Encountering Ambiguity: Muʿtazilī and Twelver Shīʿī Approaches to the Qur'an's Ambiguous Verses

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 91-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tehseen Thaver
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
Primary Determinant ◽  
Linguistic Challenges ◽  
Qur'anic Exegesis ◽  
Exegetical Tradition ◽  
Qur'an Commentaries ◽  
Early Islamic

Within the broader discipline of Qur'anic exegesis, the sub-genre of the mutashābihāt al-Qurʾān (the ambiguous verses of the Qur'an) is comprised of works dedicated to the identification and explication of those verses that present theological or linguistic challenges. Yet, the approach, style, and objective of the scholars who have written commentaries on the ambiguous verses are far from monolithic. This essay brings into focus the internal diversity of this important exegetical tradition by focusing on the Qur'an commentaries of two major scholars in fourth/eleventh-century Baghdad, al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1016) and Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025). Al-Raḍī was a prominent Twelver Shīʿī theologian and poet while ʿAbd al-Jabbār was a leading Muʿtazilī theologian during this period; al-Raḍī was also ʿAbd al-Jabbār's student and disciple. Through a close reading of their respective commentaries on two Qur'anic verses, I explore possible interconnections and interactions between Shīʿī and Muʿtazilī traditions of exegesis, and demonstrate that while ʿAbd al-Jabbār mobilised the language of Islamic jurisprudence, al-Raḍī primarily relied on early Islamic poetry and the etymology of the Arabic language. Methodologically, I argue against a conceptual approach that valorises sectarian and theological identity as the primary determinant of hermeneutical desires and sensibilities.

A DEVOTIONAL THEORY OF LAW: EPISTEMOLOGY AND MORAL PURPOSE IN EARLY ISLAMIC JURISPRUDENCE

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar M. Farahat
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Social Regulation ◽  
Case Formulation ◽  
Moral Purpose ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
The Law ◽  
Early Islamic

AbstractThe question of the sources of legal normativity continues to haunt legal theorists to this day. While it is largely uncontroversial that modern legal systems claim to produce normative propositions, whether or not there are independent reasons to obey the law remains a contested issue. Those views, as varied as they may be, appear to largely agree that the law is a social phenomenon of definite ontological presence. In this article, I argue, through an analysis of the theories of three prominent ninth- to eleventh-century Muslim jurists, that early Muslim theories of lawmaking did not incorporate any ontologically coherent concept of law. Rather, lawmaking was understood as the case-by-case formulation of legal opinions by individual jurists who were presumed to be driven by the same moral drive, and therefore occupy the same moral order, as all subjects of law. In spite of this ad hoc epistemological view, Islamic jurisprudence conceived of legal pronouncements as fully normative. The normativity of those unstructured ad hoc individual pronouncements, I maintain, is the result of the centrality of moral purpose to early Muslim theories of law. It was the presumption of a common moral drive that gave the legal system structural coherence and allowed the advancement of those pronouncements as normative claims. Whereas recent historical and anthropological work shows that moral motivation was central to the manner in which sharīʿa operated as a system of social regulation, this article argues, along the same lines, that the pietistic drive was both conceptually and structurally indispensable for the normative coherence of early Islamic jurisprudence.

المساعي السياسية والإصلاحية للإمام أبي الوليد الباجي

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 537-548
Author(s):  
Sebbane Habib ◽  
Omar Boukhri
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Umayyad Caliphate ◽  
Scientific Life

After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, the Andalusian Islamic state witnessed a political rupture as a result of chaos, rivalries and sectarian conflicts throughout the fifth century AH corresponding to the eleventh century AD. These dangerous security breakdowns led to the disintegration and division of the Islamic Caliphate in Andalusia into a group of independent kingdoms and small emirates which ultimately found themselves on one hand in permanent wars between them, and on the other in skirmishes with the neighbouring Christian forces. This fact contributed to lack of stability and peace of these lands and the establishment of weak governing systems for a long time. This political situation stressed the worsening of their social conditions and their scientific life. Nevertheless, this situation generated a motivating nostalgia and rage in some scholars and jurists such as Imam Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī who is considered one of the key-figures and scholars of Andalusia. He had a prominent role in pushing forward and reviving scientific life by setting various new foundations in order to reform some fields. His writings were directed for educational purposes. Besides, he included the reform of Islamic jurisprudence, which was aimed primarily for jurists and rulers. Furthermore, some of his writings were sermons and ethical moral instructions for commoners. His endeavours led him to enter the political life as he assumed the judicial profession of a judge, that enabled him to be in more touch with the various kings of sects giving him the chance to advise and guide them. His efforts in that end resulted in seeking to reunite the kings of the sects and their princes under the banner of Islam and unite their forces for the defence of Muslim presence in Andalusia against the Christian threat.

