Abstract: “The arguments of this book have been in the making for more than a decade, particularly since 2009, when they became an almost permanent staple in my course offerings at Columbia University. Throughout these intellectual exercises, I have come to learn that there is no single important aspect of modernity that is not touched, […]
Abstract: “The year 1951 is being celebrated throughout the Muslim world, and especially in Persia, as the millennary according to lunar reckoning of the birth of Avicenna, one of the greatest and most original thinkers produced by Islam, Dom in 370 (980) at the little village of Afshana in the province of Bukhara-a region now […]
Abstract: “The present study seeks to learn something about the metaphysics of substance in light of four rich but for the most part neglected centuries of philosophy, running from the late medieval period to the early modern era. At no period in the history of philosophy, other than perhaps our own, have metaphysical problems received […]
Abstract: “More than any other Muslim thinker, Ibn ¡Arabi dedicated his teachings to clarifying the presence of the divine wisdom in all things and the human necessity of conforming to that wisdom. The arguments he offers are at once metaphysical and scrip- tural, cosmological and psychological, scientific and ethical. He addresses every dimension of human […]
Abstract: “There is a well-known saying of’All ibn Abi ‘falib, the cousin and son-in law of the Prophet of Islam and representative par excellence of Islamic esoterism and metaphysics, according to which one should pay attention to what is said and not who has said it. This teaching has been close to my heart since […]
Abstract: “Ex nihilo nihilo fit: Nothing comes from nothing, and Avicenna and his philosophy are no exception. Indeed, multiple influences were at work in the formation of his thought. In this chapter, I consider a few of these influ- ences so as to provide a general backdrop against which to situate the intel- lectual and […]
Abstract: “Civilizations tend to revolve around meaningful concepts of an abstract nature which more than anything else give them their distinctive nature,” Rosenthal begins his study, introducing his subject; this concept is, for Islamic civilization, knowledge, { ilm. The audacity of the undertaking is stunning; because, in essence, I regard Knowledge Triumphant as Rosenthal’s response […]
Abstract: “Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) is among the few Islamic theologians whose significance needs no emphasis nor special reminder. His reputation as a groundbreaking mutakallim is long undisputed; his influence on later generations, which manifested in its own school of theol- ogy, is acknowledged by all. This legacy has raised him […]
Abstract: “The extraordinary success and influence of certain translations and adap- tations of Persian poetry into western languages – those by Sir William Jones, Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Rückert, August von Platen, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward FitzGerald, Basil Bunting, Robert Bly, Coleman Barks and Dick Davis – makes the burden of the translation past and […]
Abstract: “The Quran, for Muslims, represents the word of God revealed to Muhammad. Its interpretation, then, requires a certain audacity. How can one begin to say what God “meant” by His revelation? How does one balance the praiseworthy desire to understand the meanings of the Qur1an with the realistic fear of reducing it to the […]
Abstract: “To consider Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-ʿArabī (d.638/1240) as the expounder of his own poetic theory, or at least strands of a theory, opens up exciting opportunities for scholars and admirers of Sufism and Sufi poetry. Not only does Ibn al-ʿArabī have much to say about almost every facet of the sciences […]
Abstract: “During recent years there has been a revival of interest in things mediaeval. The Neo-Thomist school of is but one evidence of philosophy this. Different scholars have reminded us that the Middle Ages arc not a backwater nor a bayou having little connection with the great stream of intellectual movements in our civilized world. […]