In his seminal Orientalism and Religion (1999), Richard King argues that Western scholars of religion have constructed a conceptual dichotomy between “mysticism” and “rationality” that has caused them to systematically distort the claims and arguments of Eastern thinkers. While King focuses primarily on Western scholarship on the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, this essay shows that […]
Preface with the onset of colonial modernity to handle the perceived overabundance of new knowledge. The Well-Tempered Reader is therefore attentive to the study of this cultural grammar of the formation of the subject, to which adab as praxis and application is an attestation. It advances an analysis of the virtue-ethic murūʾa, or the ideal […]
By Samuel Bendeck Sotillos The monopolistic tendency of modern science in asserting itself as the exclusive interpreter of the human psyche or mind through its psychology does so while negating the most crucial dimension that makes it a complete psychology, the metaphysical order as is found across the world in all times and places. The reductionistic […]
Interpreting IbnʿArabī: Philosophy, Theology, and Exegesis in Later Islam offers a comprehensive and critical examination of one of Islam’s most enigmatic and influential thinkers. Through close engagement with major controversies surrounding Ibn ʿArabī’s ideas-from the doctrine of the Oneness of Being to his vision of sainthood and Qurʾānic interpretation-this volume traces the rich and contested […]
Using theories of narrative in lyric poetry, this article makes a case for an affective narrative quality that pervades the ghazals of Khwāja Muḥammad Shams al-Dīn “Ḥāfiẓ” of Shiraz (d. 792/1390). Such “hidden” narrative corresponds to the general sensation that a particular poem extends from an unknown and immeasurable story. Under consideration is a phenomenon […]
This article delves into the Arabic noun Marifa as employed in a range of Arabic and Persian Sufi texts. After unpacking the semantics of the –r–f root in the Quran and hadith literature and juxtaposing Marifa with ilm, the piece seeks to demonstrate how Sufi authors specifically conceived of Marifa as a type of recognition […]
By Louise Gallorini This dissertation is a literary study tracing the roles and functions of angels as characters in the Quranic text and pre-Mongol Sufi literature (7th-12th century CE). The first chapter explores the mythopoeic process related to angels in the Quranic text, listing their roles and functions, and how they illustrate one of the main […]
At its heart, prayer is the soul’s effort to communicate with and build a relationship with its Divine origin. Viewed this way, Islam recognizes three primary modes of prayer. The first is the canonical, ritual prayer known as ṣalāt. This is the familiar practice involving specific movements, postures, and recited verses performed by devout Muslims at […]
This paper advances a new epistemology of ḥikma (wisdom) by reexamining its function as a foundational mode of knowing in the Islamic tradition. Drawing upon Qurʾānic usage, Prophetic sayings, classical philosophical definitions, and Sufi insights, the study argues that ḥikma is not merely eloquent or ethical speech, but a self-evident and sublime truth that transcends […]
By Samuel Bendeck Sotillos The widespread estrangement felt by human beings in the present day has led to what has been called an “epidemic of loneliness.” Although a plethora of studies have explored this theme in an attempt to address the problem, effective solutions have proved elusive. Some will no doubt claim that alienation has always […]
Inscriptions of Wisdom brings together, for the first time in English, two pivotal Sufi texts that illuminate Ibn al-ʿArabī’s (d. 1240) celebrated work Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam. The first, Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ (The Inscription of the Fuṣūṣ), is Ibn al-ʿArabī’s own distillation of Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, presenting a concise yet profound articulation of its core teachings. The second, Naqd […]
Muslims understand humility (Arabic: khushu’ /tawadu’) to be inseparable from the servitude to God (‘ubudiyya) that is demanded of them by their faith. The defining place of the virtue in Islamic ethics is underscored by the fact that the sin of the two archetypes of wrongdoing in the Quran–Pharoah and Iblis (Satan)–was pride. With that […]