of Groningen
According to some ḥadīths, the art of writing Arabic in the pre-Islamic Hijaz was learned from the city of al-Ḥīra (the capital of the Lakhmid kingdom) in southern Iraq, whilst al-Ḥīra in turn learned writing from the city of al-Anbār in central Iraq. Based on a combined isnād-cum-matn analysis, form-critical analysis, and geographical analysis of these ḥadīths, the earliest iteration of this material can be dated back to the middle of the eighth century CE (i.e., the early second century AH) in Kufa, but no earlier. A further historical-critical analysis also exposes the broader cultural and ideological tendencies at play behind the creation and elaboration of this material, including salvation history, a ‘great man’ theory of history, and—above all—the creation and elaboration of an Iraq-focused Arabian folk history in eighth-century CE Iraq. This small set of reports thus exemplifies the rich potential of ḥadīth in general as both a tool and an object of historical analysis: by applying my combined approach to ḥadīth, we can trace the creation, transmission, and elaboration of the material; we can locate its geographical origins; and we can identify the broader context that ultimately produced it.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etae008
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Hadith #History
