Tag Archive for: metaphysics

A Critical Review of The Islamic Secular by Sherman A. Jackson (Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies)

Can the “secular” ever be “Islamic?” Sherman Jackson’s e Islamic Secular is a profound exploration of a deeply misunderstood concept: the relationship between Islam and the secular. In an intellectual landscape oſten dominated by binaries, such as secularism versus religion, and tradition versus modernity, Jackson masterfully demonstrates that these categories fail to account for Islam’s unique historical and intellectual heritage. Equally impressive is Jackson’s ability to contextualize his argument within broader debates on secularism and its relationship to religion and the state. He criticizes both Western triumphalist narratives that see secularism as the inevitable endpoint of human progress and Islamic apologetic responses that reject the secular as inherently anti-religious.

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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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“Ethics of Selfhood and Human Flourishing in Islamic Thought.” In Oxford Handbook of Islamic Ethics, edited by Mustafa Shah. New York: Oxford University Press, completed and forthcoming [2026]

The present study investigates the ethics of selfhood and human flourishing in Islamic thought, which is intertwined with a distinct moral and spiritual view of human nature. Drawing on the repository of various texts and authors in Sufism, Islamic philosophy and theology, and Islamic ethical literature, this article argues that it is in terms of the realization of one’s true nature that the goal of flourishing or the process of moral and spiritual perfection is best understood. Moreover, in Islamic ethics of human flourishing, the realization of one’s true self depends on living an ethical life that combines both theoretical reason/intellect and spiritual practices.

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Arabic Literature in America: Sufi Poems Quoted by Omar ibn Said / Amerika’daki Arapça Literatür: Ömer bin Seyyid’in Atıfta Bulunduğu Tasavvufi Şiirler

One of the most remarkable figures in the history of Islam in America was Omar ibn Said (ʿUmar b. Sayyid, 1770-1863), a Muslim scholar educated in West Africa, who was captured in warfare in his homeland and sold into slavery in America in 1807. For over half a century he lived in North Carolina, enslaved by the prominent Owen family of Fayetteville, and he left behind a small body of writings in Arabic that have for the most part been misread and misunderstood. In this article, I would like to present three short poems quoted by Omar in his writings, which provide a clear indication of the intellectual and theological range of materials that he was familiar with.

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Ibn ʿArabī in Contemporary Iran: Some Currents and Debates / Çağdaş İran’da İbn Arabî: Bazı Akım ve Tartışmalar – By Journal of the Institute for Sufi Studies

By Journal of the Institute for Sufi Studies

Iran’s historical and complicated social situation has led to diverse attitudes toward Sufism and interpretations of Ibn ʿArabī’s legacy. Many of Ibn ʿArabī’s prominent followers and commentators were originally from Iran; however, many of his notable opponents were also from Iran. These two historical currents of followers and opponents of Ibn ʿArabī are still quite alive. Other currents with unique attitudes toward Ibn ʿArabī also have been established recently in Iran. In this article, different attitudes towards Ibn ʿArabī in contemporary Iran are presented and contextualized. Attitudes represent not only the scholarly tendencies of Iranian academics and Islamic scholars but also their role in forming diverse collective identities.

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

Abū ʿĪsā [al-Tirmidhī] said: All the ḥadīths in this book are acted on in law, taken as proof by at least some of the People of Knowledge, with the exception of two ḥadīths. * The first is the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās that the Prophet (ṣ) joined his Noon and Afternoon prayers, and his Evening and Night prayers while in Medina without [the excuses] of danger, being in a state of travel or rain. The second is the ḥadīth of the Prophet (ṣ) that he said, “If someone drinks wine, whip him, and if he does it four times then kill him.” We have pointed out the flaws in both these two ḥadīths in this book.

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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

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Sufism in the United Arab Emirates – Ida Zilio-Grandi

This essay aims to provide a brief overview of Sufism in the United Arab Emirates, both in its historical and contemporary contexts. Consideration has been given firstly to the increasing support of local leaderships for the Sufi orientation of Islam as an antidote to the spread of Salafism and political Islam; and secondly to the unfortunately scarce written documentation of the presence and revival of the schools to date. In many cases, the contribution of daily press and social media has proved crucial.

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Review of Bedeviled: Jinn Doppelgangers in Islam & Akbarian Sufism (Dunja Rašić)

This book makes a unique contribution as a foundational source on jinn and jinnealogy and as an encyclopedic reference on jinn doppelgangers (quranāʾ) in particular. It succeeds in the author’s aim to discuss quranāʾ in the context of their jinn species, their human relationships, and their place in Akbarian spiritual cosmology. Furthermore, Bedeviled provides a rich, engaging work that illuminates the diversity of thought and practices surrounding jinn within and beyond Akbarian Sufism in the medieval Islamicate world. I would recommend it to graduate students and scholars interested in jinn, Akbarian Sufism, or mysticism and occult studies more broadly, and to those curious about supernatural beings in Islamic imagination. It will also be of interest to those who seek to better understand Ibn ʿArabī’s works and teachings. Bedeviled is

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Dreaming Sufism in the Sokoto Caliphate: Dreams and Knowledge in the Works of Shaykh Dan Tafa – Oludamini Ogunnaike

This article explores five remarkable works by ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Muṣṭafā (known as “Dan Tafa”) (1804–1864), a 19th-century West African Sufi scholar of the Sokoto Caliphate, to examine the ways in which dreams were (and are) theorized in the unique synthesis of Sufi, occult, philosophical/medical, theological, and exegetical disciplines that characterized discourse about dreams and dream interpretation in Muslim West Africa on the eve of colonial conquest. Concluding with a brief discussion of what these texts can tell us about Dan Tafa’s conceptions of cosmology, knowledge, and the human self, and the importance thereof for African and Islamic intellectual history, we will also consider the potential relevance of Dan Tafa’s work for the importance and onto-epistemological status of dreams in contemporary West African Sufi communities and attempt to understand why dreams have been and remain so important in these traditions.

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The Shādhilīya : Foundational Teachings and Practices – Lahouari Ramzi Taleb

This paper explores the spiritual chain (silsila), foundational doctrines and practices of the Shādhilīya Sufi order, notably, their Qur’anic and prophetic epistemology, the doctrine of sainthood, spiritual cultivation and Sharia-centered discourse among it prominent representatives.

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Introduction: Forms and Functions of Islamic Philosophy – Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed

his article presents an introduction to this special issue of Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. We suggest that this collection of papers broadens the scope of Islamic philosophy by bringing new insights into diverse forms and affective experiences of philosophy. Together, these papers suggest a way of doing Islamic philosophy that is both living and communal. This issue emerges from the community formed within the Islamic Philosophy in Conversation Working Group. As such, the introduction to the collection also serves as a reminder of the necessity of support specifically for women and nonbinary academics, scholars of color, and other minoritized scholars in our field.

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