Download or read book The First Islamic Reviver written by Kenneth Garden and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First Islamic Reviver presents a new biography of al-Ghazali's final decade and a half, presenting him not as a reclusive spiritual seeker, but as an engaged Islamic revivalist seeking to reshape his religious tradition.
Download or read book Sufism written by Alexander Knysh and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pathbreaking history of Sufism, from the earliest centuries of Islam to the present After centuries as the most important ascetic-mystical strand of Islam, Sufism saw a sharp decline in the twentieth century, only to experience a stunning revival in recent decades. In this comprehensive new history of Sufism from the earliest centuries of Islam to today, Alexander Knysh, a leading expert on the subject, reveals the tradition in all its richness. Knysh explores how Sufism has been viewed by both insiders and outsiders since its inception. He examines the key aspects of Sufism, from definitions and discourses to leadership, institutions, and practices. He devotes special attention to Sufi approaches to the Qur’an, drawing parallels with similar uses of scripture in Judaism and Christianity. He traces how Sufism grew from a set of simple moral-ethical precepts into a sophisticated tradition with professional Sufi masters (shaykhs) who became powerful players in Muslim public life but whose authority was challenged by those advocating the equality of all Muslims before God. Knysh also examines the roots of the ongoing conflict between the Sufis and their fundamentalist critics, the Salafis—a major fact of Muslim life today. Based on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Sufism is an indispensable account of a vital aspect of Islam.
Download or read book The Islamic Rational State and New Religious Foundations for an Islamic Liberal Theory written by Ahmed Meiloud and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2024-10-07 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking volume on political Islam takes the question of Islam and secularism in an entirely different direction. It shows how leading Islamists use Islamic legal theory to liberate the political sphere from the narrow exegetical worldviews of classical jurists and modern fundamentalists. Exploring the work of a vanguard of Islamists, the book brilliantly parses out the broadlines of these Islamists’ liberal theory and its underpinning legal grounds. This theory promises much. Beyond resolving the problem of political legitimacy in Muslim majority countries, it opens immense potential for reasonable ‘overlapping consensuses’ between traditional worldviews and modern secular perspectives. Most strikingly, this resolution rests not on a break with the Islamic legal heritage but on rediscovering and refining the most profound aspects of it. The secret of this liberal theory lies in the broad application of the medieval concept of maqasid, the Lawgiver’s aims. This approach shifts the focus from textual analysis emphasizing what God said to a systematic rational exploration of what He intended.
Download or read book Debating Gender written by Nadia Harhash and published by Al Nasher Technical Services. This book was released on 2024-05-31 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is an in-depth examination of medieval and contemporary discussions of gender in Islam, focusing in particular on views of women. Ms. Harhash wisely introduces the discussion by clarifying the legal status of women in medieval Islam, which provides a useful framework for her discussion. While her sympathy clearly lies with Averroes, I was particularly impressed by the chapter on al Ghazali, which traces a nuanced picture of al Ghazali's approach to women, highlighting striking differences in his various works and connecting his (to the modern ear) unpalatable claims about women- to his embracement of Sufism. While Ms. Harhash is attracted to the "progressive" view of Averroes, she offers a lucid analysis of his core egalitarian statements in the commentary on the Republic without omitting to point out that his philosophical position is in some tension with the more traditional position in forming his legal decisions. Ibn Taymiyyah is probably the biggest villain in Ms. Harhash's narrative and is portrayed as a kind of antipode to Averroes. With respect to modern discussion, she focuses on Nawal El Saadawi and Fatima Mernissi, where she situates the modern discussion vis a vis its medieval counterpart and highlights differences and commonalities. Ms. Harhash does a good job showing how the critique of the oppression of women in modern days leads to the same question that she had already addressed in Averroes, namely whether a critique of unjust structures in contemporary Islamic societies can be separated from a critique of Islam itself. Overall, the thesis is a remarkable achievement. Ms. Harhash reconstructs the medieval and modern discussion with intellectual confidence and independence and brings out similarities and differences that are genuinely illuminating.
Download or read book Skepticism in Classical Islam written by Paul L. Heck and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-20 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first major treatment of skepticism in Islam, this book explores the critical role of skeptical thinking in the development of theology in Islam. It examines the way key thinkers in classical Islam faced perplexing questions about the nature of God and his relation to the world, all the while walking a fine line between belief in God’s message as revealed in the Qur’an, and the power of the mind to discover truths on its own. Skepticism in Classical Islam reveals how doubt was actually an integral part of scholarly life at this time. Skepticism is by no means synonymous with atheism. It is, rather, the admission that one cannot convincingly demonstrate a truth claim with certainty, and Islam’s scholars, like their counterparts elsewhere, acknowledged such impasses, only to be inspired to find new ways to resolve the conundrums they faced. Whilst their conundrums were unique, their admission of the limits of knowledge shares much with other scholarly traditions. Seeking to put Islam on the map of the broader study of the history of scepticism, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of Religion, History and Philosophy.
