Eschatology In The Revealed Sources
Eschatology is a large subject. It possesses both an individual and a cosmic element in which the fate of the individual is inextricably bound up with the purpose and destiny of the entire creation within a religious vision. Sacred time finds its culmination, fulfilment and, ironically, its negation or deconstruction in the drama of the Last Things. Theologians typically held that it is among the three most fundamental Islamic doctrines - the unity and uniqueness of God tawhid , prophecy...
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Isma'ilis. However, Islamic philosophy taken as a whole cannot be defined by Islam as a religion, nor did it ever become the ''handmaiden of theology''. Certain later trends did confine philosophical investigation within structures guided by the theologians, but a genuinely philosophical tradition distinct from theology continued, although in the later centuries this was cultivated by fewer and fewer scholastic figures, whose main investigations lay in the religious sphere and who were known to...
The Asharite position
Early Ash'arites, too, contend that reflection constitutes a duty. Yet, to them, it is a religious sharl duty, since they maintain that duties can be engendered only by revealed religion to the exclusion of unaided reason or any other sources.10 One who lives on a remote island and has never heard of any revealed religions will not be under an absolute obligation to reflect in order to know God, or to do good and omit evil. Only when a religion is established through prophecy will knowing God...
Notes Ybq
1. E.g. Ibn 'Arabi, Fusils al-hikam, ed. Abu'l-'Ala' 'Aftf Beirut, 1365 1946 , pp. 122, 178. Ibn 'Arab also on occasion speaks of ''the deity conditioned by dogma'' al-ilah al-mu'taqad M. Chodkiewicz, An Ocean Without Shore Ibn 'Arabi, the Book and the Law Albany, 1993 , p. 128. 2. ''Locution theopathique'' is the term of the French scholar Louis Massignon, though interestingly ''theopathy'' ''theopathetic'' is attested in English as early as the eighteenth century. Louis Massignon, Essay on...
The Challenge Of Esoterism
Aside from bequeathing to Sufism the distinctive institution of the khaanqaah, the influence of Karraamism on Islamic mysticism is indirect. It should be remembered that Ibn Karraam's movement was not mystical sensu stricto. However, the violent asceticism of its exponents, which cast such a spell over the working classes of Khuraasaanian towns such as Nishapur, provoked an epochal reaction amongst mystics in the ninth century. With Hamdun al-Qassar and Abu Hafs 'Amr al-Haddadi at their head,...
The Mutazilite position
How do the Mu'tazila justify their contention that undertaking reflection with a view to knowing God is obligatory Al-Malahimi d. 1141 , a later Basran Mu'tazilite, puts forth two representative arguments in this regard.5 First, he argues that reflection offers the agent who is devoid of the foregoing knowledge the hope of allaying an inevitable fear resulting from a certain ''motive'' khatir , which appears in his heart in one of several ways. If the sensible person hears or reads theological...
islamic law and classical theology
Opinions differ regarding the influence of theology on Islamic law. Fazlur Rahman stresses that the origins of theology and of law were distinct, and that even in the case of the Mu'tazila there is no evidence that their theology affected their positions in positive law.27 The profound influence of kalam was in classical legal theory by contrast, in all legal schools, the content of positive law remained essentially untouched, regardless of the influence kalaam was wielding upon legal theory....
Further reading Kvb
Abdullah, M. Amin, Kant and Ghazali The Idea of the Universality of Ethical Norms Frankfurt, c. 2000 . Fakhry, Majid, Ethical Theories in Islam Leiden, 1991 . Frank, Richard M., ''Moral obligation in classical Islamic theology'', Journal of Religious Ethics 11 1983 , pp. 204-23. Gardet, Louis, and Anawati, George C. Introduction a la th ologie musulmane essai de th ologie comparee Paris, 1948 . Gimaret, Daniel, Theories de l'acte humain en th ologie musulmane Paris, 1980 . Hourani, George F.,...
