Download or read book A Medieval Critique of Anthropomorphism written by Merlin Swartz and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-05-16 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study consists of a critical edition of Ibn al-Jawzī’s Kitāb Akhbār as-Sifāt (KAS) along with an annotated translation and introduction. KAS is a critique of anthropomorphic conceptions of God, directed in the first instance against Ibn al-Jawzī’s fellow Hanbalī, but also against Sunnī traditionalists more generally. As an intra-Hanbalīr polemic, KAS sheds important new light on the intellectual fault-lines within medieval Hanbalism, and reveals the extent to which kalām had penetrated the Hanbalite school by the 12th century. In his work, Ibn al- Jawzī’s makes extensive use of kalām, drawing on its technical language and crafting his arguments against anthropomorphism on the basis of the dialectical methods developed within the great theological schools of medieval Islam. The study also contains a translation of al-ʿAlthī's Risāla, a pointed response to Ibn al-Jawzī, written by a fellow Hanbalī from a traditionalist perspective.
Download or read book Anthropomorphic Depictions of God written by Zulfiqar Ali Shah and published by International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). This book was released on 2012 with total page 765 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monumental study examines issues of anthropomorphism in the three Abrahamic Faiths, as viewed through the texts of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Qur’an. Throughout history Christianity and Judaism have tried to make sense of God. While juxtaposing the Islamic position against this, the author addresses the Judeo-Christian worldview and how each has chosen to framework its encounter with God, to what extent this has been the result of actual scripture and to what extent the product of theological debate, or church decrees of later centuries and absorption of Hellenistic philosophy. Shah also examines Islam’s heavily anti-anthropomorphic stance and Islamic theological discourse on Tawhid as well as the Ninety-Nine Names of God and what these have meant in relation to Muslim understanding of God and His attributes. Describing how these became the touchstone of Muslim discourse with Judaism and Christianity he critiques theological statements and perspectives that came to dilute if not counter strict monotheism. As secularism debates whether God is dead, the issue of anthropomorphism has become of immense importance. The quest for God, especially in this day and age, is partly one of intellectual longing. To Shah, anthropomorphic concepts and corporeal depictions of the Divine are perhaps among the leading factors of modern atheism. As such he ultimately draws the conclusion that the postmodern longing for God will not be quenched by pre-modern anthropomorphic and corporeal concepts of the Divine which have simply brought God down to this cosmos, with a precise historical function and a specified location, reducing the intellectual and spiritual force of what God is and represents, causing the soul to detract from a sense of the sacred and thereby belief in Him.
Download or read book Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times written by Albrecht Classen and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2010-09-22 with total page 864 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite popular opinions of the ‘dark Middle Ages’ and a ‘gloomy early modern age,’ many people laughed, smiled, giggled, chuckled, entertained and ridiculed each other. This volume demonstrates how important laughter had been at times and how diverse the situations proved to be in which people laughed, and this from late antiquity to the eighteenth century. The contributions examine a wide gamut of significant cases of laughter in literary texts, historical documents, and art works where laughter determined the relationship among people. In fact, laughter emerges as a kaleidoscopic phenomenon reflecting divine joy, bitter hatred and contempt, satirical perspectives and parodic intentions. In some examples protagonists laughed out of sheer happiness and delight, in others because they felt anxiety and insecurity. It is much more difficult to detect premodern sculptures of laughing figures, but they also existed. Laughter reflected a variety of concerns, interests, and intentions, and the collective approach in this volume to laughter in the past opens many new windows to the history of mentality, social and religious conditions, gender relationships, and power structures.
Download or read book Anthropomorphism in Islam written by Livnat Holtzman and published by Edinburgh Studies in Classical. This book was released on 2018-03-31 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problem of anthropomorphism (tashbih) – the perception of a divine being in a human form – was one of the major bones of contention in Islamic theology from the 8th to the 14th centuries. These debates were not purely intellectual: the theological controversy was often a façade masking political struggles over hegemony. The way a scholar interpreted the descriptions of God in the Qur’an and hadith – God’s hand, God sitting on the heavenly throne – often reflected his political and social stature, as well as his theological affinity.Livnat Holtzman focuses on the inner debates on tashbih within the circles of Islamic traditionalism in medieval Medina, Baghdad, Nishapur, Damascus and Cairo. Through a close reading of the writings of Ash’ari and Hanbali thinkers, he evaluates the traditionalist endeavours to define anthropomorphism in the most formative period of Islamic thought.
