Tag Archive for: Islam

Why Miracles Cannot Prove the Truth of Prophecy? (With a Glance at the Views of al-Ghazali, Averroes and Mulla Sadra) – را معجزه راه مناسبی برای اثبات صدق دعوی نبوت نیست؟ (با نگاهی به دیدگاه غزالی، ابن‌رشد و ملاصدرا))

Abstract:

“As it is well-known in theology, performing miracles is the main way prophets used to show that they are honest in their claims and are the true messengers of God. In contrast to this famous opinion, some theologians have not considered miracles as proof of the truth of prophecy. Muslim thinkers such as Mullah Sadra, al-Ghazali, Averroes, ‘Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji, and Hiji Mulla Hadi Sabzavari believe that a true believer does not base his faith and certainty on seeing a miracle from a prophet, and the religion which is the result of a miracle is the religion of ordinary people. According to them, miracles cannot bring about intellectual certainty; moreover, it is difficult to distinguish them from magic. In this article, after considering the objections in Islamic intellectual tradition, some other critiques in terms of the role of miracles in proving prophecy are introduced: the reports of miracles are not adequately sequential and multiple; the miracles are exclusively reported by the believers; there is no practical criterion for identifying miracles; the claim that miracles are related to the dominant art and techniques of the prophet’s time cannot be proved, and miracles can be explained in a completely natural –and not supernatural– way. Accordingly, it has been demonstrated that miracles narrated in religions do not serve theological functions desired by theologians. However, the best way for knowing a true prophet is investigating his teachings and experiencing his spiritual aura”

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A Scholar in the Shadow: Essays in the Legal and Theological Thought of Ibn Qayyim al-Gawziyyah, Oriente Moderno 90, 1 (2010)

Abstract:

“When strolling through the buzzing Muslim book markets at Friday prayer services, one is immediately struck by the persistent presence of Ibn Qay-yim al-ßawziyyah’s (d. 751/1350)writings paraded on the packed shelves of the market bookstalls. Ibn Qayyim al-ßawziyyah’s books, in multiple sizes and formats, in tacky colorful and flowery covers, as well as in more subdued mono-chromatic editions, have gained their secure place on the crowded stands of Muslim booksellers. As simple as this may sound, the most likely conclusion to be drawn is that, today, Ibn Qayyim al-ßawziyyah sells. The popularity he enjoys on the contemporary Muslim scene is well reflected by the recent copious scholarly production about him in Arabic, and by the current efforts to produce high quality academic editions of his works”

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“if I must die” Japanese translation of Refaat Alareer’s poem written in traditional Japanese calligraphy – Naoki Yamamoto

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  1. Source: https://twitter.com/NaokiQYamamoto ↩︎

Creating an Islamicate Fiction: Futuwwa Samurai Art – Dr Qayyim Naoki Yamamoto

Creating Harmony Through Tradition in Japan – Matthew Teller

Abstract:

The tea ceremony is a marker of Japanese traditional culture, refined over centuries so that every aspect has significance, from the room setting and the arrangement of flowers to the calibrated movements of the tea master in preparing and serving the brew. Yet despite his skill, Yamamoto is not a tea master. A professor of Islamic studies at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey, he is an influential figure shaping Japanese Muslim society. His tea ceremony is taking place not in a traditional tea house but before a seated audience ranging from students to elders in Tokyo’s main congregational mosque. At the age of only 33, Yamamoto has developed what he calls an “Islamic tea ceremony” as an experiment, an innovative public workshop in which new links of understanding can be forged between Japan’s roughly 0.1-percent Muslim population and the rest of the country’s people, almost all of whom follow Buddhism and Japan’s homegrown religion, Shinto.“The point is to help people acquire the power of interpretation, the intellectual muscles of critical thinking and critical understanding of this world,” Yamamoto says. “We, as Muslims, can contribute to the prosperity and diversity of Japanese society.”

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Introduction: Knowledge, Power, and the “Settler Colonial Turn” in Palestine Studies – Ilan Pappe

Abstract:

This special issue presents articles on the topic of “Settler Colonialism in Palestine,” covering conceptual and empirical, historical and contemporary, as well as literary, legal and political aspects of the debate. All articles examine the validity and applicability of the settler colonial paradigm to the context of Palestine (West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the 1948territories). They approach this paradigm as a powerful means to challenge and disarticulate established historiographies and narratives, and, as such, engage with settler colonialism as a structure (Wolfe, 1999, 2006), but also with the various forms of resistance and decolonization that aim at undoing this structure

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Realizing Islam: The Tijaniyya in North Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Muslim World – Zachary Valentine 

Abstract:

Studies on eighteenth-century Islamic intellectual history tend to highlight the Wahhabi movement or “fundamentalist” movements. Few studies oer insights into less understood—though by no means less influential scholarly currents. One such book is Zachary Valentine Wright’s Realizing Islam The Tijaniyya in North Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Muslim World Focusing on the knowledge production of the modern Tijani Sufi order—one of the largest Sufi orders

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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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The Student and the Sage – Mohammed Rustom

Abstract: Plagued by the problem of evil, a student of philosophy and religion finds himself in great despair, with many more annoying questions than satisfying answers. The student passes by a certain ḥakīm, or sage, as he takes his usual route to his early morning philosophy of religion seminar. Drawn towards the sage’s luminous presence, the student attempts to approach the old man.

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