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Response to Zainab Bint Younus’ Review of "Women and Gender in the Qur’an"
By Celene Ibrahim, Groton School
I thank AJIS for recently reviewing my monograph Women and Gender in the Qur’an (Oxford University Press, 2020) and thank Zainab Bint Younus of MuslimMatters.org for taking the time to review the work. I must, however, take issue with the reviewer’s line of critique.
As an academic exercise, Women and Gender in the Qur’an offers a reading of the scripture that investigates intra-textual coherence through philological and structural methods. To miss this point is to miss the theoretical foundation of the project. The book does not purport to analyze hadith corpuses or the tafsīr tradition writ large, and I do not attempt to systematically analyze other early Muslim representations of female figures. In constructing a book-length work, a scholar must discern how to narrow the source material to an appropriate scope. In seeing that no previous scholar had produced an intra-textual reading that examines all Qur’anic verses involving female figures, this is where I contributed. The justifications for my scope and methodological focus are included in the book but are unfortunately not presented clearly in the review.
Link: https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v41i2.3386
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Tags: #Quran #Islam #Feminism #Gender
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Classical Theism and Theological Method: A Critical Inquiry
By John C. Peckham, Andrews University
Some classical theists contend that the Christian tradition demands affirmation of the following four tenets—divine simplicity, timelessness, immutability, and impassibility—in their absolute or strict senses, a position I refer to as strict classical theism. These four tenets, however, are the subject of considerable debate in recent scholarship. This article engages the ongoing debate by focusing on some significant difficulties strict classical theism faces relative to meeting two widely held standards of Christian theological method: the standard of biblical warrant and the standard of systematic coherence. First, highlighting classical Christology as a test case, this article suggests that strict classical theism faces pressure to either revise or abandon some contested tenets or confront the prospect of abandoning the standard of systematic coherence. Second, the article turns to highlighting some ways that strict classical theism struggles to meet the standard of biblical warrant, which might necessitate a reevaluation of some of its core claims and the viability of common appeals made to the Christian tradition in support of such claims. This article is not intended as a conclusive argument against strict classical theism but aims at the more modest goal of pressing these points regarding theological method, calling for serious consideration, and inviting further discussion.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080915
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Tags: #Religion #Theism #God #Theology
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Entropy and the Idea of God(s): A Philosophical Approach to Religion as a Complex Adaptive System
By Matthew Zaro Fisher, Loyola High School of Los Angeles
While a universal definition of religion eludes the field of religious studies, it certainty seems that people are becoming differently religious rather than a-religious, especially since the latter half of the twentieth century. To explain the enduring relevance of religion in human experience, this article expands on recent evolutionary and sociological research in the systems theory of religion and develops a philosophical approach to understanding religion as a complex adaptive system. Frameworks of meaning and beliefs communicated by religious systems emerge and adapt in relation to interpretive selection pressures communicated by individuals-in-community relative to entropy’s role in one’s contingent experience as a “teleodynamic self” in the arrow of time. Religious systems serve an entropy-reducing function in the minds of individuals, philosophically speaking, because their sign and symbol systems communicate an “anentropic” dimension to meaning that prevents uncertainty ad infinitum (e.g., maximum Shannon entropy) concerning matters of existential concern for phenomenological systems, i.e., persons. Religious systems will continue to evolve, and new religious movements will spontaneously emerge, as individuals find new ways to communicate their intuition of this anentropic dimension of meaning in relation to their experience of contingency in the arrow of time.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080925
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Tags: #Religion #Epistemology #God