The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700–1100

1974 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Watson
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Urban Growth ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Agricultural Revolution ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Close Contacts

The rapid spread of Islam into three continents in the seventh and eighth centuries was followed by the diffusion of an equally remarkable but less well documented agricultural revolution. Originating mainly in India, where heat, moisture and available crops all favored its development and where it had been practiced for some centuries before the rise of Islam, the new agriculture was carried by the Arabs or those they conquered into lands which, because they were colder and drier, were much less hospitable to it and where it could be introduced only with difficulty. It appeared first in the eastern reaches of the early-Islamic world—in parts of Persia, Mesopotamia and perhaps Arabia Felix—which had close contacts with India and where a few components of the revolution were already in place in the century before the rise of Islam. By the end of the eleventh century it had been transmitted across the length and breadth of the Islamic world and had altered, often radically, the economies of many regions: Transoxania, Persia, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, the Maghrib, Spain, Sicily, the savannah lands on either side of the Sahara, parts of West Africa and the coastlands of East Africa. It had very far-reaching consequences, affecting not only agricultural production and incomes but also population levels, urban growth, the distribution of the labor force, linked industries, cooking and diet, clothing, and other spheres of life too numerous and too elusive to be investigated here.

scholarly journals The Relation of Gender and Feminism in Islamic Jurisprudence

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-142
Author(s):  
Fokky Fuad Wasitaatmadja ◽  
Susianto Susianto ◽  
Suartini Supendi
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Women In Islam ◽  
Legal Method ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
Role Of Women

Research on the relation of gender in Islamic Jurisprudence field always sparks the interest to study because of several things: the idea of power relations which has been touted as a thought that subordinates the role of women in their dynamic movements. Second, the role of the text of the Holy Qur'an in seeing and explaining gender relations in Islam, specifically when influencing or influenced by local culture. The main research question to be revealed is: how does the concept developed in Islamic Jurisprudence schools interpret the relations of men and women? The theoretical framework developed in this study is based on the thought which built in the Islamic Jurisprudence Schools. Sachiko Murata sees that there is a relationship between cultural understanding and the understanding of God in the relationship of men and women. The research method applied in this research is prescriptive normative legal method with conceptual approach. The conclusion in this study states that in the narrative approach to the Holy Qur'an, there is no significant power relation that degrades, dominates, or subordinates the role of women in Islam. Spatial structure of culture becomes a matter of concern when there is submission in the role of women in their socio-cultural environment. The narrative text of the Holy Qur’an explains the high appreciation of domestic and public roles for women. Feminism itself can be traced in various narrative texts in the Holy Qur'an that place women in a place of honor.

Pre-Islamic ‘Arabless-ness’: Arabian Identities

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Webb
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Communal Identity ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Origin Point

Developing Chapter 1’s findings on pre-Islamic Arabian society, this chapter proposes a new origin point for Arab communal consciousness. Chapter 2 seeks the first groups of people who called themselves ‘Arabs’ and explores how those people can be identified from historical records. We begin by appraising the evidence about Arabic language: when and where did it evolve and to what extent does Arabic-language use delineate Arab communal identity? We evaluate the surprising paucity of pre-Islamic Arabic records, and next turn to pre-Islamic poetry to examine its citation of the word ‘Arab’ alongside the senses of community the poets articulate. Pre-Islamic poetic reference to ‘Arabs’ is also almost non-existent, whereas alternative forms of communal identity are clearly expressed, in particular, a people known as Maʿadd. Marshalling theories of ethnogenesis to interpret the evidence, this chapter sheds new light on pre-Islamic Arabia’s fragmented communal boundaries. Chapter 2 closes with early Islamic-era poetry where poets first begin to call themselves ‘Arabs’, suggesting that Arab ethnogenesis was a result, not a cause of the rise of Islam.

