Medieval Exegesis The Golden Age of Tafsir

Just as theologians were making bold statements about kalam (theology), claiming that it is the queen of the religious sciences, so Qur’an commentators asserted that tafsir is the most noble of religious sciences

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Scepticism as method in the study of Quranic origins: A review article of Stephen J. Shoemaker, Creating the Qur’an:A Historical-Critical Study (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2022

This paper presents a review article of Creating the Qur’an by Stephen J. Shoemaker, a monograph that is highly critical of Quranic studies as practised in the Western academy today, arguing, among other things, that Islamic studies scholars need to learn from scholarship in other fields, namely history of religions and biblical studies, and that the Quran as we know it today, in both form and content, is a product of the early eighth century, and was propagated by the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik. The article discusses these claims and puts them in the context of methodological issues concerning the study of early Islam and the origins of the Quran in particular

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Review of Yousef Casewit’s The Divine Names – Arthur Schechter, Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies

Abstract:

The near-total neglect in modern Western scholarship of ʿAfīf al-Dīn Sulaymān b. ʿAlī al-Tilimsānī (d. 690/1291) is as baffling as it is regrettable. A prolific mystical author and giſted poet, he not only studied with both the leading luminary of later Sufism Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240)and his stepson Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (d. 673/1274) but was himself the son-in-law of the firebrand “monist” Sufi Ibn Sabʿīn (d. 669/1258). though a fellow student under Qūnawī of the renowned poet Fakhr al-Dīn al-ʿIrāqī (d. 688/1289) as well as other Ibn ʿArabian scholars such as Saʿīd al-Dīn al-Farghānī (d. 699/1300) and Muʿayyad al-Dīn al-Jandī (d. 688/1289), he also studied hadith under Imām al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277). None other than Ibn Taymiyyah (728/1328) lambasted him for disbelief while nevertheless confessing the exceptional quality of his verse. And though hailing from Morocco, he even learned Persian in Konya during the time of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (672/1273) and most likely made his personal acquaintance. Indeed, it seems incomprehensible how a figure so uniquely positioned in his world as Tilimsānī could have remained without an entire article devoted to him in the Encyclopedia of Islam

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A MANIFESTO on the New Character of the Language of Religion – Necmettin Şahinler Translation: Aslı Yıldırım

Abstract:

I have been thinking about the necessity for a new approach to the language of religion for quite some time now. The term “language,” as it is used here, is not meant to refer to the spoken language that allows us to communicate and understand each other in our daily lives. Rather, it is a language that can have a profound spiritual impact, offering a sense of connection and understanding. In essence, this language serves as a vehicle of truth, enabling individuals to engage with the deeper meanings and nuances of language in a way that transcends mere verbal communication. Given the definition of “the entire earth as a masjid,” it is evident that this language should transcend the limitations of a particular geography, region,
or district. Instead, it should hold a universal character that resonates with all members of the humanity, transcending the boundaries of race, color, and border. If Allah is the “Lord of all the worlds” and sent His last Messenger “as an unequalled
mercy for the worlds,” then the language of this final call/revelation must adhere to a methodology that considers the diverse realities of aforementioned realms. An ideal world can only be established through a “universal language of religion” which would have profound dimensions and should be voluntarily acknowledged by the members of mankind.

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Some Notes on Ibn Arabi’s Correlative Prophetology – The “Veil of Glory”: Perplexity (ḥayra) and Revelation in the Qurʾānic Hermeneutics of Ibn ʿArabīSome Notes on Ibn Arabi’s Correlative Prophetology – Gregory Vandamme

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss Ibn ʿArabī’s view on the nature of the Qur’ānic text, as it appears through its relation to the central notion of “perplexity” (ḥayra). My aim is to show how the Shaykh al-Akbar uses this notion to define the peculiar nature of the Qur’ānic language and its very purpose, and to discuss the epistemological and hermeneutical outcomes stemming from this approach. This will allow us to consider ultimately why he advocates a “literalist” reading of the Qur’ān, as opposed to an “interpretative” approach, precisely in order to preserve its perplexing aspect. After a brief introduction to the notion of ḥayra and its importance in defining both the originality and the continuity between Ibn ʿArabī and the tradition that precedes him, I focus on two passages in which this notion is directly linked to the nature of the Qur’ān. The first is taken from the K. al-Isfār ʿan natāʿij al-asfār (“The Book of Uncovering the Results of the Journeys”), a rather brief writing from Ibn ʿArabī’s youth, and the second from his major work, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya (“The Meccan Conquests”). Both passages illustrate how the Qur’ān, Human Being, and Cosmos are related to each other, and how, in Ibn ʿArabī’s view, this correlation in which they appear inseparable is the object of an “apprehension”—rather than a “comprehension”—wherein the experience of ḥayra brought by Revelation is to play a key role.