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Between Words and Worlds: Masters’ Sayings in Early Sufi Literature
By Arin Salamah-Qudsi, University of Haifa
The purpose of this article is to examine the intersections between the corpus of sayings in the Sufi tradition and the changing realities in the period between the third/ninth and seventh/thirteenth centuries. The main hypothesis is that masters’ sayings were neither expressions of abstract theories nor mere responses to changing forms of religious identities but rather a powerful engine for the shifts then occurring in the Sufi tradition as a whole. This notion is examined from two realms. The first is an examination of the ways Sufi sayings went far beyond being a vessel for mystical themes and acted as an effective instrument in the hands of Sufi masters in their quest for authority. Sufi sayings helped masters build the foundations for a shared Sufi “science” transmitted through generations of Sufis and contributed, thereby, to establishing a powerful collective identity and institution. In the second realm, this paper categorizes the bulk of sayings according to prevalent themes, structures, and performativity to propose major outlines of the development of these sayings across time. There were three significant phases in the development of Sufi sayings: the first refers to the late second/eighth and early third/ninth centuries; the second to the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries; and the third covers the period from the sixth/twelfth century onwards. Inspired by speech act theory and other theories on the performativity of language, I argue that Sufi sayings, including ecstatic utterances, were designated as social acts seeking to change the basics of religious consciousness.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080933
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Tags: #Islam #Sufism #History
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Primordial Human Nature (fiṭra)
By Ramon Harvey, Cambridge Muslim College
The concept of fiṭra (primordial human nature or natural disposition) plays an important role in Islamic theological anthropology. It is first and foremost a scriptural concept, being present both within the Qur’an (Q. 30:30) and the Hadith (especially the hadith ‘every child is born upon the fiṭra […]’). The primary sense of fiṭra is that the devotion to God characterizing the ethical monotheism of Islam is in some sense an inbuilt capacity or inclination of the human being. The key texts of Islamic scripture relate fiṭra to the purity in belief and practice associated with the Abrahamic legacy and the Prophet Muḥammad’s renewal thereof. Though the impact of early controversies concerning the divine decree can be felt in some of the related hadiths and their theological reception, the prophetic core is free from strong predestinationism. There is a significant dividing line in the Islamic theological tradition over whether to link the interpretation of fiṭra to a metaphysical primordial covenant between God and all human beings (usually connected to Qur’anic verse 7:172) or if emphasis is to be placed instead on human natural capacities within the world. In the former case, the human religious experience is fundamentally one of recall and return, whereas in the latter it is one of instinctual and intellectual realization. This difference in interpretation impacts the epistemic dimension of fiṭra, its role in knowing God and making moral valuations, as well as the way that it is framed within the social lives of Muslims.
Link: https://www.saet.ac.uk/Islam/PrimordialHumanNature
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Tags: #Islame #Quran #Fitra #Hadith
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Artificial Intelligence and Islamic Thought: Two Distinctive Challenges
By Shoaib Ahmed Malik, St Mary's University
The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has presented novel questions across various intellectual and theological landscapes. This article seeks to explore two distinctive challenges that AI poses to Islamic thought. First, it examines the potential role of AI in Islamic knowledge production and scholarship, questioning the feasibility of an AI-powered religious authority, the concept of the iMufti and techno-madhhabs, along with capabilities to contribute to the chains of transmission and issue religious edicts (fatāwā). The second challenge delves into the implications of AI on the Qur'ān's claim of linguistic inimitability (i'jāz), investigating whether an AI, when taught the complexities of Arabic and literary composition, could potentially meet the Qur'ān's challenge to produce a text of comparable stature, thus probing the foundational assertions of the Islamic worldview. The article provides preliminary reflections aimed at spurring further scholarly inquiry into the intersection of AI and Islamic thought.
