Tirmidhi’s Kitāb al-‘Ilal – annotated translation By Jonathan Brown

Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī is one of the most influential figures in the Sunni hadith tradition. Born in about 210/825 near the city of Tirmidh on the northern bank of the Oxus River in modern-day Uzbekistan, he traveled widely in northeastern Iran, Iraq, and the Hejaz to study with the most sought-af ter scholars and transmitters of hadiths in his day. These included scholars who had themselves travelled widely in the quest to hear hadiths, such as Qutayba b. Saʿīd of Balkh (d. 240/854), as well as scholars who would become famed for their mastery of both hadith and law, such as al-Dārimī of Samarqand (d. 255/869) and Abū Dāwūd (author of the famous Sunan, d. 275/889). They also comprised the most respected masters of hadith criticism, including Muslim b. Ḥajjāj of Nishapur (author of the Ṣaḥīḥ, d. 260/875) and Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī of Rayy (d. 264/878). But his most famous and influential teacher was none other than al-Bukhārī (author of the Ṣaḥīḥ, d. 256/870). At some point al-Tirmidhī returned to his hometown, where he died in 279/892 at around seventy years of age. Today his grave can be visited just north of Tirmidh in Uzbekistan, enclosed in an idyllic brick mausoleum built in the old Samanid style and frequented by local pilgrims. Al-Tirmidhī’s legal and theological leanings are clear in his works. Though he predated the solidification of the four schools of law, he identified with the general legal and theological tradition that he refers to as the ‘People of hadith’ (ahl al-ḥadīth). Notably, he also refers to this group as the ‘People of the Sunna and the Community’ (ahl alsunna wa’l-jamāʿa)-perhaps the earliest recorded instance of a scholar identifying himself with this designation. 1 Al-Tirmidhī describes this group as looking to exemplars like Mālik (d. 179/796), Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 196/811), ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181/797), and Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh (d. 238/853). But the most influential figure in al-Tirmidhī’s theological universe was al-Bukhārī’s teacher and the pivot of the Ahl al-Sunna in Baghdad, Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241/855). Al-Tirmidhī’s legal views

Tirmidhis_Kita_b_al_Ilal_annotated_transDownload

Review by Anthony F. Shaker of Repentance and the Return to God: Tawba in Early Sufism (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 32, no. 3 (2022): 707-709)

Baghdādī’s 1989 edion (al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya wa’l-wilāyāt al-dīniyya, ed. Aḥmad Mubārak al-Baghdādī [Kuwait: Dār Ibn Qutayba, 1409/1989]), which relied on the earlier printed edion by Maṭbaʿat al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, an eleventh-century manuscript from the Chester Beay Library (some folios evidently wrien by the author himself), another fiſteenth-century manuscript from the same library and, finally, an admittedly error-laden nineteenth-century manuscript

Annotated_Translation_of_Mawardis_ChapteDownload

Ibn Khaldūn Between Legal Theory and Legal Practice – Mourad Laabdi

Beyond his prevailing reputation as an historian of imposing stature, Abd al-RaAm:n Ibn Khald<n (d. 808/1406) was recognized by his contemporaries for his mastery of several other scholarly domains. A close friend and rival, Lisan al-Din Ibn al-Khatib(d. 776/1374), attributed to him books on logic and arithmetic, a commentary on a poem he had written on legal theory, and ‘several summaries of the books of Ibn Rushd, Ibn al-Kha3;b also appreciated his book on Islamic mysticism Shifa al-sa’il li-tahdh;b al-mas:8il (Healing of the seeker), and his commentary on Fakhr al-D;n al-R:z;’s (d. 606/1210) MuAaBBal afk:r al-mutaqaddim;n wa-l-muta8akhkhir;n min al-‘ulam:8 wa-l-Aukam: wa-l-mutakallim;n (Gleanings from the ideas of the early and late scholars, philosophers, and theologians). Ibn Khald<n’s fascination with

Ibn_Khaldun_Between_Legal_Theory_and_LegDownload

“Decolonial translation: destabilizing coloniality in secular translations of Islamic law.” Journal of Islamic Ethics 5 (2021): 250-77 – Lena Salaymeh

“Contemporary Islamic legal studies—both inside and outside the Muslim world— commonly relies upon a secular distortion of law. In this article, I use translation as a metonym for secular transformations and, accordingly, I will demonstrate how secular ideology translates the Islamic tradition. A secular translation converts the Islamic tra- dition into “religion” (the non-secular) and Islamic law into “sharia”—a term intended to represent the English mispronunciation of the Arabic word شر يعة(sharīʿah). I explore the differences between historical Islamic terms and secular terms in order to demonstrate that coloniality generates religion and religious law; in turn, these two notions convert شر يعة(sharīʿah) into “sharia” in both Arabic and non-Arabic languages. Consequently, the notion of “sharia” is part of a colonial system of meaning”

Decolonial_translation_destabilizing_coDownload

The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Law

Abstract:

“One of the defining features of contemporary moral philosophy in nearly all its guises is the lack of serious concern for metaphysics—not as a discipline in itself, but as a necessary foundation for ethics. One should not mistake the fashionable project of “evolutionary ethics” for an attempt to tie morals to metaphysics, rather than seeing it more accurately as a program for burying ethics in the quicksand of current biological fan- cy. Nor should one, for instance, see in existentialism a serious concern for metaphysical underpinnings rather than what amounts to no more than a series of denials of the truths that used to undergird moral think- ing.2 Again, one sees in the various forms of liberal ethics that dominate the academy—consequentialism, contractualism, deontology—an almost”

The Metaphysical Foundations Of Natural Law (Oderberg)Download

Al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand – Ulrich Rudolph

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 to the rank of a leading teacher of the Islamic faith, and al-Māturīdī is still referred to as such to this day in nearly every handbook and survey on Islam.”

Rudolph, Al-Maturidi And The Development Of Sunni Theology In SamarqandDownload

A Commentary on the Creed of Islam (trans by Earl Edger Elder)

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. Nor can one fully appreciate this in the period of history Europe and ignore the contributions of Islam and Judaism.“

Taftazani, A Commentary On The Creed Of Islam (trans. Elder)Download

Notes on the Semantic Range of ‘Deliverance’ in the Quran

Abstract:

In The Ends of Philosophy of Religion Timothy Knepper argues for a wide-ranging and globally inclusive approach to a sub-discipline of philosophy that has largely been confined to, and defined by, Anglo-American and Continental philosophical traditions on the one hand and Christian philosophical theology on the other. Knepper’s central contention is that “philosophy of religion” is far too constrained in its scope and focus, and thereby is unable……….

Notes On The Semantic Range Of ‘Deliverance’ In The Quran (JAOS 138.2, 2018)