Abstract: Anyone with the vaguest knowledge of Islamic culture knows that it has produced extraordinary works of art and architecture — Persian miniatures, the Taj Mahal, the Alhambra. Few are aware, however, that this rich artistic heritage is firmly rooted in a worldview that highlights love and beauty…….
Abstract: The martyrdom of the Imam Husayn can hardly be called a major theme of Rumi’s works; in over 50,000 couplets he refers to it less than twenty times. Nevertheless, these few lines are sufficient to suggest how the events of Karbala’ were viewed not only by Rumi’s, this great representative of the………….
Abstract: Western studies of Islam have paid relatively little attention to love. Early scholars were heirs to a long history of European animosity toward this upstart religion and tended to assume that love was a Christian monopoly. When Muslim writing on love did come to their attention, they typically considered it peripheral or borrowed, often […]
Abstract: Avicenna’s Neoplatonic account of divine providence and theodicy was hugely influential on later philosophical and religious thought in the Islamic world. However, it was severely criticised by one of his earlier commentators, the theologian-philosopher Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210). While Avicenna champions an optimist theodicean thesis of a plenitude of good to support the […]
ABSTRACT “Although less technical philosophically than many of al-Kind‡¯’s known treatises, this Epistle remains basic for understanding the spirit that underlies his thinking. Socratic, yet very Kindian in spirit, this Epistle displays its author’s tendency to harmonize Greek philosophy and Islam, particularly as this relates to ethics, and his belief in man’s free will and […]
Abstract This article explores Avicenna’s conception of divine providence in the light of his allegorical work Decree and Determination (R. fī l-Qaḍāʾ wa-l-qadar), wherein the philosopher stages interactions between the rational soul, the animal soul, and the Active Intelligence. Centering on the parable of the two generous men told in Decree and Determination by the […]
Abstract: “It would be honor enough for the people of India had they bequeathed us nothing but chess, a game that, like the sun itself, has traversed the entire globe. Indeed, people everywhere hold high in esteem and deem intelligent anyone who masters it or even plays it well. Such being the case, in how […]
Abstract: There are complete translations of the Mathnawí in Turkish[1], Arabic[2], and Hindustani[3], but only the first two of the six Books of the poem have hitherto been made accessible in their entirety to European readers, though a number of extracts from Books III–VI are translated in E. H. Whinfield’s useful abridgment. While it may […]
The Qur’an and its Interpretive Tradition. By Andrew Rippin. (Variorum Collected Studies Series). Pp. 356. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2001. £62.50. Each volume of the Variorum Collected Studies Series musters long term writings by some noteworthy scholar (in this case, one of the biggest names in Qur’anic studies in the West); by grouping articles on […]
Abstract: Along with food and shelter, clothing must rank among the most important but least analyzed sites of colonization. And even those works that do examine the connection between colonization and clothing focus almost entirely on the material dimension of dress. Few works, if any, take the necessary additional step of defining clothing as a […]
Actionless Action Mohammed Rustom It has indeed been a blessing to sit with the great Kenan Rifai’s com mentary 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 centered around ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. The tale is retold from……… (link […]
Abstract: Philosophy’s relation to the Islamic tradition has often been debated In modern stud-ies. A good number of the experts consider the relation tenuous, and others disagree.The difference of opinion has much to do with differing understandings of the keyterms of the debate. No one seems to have doubted that at least some of the […]