Tag Archive for: William C. Chittick

Remembering Toshihiko Izutsu: Linguist,Islamicist, Philosopher – Atif Khalil

Abstract:

The publication of this Festschrift in honor of Professors William Chittick and Sachiko Murata coincides with the 30-year death anniversary of Toshihiko Izutsu, who was one of their teachers and one of the most remarkable scholars of Islam of the last century. Like Henry Corbin (d. 1978), with whom he forged a close friendship, Izutsu saw himself first and foremost as a philosopher, and in his own particular case, as a “metaphysician of the word.”1 The designation symbolized both his fascination with language and a lifelong preoccupation with the nature of Being to the extent that it emerges as a Word (through the kun fa-yakūn, the creative fiat) out of the silence of the formless Absolute, Beyond Being, Non-Being, or Void. In conventional academic parlance, Izutsu might also be described as a philosopher of language, a designation not wholly inaccurate as long as we keep in mind the intricate, intimate relation he believed to exist between human speech, on the one hand, and Being as a repository of meaning, on the other

Islamic Thought and the Art of Translation Texts and Studies in Honor of William C. Chittick and Sachiko Murata Edited by Mohammed Rustom

Abstract:

I have known William Chittick and Sachiko Murata for over half a century as their teacher, friend, colleague, and scholarly collaborator. It was in 1964, when I was the Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut, that I first met a young American student named Chittick in one of my classes and during a public lecture I gave at the University. He drew my attention as a gifted student and potentially a serious scholar. During that year he also visited historical Islamic cities in Syria and became deeply attracted to the Islamic intellectual and spiritual tradition. After returning to America for his senior year and having received his bachelor’s degree, he came to Iran where he spent the next dozen years finishing his doctorate at the University of Tehran, becoming later an instructor at Aryamehr University of Technology and the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy when I headed both institutions.

“Caring for the Ill” – Kristin Zahra Sands

Abstract:

God will say on the Day of Resurrection, “O child of Adam, I was sick but you did not visit me.”  [The child of Adam] says, “My Lord, how could I visit you when you are the Lord of all beings?”  God says, “But didn’t you know that my servant so-and-so was sick and yet you did not visit him?  Did you not know that if you had visited him, you would have found me present with him? O son of Adam, I asked you for food but you did not feed me.”  [The child of Adam] says, “My Lord, how could I feed you when you are the Lord of all beings?”  God says, “Didn’t you know that my servant so-and-so asked you for food and you did not feed him?  If you had given him food, you would have found that in my presence.  O son of Adam, I was thirsty but you did not give me water.”  [The child of Adam] says, “My Lord, how could I give you water when you are the Lord of all beings?”  He says, “My servant so-and-so asked you for water but you did not give it to him.  If you had given him water, you would have found that in my presence.”

Sands_Caring For The Ill

From the Divine to the Human: New Perspectives on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic Program – Jun 28-30, 2022

From_the_Divine_to_the_Human_New_Perspec

Details including registration can be found at:

https://www.sufferingpandemicconference.org/

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”

ISLAMSKA KOSMOLOGIJA – William C. CHITTICK

U islamu su se razvila složena i prefnjena kosmološka učenja kako na osnovu islamskih izvora tako irazličitih domaćih svjetonazora predislamskih društava. Ono što islamsku kosmologiju čini izrazito islamskom jestečinjenica da ishodišno kur’ansko gledište objedinjuje i usklađuje preuzete koncepte. Izraz “islamska kosmologija”se može općenito razumjeti u značenju svjetonazora zabilježenog u Kur’anu i Hadisu te prihvaćenog izričito ilineizričito od strane većine muslimanâ. Užê se odnosi na različite teorije univerzuma koje su postepeno razvilimuslimanski mislioci. Autor u ovom pregledu navodi neke temeljne premise islamskih kosmoloških teorijapokušavajući opisati islamski kosmos onakav kakav su opažali muslimanski kosmolozi. On to čini govoreći o Bogui kosmosu, dva lûka postojanja i ljudskim bićima u kosmosu u smislu njihova namjesništva imajući u vidu da jeosnovni cilj kosmologije pokazati kako se božanska svojstva očituju u makrokosmosu i mikrokosmosu

Islamska_kosmologija