Tag Archive for: Theology

Nasrin Rouzati’s Review of Faruque and Rustom (eds.), From the Divine to the Human: Contemporary Islamic Thinkers on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic (Studia Islamica, 2025)

From the Divine to the Human: Contemporary Islamic Thinkers on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic, edited by Muhammad U. Faruque and Mohammed Rustom, is a fresh and insightful engagement with one of the most challeng- ing questions of human thought, namely evil and human suffering, from an Islamic perspective. The volume takes a new approach by focusing on the human subject and its potential and spiritual development in the face of evil and suffering. Although the overarching problem of evil is considered one of the most investigated questions in the field of philosophy of religion, the issue is mostly addressed in the context of God’s divine attributes with the objec- tive to justify the existence of a powerful and benevolent God and the fact that evil exists, hence the formation of various theodicies. The present volume, however, shifts the attention from the divine attributes to human capabilities, and while it does not overlook the metaphysical nature of evil and suffering, it draws attention to the anthropocentric conceptions of them, thereby address- ing both the theoretical and the practical dimensions of the problem.

The volume begins by a concise introduction where the editors intro- duce the topic and provide a short history of various versions of the problem of evil and suffering, as well as ways by which the philosophers of religions have largely addressed the issue. Following this background information, the reader is made aware of the unique approach of the present study and the redirection that will take place throughout the volume, i.e. drawing attention away from the traditional approach in philosophy of religion, where the focus is on God and His attributes, and directing the emphasis on human capacities and spiri- tual development. Subsequently, the contributors of the fourteen chapters of the volume attempt to achieve the aforementioned goal by investigating both pre-modern and contemporary Islamic literature to propose new avenues in studying the nature of evil and human suffering.

Ibn Arabi on the Ontology of Trust – William C. Chittick

Abstract:

In a world where people often relegate God to the realm of illusion and look on “trust in God” as a psychological crutch, to
speak about trust as an actual dimension of reality must seem odd. People would rather imagine that trust is something we should have in our favorite ideology, or perhaps science, or technology, or our doctors, or some politician. Most people agree that we should trust in change, given that the current situation is unsustainable. As an antidote to the fickleness of modern versions of trust, it may be useful to reflect on the views of Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), arguably the greatest of all Muslim theologians and philosophers. His insights into the manner in which human nature is utterly dependent on trust may help us understand why we are making a hash of our world, and why every change in which we trust eventually turns out for the worse. Before looking at what he has to say about trust, let me first provide some general background for those unfamiliar with the Islamic tradition

Foreword to Oludamini Ogunnaike, The Book of Clouds (Fons Vitae, 2024) – Mohammed Rustom

“As the blessed Prophet’s words indicate, the cloud is connected to the “space” wherein God resides, and which transforms into the rain of mercy (raḥma) that pervades all things. As a metaphysical reality, Ibn ʿArabī explains that the primordial Cloud (ʿamāʾ) is the ontological, basis of the Muhammadan Reality (ḥaqīqa Muḥammadiyya) and directly corresponds to the Breath of the All-Merciful (nafas al-Raḥmān) within and through which all of God’s words—the stuff of the cosmos are articulated and formed. In its vapor-like state, a cloud is both here and not here, and hence denotes the principle and substance of manifestation which is simultaneously absent and present throughout the created order”

Maratib al-Taqwa: Sa’id al-Din Farghani on the Ontology of Ethics

Given the philosophical tradition’s explicit acknowledgment that “the Necessary in Existence” (al-wājib al-wujūd) is a proper designation for God per se, and given the fact that this acknowledgment came to be shared by various forms of Sufism and Kalam, it should come as no surprise that many scholars who investigated the reality of the human, “created upon the form of God,” concluded that ethical perfection amounted to the soul’s harmonious conformity with the Real Existence (al-wujūd al-ḥaqq). Early on, philosophers tended to keep ontology separate from ʿilm al-akhlāq, the science of ethics, but they used expressions like al-tashabbuh bi’l-ilāh, “similarity to the God,” and taʾalluh, “deiformity,” to designate the state of human perfection. Achieving perfection demanded transformation of khulq

La Grande chaîne de la conscience – Par Mohammed Rustom

Dans son Essai sur l’homme, le poète britannique Alexander Pope proposait au XVIIIèsiècle une formulation succincte d’une ancienne doctrine philosophique de la réalité. Cettedoctrine, à laquelle Arthur Lovejoy a donné le nom de “grande chaîne des êtres,” soutientque l’existence est une structure organique, entremêlée et hiérarchisée, reposant sur lesdegrés décroissants d’états de l’existence. La réalité vient de Dieu et elle part de Lui, l’ÊtreSuprême; et elle vient trouver sa fin dans la plus infinitésimale des formes d’existence.Chaque élément du cosmos, y compris le cosmos lui-même, nourrit un lien vital avec lesautres éléments qui en composent la grande chaîne. Pour citer Pope

Ibn al-‘Arabī: The Doorway to an Intellectual Tradition

Actionless Action – Mohammed Rustom

Abstract:

“It has indeed been a blessing to sit with the great Kenan Rifai’s commentary upon book one of Mevlana’s Mesnevi .Spending time with this book naturally led me to Kenan Rifai’s explanation of a famous tale in the Mesnevi  centered around ‘Ali b. Abi Talib tale is retold from Islamic tradition and is cast in Mevlana’s unique terms and worldview. The long and short of the story is as follows: in the heat of a one-on-one encounter with an enemy of Islam, ‘Ali gained the upper hand and thru this opponent to the ground. Just as he was about to finish him off withone blow from his sword, the enemy spat at ‘Ali’s face. When this happened, ‘Ali immediately dropped his sword and walked away. This per-plexed his enemy, and led him to ask ‘Ali in earnest why he had not killed him at that very moment. ‘Ali then speaks, telling the enemy that he only fights for the sake of God. But, when the man insulted him by spitting at him, the possibility that it would become a personal affair had presented itself to him. So he walked away from the situation. ‘Ali then explains that he never acts out of self-interest, but only for, in, and through God

THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF JERUSALEM-THE ISLAMIC VISION*

THE SUBJECT OF JERUSALEM is an extremely significant one for both spiritual and obviously mundane reasons. For men and women of faith, especially those who belong to the world of Abrahamic monotheism, it is of both immediate and ultimate concern……………

Nasr_Article_The Spiritual Significance Of Jerusalem_The Islamic Vision (1999)

A Commentary on the Creed of Islam: Sa’d al-Din al-Taftazani on the Creed of Najm al-Din al-Nasafi – Translated with introduction and notes by Earl Edgar Elder

This book is a translation of one of the most important texts on the creed of Islam, the Sharh al-‘Aqa’id al-Nasafiyyah of Imam Sa’ad al-Din al-Taftazani (d. 1389).  It is a commentary by Taftazani of Imam Abu Hafs al-Nasafi’s (d. 1177) work al-‘Aqa’id al-Nasafiyyah.

Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law: Sharh al-‘Aqa’id al-Nasafiyyah

Imam Razi’s ‘Ilm al-Akhlaq

Imām Rāzī’s ʿIlm al-akhlāq –

Classic work on Islamic Ethics