Abstract: “Scholarship on Islam in Africa has long been in need of comprehensive work on West African madīḥ (i.e. Arabic poetry in praise of the Prophet Muhammad).Recent articles have explicitly called for such an endeavor, and the time has come to fully exorcise the “Islam noir” specter that has compelled those who write on West African madīḥ to characterize it pejoratively as, […]
Abstract: “Cemalnur Sargut Hocam asked us to say something about the significance of the Kenan Rifai Chair of Islamic Studies at Peking University, which we inaugurated in the Spring of 2012. As many of you know, the Kenan Rifai Chair is housed in Te Institute of Advanced Humanistic Studies. The Institute was founded by Professor u Weiming in 2010 shortly after […]
Abstract: “It has indeed been a blessing to sit with the great Kenan Rifai’s commentary upon book one of Mevlana’s Mesnevi .Spending time with this book naturally led me to Kenan Rifai’s explanation of a famous tale in the Mesnevi centered around ‘Ali b. Abi Talib tale is retold from Islamic tradition and is cast in Mevlana’s unique terms […]
Abstract: “Rūmī saw himself as belonging to the line of prophets (anbiyā ) and saints (awliyā ), the God-given function of whom is to guide the human race. He had a great deal to say about most sorts of Islamic teachings, as can be verified by the traditional commentaries on the Mathnawī or modern studies like that of Jalāl […]
Abstract: “This article presents an Arabic transcription and complete English translation of an untitled text – labelled “Khalwa ” in the manuscript catalogue – attributed to S ī d ī al-Mukhtār al-Kunt ī , a Saharan scholar and Suteacher of the late-eighteenth century. In the accompanying commentary, I demonstrate how this textdraws together two passages in the Qur’ān: the ambiguous visionary encounters of 53:1-18 […]
Abstract: “The collection of papers that are featured in this book was presented at the International Conference on ‘Developing Synergies Between Islam and Science &Technology for Mankind’s Benefit’, held at the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS) Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, on 1–2 October 2014.The conference was formally opened by the former Prime Minister of […]
Abstract: “How have Muslims responded to, engaged with and developed original versions of yoga and meditation? This chapter provides a brief historical overview with an emphasis on Muslim communities in South Asia, especially during the Mughal period. This first part of the chapter establishes the basic framework for understanding the earliest surviving texts demonstrating Muslim […]
Abstract: “The work of one of the most important figures of philosophical Sufism, Sayyid Haydar Āmulī (d. ca. 787/1385), has largely been neglected in modern Western scholarship. In Iran, however, the situation is quite different as a steady stream of Persian monographs dedicated to Āmulī’s life and thought have been appearing over the past twenty years.In Arabic, we […]
Abstract: “Avicenna is a strong proponent of what some of the later ones call qāʻidat al-wāḥid or ‘rule of the one’(RO). The gist of RO states: from the one only one directly proceeds. In the secondary literature, discussion of this Avicennian rule is usually limited to a particular application of it i.e., the issue of […]
Abstract: “I would like to begin with an autobiographical account which takes us back to the fall of 2000, when I was a second‑year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto. Like many of my classmates in philosophy, I had a fairly naïve understanding of what I was doing studying this discipline. I would eventually […]