Link: https://doi.org/10.2979/jims.00020
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Tags: #Islam #AI #Quran
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Hermeneutical Systematic Dimensions of the Debate on God as Timeless and/or Temporal
By Adriani Milli Rodrigues, Andrews University
While the debate on God’s eternity as timeless and/or temporal is a fascinating topic in itself, especially in philosophical theology, the discussion of time and temporality has a hermeneutical systematic potential for the articulation of Christian theology. In this article, I explore the hermeneutical systematic dimensions of time and timelessness for Christian theology in Augustine’s Confessions (Book XI) in dialogue with contemporary articulations of divine timelessness and temporality, as delineated by Allan Padgett and William Craig. The study identifies how timelessness and temporality are hermeneutically and systematically shaped and serve as presuppositions for related concepts in anthropological and cosmological approaches that inform different views about the relationship of God with His creatures.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080888
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Tags: #Time #God #Theology #Creation
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Divine Simplicity, Divine Relations, and the Problem of Robust Persons
By Ronnie Campbell, Liberty University
In this paper, I aim to defend a robust concept of “person” as it relates to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. I begin by situating the debate in the current context between Social Trinitarianism (ST) and Latin Trinitarianism (LT) and then zero in on Thomas Aquinas’s view of the divine Persons as subsistent relations. I will argue that such an understanding of divine Persons has two significant difficulties. First, Aquinas’s view of a strong doctrine of divine simplicity is susceptible to modal collapse. For on such a view, there are no real distinctions within God; such distinctions are conceptually only. If there are no real distinctions within God, then how can we make sense of the eternal relations within God? Second, I question whether a relation can be equated with a Person. After all, relations do not know things, perform actions, or love in the way Scripture portrays the divine Persons. I will then offer a constructive and more robust view of the divine Person—one that aligns with the control of Scripture. In doing so, I consider two objections, one centering on whether defenders of ST fall into tri-theism and the other on whether divine Persons can indeed work together.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070874
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Tags: #Religion #God #Theism #Aquinas
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Is Knowledge a Justified Belief?
By Seyyed Jaaber Mousavirad, Allameh Tabatabai University
Epistemologists have widely accepted that truth, justification, and belief are necessary conditions for knowledge. This article challenges the necessity of the two components, "belief" and "justification," in the definition of knowledge. It argues that belief is distinct from knowledge; belief is an act of will, whereas knowledge is acquired automatically. One may possess knowledge without actively willing to believe it, and conversely, one may will to believe something without actually knowing it. Additionally, justification should be seen as a method of validating knowledge, not a fundamental part of its definition. Therefore, knowledge without justification remains knowledge, even though its truth cannot be proven. Building on this perspective, the proposed definition of knowledge shifts to "awareness or recognition of facts." According to this definition, the Gettier problem and the lottery paradox find alternative solutions.
Link: https://doi.org/10.22091/JPTR.2024.10813.3070
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Tags: #Religion #Epistemology #Belief
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Training of Imams, Murshidat and Muslim Religious Leaders: Experiences and Open Questions—An Overview of Italy
By Valentina Schiavinato and Mohammed Khalid Rhazzali, University of Padova
Muslims in Italy are an increasingly large and relevant part of the social fabric, although their social condition is still characterized by a “precarious” status. This is explained by a relationship with State institutions that is not yet fully defined in formal terms and by resistance to legitimizing their presence in the public space. In addition, international events have led to the spread of a securitarian political rhetoric and to the intensification of “control” devices on the organized forms and public manifestations of Muslim religiosity. One issue that has concerned political interlocutors has been the training of “imams”. This paper presents the Italian case of training “on” and “of” Islam, analyzing it as a contested field, albeit in a not open and hostile form, between the different social and institutional actors, that is Italian universities, Islamic organizations and transnational Islam and Islam “of the States”. It then analyzes the approach that has been developed and experimented by an Italian State university for the training of imams andmurshidat, in collaboration with Italian Islamic organizations and some universities in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries, and it also discusses how it fits in as a possible innovative model among the various “assemblages” that have emerged in Europe in recent years.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070868
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Pedagogy #Sociology