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Decolonizing Quranic Studies –  Joseph E. B. Lumbard

Abstract:

The legacy of colonialism continues to influence the analysis of the Quran in the Euro-American academy. While Muslim lands are no longer directly colonized, intellectual colonialism continues to prevail in the privileging of Eurocentric systems of knowledge production to the detriment and even exclusion of modes of analysis that developed in the Islamic world for over a thousand years. This form of intellectual hegemony often results in a multifaceted epistemological reductionism that denies efficacy to the analytical tools developed by the classical Islamic tradition. The presumed intellectual superiority of Euro-American analytical modes has become a constitutive and persistent feature of Quranic Studies, influencing all aspects of the field. Its persistence prevents some scholars from encountering, let alone employing, the analytical tools of the classical Islamic tradition and presents obstacles to a broader discourse in the international community of Quranic Studies scholars. Acknowledging the obstacles to which the coloniality of knowledge has given rise


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Mirath-i ‘aqlaniyyat-i Islami wa-jahan-biniha-yi mu’asir (‘Aql dar Qur’an wa-Tamaddun-i Islami, 2014)

Mirath-i ‘aqlaniyyat-i Islami Wa-jahan-biniha-yi Mu’asir (‘Aql Dar Qur’an Wa-Tamaddun-i Islami, 2014)Download

Made in God’s Image: A Contemporary Sufi Commentary on Surat al-Insan by the Moroccan Shaykh Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkari

Abstract: “The Karkariyya is a contemporary branch of the Shādhilī Sufi order (ṭarīqa) founded by Shaykh Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkari (b. 1974) in 2007 in the small northeastern Moroccan town of el-Aruit,near the coastal city of Nador.Despite its humble beginnings,the Karkariyyahas established itself as one of Morocco ’s most dynamic centers for the dissemination of Sufi teachings. It is based in a large Sufi lodge ( zāwiya) that accommodates thousands of visitors throughout the year and houses dozens of male and female resident disciples (mutajar-ridīn) who live with the Shaykh for extensive periods of rigorous spiritual training. The order’s largest branches are presently located in France, Algeria, Tunisia, and Oman, with a growing presence in various cities of Morocco, West Africa, and North America.The Karkariyya’s active outreach on social media platforms has contributed to its growth from a local Moroccan order to an internationally diverse, multicultural, and multilingual network of Sufi seekers”

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Qur’anic terminology, translation, and the Islamic conception of religion – Maria M Dakake

Abstract:

“A key question in the field of religious studies is the extent to which ‘religion’ as a concept ‘translates’ in various cultural contexts, with some arguing that it is a purely Western and academic construct. In this article, I argue that the Islamic understanding of religion as a universal category of human experience with various, distinct manifestations is similar to the concept of religion widely operative in the academic discipline of comparative religion; for this reason, Islamic terms related to religion can easily be translated into terminology broadly found in the study of religion, including the term ‘religion’ itself. I argue, however, that the apparent ease with which one can translate Islamic religious terminology may obscure some important nuances in the Islamic conception of religion that make it both distinct and internally coherent with its broader view of human nature and of its own particular religious system relative to others. Attentiveness to the semantic range and usage of some key terms in Qur’anic and Islamic terminology regarding religion yields a distinctly Islamic conception of religion that is independent of Western, academic theories of religion”

The Semantics of Gratitude (Shukr) in the Qurʾān – Joseph E. B. Lumbard College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar

Abstract:

Since the publication of Toshihiko Izutsu’s The Structure of Ethical Terms in the Qurʾan in 1959, scholars of Islam have recognized that gratitude (shukr) is central to the ethicoreligious worldview conveyed by the Qurʾān. Izutsu further developed this analysis in God and Man in the Qurʾan and Ethico-Religious concepts in the Qurʾan. Ida Zilio-Grade enhances our understanding by providing linguistic analysis of shukr, and Atif Khalil examines the understanding of shukr in Sufi texts. This paper draws the connections between these three approaches. It expands upon Zilio-Grade’s linguistic analysis by examining the root sh-k-r and analyzing the differences between the uses of shākir (thankful) and shakūr (ever-grateful) when used in relation to the human being and when used in relation to God. It then demonstrates that expanding the analysis of contextual semantic fields employed by Izutsu to include intertextual semantic fields reveals how shukr is related to the cognitive faculties of the human being. The paper concludes by examining how authors such as a-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), al-Tilimsānī (d. 773/1291), and Aḥmad al-Tijānī (d. 1230/1815) addressed the paradoxes to which this Qurʾānic presentation of shukr gives rise.

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The Qur’an in the Thought of Ibn ‘Arabi (Routledge Companion to the Qur’an, 2022)

Abstract:

“Paul Nwyia once wrote that the early Sufis were engaged in “the Qur’anization of memory,”1 a process that Ibn ޏArabī (d. 1240) seems to have taken to its logical extreme. By his time the various fields of Islamic learning had become subdivided into many specialties, some of which had little apparent connection with the founding revelation. His immense and highly sophisticated output, energized by the vision of tawhīd, reintegrated and harmonized these sciences – especially jurisprudence, principles of jurisprudence, Sufism, Kalam, and philosophy – by tying them back explicitly to the Qur’an, even if he did not do this in any systematic manner. 2 Like the Qur’an, he writes, his style does not follow standard rational procedures, deriving instead from the very roots of reality itself.3 Although he constantly interprets Qur’anic verses and terminology, he does so from a variety of shifting standpoints, so the whole range of his explications did not fit into any specific genre (such as ishāra as exemplified by Qushayrī’s, d. 1074, Latā if al-ishārāt, or tawīl like the commentary of ޏAbd al-Razzāq Kāshānī, d. circa 1330). As for the systematic versions of his teachings that spread to every corner of the Islamic world, these were the work of his followers and tended to obscure the fact that his formulations were typically offered as explanations of the sacred text”

The Qur’an In The Thought Of Ibn ‘Arabi (Routledge Companion To The Qur’an, 2022)Download