Download or read book Awhad al D n Kirm n and the Controversy of the Sufi Gaze written by Lloyd Ridgeon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awḥad al-Dīn Kirmānī (d. 1238) was one of the greatest and most colourful Persian Sufis of the medieval period; he was celebrated in his own lifetime by a large number of like-minded followers and other Sufi masters. And yet his form of Sufism was the subject of much discussion within the Islamic world, as it elicited responses ranging from praise and commendation to reproach and contempt for his Sufi practices within a generation of his death. This book assesses the few comments written about Kirmānī by his contemporaries, and also provides a translation from his Persian hagiography, which was written in the generation after his death. The controversy centres on Kirmānī’s penchant for gazing at, and dancing with, beautiful young boys. This anonymous hagiography presents a series of anecdotes that portray Kirmānī’s “virtues”. The book provides an investigation into Kirmānī the individual, but the story has significance that extends much further. The controversy of his form of Sufism occurred at a crucial time in the evolution of Sufi piety and theology. The research herein situates Kirmānī within this critical period, and assesses the various perspectives taken by his contemporaries and near contemporaries. Such views reveal much about the dynamics and developments of Sufism during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the Sufi orders (ṭurūq, s. ṭarīqa) began to emerge, and which gave individual Sufis a much more structured and ordered method of engaging in piety, and of presenting the Sufi tradition to society at large. As the first attempt in a Western language to appreciate the significant contribution that Kirmānī made to the medieval Persian Sufi tradition, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Sufi Studies, as well as those interested in Middle Eastern History.
Download or read book Islam and Disability written by Mohammed Ghaly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-21 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the position of Islamic theology and jurisprudence towards people with disabilities. It seeks to reconcile their existence with the concept of a merciful God, and also looks at how this group might live a dignified and productive life within an Islamic context.
Download or read book Re centering the Sufi Shrine written by Irfan Moeen Khan and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-01-30 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recentering the Sufi Shrine is a study of ritual, Sufi eschatology, and vernacular theopoetics of pilgrimage to Sufi shrines in the Indus region of Pakistan. The book examines the distinction between two different ritual contestations over pilgrimage to Sufi tombs: (1) an exposition of Ṭariqa-i Muhammadiyya’s millenarian Scripturalist reform of Sufism, and (2) Bulleh Shah’s (d. 1767) vernacular Sufism, a hard-hitting Sufi-poet of textual ("bookish") knowledge of religious scholars. This is the first work examining the legal theology of ritual intervention in using scripture to regulate the resurrected bodies of saints, on the one hand, and the ritual metaphysics of presence in understanding the significance and meaning of Sufi shrines, on the other.
Download or read book The Life of Ibn anbal written by Abū al-Faraj ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʻAlī Ibn al-Jawzī and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 H/855 AD), renowned for his profound knowledge of hadiths—the reports of the Prophet’s sayings and deeds—is a major figure in the history of Islam. He was famous for living according to his own strict interpretation of the Prophetic model and for denying himself the most basic comforts, even though his family was prominent and his city, Baghdad, was then one of the wealthiest in the world. Ibn Hanbal’s piety and austerity made him a folk hero, especially after he resisted the attempts of two caliphs to force him to accept rationalist doctrine. His subsequent imprisonment and flogging is one of the most dramatic episodes of medieval Islamic history, and his principled resistance influenced the course of Islamic law, the rise of Sunnism, and the legislative authority of the caliphate. [This book] is a translation of the biography of Ibn Hanbal by the Baghdad preacher, scholar, and storyteller Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 H/1200 AD), newly abridged for a paperback readership by translator Michael Cooperson. Set against the background of fierce debates over the role of reason and the basis of legitimate government, it tells the formidable life tale of one of the most influential Muslims in history."--
Download or read book Words written by Ernst van den Hemel and published by Fordham University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-15 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is said that words are like people: One can encounter them daily yet never come to know their true selves. This volume examines what words are—how they exist—in religious phenomena. Going beyond the common idea that language merely describes states of mind, beliefs, and intentions, the book looks at words in their performative and material specificity. The contributions in the volume develop the insight that our implicit assumptions about what language does guide the way we understand and experience religious phenomena. They also explore the possibility that insights about the particular status of religious utterances may in turn influence the way we think about words in our language.