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Grounding Legalism
By Derek Christian Haderlie, Brigham Young University; Jon Erling Litland, University of Texas at Austin
Many authors have proposed that grounding is closely related to metaphysical laws. However, we argue that no existing theory of metaphysical laws is sufficiently general. In this paper, we develop a general theory of grounding laws, proposing that they are generative relations between pluralities of propositions and propositions. We develop the account in an essentialist language; this allows us to state precisely the sense in which grounding might be reduced to laws. We then put the theory to use in showing how moral laws can play a role in grounding particular moral facts, in defending monism about ground, and in showing in what sense there is no gap between the grounds and the grounded. Finally, we make a novel proposal about what grounds facts about ground.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqae073
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Tags: #Law #Metaphysics #Philosophy
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The Qurʾān as a Historical Source
By James Howard-Johnston, Corpus Christi College
The redirection of the qiblah to the Kaʿbah (Q 2:142-5) is redated from 622, very soon after the hijrah where it is placed in the sīrah, to 628 on the eve of the Prophet’s negotiations with the leaders of Mecca at al-Ḥudaybiyah. It is interpreted as a compromise forced on the Prophet, if he was to reach a settlement with the Quraysh. A corollary was God’s authorisation of pilgrimage in pagan fashion and of animal sacrifice at the Kaʿbah (Q 22: 23-38, Q 5: 2-4). The Kaʿbah was redesignated a monotheist sanctuary, on the grounds of its foundation by Abraham (Q 2:125-7, Q 3:96-8, Q 22:28-9). These sūrahs (and an anomalous late passage in Q 14:35-7) are all late. No earlier sūrah associates Abraham with the Kaʿbah.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1515/jiqsa-2024-0006
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Exegesis
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The Grammatical Rules and Textual Functions of the Non-Apposite Indefinite Annexed kull: Sūrat al-Isrāʾ as a Case Study
By Kholoud Al-Omoush, The Hashemite University
This research examines the grammatical rules governing the non-restrictive usage of kull (‘every’) with indefinite nouns, focusing on occurrences in Sūrat al-Isrāʾ. It explores the role of kull in conveying meaning, and its textual functions, comparing theoretical presentations with practical usage in Qur’anic discourse. The significance of kull can be observed in particular in grammatical discussions relating to the fields of jurisprudence, uṣūl, legal rulings, and its role in constructing discourse meaning.
Using a descriptive-analytical approach, this study examines the theoretical rules that govern kull and analyses its occurrences, especially in terms of its textual functions and role in the construction of meaning. It concludes that the fundamental principle of its non-restrictive usage when added to indefinite nouns indicates gender, and signifies individual universality encompassing the components of indefinite nouns by inference. Moreover, its textual functions and implications depend on various factors such as the accompanying grammatical elements, its function, the classification of the modified noun, and the syntactic structures that support it in specific contexts.
A clear distinction exists between confirmed restrictive and established non-restrictive clauses in terms of both grammatical and textual function, which is crucial for constructing the referential network of a discourse and ensuring textual coherence. This distinction goes beyond that previously mentioned by grammarians and emphasises the central role of these clauses in expressing the focal point of a discourse and ensuring the grammatical and lexical formulation of Qur’anic clauses.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2024.0574
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #Exegesis
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A Sea-Change in Qur’anic Hermeneutics: ḥadīth Citation in al-Farrāʾ's Maʿānī al-Qurʾān
By Tynan Kelly, Independent Scholar
Recent scholarship on the classical tafsīr tradition has shown it to be characterised by, first, an interest in the polyvalent readings of the Qur’an and, second, methodological variegation. It is widely held that these features first appeared in exegetical works of the fourth/tenth century, particularly those of al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) and al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035). However, in the following paper I argue that it is rather in Abū Zakariyyā al-Farrāʾ’s (d. 207/824) Maʿānī al-Qurʾān, a linguistic-oriented tafsīr from nearly a century earlier, that we first find the features of mature classical tafsīr. In this article, I focus on al-Farrāʾ’s citation of ḥadīths to illuminate his methodological variegation, which is scattered throughout his dense discussions of the Qur’an. His use of ḥadīths proves to be a good measure of his methodological variegation, given their wide reception and application in nearly all the disciplines of Arabo-Islamic scholarship utilised by exegetes. These observations provide a missing link that furthers our understanding of how the tafsīrtradition grew from the simpler, more concise forms of the second/eighth century to the exhaustive, encyclopaedic works of the fourth/tenth century onward.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2024.0567
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Hadith #Exegesis
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Are Plantinga’s theodicy and defense incompatible?
