Tag Archive for: Islam

Islam and the Challenge of Epistemic Sovereignty – Joseph E. B. Lumbard

Abstract:

The search for knowledge has been central to the Islamic tradition from its inception in the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (ahadith). The injunctions to obtain knowledge and contemplate the signs of God in all things undergird a culture of ultimate questions in which there was an underlying epistemic unity among all fields of knowledge, from the religious sciences to the intellectual sciences to the natural sciences. Having lost sight of the underlying metaphysic that provides this epistemic unity, many thinkers in the modern period read the classical Islamic texts independently of the cognitive cartography and hierarchy of which they are a part. This approach leads to further misunderstandings and thus to a sense of hermeneutical gloom and epistemic subordination characteristic of coloniality. Postcolonial theory provides effective tools for diagnosing the process by which this epistemic erosion produces ideologically and epistemically conscripted subjects. But as it, too, arises from within a secular frame, it is only by understanding the cognitive cartography of the sciences within Islam that epistemic confidence and sovereignty can be reinstated

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Fallen in Love:Ayn  al-Qudat on Satan as Tragic Lover (updated 2024) – Mohammed Rustom

Ayn  al-Qud~t on Satan as Tragic  Lover

Abstract:

Like every student of Sufism, I have always benefited from Professor Danner’s scholarship, particularly his pathbreaking translation of and commentary upon Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh’s Ḥikam or Aphorisms. I also spent a good deal of time as a graduate student reading his 1970 Harvard University PhD thesis on Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh, and since then have had many opportunities to delve into his writings, such as his still unmatched survey article on the development of Sufism that was published in 1987 in the first volume of Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s excellent edited collection of articles entitled Islamic Spirituality. One of the motifs recurrent in Professor Danner’s thoughtful and carefully documented research is the role of the spiritual master along the Sufi path. This makes perfect sense, given how much time he spent reading the great masters of the Sufi tradition and meditating on the significance of the student-teacher relationship in various traditional and modern Sufi contexts. In one of his articles going back to

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Sufis and Muʿtazilites: Theological Engagements of Ibn ʿArabī – Yydogan Kars

“This paper introduces Ibn ʿArabī’s depictions of, encounters with, and responses to the preeminent Islamic theological school, Muʿtazilism. Ibn ʿArabī fourished during the eclipse of Muʿtazilism, yet his corpus demonstrates close familiarity with their theological claims. Therefore an analysis of his depic- tions of Muʿtazilism gives us important insights on the trans- mission and reception of ideas within the Islamicate world. This study explores six major theological themes that played key roles in his engagement with Muʿtazilism, particularly in the encyclopaedic Meccan Openings [al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya]: (i) divine role in human actions and agency; (ii) epistemologi- cal sources of theological speculation; (iii) divine attributes; (iv) divine knowability; (v) vision of God; (vi) divine justice and mercy in the afterlife. In most of these cases, Ibn ʿArabī’s approach to Muʿtazilism is not only well-informed, but also empathetic rather than dismissive. His personal encounter with al-Qabrafīqī, a Muʿtazilite Suf in Seville, and his corpus indi- cate Ibn ʿArabī’s informed engagements with both basran and baghdadian Muʿtazilite teachings. He took them seriously as a major theological school that relies on legitimate religious pre- cepts, provides compelling and still relevant ideas, and honours divine transcendence and unity. by the time of Ibn ʿArabī, Muʿtazilism had made an unmis- takable impact on Islamic theology, yet largely dissolved into a variety of movements. on the other hand, in the feld of theol- ogy, later schools or movements were not the only channels between the Muʿtazilites and the Sufs of the 12th and 13th”

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“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”

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A new light on the Sufi network of Mindanao (Philippines) – Oman Fathurahman

“This article attempts to fill the gap in the very limited knowledge of the history of Islam and Muslim intellectual tradition in Mindanao in the 19th century. It particularly deals with a set of primary sources of Islamic manuscripts recently found in the Lanao area of Mindanao, southern Philippines, which formerly belonged to a Maranao ulama, Aleem Ulomuddin Said, who inherited the manuscripts from his father, Sheikh Muhammad Said bin Imam sa Bayang(1904-1974). This manuscript collection contains several texts written in Malay, Arabic, and Maranao languages on various fields. I will argue that these manuscripts indicate the close contact Muslim communities of Mindanao developed during the 18th and19th centuries with their Malay colleagues, especially those in Aceh and Banten. It also conforms their network with the wider Islamic world, more specially with Mecca and Medina through“