Download or read book Organizing Knowledge written by Gerhard Endress and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributions in this volume offer the first comprehensive effort to describe and analyse the collection, classification, presentation and methodology of information in the knowledge society of medieval Islam in the disciplines of religious and legal learning, as well as the rational sciences of Hellenistic origin – philosophy, mathematical and medical sciences.The volume begins with a general discussion of the concept of encyclopædia. Successive chapters explore the bases of authority in the institutions of religion and law; biographical literature and handbooks of law; compendia of scientific and philosophical learning based on Iranian and Greek sources; and the more specialised expositions of mathematics and philosophy. The special character of Muslim institutions, their teaching traditions and syllabi is also put into perspective. This is a reference work for the principal genres of ‘enyclopædic’ outlines and manuals – biography, legal handbooks, historiography of knowledge transmission, cosmography, and the philosophical sciences – and a major contribution to the literary and intellectual history.
Download or read book Jerome s Epitaph on Paula written by Saint Jerome and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Composed in 404, Jerome's Epitaph on Saint Paula (Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae) is an elaborate eulogy commemorating the life of Paula (347-404), a wealthy Christian widow from Rome who renounced her senatorial status and embraced an ascetic lifestyle and in 386 co-founded with Jerome a monastic complex in Bethlehem.
Download or read book Scripturalist Islam written by Robert Gleave and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-10-30 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Akhbārī School dominated the intellectual landscape of Imāmī Shiʿism between the Seventeenth and early Nineteenth Centuries. Its principal doctrines involved a reliance on scripture (primarily the sayings or akhbār of the Shiʿite Imams) and a rejection of the rational exegetical techniques which had become orthodox doctrine in Imāmī theology and law. However, the Akhbārīs were not simple literalists, as they are at times portrayed in secondary literature. They developed a complex theory of exegesis in which texts could be interpreted, whilst at the same time remaining doggedly committed to the ability of the revelatory texts to provide answers to theological and legal questions arising within the Shīʿī community. This book is the first in-depth study of the intellectual development and historical influence of the Akhbārī School.
Download or read book Talking about God and Talking about Creation written by Rahim Acar and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-08-04 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study compares Avicenna’s and Thomas Aquinas’ conceptions of God, theological language, the nature of creative action and the beginning of the universe. It emphasizes the connection between their positions regarding theological language and their discussions of creation.
Download or read book American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 25 4 written by Abdul-Samad Abdullah and published by International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). This book was released on 2008-09-22 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS) is a double blind peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary journal that publishes a wide variety of scholarly research on all facets of Islam and the Muslim world: anthropology, economics, history, philosophy and meta-physics, politics, psychology, religious law, and traditional Islam. Submissions are subject to a blind peer review process.
Download or read book Wahhabism and the Rise of the New Salafists written by Namira Nahouza and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-14 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wahhabism is often described as one of the most conservative branches of Islam and its fundamentalist approach seen as fuelling jihadist extremism. But what is the theological basis of Wahhabism? How do Wahhabi beliefs and doctrine differ from branches of Sunni Islam? While previous scholarship has examined Wahhabism as a political phenomenon, this book turns attention to the complex religious issues that are central to its understanding. Tracing its roots in the 18th century up until the present day, Namira Nahouza shows why the Wahhabi movement has opposed traditional Islamic scholarship on the interpretation of the Qur'an and hadith. Of key importance, Nahouza shows, are the differing beliefs about the oneness of God and God's names and attributes, issues on which both Wahhabi and other Salafi groups are united. Based on extensive research into classical and contemporary Arabic religious sources, Nahouza presents the contours of Sunni theological debate and reveals how the Wahhabi movement became the predecessor to the Salafism we see today. In highlighting the far-reaching consequences of these theological divisions - both for Muslim communities and the world at large -the book fills a significant gap in existing research and is essential reading for scholars researching Islamic Theology, Islamic History, Security Studies and Islamic Radicalism.
Download or read book Ibn Taymiyya s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism written by Jon Hoover and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive study of Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyya's (d. 1328) theodicy of perpetual optimism exposits and analyses his writings on God's justice and wise purpose, divine determination and human agency, the problem of evil, and juristic method in theological doctrine.
Download or read book A Sufi Jewish Dialogue written by Diana Lobel and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2007-01-02 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue' is the first scholarly book in English about a tremendously influential work of medieval Jewish thought. Readers will discover an extraordinary time when Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinkers participated in a common spiritual quest, across traditions and cultural boundaries.