By Gesiel Borges da Silva, University of Missouri
Plantinga’s free will defense is sometimes regarded as a successful response to the logical problem of evil. Still, a recent objection concludes Plantinga’s defense and theodicy are incompatible. According to this objection, in Plantinga’s defense, Jesus’ having a creaturely essence entails that Jesus suffers from transworld depravity and sins in the actual world, but this result conflicts with Plantinga’s theodicy and with Christian theism, where Jesus is sinless. In this paper, I argue that this objection is unsound, because creaturely essences suffer from transworld depravity only contingently, so it is not necessarily true that their instantiations go wrong in the actual world. Hence, Plantinga’s defense and theodicy are not incompatible, so both answers to the problem of evil can be endorsed in conjunction.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-024-09919-z
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Tags: #Religion #Spirituality #CSR
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Patriarch Timothy I and the Prophethood of Muḥammad: A Re-Appraisal
By Charles Tieszen, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena
In the late-eighth century, the East-Syrian Patriarch Timothy I participated in a debate with the ‘Abbāsid Caliph al-Mahdī. During their discussion, Timothy responded to a question about how he understood the Prophet Muḥammad. His answer is now well known to scholars. ‘He walked in the path of the prophets and trod in the track of the lovers of God’. What, exactly, Timothy meant by this eloquent response is interpreted by scholars in a variety of ways. In this article, I examine these interpretations and introduce new evidence that gives us a better idea of what Timothy meant when he answered al-Mahdī's question. I argue that Timothy's response was more than a politically expedient reply; he drew upon a worldview formed by sacred literature, liturgy and piety in order to affirm Muḥammad as a prophet within a Christian framework.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2024.2378616
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Prophet
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Youth, Spirituality, Religion, and the Categories in Between
By Stefano Sbalchiero and Giuseppe Giordan, University of Padova
Spirituality among young people has garnered attention within the realm of social studies of religions and spiritualities, both globally and in Italy. In this study, we present findings derived from a survey conducted with 1384 students aged 13 to 20 who were attending a high school in Vicenza, in the Veneto region. Viewing young individuals as active participants in a transition to greater autonomy, one with religious and spiritual dimensions, our empirical findings indicate the emergence of a distinct orientation: the ‘spiritual but not completely religious’ mindset. From this perspective, not only methodologically but also in terms of content, the domains of religion and spirituality, for this age group, appear to be more porous than exclusive or alternative. The identified orientation seems to characterise a compromise between what one has been during childhood and adolescence and the transition to adulthood, which is characterised by increased independence. This orientation not only captures a momentary snapshot of a fluid phenomenon but also contributes to ongoing discussions about spiritualities, which evolve within diverse social and cultural contexts.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080923
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Tags: #Religion #Spirituality #Sociology
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To Discipline or to Forget: A Sufi–Zen Comparative Analysis of the Self in the Writings of al-Ghazālī and Dōgen
By Saeko Yazaki, University of Glasgow
Sufism and Zen share a number of theories and practices, including a concern with lived experience. This article analyses the basis of their teachings, namely, the idea of the self, in texts by two important figures in the respective traditions, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”) by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) for Sufism, and Shōbōgenzō 正法眼蔵 (“The Treasury of the True Dharma-Eye”) by Dōgen 道元 (d. 1253) for Zen. Al-Ghazālī emphasises the necessity of disciplining the self (nafs) in order for the heart to remember God only, while Dōgen famously asserts the importance of learning and forgetting the self (jiko 自己) in the way of the Buddha. This study first examines al-Ghazālī’s and Dōgen’s views of the self, and then compares their teachings. The juxtaposition of the two masterpieces reveals striking similarities as well as fundamental differences at both doctrinal and practical levels. Despite these similarities, although al-Ghazālī and Dōgen have been contrasted with thinkers outside their own tradition, they have yet to be compared directly. Without denying the philosophical depth of the thought of the two authors, this study also highlights the importance of faith in both the Iḥyāʾ and Shōbōgenzō.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080929