William C Chittick
Worship can be defined as the appropriate human response to the divine. Having said this, we might jump to an analysis of the rites, rituals and other activities classified as worship in the Islamic tradition. But that approach would ignore the basic theological questions what exactly is God that he deserves to be worshipped What exactly are ''human beings that worship should be demanded of them What exactly makes the human response ''appropriate'' It is to these questions that I turn my...
The Transmission Of Knowledge
From the emergence in the eighth century of the traditional ''Islamic sciences'', which include grammar nahw , exegesis tafsi , dialectic theology kalam , study of hadith, and jurisprudence fiqh , the establishment and maintenance of a connection to the event of revelation became the central preoccupation of those who dedicated themselves to learning. If revelation represented a special infusion of knowledge into the world, this knowledge had to form the basis of human scholarly endeavours, and...
Further reading Dqu
Abrahamov, Binyamin Islamic Theology Traditionalism and Rationalism Edinburgh, 1998 . al-Baydawi, 'Abd Allah, Tawali' al-anwhr min matali' al-anzhr, tr. Edwin E. Calverley and James W. Pollock, as Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam Abd Allah Baydawi's Text Tawali al-Anwar min Matali' al-Anzar, along with Mahmud Isfahani's commentary Matali' al-Anzar Sharh Tawali' al-Anwar Brill, 2002 . Ceric, Mustafa, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam A Study of the Theology of Abu Mansuar al-Maturidi...
The Ontological Imperative
The Qur'an is by no means simply a set of moral injunctions and practical guidelines. It goes to great lengths to encourage people to meditate on the signs ayat of God in both the natural world and the soul so as to gain insight into God's reality and rights. The Qur'an pays special attention to the divine names and attributes that become manifest in creation - life, power, consciousness, speech, wrath, justice -and the fact that these provide general categories of understanding and the means...
The Logical Structure Of Islamic Theology
al-Baydawa, 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar, Tawali' al-AnwHr, tr. Edwin E. Calverley and James W. Pollock, in Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam, 2 vols. Leiden, 2002 , esp. vol. ii, pp. 727-48. al-Ghazala, Abu Hamid, The Jerusalem Epistle Al-Qudsiyya , tr. A. Tibawi, in Islamic Quarterly 9 1965 , pp. 62-122, esp. pp. 96-9. Ibn Rushd, Abu l-Walad, Faith and Reason Averroes' Exposition of Religious Arguments Al-Kashf 'an manahij al-adilla fi 'aqa'id al-milla , tr. I. Najjar Oxford, 2001 , esp. pp....
overall trends
I have argued above that the social construction of theological orthodoxy took place at the intersection of three primary societal arenas, comprising the scholars, the ordinary believers and the government. To conclude, I will briefly summarise some broad historical trends that can be observed in these arenas during the millennium between the ninth and the nineteenth centuries. The history of the 'ulama' is marked by the progressive professionalisation of scholarly activity while early scholars...
Places Of Learning
In the pre-Ottoman Islamic world, scholarship was not rooted in any single specific venue. Nevertheless, the mosque has always been, and remains to this day, an important place of teaching. In the first Islamic cities, particularly the garrison towns built by the early Arab-Muslim conquerors in the seventh century, the mosque represented the public space par excellence. It was in the mosque that scholars sat between the five daily prayers, lecturing to their students as well as to interested...
Further reading
Abdel Haleem, M. A. S., The Qur'an A New Translation Oxford, 2004 . Understanding the Qur'an Themes and Style London, 2001 . Babu Sahib, Moulavi M. H., The Tenets of Islam Being a Translation and Extensive Commentary on Kitab Jawharatu 't-Tawhid of Imam Burhanu'd-din Ibn Harun al-Laqqani Singapore, 2000 . Ibrahim, Ezzedien, and Johnson-Davies, Denys trans. , An-Nawawi's Forty Hadith Damascus, 1976 . Izutsu, Toshihiko, God and Man in the Qur'an Semantics of the Qur'anic Weltanschauung Tokyo,...
the falasifa on origination
The clearest picture here is given by Farabi, whose adaptation of Plotinus' Neoplatonic scheme whereby all things emanate from the One offered an enticing model for articulating the qur'anic creator para-digm.15 It was also his commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics which succeeded in unlocking its secrets for Avicenna.16 In the spirit of Plato's Republic, Farabi's Virtuous City holds up the pattern of cosmic origination for the ideal leader of a human polity to emulate. The leader whom he has...
