Beyond Atoms and Accidents Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and the New Ontology of Postclassical Kalām – Bilal Ibrahim

Abstract:

“This article explores a novel approach to the analysis of the external world in postclassical Ashʿarite kalām. While discussions of physical reality and its fundamental constituents in the classical period of Islamic thought turned chiefly on the opposing views of kalām atomism and Aristotelian hylomorphism, in the postclassical period kalām thinkers in the Ashʿarite tradition forge a new frame of inquiry. Beginning most earnestly with the philosophical works of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, a critical approach is developed addressing received views in ontology, including the relation of substance to accident, the status of Aristotelian form and matter, and part-to-whole relations. Drawing on Rāzī’s al-Mulakhkhaṣ and al-Mabāḥith, kalām thinkers develop several concepts to distinguish arbitrary or mind-dependent (iʿtibārī) composites (‘man-plus-stone’) from non-arbitrary composites (e.g., tree, paste, and house). Most notably, they adopt a substance-plus-accident ontology in opposition to the Aristotelian hylomorphism of falsafa. The mutakallimūn will conceive of composites as possessing ‘real unity’ (ḥaqīqa muttaḥida) while dispensing with the explanatory and causal role of Aristotelian substantial forms”

Beyond_Atoms_and_Accidents_Fakhr_al_Din

Sulamī’s Treatise on the Science of the Letters (ʿilm al-ḥurūf)

Abstract:

“The terms, “Sufism” and “the Science of the Letters” ( ilm al-ḥurūf)’ mentioned together frequently awaken associations with the most widely known work on magic in Islam, Shams al-ma’arifwa-lata’i], al-‘awiirif(“The Brilliance of Knowledge and the Subtleties of its Gift”) of Abii l-‘Abbas Ahmad b. ‘Ali al-Buni ( d.622/1225).The author was a native of the town of Bone (i.e., ‘Annaba) on the Mediterranean coast between Algiers and Tunis, an old Phoenician settlement that became known as the Roman city of Hippo, the bishopric of Saint Augustine (395-430 ), which passed into the hands of the Muslim conquerors in the beginning of the second eighth century. The Shams al-ma’iirif exists in three versions, a short one, the oldest ( dated 618/1221), a middle-sized one, and a long one. the work may be best understood as a kind of encyclopedia of magical”

Sulami's Treatise On The Science Of Letters (Bowering)

What is Tafsīr al-Qurʾān bi’l-Qurʾān?

Abstract:

In an attempt to understand a well-known though often unexamined exegetical principle,
this article offers a reading of the story of Joseph in light of two Quranic passages, namely 39:23
and, most importantly, 95:4-6. What links these texts is the concept of beauty. In 39:23, the
Quran is referred to as “the most beautiful discourse,” while 95:4 says that human beings were
created in “the most beautiful stature.” At the same time, Sūrat Yūsuf is spoken of as being “the
most beautiful of stories” (12:3). We thus have the most beautiful discourse, which contains the
most beautiful of stories, and all of this is for the benefit of God’s creatures, who are created in
the most beautiful of statures. ……………………..

What Is Tafsir Al-Qur'an Bi'l-Qur'an (SR 17.1, 2018)

The Male and Female in the Islamic Perspective by Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Abstract:

To speak of creation or manifestation is to speak of polarization, of the manifold, of multiplicity
whose first stage is that primordial polarization between the two contending and complementary
principles, which are seen throughout cosmic manifestation and which in human life appear as
the male and female sexes. In relation to the Divine Unity all multiplicity is a veil, and from the
point of view of the Divine Substance everything else is an accident embracing all the
reverberations of the One in the mirror of the many which we call the world, or in fact the many
worlds which at once hide and manifest the One. But from the point of view of the created order….

The_Male_and_Female_in_the_Islamic_Persp

Seyyed Hossein Nasr – Three Muslim Sages

THE “golden age, of Islam, insofar as the intensity of the religious and spiritual life and the realization of its ideals are concerned, must be identified with the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad- upon whom be peace- and the first Muslim community at Medina. But just as the seed sown in the ground grows into a tree and finally bears fruit only after the passage of time and. the gaining of nourishment from a………………

(link below)

Seyyed Hossein Nasr-Three Muslim Sages_ Avicenna-Suhrawardi-Ibn Arabi-Caravan Books (1976)

The Dialectic of Gratitude (Shukr) in the Non-dualism of Ibn al-ʿArabī

The role and function of gratitude or shukr in Islam has been a
topic that, until recently, has been the subject of little extensive
analysis. This is despite the central place of gratitude within the…………….

(link below)

Gratitude In IA – Khalil Final Nov 24 2018

Roads to paradise : Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam

Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam offers a multi-disciplinary study of Muslim thinking about paradise, death, apocalypse, and the hereafter. It focuses on eschatological concepts in the Quran and its exegesis, Sunni and Shi‘i traditions, Islamic theology, philosophy, mysticism, and other scholarly disciplines reflecting Islamicate pluralism and cosmopolitanism……………..

A Philosopher’s Itinerary For The Afterlife (Roads To Paradise, 2017)

Islam and the Problem of Evil by Timothy Winter

Abstract:

“Islam’s theological, ethical and mystical traditions have adopted a range of approaches to the question of evil. They share, however, a rootedness in the Qur ’ān, a text which repeatedly attends to the fact of human suffering, having emerged in a society which it proclaimed to be miserably deluded by false belief and custom and in which the physical”

Islam-and-the-Problem-of-Evil-Winter

The Great Chain of Consciousness :Do All Things Possess Awareness?

Abstract:

In An Essay on Man, the eighteenth-century British poet Alexander Pope offers a succinct formulation of an age-old philosophical doctrine about reality. This doctrine, which Arthur Lovejoy refers to as the “great chain of being,” maintains that existence is hierarchi- cal and organically linked, structured as it is upon the descending degrees of being. Reality begins with and proceeds from God, the Supreme Being, and ends in the most minuscule and discrete kinds of beings. Each thing in the cosmos, including the cosmos itself, forms a vital link with the other parts of this great chain. In Pope’s words..

The Great Chain of Consciousness (Renovatio 1.1, 2017)

Everything Muhammad: The Image of the Prophet in the Writings of ‘Ayn al-Qudat

Abstract

 

It is well‑known that Rumi (d. 1273) was a great lover of the Prophet
Muhammad. This is best typified in such verses as the ones with which
the present article begins. Given our knowledge of the devotion to the
Prophet that we find in Rumi’s writings and in the works of many other
Sufi authors,I would here like to discuss the views of another major
devotee of the Prophet. His name was Abu’l Ma‘ali ‘Abd Allah al‑Miyanji,
and is most commonly known as ‘Ayn al‑Qudat Hamadani. He was born……..

Everything Muhammad

A Commentary on the Creed of Islam: Sa’d al-Din al-Taftazani on the Creed of Najm al-Din al-Nasafi – Translated with introduction and notes by Earl Edgar Elder

This book is a translation of one of the most important texts on the creed of Islam, the Sharh al-‘Aqa’id al-Nasafiyyah of Imam Sa’ad al-Din al-Taftazani (d. 1389).  It is a commentary by Taftazani of Imam Abu Hafs al-Nasafi’s (d. 1177) work al-‘Aqa’id al-Nasafiyyah.

Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law: Sharh al-‘Aqa’id al-Nasafiyyah