Author : Michael Cook
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 724 pages
File Size : 30,74 MB
Release : 2001-01-25
Category : History
ISBN : 1139431609
Do we have a duty to stop others doing wrong? The question is intelligible in any civilisation, but only in the Islamic tradition is 'commanding right and forbidding wrong' a central moral tenet. Michael Cook's analysis is the first to chart the history of Islamic reflection on this obligation.
Author : Michael Cook
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 201 pages
File Size : 10,26 MB
Release : 2003-06-16
Category : History
ISBN : 1139440888
Michael Cook's magisterial study in Islamic ethics, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, was published to much acclaim in 2001. It was described by one reviewer as a masterpiece. In that book, the author reflected on the Islamic injunction, incumbent on every Muslim, to forbid wrongdoing. The present book is a short, accessible survey of the same material. Using anecdotes and stories from Islamic sources to illustrate the argument, Cook unravels the complexities of the subject. Moving backwards and forwards through time, he demonstrates how the past informs the present. By the end, the reader will be familiar with a colourful array of characters from Islamic history ranging from the celebrated thinker Ghazzali, to the caliph Harun al-Rashid, to the Ayatollah Khumayni. The book educates and entertains - at its heart, however, is an important message about the Islamic tradition, its values, and the relevance of those values today.
Author : Musfir bin Ali al-Qahtani
Publisher : International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 18,9 MB
Release : 2015-01-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1565647947
Dr. Musafir bin Ali al-Qahtani's work contributes to the ever growing body of scholarly literature in the field of maqasid al-Shari'ah (higher objectives of Islamic law). Understanding Maqasidal-Shari’ah calls for the development of a juridicial sense that is finely tuned to the higher objectives and purposes of Islamic rulings, the aims of which are the formulation of a new methodology in understanding the revealed texts and the reform of Muslim thought and its application. The author draws attention to the importance of understanding various levels of maqasid, including distinguishing between primary aims (al-maqasid al-asliyyah) and secondary aims (al-maqasid al-tabi'ah). Al-Qahtani asserts that a positive understanding of the objectives of the Shari'ah should produce affirming human and cultural developments in Muslim societies. The real strength of this work, however, is in the author's application of higher objectives and aims to different areas of jurisprudence, such as in deriving and issuing religious rulings (ifta'). and to important social issues and problems present in Muslim societies, such as extremism, jihad, commanding right and forbidding wrong, social change, crisis of Muslim thought, countering religious excessiveness, the need for recreation and leisure, citizenship and nation-belonging, spreading beauty and harmony in Islam, and the role of Muslim women in society.
Author : Abdullah Saeed
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 48,83 MB
Release : 2006-11-22
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1134225644
Islamic Thought is a fresh and contemporary introduction to the philosophies and doctrines of Islam. Abdullah Saeed, a distinguished Muslim scholar, traces the development of religious knowledge in Islam, from the pre-modern to the modern period. The book focuses on Muslim thought, as well as the development, production and transmission of religious knowledge, and the trends, schools and movements that have contributed to the production of this knowledge. Key topics in Islamic culture are explored, including the development of the Islamic intellectual tradition, the two foundation texts, the Qur’an and Hadith, legal thought, theological thought, mystical thought, Islamic Art, philosophical thought, political thought, and renewal, reform and rethinking today. Through this rich and varied discussion, Saeed presents a fascinating depiction of how Islam was lived in the past and how its adherents practise it in the present. Islamic Thought is essential reading for students beginning the study of Islam but will also interest anyone seeking to learn more about one of the world’s great religions.
Author : Fadlou Shehadi
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 38,97 MB
Release : 1995-09-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9004247211
This surveys the philosophies of music of the most important thinkers in Islam between the 9th and the 15th centuries A.D. It covers topics ranging from the physics and aesthetics of sound, the nature of music, its place in the total scheme of things and in human life, the relation between music, astronomy, astrology and meteorology, the relation between music and human feelings character and behaviour, to the question of whether a good Muslim should be allowed to listen to music at all, and if so, to which type. The book traces the influence of Greek, in particular Pythagorean and Aristoxenian, thinking in Islam on this subject, and aims to provide a philosophically coherent statement of thinking of the Islamic writers concerned, a clarification of their central arguments, as well as a critical evaluation of their line of thought. The author introduces a wide range of material from manuscript sources, including much that has not been published before.
