The History of Islamic Theology from Muhammad to the Present


Book Description

This work presents Muslim beliefs about God's relationship to humans by drawing on relevant Islamic sources. In connection with the social and political history of Islam, the reader is introduced to the ideas and concepts of Islamic theologians.




Religion and Mysticism in Early Islam


Book Description

Scholar, mystic and visionary, Ibn 'Alwan lived through the transition from Ayyubid to Rasulid rule in thirteenth-century Yemen. He was well known in his time for his critique of the ruling elites and their governance, and left behind a substantial body of writings on Islamic mysticism, theology, law and exegesis of the Qur'an. Here Muhammad Aziz presents a comprehensive portrait of Ibn 'Alwan, delineating the religious and political background in Yemen, the development of Sufi orders, the interplay between Sufi, Shi'i and Sunni traditions, and the impact of Ibn 'Alwan on the history of Sufism and Islam. The first study of Ibn 'Alwan in English, "Religion and Mysticism in Early Islam" is essential reading for all those interested in mysticism, early Islam, Sufism, and religion and history more generally.




Islam in Context


Book Description

In recent months, much attention has been paid to Islam and the greater Muslim world. Some analysis has been openly hostile, while even more has been overly simplistic. Islam in Context goes behind the recent crisis to discuss the history of Islam, describe its basic structure and beliefs, explore the current division between Muslim moderates and extremists, and suggest a way forward. Authors Peter G. Riddell and Peter Cotterell draw from sources such as the Qur'an, early Christian chronicles of the Crusades, and contemporary Muslim and non-Muslim writings. They move beyond the stereotypes of Muhammad-both idealized and negative-and argue against the myth that relatively recent events in the Middle East are the only cause for the clash between Islam and the West. Riddell and Cotterell ask the non-Muslim world to attempt to understand Islam from the perspective of Muslims and to acknowledge past mistakes. At the same time, they challenge the Muslim world by suggesting that Islam stands today at a vital crossroads and only Muslims can forge the way forward. Islam in Context will appeal to all those who are interested in an alternative to the easily packaged descriptions of the relationship between Islam and the West.




The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology


Book Description

Within the field of Islamic Studies, scientific research of Muslim theology is a comparatively young discipline. Much progress has been achieved over the past decades with respect both to discoveries of new materials and to scholarly approaches to the field. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the current state of the field. It provides a variegated picture of the state of the art and at the same time suggests new directions for future research. Part One covers the various strands of Islamic theology during the formative and early middle periods, rational as well as scripturalist. To demonstrate the continuous interaction among the various theological strands and its repercussions (during the formative and early middle period and beyond), Part Two offers a number of case studies. These focus on specific theological issues that have developed through the dilemmatic and often polemical interactions between the different theological schools and thinkers. Part Three covers Islamic theology during the later middle and early modern periods. One of the characteristics of this period is the growing amalgamation of theology with philosophy (Peripatetic and Illuminationist) and mysticism. Part Four addresses the impact of political and social developments on theology through a number of case studies: the famous mi?na instituted by al-Ma'mun (r. 189/813-218/833) as well as the mihna to which Ibn 'Aqil (d. 769/1367) was subjected; the religious policy of the Almohads; as well as the shifting interpretations throughout history (particularly during Mamluk and Ottoman times) of the relation between Ash'arism and Maturidism that were often motivated by political motives. Part Five considers Islamic theological thought from the end of the early modern and during the modern period.




The Story of Reason in Islam


Book Description

In The Story of Reason in Islam, leading public intellectual and political activist Sari Nusseibeh narrates a sweeping intellectual history—a quest for knowledge inspired by the Qu'ran and its language, a quest that employed Reason in the service of Faith. Eschewing the conventional separation of Faith and Reason, he takes a fresh look at why and how Islamic reasoning evolved over time. He surveys the different Islamic schools of thought and how they dealt with major philosophical issues, showing that Reason pervaded all disciplines, from philosophy and science to language, poetry, and law. Along the way, the best known Muslim philosophers are introduced in a new light. Countering received chronologies, in this story Reason reaches its zenith in the early seventeenth century; it then trails off, its demise as sudden as its appearance. Thereafter, Reason loses out to passive belief, lifeless logic, and a self-contained legalism—in other words, to a less flexible Islam. Nusseibeh's speculations as to why this occurred focus on the fortunes and misfortunes of classical Arabic in the Islamic world. Change, he suggests, may only come from the revivification of language itself.




Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present


Book Description

A comprehensive overview of the Islamic philosophical tradition. AIslamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present offers a comprehensive overview of Islamic philosophy from the ninth century to the present day. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr attests, within this tradition, philosophizing is done in a world in which prophecy is the central reality of life—a reality related not only to the realms of action and ethics but also to the realm of knowledge. Comparisons with Jewish and Christian philosophies highlight the relation between reason and revelation, that is, philosophy and religion. Nasr presents Islamic philosophy in relation to the Islamic tradition as a whole, but always treats this philosophy as philosophy, not simply as intellectual history. In addition to chapters dealing with the general historical development of Islamic philosophy, several chapters are devoted to later and mostly unknown philosophers. The work also pays particular attention to the Persian tradition. Nasr stresses that the Islamic tradition is a living tradition with significance for the contemporary Islamic world and its relationship with the West. In providing this seminal introduction to a tradition little-understood in the West, Nasr also shows readers that Islamic philosophy has much to offer the contemporary world as a whole. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is University Professor of Islamic Studies at The George Washington University. He is the author and editor of many books, including Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization.




Islam


Book Description

For more than two decades the world religions have been a central topic forans Kung. In books which have inspired millions throughout human society, heas pioneered work towards a new dialogue between cultures. In thisxtraordinary comprehensive book, he gives an in-depth account of Islam.escribing paradigm shifts in its 1400-year history, outlining the variousurrents and surveying the positions of Islam on the urgent questions of theay, few present-day theologians could have written such a complete analysis.n a world where understanding of global politics requires a knowledge ofslam, this is a perfect place to start.




The Unknown History of Islam


Book Description

This book is about an actual journey into the heart of the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia. It tells of the discoveries and revelations about the history of the Middle East, Islam, and Muslims. The book's main proposition is connecting the dots between the early Islamic State at the time of the prophet Muhammad and modern-day terrorism and radicalism.The author presents new findings about the true history of Islam. The findings are about the theology of Islam, the language of the Quran, the history of radical Islam, and the social life of Muslims. The book presents an unprecedented analysis of the Quran and an empirical study of the psychological effect of the language of the Quran; there is also a historical and a sociological approach to understand Islam that has never been attempted before. In addition, the book exposes the goals and plans of terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Taliban, ISIL, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood and their followers who want to take over the world, spread Islamic Sharia law, and destroy human civilization. The book also explores the beauty of literature and how it can defeat Islamic radicalism, and how literature can be used to change the rigid mindset of some radicals. In addition, the book shows how peaceful Muslims become victims to those extremists and terrorists. The book also exonerates those moderate peaceful Muslims from any crimes committed by radicals and extremists. It is hoped that radical Muslims would show little humbleness and some humility after they know what their religion is about and learn the truth of the Quran. This book is a rational analysis of the past and present of the Middle East and Islam, the authenticity of the Quran, the life of Muslims under Sharia law, and the control of the clergy over the lives of Muslims, but it warns of the lurking danger of radical Islam that might jeopardize human civilization if it is not stopped immediately. The author of this book, Sami Benjamin, was born in Iraq in 1949. He was raised as a Muslim in a Baghdad neighborhood. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1985, escaping Saddam's regime. Currently, he works in a publishing company in London since 2012. The author lives with his wife in a London suburb. He has three children and six grand children. The author had the privilege of the friendship of Mr. Samir Amin Kumar Abdel Latif of the Indian Publishing House in India who helped the author publish this book. The publisher, Samir Amin Kumar Abdel Latif, is an Indian national and was born in 1954 in Hyderabad, India; he lives in India and continues to reveal the truth about the Quran.







Defending Muḥammad in Modernity


Book Description

In this groundbreaking study, SherAli Tareen presents the most comprehensive and theoretically engaged work to date on what is arguably the most long-running, complex, and contentious dispute in modern Islam: the Barelvī-Deobandī polemic. The Barelvī and Deobandī groups are two normative orientations/reform movements with beginnings in colonial South Asia. Almost two hundred years separate the beginnings of this polemic from the present. Its specter, however, continues to haunt the religious sensibilities of postcolonial South Asian Muslims in profound ways, both in the region and in diaspora communities around the world. Defending Muḥammad in Modernity challenges the commonplace tendency to view such moments of intra-Muslim contest through the prism of problematic yet powerful liberal secular binaries like legal/mystical, moderate/extremist, and reformist/traditionalist. Tareen argues that the Barelvī-Deobandī polemic was instead animated by what he calls “competing political theologies” that articulated—during a moment in Indian Muslim history marked by the loss and crisis of political sovereignty—contrasting visions of the normative relationship between divine sovereignty, prophetic charisma, and the practice of everyday life. Based on the close reading of previously unexplored print and manuscript sources in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu spanning the late eighteenth and the entirety of the nineteenth century, this book intervenes in and integrates the often-disparate fields of religious studies, Islamic studies, South Asian studies, critical secularism studies, and political theology.