Women and the codification and stabilization of the Arabic language

2020 ◽  
pp. 469-486
Author(s):  
Fatima Sadiqi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
Holy Book

This chapter explores and documents women’s contributions to the codification and stabilization of the Arabic language from the fourth to the nineteenth centuries across the region that roughly corresponds to today’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Spain. Using the acknowledged sources of the Arabic language, namely pre-Islamic poetry, the oral and written process of transmitting the Qur’ân (holy book of Muslims) and Ḥadīth (Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and deeds), and consolidating practices such the construction of the language of Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and the teaching of Arabic, this chapter presents and reads women’s contributions to the codification and stabilization of Arabic as both direct and indirect. These readings are based on the linguistic value of women’s contributions and the contextualization of their legacy within an overall comprehensive Arab-Islamic patriarchy where women’s contributions helped establish the male canon in linguistic studies more than they served women as individual constructors of the Arabic language.

scholarly journals Bilal Philips as a Proponent of Neo-Traditional Salafism and His Significance for Understanding Salafism in the West

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adis Duderija ◽  
Ghulam Rasool
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
The West ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Qur'anic Exegesis ◽  
Exegetical Tradition ◽  
Conceptual Relationship

This article aims to explain the ideas and the significance of Dr. Bilal Philips, a prominent ‘Salafi‘preacher, a major proponent of Neo-Traditional Salafism, and how his writings and activities can aid us in understanding the dynamics regarding the nature of Salafism in the West as a discursive tradition with deep roots in the Islamic intellectual history, as well as an element of global Salafi movements. As such, the article focuses primarily on identifying and analyzing Philips’ ideas on what constitutes a proper approach to interpreting the Qur’ān and Sunna in the light of the Islamic legal and exegetical tradition. After discussing the reasons why the ideas of Philips are significant for understanding Salafism in the West, the article focuses on his views on the conceptual relationship between sunna and hadīth, the broader hermeneutic characterization of the main four Sunni schools of thought (madhāhib), and issues pertaining to the correct methodology of Qur’ānic exegesis (tafsīr). The article also discusses the internal factionalism and the contentedness of the category of Salafism among western Salafis by examining one critique levelled at Philips by his fellow Salafis residing in the West, with the view of not only understanding and situating the views of Philips more accurately but also to provide an avenue to understand the internal Salafi dynamics in the West in particular.

Some Features of the Old Castilian Alfonsine Translation of ʿAlī Ibn Khalaf’s Treatise on the Lámina Universal

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-5) ◽  
pp. 106-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilia Calvo
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Technical Vocabulary ◽  
Scientific Circle ◽  
Astronomical Instrument ◽  
Technical Terms

Abstract The aim of the paper is to present some features of the treatise on the lámina universal, an astronomical instrument devised by ʿAlī ibn Khalaf, an eleventh-century Andalusi mathematician and astronomer who belonged to the scientific circle of Ṣāʿid al- Andalusī. ʿAlī ibn Khalaf was a contemporary of Ibn al-Zarqālluh (al-Zarqālī, Azarquiel), also a mathematician and astronomer working under Ṣāʿid’s patronage, and the inven- tor of the instrument known as azafea. Both instruments, the lámina universal and the azafea, are universal instruments devised to overcome the limitations of the standard astrolabe. The only text describing ʿAlī ibn Khalaf’s instrument is the thirteenth- century old-Castilian Alfonsine translation, which has not been studied in detail up to now, although some preliminary studies have been published. The present study deals with some linguistic and technical difficulties of the text. In many passages, it seems to follow literally the grammatical structure of the Arabic language while in others, the lack of technical terms forced the translators to resort either to a literal transcription of the original Arabic terminology or, in some cases, to approximate translations that make the text somewhat difficult to follow. The paper provides additional information related mainly to the astronomical parameters and the technical vocabulary used in the translation.

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