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“We are Not Our Brain: How Poets and Philosophers Saw the Immaterial Life of the Self.” Renovatio, Spring (2024) – Muhammad U Faruque

Abstract:

We live in an era in which the brain has come to signify the central component of human identity. It’s common to hear people blurt out statements like “our brains are wired to do XYZ,” or “the brain creates new ideas,” or “explain X to my brain” (instead of saying “explain X to me!”) to talk about their feelings, desires, experiences, and understanding. For a dyed-in-the-wool materialist who either believes there is no mind or soul or completely identifies the mind with the brain, it makes sense to replace the words “I” or “mind” with “brain.” While materialism arguably is not the dominant viewpoint in our culture, this nod to the brain puzzlingly persists when we should really be referring to the entire person/self of which the brain is a part. We unwittingly take the brain to be the center of our self, which has implications for the contours of human subjectivity, the source of our meaning, wonder, love, and beauty. Do such materialistic habits of describing ourselves render holistic conceptions of the human self involving body, soul, and spirit completely void?

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The Question of Theodicy in Islamic Philosophy—Suggesting a Solution:Bada – Mona Jahangiri

Abstract:

“The problem of evil is one that has earned much attention in recent decades and is frequently used as a justification for atheism, and increasingly so due to the rise in popularity of secularism and atheism. How is the issue of theodicy considered in Islamic philosophy, and especially in Shia theology? Does this problem arise there at all? The following discussion addresses these questions, examining the basis of the so-called ‘problem of evil’ through the rationale and multiple perspectives offered by Islamic Sharia a theology on the issue. First, some verses in the Quran dealing with evil and
suffering will be illuminated. After that, some mutakallim ¯un’s views will be presented. Following that, the problem of evil will be investigated from the perspectives of Ibn Sına and Mulla Sadra. After briefly highlighting the mystical perspective, finally, a practical theological solution according to Shıa theology known as bada will be introduced“

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The Expansion of Consciousness during Mystical Experiences: The Example of Moses – Mona Jahangiri

Abstract:

“What happens in the brain during meditation? Neuroscientists such as Andrew Newberg, who studies religious experiences on the neural level, may provide an answer. He calls the devolution, which is similar to all mystical experiences in different faiths, self-transcendent experience (STE); in a further instance, he also calls it the feeling of Absolute Unitary Being (AUB). A more detailed consideration of related issues is done by examining the human expansion of consciousness in Islamic mysticism based on an event depicted in the Qur֓ desire to talk to or see God, his subsequent unconsciousness due to the awe of God, and his subsequent attainment of a new consciousness. The following paper will have a brief look at the case of Moses and aims to investigate the states of consciousness during such experiences. Here, an attempt will be made to trace and prove a connection between neuroscience and the mystical state of the feeling of union with God”


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Qur’anic Narrative and Sufi Hermeneutics: Rumı’s Interpretations of Pharaoh’s Character – A Dissertation Presented by Amer Latif

Abstract:

“This dissertation examines Jalal al-din Rumi (d. 1273) hermeneutics of the Qur’an by focusing on his interpretations of the Qur’anic character of Pharaoh. Although Rumı did not write a commentary in the traditional genre of tafsır by commenting on the Qur’an in a linear verse by verse fashion, significant portions of his poetry are explicitly devoted to Qur’anic interpretation. This study proposes that poetical writings, such as Rumı’s, deserve a prominent place in the field of Qur’anic interpretation. Chapter one gives a broad overview of Rumı’s hermeneutics of the Qur’an. It shows that while Rumı posits multiple levels of meaning within the Qur’anic text, his interpretations of Qur’anic verses are informed by a binary distinction between an outer and inner meaning”

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“The Gifts of Suffering & the Virtues of the Heart: Reflections from the Sufi Tradition,” in From the Divine to the Human – Atif Khalil eds. M. Faruque and M. Rustom (New York: Routledge, 2023), 143-157

Abstract:

“After a tsunami struck Japan in 2011, I vividly recall an interview of an elderly man as he stood over the ruins of his hometown. Overcome by grief, he informed the reporter that the food had killed not only his wife but also his children, their spouses, and his grandchildren. The tragedy took from him everything dear to his heart, leaving him shattered and alone to deal with the aftermath of the catastrophe. The story of the man—a modern version of Job—as it was recounted in the short news clip, could not but elicit profound feelings of compassion and sympathy from its global audience. It was also a story that, for those with religious and theological sensibilities, brought home what has often been identified in Western thought as the problem of suffering.”

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