Download or read book Islam and Rationality written by Frank Griffel and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) is one of the most influential thinkers of Islam. There is hardly a genre of Islamic literature where he is not regarded as a major authority. Islamic Law, Sufism, ethics, philosophy, and theology are all deeply shaped by him. Yet in the past thirty years, the field of Ghazālī-studies has been shaken by the realization that Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 428/1037) and other philosophers had a strong influence on him. Now, after the 900th anniversary at his death, the field emerges stronger than ever. This second volume of Islam and Rationality: The Impact of al-Ghazālī brings together twelve leading experts on al-Ghazālī who write about his thought and the impact it had on later Muslim thinkers. Contributors are: Anna Ayşe Akasoy, Ahmed El Shamsy, Kenneth Garden, Frank Griffel, Jules Janssens, Damien Janos, Taneli Kukkonen, Stephen Ogden, M. Sait Özervarlı, Martin Riexinger, Ulrich Rudolph, and Ayman Shihadeh.
Download or read book Islam in Historical Perspective written by Alexander Knysh and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-09-30 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islam in Historical Perspective is a general introduction to Islam and the history of Muslim societies. Richly illustrated by quotations and images from Muslim scripture, historical chronicles, artistic works, and theological and juridical treatises, it invites the reader to examine this evidence and to form a comprehensive understanding of Islam’s evolution from its inception in Arabia to the present day. Combining chronological and thematic principles, this book examines Muslims’ political and intellectual struggles over the meaning and practical implications of their faith. Treating Islam as a language that various factions and generations of Muslims have used to express their grievances, aspirations, and personal experiences and preferences, the book shows the religion’s remarkable potency as a social, political, and cultural force and source of identity. It also describes and analyses Muslim devotional practices, emotional responses to the revelation, artistic and intellectual creativity, and patterns of everyday existence. The goal of this book is to help the reader to develop personal empathy for the subject by showing the relevance of the dilemmas faced by Muslims in different epochs and geographical locations to the burning issues of today’s world. A thorough analysis of pivotal events, trends, and personalities of Islamic history is accompanied by witness accounts showing how they were perceived by Muslims themselves. This new edition features a thoroughly revised text, updated bibliography, new illustrations, study questions and chapter summaries, and is an outstanding resource for students of Islam and Muslim civilization.
Download or read book Islam and Rationality written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers an account of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) as a rational theologian who created a symbiosis of philosophy and theology and infused rationality into Sufism. The majority of the papers herein deal with important topics of al-Ghazālī’s work, which demonstrate his rational treatment of the Qurʾān and major subjects of Islamic theology and everyday life of Muslims. Some other contributions address al-Ghazālī’s sources and how his intellectual endeavors were later received by scholars who had the same concern of reconciling religion and rationality within Islam, Christianity and Judaism. With contributions by Binyamin Abrahamov, Hans Daiber, Ken Garden, Avner Giladi, Scott Girdner, Frank Griffel, Steven Harvey, Alfred Ivry, Jules Janssens, Taneli Kukkonen, Luis Xavier López-Farjeat, Wilferd Madelung, Yahya M. Michot, Yasien Mohamed, Eric Ormsby, M. Sait Özervarlı, and Hidemi Takahashi.
Download or read book Information and the History of Philosophy written by Chris Meyns and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years the philosophy of information has emerged as an important area of research in philosophy. However, until now information’s philosophical history has been largely overlooked. Information and the History of Philosophy is the first comprehensive investigation of the history of philosophical questions around information, including work from before the Common Era to the twenty-first century. It covers scientific and technology-centred notions of information, views of human information processing, as well as socio-political topics such as the control and use of information in societies. Organised into five parts, 19 chapters by an international team of contributors cover the following topics and more: Information before 500 CE, including ancient Chinese, Greek and Roman approaches to information; Early theories of information processing, sources of information and cognition; Information and computation in Leibniz, visualised scientific information, copyright and social reform; The nineteenth century, including biological information, knowledge economies and information’s role in empire and eugenics; Recent and contemporary philosophy of information, including racialised information, Shannon information and the very idea of an information revolution. Information and the History of Philosophy is a landmark publication in this emerging field. As such, it is essential reading for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, philosophy of science and technology, and library and information studies. It is also a valuable resource for those working in subjects such as the history of science, media and communication studies and intellectual history.
Download or read book Maimonides Review of Philosophy and Religion Volume 3 2024 written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-09-09 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Maimonides Review of Philosophy and Religion is an annual collection of double-blind peer-reviewed articles that seeks to provide a broad international arena for an intellectual exchange of ideas between the disciplines of philosophy, theology, religion, cultural history, and literature and to showcase their multifarious junctures within the framework of Jewish studies. Contributions to the Review place special thematic emphasis on scepticism within Jewish thought and its links to other religious traditions and secular worldviews. The Review is interested in the tension at the heart of matters of reason and faith, rationalism and mysticism, theory and practice, narrativity and normativity, doubt and dogma.