Author : Ovamir Anjum
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 37,60 MB
Release : 2012-03-19
Category : History
ISBN : 1107378974
This revisionist account of the history of Islamic political thought from the early to the late medieval period focuses on Ibn Taymiyya, one of the most brilliant theologians of his day. This original study demonstrates how his influence shed new light on the entire trajectory of Islamic political thought. Although he did not reject the Caliphate ideal, as is commonly believed, he nevertheless radically redefined it by turning it into a rational political institution intended to serve the community (umma). Through creative reinterpretation, he deployed the Qur'anic concept of fitra (divinely endowed human nature) to centre the community of believers and its common-sense reading of revelation as the highest epistemic authority. In this way, he subverted the elitism that had become ensconced in classical theological, legal and spiritual doctrines, and tried to revive the ethico-political, rather than strictly legal, dimension of Islam. In reassessing Ibn Taymiyya's work, this book marks a major departure from traditional interpretations of medieval Islamic thought.
Author : Gerhard Bowering
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 297 pages
File Size : 35,91 MB
Release : 2015-03-29
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0691164827
A concise and authoritative introduction to Islamic political ideas In sixteen concise chapters on key topics, this book provides a rich, authoritative, and up-to-date introduction to Islamic political thought from the birth of Islam to today, presenting essential background and context for understanding contemporary politics in the Islamic world and beyond. Selected from the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, and focusing on the origins, development, and contemporary importance of Islamic political ideas and related subjects, each chapter offers a sophisticated yet accessible introduction to its topic. Written by leading specialists and incorporating the latest scholarship, the alphabetically arranged chapters cover the topics of authority, the caliphate, fundamentalism, government, jihad, knowledge, minorities, modernity, Muhammad, pluralism and tolerance, the Qur'an, revival and reform, shariʿa (sacred law), traditional political thought, ‘ulama' (religious scholars), and women. Read separately or together, these chapters provide an indispensable resource for students, journalists, policymakers, and anyone else seeking an informed perspective on the complex intersection of Islam and politics. The contributors are Gerhard Bowering, Ayesha S. Chaudhry, Patricia Crone, Roxanne Euben, Yohanan Friedmann, Paul L. Heck, Roy Jackson, Wadad Kadi, John Kelsay, Gudrun Krämer, Ebrahim Moosa, Armando Salvatore, Aram A. Shahin, Emad El-Din Shahin, Devin J. Stewart, SherAli Tareen, and Muhammad Qasim Zaman. A new afterword discusses the essays in relation to contemporary political developments.
Author : Bernard Haykel
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 19,51 MB
Release : 2003-05-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9780521528900
Revival and Reform in Islam is at once an intellectual biography of Muhammad al-Shawkani, and a history of a transitional period in Yemeni history. This was a time when a society dominated by traditional Zaydi Shiism shifted to one characterised instead by Sunni reformism. The author traces the origins and outcomes of this transition, presenting the first systematic account of the ways in which the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reorientation of the Zaydi madhhab, and consequent 'sunnification' of Yemeni society, were intricately linked to tensions within the political realm. In advocating juridical systematization of religious belief and practice, Shawkani espoused a socio-religious order which in its dominant features echoed key aspects of Western modernity. Yet he did so in a context bereft of Western ideational influence. This study then presents a textured account of eighteenth-century Islamic reformist thought and challenges the meaning of modernity in an Islamic context.
Author : Justin K. Stearns
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 46,28 MB
Release : 2021-07-08
Category : History
ISBN : 1107065577
Provides a detailed overview of the place of the natural sciences in the scholarly and educational landscape of Early Modern Morocco, this study challenges previous negative depictions of the natural sciences in the Muslim world to demonstrate the vibrancy of an Early Modern Muslim society in seventeenth-century Morocco.
Author : Adam J. Silverstein
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 49,16 MB
Release : 2007-06-21
Category : History
ISBN : 1139464086
Adam Silverstein's book offers a fascinating account of the official methods of communication employed in the Near East from pre-Islamic times through the Mamluk period. Postal systems were set up by rulers in order to maintain control over vast tracts of land. These systems, invented centuries before steam-engines or cars, enabled the swift circulation of different commodities - from letters, people and horses to exotic fruits and ice. As the correspondence transported often included confidential reports from a ruler's provinces, such postal systems doubled as espionage-networks through which news reached the central authorities quickly enough to allow a timely reaction to events. The book sheds light not only on the role of communications technology in Islamic history, but also on how nomadic culture contributed to empire-building in the Near East. This is a long-awaited contribution to the history of pre-modern communications systems in the Near Eastern world.