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Tags: #Islam #Sufism #Ghazali
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Tafsīr and taʾwīl in Post-Classical Sufi Scholarship: The Study of Correspondences (taṭbīq) in Q. 10:90–92
By Arjun Nair, University of Southern California
Recent evidence from imperial archives suggests that in the sixteenth century Ottoman religious scholars were interested in Sufi modes of engagement with scripture along with mainstream, conventional forms of exegesis. This juxtaposition raises questions about the connections between these two very different types of engagement with the divine word. How might scholars at this time have thought about the relationship between Sufi forms of taʾwīl and mainstream forms of tafsīr? Were they complementary approaches to interpretation that were both necessary for a complete understanding of the divine word, or conflicting approaches to the study of scripture, of which only one was able to legitimately discuss its meanings? In this article, I present evidence from one tradition of post-classical Sufi scholarship that shows how Sufi commentators worked to overcome old challenges to the legitimacy of taʾwīl, and to reconceptualise tafsīr and taʾwīl as complementary forms of exegesis, both of which were necessary for a complete understanding of the Qur’an. This trajectory is marked out by the Taʾwīlāt al-Najmiyya of Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 618/1221) and Najm al-Dīn Dāya Rāzī (d. 654/1256), the Taʾwīlāt al-Qurʾān of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. 730–736/1329–1335), and the Muḥīṭ al-aʿẓam of Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. after 787/1385), which constitute a ‘genealogical tradition’ of post-classical Sufi scholarship. I further illustrate how this tradition imagined the complementarity between tafsīrand taʾwīl through a close reading of one Qur’anic episode – the crossing of the sea by Moses and the Israelites and the drowning of Pharaoh and his hosts (Q. 10:90–92) – from tafsīr to taʾwīl. I show specifically that the commentary on this episode instantiates a powerful methodology systematised.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2024.0578
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Exegesis #Sufism
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Muḥammad as the Qur’an in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Metaphysics
By Ismail Lala, Gulf University for Science and Technology
Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240) is regarded as one of the foremost mystical thinkers in Islam. This paper explores the ways in which he and his followers distinguish between the reality of Muḥammad (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muḥammadiyya) or the light of Muḥammad (al-nūr al-Muḥammadī), as the metaphysical reality of Muḥammad, and his metahistorical manifestation as Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd Allāh. In his metaphysical reality, Muḥammad is the manifestation of the qur’ān, which ‘brings together’ the divine and His creation. Muḥammad’s metaphysical reality, as the primary recipient of the divine outpouring, enables further differentiations of the divine to emerge in the form of the universe, and establishes his connection to the divine. Yet the Qur’an is also temporal in terms of being an historical act of revelation. Likewise, Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd Allāh, in terms of his physical reality, was temporally circumscribed. It is in these ways, argues Ibn ‘Arabī and his acolytes, that Muḥammad, as reality and personality, brings together the divine and the temporal, in the same manner as the qur’ān/Qur’an respectively.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-022-00941-0
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #IbnArabi #Metaphysics
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Adab al-Qāḍi: Shared Juridical Virtues of Judaic and Islamic Leadership
By Neri Y. Ariel, Bar-Ilan University
This paper argues for proximity between the two branches of a jurisprudential–adjudicative genre: manuals for judges or the etiquette for the judgeship. I wish to demonstrate that the proximity, lexicography, ways and tools of argument, etc., are founded upon a meta-legal stratum that contains kalam theology. In this paper, I will elaborate on the genre and its discovery, define some basic principles for the field of discussion, and provide textual examples of the proximities between the two branches of the genre based on pre-legal or meta-halachic demands. I suggest a preliminary result here and lay the groundwork for further research in the future: The criteria for the appointment of the true judge sketch out his idealized personality. He is more than an administrator of the judicial bureaucracy: he is a guide for the legally perplexed peoplehood, both in Judaism and Islam.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080891