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THE MU'TAZILITES AND THE DISPUTES OVER In addressing the question of divine essence and attributes, the Mu'tazilites typically stressed the equivalence between sifa attribute , wasf description and ism name . Based on this principle of sameness, the Mu'tazilites held that if we converse about divine attributes we ultimately describe divinity. The Hanbalites, and most Ash'arites, opposed this claim by drawing a thoughtful distinction between sifa and wasf, positing the former as being ''what is...
the muRjiites
Despite its small size and the relative homogeneity of its practices, Medina was host to certain divisive controversies. Again, politics lay at the source of these issues. Which of the protagonists of the First and Second Civil Wars had been right Had 'Uthman been a grave sinner, so that he deserved to be overthrown, or even slain or was he rather an innocent victim, whose killers were the sinners The Shi'a and the Khawarij were already typically hostile to 'Uthman, and the Khawarij extended...
Ma Turidism
To give another example of how misleading the nomenclature often used in theology can be, let us examine briefly the controversy over irja' or ''postponement''.13 As Khalid Blankinship has outlined in chapter 2 of the present volume, a central controversy in early Islam had evolved over the nature of belief Oman was it primarily a matter of belief and acts, or of beliefs alone Could one be a sinner and yet at the same time remain a sincere Muslim An important school which was initiated by Abu...
Ahmed El Shamsy
Orthodoxy as a social phenomenon is not a thing but rather a process. For theological doctrines to become established as orthodox, they must find a place in the constantly changing net of social relations and institutions that constitute society. This is a two-way process ideas can reconfigure these relations and institutions, but the social context also actively receives ideas and promotes, channels and or suppresses them. Thus the history of orthodoxy cannot be simply a history of ideas, but...
Further reading Czy
Adamson, Peter, and Taylor, Richard C. eds. , The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy Cambridge, 2005 . Daiber, Hans, Bibliography of Islamic Philosophy, 2 vols. Leiden, 1999 . Fakhry, Majid, A History of Islamic Philosophy, 2nd edn New York, Gutas, Dimitri, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition Leiden, 1988 . Greek Thought, Arabic Culture The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society 2nd-4th 8th-ioth centuries London, 1998 . ''The study of Arabic philosophy...
Info Yoy
2 75, 79 3 78 4 46 5 13, 41 , who in any case were now failing adequately to uphold their own teachings. By thus accounting for other faiths, a space was made for an entirely new revelation that would need no further reference to the authority claimed by those religions, their founders and their doctrines, in order to proclaim its message. As befits a new historical beginning, Muhammad brought a message of seeming simplicity. He warned the Arabs to renounce their ancestral idolatry, and to...
Notes
1. Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe London, 1959 , p. 105. For the attitude see Dimitri Gutas, ''The study of Arabic philosophy in the twentieth century an essay on the historiography of Arabic philosophy'', British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 29 2002 , pp. 10-12. 2. Robert Wisnovsky, Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context London, 2003 , p. 301. 3. Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, tr....
The early creed
The intellectual milieu of seventh-century Mecca and Medina into which the Qur'an came was rustic, and bore no resemblance to the environment of the urbanised, far more literate societies of the organised empires of the Romans and Persians to the north. While literacy was nowhere widespread in early medieval times, it seems to have been especially lacking in the Arabian peninsula, where the prevalent Arabic language appears not to have possessed a written literature before the seventh century....
classical theology a definition
A word about the title of our collection. The term ''classical'' is used to cover the era which stretches between the qur'anic revelation and the eighteenth century, with the accent falling on the period between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. For most of this ''classical'' period the kalam, literally ''discourse'', that is to say, the formal academic discipline which one scholar aptly calls ''Islamic doctrinal theology'',2 stood at or very near the apex of the academic curriculum. However,...