Download or read book Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives written by Chase F. Robinson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious thinkers, political leaders, lawmakers, writers, and philosophers have shaped the 1,400-year-long development of the world's second-largest religion. But who were these people? What do we know of their lives and the ways in which they influenced their societies? In Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives, the distinguished historian of Islam Chase F. Robinson draws on the long tradition in Muslim scholarship of commemorating in writing the biographies of notable figures, but he weaves these ambitious lives together to create a rich narrative of Islamic civilization, from the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century to the era of the world conquerer Timur and the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in the fifteenth. Beginning in Islam’s heartland, Mecca, and ranging from North Africa and Iberia in the west to Central and East Asia, Robinson not only traces the rise and fall of Islamic states through the biographies of political and military leaders who worked to secure peace or expand their power, but also discusses those who developed Islamic law, scientific thought, and literature. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of rich and diverse Islamic societies. Alongside the famous characters who colored this landscape—including Muhammad’s cousin ’Ali; the Crusader-era hero Saladin; and the poet Rumi—are less well-known figures, such as Ibn Fadlan, whose travels in Eurasia brought fascinating first-hand accounts of the Volga Vikings to the Abbasid Caliph; the eleventh-century Karima al-Marwaziyya, a woman scholar of Prophetic traditions; and Abu al-Qasim Ramisht, a twelfth-century merchant millionaire. An illuminating read for anyone interested in learning more about this often-misunderstood civilization, this book creates a vivid picture of life in all arenas of the pre-modern Muslim world.
Download or read book God in Islamic Theology written by Mehmet Ozalp and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-05-15 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gleans classical and contemporary Islamic theology on the central tenets of God in Islam in directly addressing theological challenges facing Islam today. It presents a new theological framework and drives prime essential of Islamic theology in its attempting to prove the existence, oneness, and relatability of God.
Download or read book Seerah of Prophet Muhammed written by Yasir Qadhi and published by . This book was released on 2019-05-18 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shaykh Yasir Qadhi gives a detailed analysis of the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) from the original sources.Study the Biography of the single greatest human being that ever walked the surface of this earth, whom Allah sent as a Mercy to Mankind.
Download or read book Philosophical Theology in Islam written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-05-06 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophical Theology in Islam studies the later history of the Ashʿarī school of theology through in-depth probings of its thought, sources, scholarly networks and contexts. Starting with a review of al-Ghazālī’s role in the emergence of post-Avicennan philosophical theology, the book offers a series of case studies on hitherto unstudied texts by the towering thinker Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī as well as specific philosophical and theological topics treated in his works. Studies furthermore shed light on the transmission and reception of later Ashʿarī doctrines in periods and regions that have so far received little scholarly attention. This book is the first exploration of the later Ashʿarī tradition across the medieval and early-modern period through a trans-regional perspective. Contributors: Peter Adamson, Asad Q. Ahmed, Fedor Benevich, Xavier Casassas Canals, Jon Hoover, Bilal Ibrahim, Andreas Lammer, Reza Pourjavady, Harith Ramli, Ulrich Rudolph, Meryem Sebti, Delfina Serrano-Ruano, Ayman Shihadeh, Aaron Spevack, and Jan Thiele.
Download or read book Ahmad al Ghazali Remembrance and the Metaphysics of Love written by Joseph E. B. Lumbard and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2016-10-20 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the work of a central, but poorly understood, figure in the development of Persian Sufism, A?mad al-Ghaz?l?. The teachings of A?mad al-Ghaz?l? changed the course of Persian Sufism forever, paving the way for luminaries such as R?m?, A???r, and ??fi?. Yet he remains a poorly understood thinker, with many treatises incorrectly attributed to him and conflicting accounts in the historiographical literature. This work provides the first examination of A?mad al-Ghaz?l? and his work in Western scholarly literature. Joseph E. B. Lumbard seeks to ascertain the authenticity of works attributed to this author, trace the development of the dominant trends in the biographical literature, and reconstruct the life and times of A?mad al-Ghaz?l? with particular attention to his relationship with his more famous brother, Ab? Hamid al-Ghaz?l?. Lumbards findings revolutionize our understanding of A?mad al-Ghaz?l?'s writings, allowing for focus on his central teachings regarding Divine Love and the remembrance of God.
Download or read book Islam as Devotion written by Ralf K. Wüstenberg and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-07-05 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How is it that Islam is so feared and misunderstood among Christians? Is there any possibility of an open dialogue between Muslims and Christians that will lead to a greater understanding of both? Ralf K. Wüstenberg explores these and other questions in an in-depth investigation of Islam, using as his guide the teachings of the revered Muslim scholar, Al-Ghazali, and placing them in dialogue with those of the protestant theologian and Reformer, John Calvin. The journey of discovery offered in this book is of long-lasting value to both Christians and Muslims as they seek to find common ground in understanding the most important and basic tenets of each other’s faith.
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.