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Tags: #Islam #Judaism #Law
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A New Theistic Argument Based on Creativity
By Man Ho Chan, The Education University of Hong Kong
It has been argued for a long time that God has been involved in the biological evolutionary processes observed on Earth. However, no convincing theistic argument has yet been formulated for biological evolution. In this article, I use the concept of creativity to argue that biological evolution manifests an embedded intelligence. This articulates a new form of theistic argument related to biological evolution and offers another sound argument supporting the existence of God. My reasoning suggests that nature might be panentheistic, or that an external personal God manipulates natural laws to direct the process of evolution.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070876
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Tags: #Pantheism #God #Theism #Evolution #Creation
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The Protestant Reformation as an Islamisation of Christianity in the Thought of Ziya Gökalp and Ali Shariati
By Javier Gil Guerrero, Universidad de Navarra
Following Ziya Gökalp and Ali Shariati’s assertion that Protestantism arose due to the influence of Islam in Europe in the Middle Ages, this study discusses the different discourses elaborated by the Turkish and Iranian authors based on this idea. The controversies surrounding modernity, westernization, colonialism, and Islam were a constant in their writings, despite the different geographical and historical circumstances. This paper discusses the logic of Gökalp and Shariati’s claim that Protestantism was Islamized Christianity. The aim is to provide a detailed perspective on how this claim illuminates their broader thinking about civilization, culture, and religion.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070850
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Tags: #Religion #Christianity #Orientalism #Islam
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How Does Islamic Law View Current Neutering Practices for Cats and Dogs?
By Syafiq Munir Bin Ismail Munir and Dr. Mohd Istajib Bin Mokhtar, Universiti Malaya
Millions of cats and dogs roam the world, and unchecked growth could lead to pet overpopulation. This can strain resources and harm animal welfare. While neutering a common solution, has its debate. Some people have ethical concerns about neutering, believing it alters animals in a way that goes against nature. To address these concerns, this study explores neutering through the lens of Islamic law and veterinary science, aiming to find common ground. The study concluded that neutering is a divine grace applicable during exigencies, and this concession is contingent upon the continuous affection and mercy humans show towards animals.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2024.2351646
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Shariah #IslamicLaw
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“Always-Already-Created”: Theology of Creation in the Context of Artificial Intelligence
By Chammah J. Kaunda, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies
This article suggests the idea of everything is “always-already-created” as a metaphysical framework for making sense of and constructing an African Pentecostal theology of creation in the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It argues that everything is always-already-created either as active and continued actualized or as active potential perpetually possibilized and anticipated to be actualized through God's mission of continuous creation. It contends that AI is a product of the divine gift of the creative impulse within the limits of the context of God's creative power in which all creation participates as agents of primordial creativity.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2024.2351649
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Tags: #AI #Theology #Christianity
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Islamic Theism and the Multiverse
By Enis Doko, Ibn Haldun University
In this paper, we argue that under certain assumptions, Islamic theism moves in the direction of a multiverse. We present several arguments in two major categories. The first is based on the divine attribute of everlastingness: if God’s everlasting attributes are expressed in the creation and the universe has a finite past, then God created a multiverse. The second category involves perfect being theology: if some of God’s attributes express themselves in the creation, and God has every compossible perfection, then we should expect God to create a multiverse.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070861
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Tags: #Islam #God #Theism #Theology
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The Many Faces of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ
By Zishan Ghaffar, Paderborn University
Although Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (Q 112) is one of the shortest sūrahs of the Qurʾān, it has led to an extensive commentary on its structure and content in Muslim exegetical literature and in Western scholarship. This article takes the recent attempt to contextualize the sūrah in Western scholarship as a starting point and proposes new evidence for the nature of the religious milieu that shaped its form and content. It posits several “intertexts” of creedal expressions, which shed light on the discursive nature of the sūrah.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1515/jiqsa-2023-0012
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Exegesis
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Five Qur’anic Papyri from the Michaelides Collection at the Cambridge University Library
By Nick Posegay, University of Cambridge
The Michaelides manuscript collection at the Cambridge University Library contains approximately 700 papyrus fragments collected by George Michaelides in Egypt in the middle of the twentieth century. While a preliminary handlist exists for this collection, most of the papyri have not been fully described. Among them are five Qur’anic papyri that have thus far evaded analysis by scholars of Qur’anic history. Of those five, one is an an amulet, one is a longer text that quotes the entirety of Sūrat al-Fātiḥa, and three contain passages from one or two other suras. Of particular note is the fifth papyrus, CUL Mich.Pap.D.1415, which contains two whole suras, approaches the size of model codices, and may have once been bound. This article more fully describes these five manuscripts and transcribes their contents to provide new data for the textual and material transmission of the Qur’an during the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2024.0570
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #QuranStudies #History
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Tawḥīd as Social Justice: The Anthropocentric Hermeneutics of the Syrian Theologian Jawdat Saʿīd
By Paola Pizzi, Università degli Studi di Firenze
Since the 1960s, the Syrian theologian Jawdat Saʿīd’s (1931–2022) anthropocentric and social perspective on Qur’anic hermeneutics has played a major role in the ongoing epistemological debates that are emblematic of progressive trends in Islamic thought. By approaching history as the main source of the holy book of Islam, Saʿīd developed a particular understanding of jihād, leading him to the theorisation of radical nonviolence. This paper aims to analyse how this epistemic approach is employed in relation to another pivotal doctrinal notion, namely tawḥīd, which Saʿīd translates in social terms as the accomplishment of global justice and equality. His shift from a theological to a social interpretation of tawḥīd reveals a process of de-dogmatisation of the doctrine. This same shift also occurs in his interpretation of sacred history, which is intended as a paradigm to help mankind to cope with societal challenges through the continuous renewal of the meaning(s) of the Qur’an. A comparative exploration of the thought of a selection of other modern-day intellectuals in the second half of the article then helps to situate Saʿīd’s effort in the wider context of contemporary Islamic exegetical trends.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2024.0569
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Tags: #Religion #Islam #Quran #Exegesis
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The trajectory of psychedelic, spiritual, and psychotic experiences: implications for cognitive scientific perspectives on religion
By Ari Brouwer, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Fruitful comparison of psychedelic, spiritual, and psychotic experiences requires a degree of phenomenological nuance. Some shared features of these phenomena, such as encounters and communications with supernatural entities, are obfuscated by scientific and clinical terminology. Other supposed distinctions are based on an atemporal view of dynamic experiences. In Section 2 of this theory-building paper, we examine how the trajectory of the psilocybin mushroom experience—from aversive feelings during the comeup, to awe-inspiring peak experience, to relief and clarity in the comedown—maps onto the trajectory of spiritual and incipient psychotic experiences. In Section 3 we argue that the shared trajectory of these experiences informs cognitive scientific perspectives on religion. Specifically, we propose a causal pathway in which stress, uncertainty, and arousal increase perception of extra agency (PEA) which may lead either to physio-emotional states and beliefs that downregulate PEA or to physio-emotional states and beliefs that perpetuate PEA. In Section 4 we examine how religions could modulate the causal pathway proposed in Part 2 to promote social cohesion.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2024.2349151
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Tags: #Religion #Spirituality #CSR
