Abstract: The venerable editor of our journal, a humble scholar and a dear friend, Mohammad Jafar Elmi, passed away on 29 May 2016 in London. Despite suffering from a lengthy illness he never complained, instead taking recourse to God’s promise to his righteous worshippers.Dr Elmi was a successful example of the integration of academic and seminary education, having both attained a high level of the latter and obtained his PhD in the United Kingdom. One of the enduring achievements of this virtuous scholar is the establishment of the Islamic College in London, in which, in affiliation with Middlesex University, many students have completed their studies at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He was indefatigable ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Commentators often suggest that religious philosophers are constrained in their philosophical views by their religion. After all, if the religion says p, and philosophy says not-p, we have a problem, or two problems. One problem is in reconciling philosophy with religion, where we respect the conclusions and methods of both. The other is in interpreting the difficult propositions in ways that will help them fit in with the general intellectual approach of the thinker. Any philosopher who just rejects a view because it does not accord with religion is very poor indeed and is not prepared to do the hard work required to see whether there is some way of getting round the issue. The wider hope is that there is some way ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: In the traditional Muslim hadith (tradition) assessment method,1 one of the most difficult aspects of the examination is to identify obscure informants mentioned in a sanad (chain of narration). Muslim hadith analysis is primarily based on a strict scrutiny of the identities of the informants and establishing the merits of the transmitters mentioned in the sanad. Therefore, a hint of irregularity in the identity of a transmitter might lead a particular tradition to be considered majhūl2 (unknown) and thus unreliable. However, such an ostensible irregularity might not always be a sign of a problem in a sanad; instead it may be the result of a typographical error that took place during the copying of a manuscript. ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: The last three decades have seen the publication of a large number of works in the field of feminist hermeneutics of the Qurʾan. In order to clarify what is meant by ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist hermeneutics’, I have found it helpful to refer to the definitions presented by two prominent feminist authors on the Qurʾan. Ziba Mir-Hosseini’s (2012) understanding of the term ‘feminism’ is particularly noteworthy for its inclusion of the epistemological dimension of feminist ideology:I understand ‘feminism’ in the widest sense: it includes a general concern with women’s issues, an awareness that women suffer discrimination at work, in the home and in society because of their gender, and action aimed at improving their lives ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Is there a historical connection between early Shiʿa tafsīrs and Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī? The possibility of a connection tends to be overlooked, even though, as will be shown, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī affected the future Shiʿa tafsīr. But was the influence only one-directional, or did Shiʿa tafsīrs also influence al-Ṭabarī? This article aims to show both, beginning with al-Ṭabarī’s use of Shiʿa exegeses.Often considered the most important classical Qurʾanic commentary, Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī’s (d. 310/923) Jāmiʿ al-Bayān quickly rose to prominence in the Islamic world and influenced later Qurʾanic interpretations, Sunni and Shiʿi. However, rarely is the possibility of Ṭabarī’s use of Shiʿi exegeses considered.Ṭabarī (d. ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Taken together, Ibn ʿArabī: Vida y enseñanzas del gran místico andalusí and Ibn al-ʿArabī and Islamic Intellectual Culture offer readers a fairly complete introduction to the life, teaching, and legacy of the medieval mystic. While Dagli focuses on the school of thought that developed from followers of Ibn ʿArabī, Mora discusses the Shaykh’s place in the lively spiritual landscape of the medieval Muslim world from Spain to the Near East.Mora interweaves and connects his hero’s physical and spiritual journeys, tying ‘decisive spiritual revelations’ (62) in 1195 to the city of Fez, where the Spaniard was staying at the time. Of particular importance is the non-stop movement around 1204-5 in Iraq, Anatolia, Syria, and ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: India’s many Sufi shrines produce a unique historical consciousness attuned simultaneously to local and distant Muslim states. Tracing influences and cross-pollinations between aesthetic, conceptual, and material institutions, Nile Green’s Making Space: Sufis and Settlers in Early Modern India deftly intertwines pre-colonial political history, Sufi hagiography, and the architectural development of shrines as sites of temporal and epistemic power. The Sufis he portrays from Iran, Central Asia, and the Middle East settled in various Indian geographies since the late-medieval era and imported unique visions of ethnic, linguistic, and devotional origins that became integral components of the dynamic matrix of Indian ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Sufism and American Literary Masters is a valuable study of the role of Islamic mysticism in shaping the literary forms, thought, and culture of American writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It brings new attention to Persian poetry as an important influence on the Romantics and Transcendentalists that has thus far been lumped into ‘Eastern wisdoms’ and overshadowed by Hinduism and Buddhism. The editor of this book, Mehdi Aminrazavi, is an expert in Islamic philosophy and theology and has contributed a number of notable works to the field, including a biography of Omar Khayyam published in 2005, The Wine of Wisdom. The present work is a collection of both original and previously published writings ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: When examining Islamic societies, diversity and pluralism characterizes any analysis. In fact, due to the historical spread of Islam as a living tradition, a scholar is hard pressed to see a common thread that links these societies, beyond the strictly religious practices and common beliefs in Islam (and even this is debatable when one takes into consideration the differences between Sunni and Shiʿi beliefs and practices). There is, however, one common denominator that has been understudied and yet permeates the lived reality of Muslim communities the world over – the putative descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad referred to alternatively as sayyids and sharīfs.For now more than a decade, Morimoto Kazuo has been ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Reza Gholami’s monograph is an important contribution to the under-researched field of study on Iranians in London. Focusing on modes of secularism and intra-diasporic dynamics among Iranians from Muslim backgrounds, the book begins by posing two overarching questions:(1) How is the secular implicated as a mechanism in processes by means of which people effect major changes to their lives – that is, the whole of their living experience – as they continuously attempt to ‘stylise’ their desired self and achieve ‘freedom’?(2) How can we better understand the power relationship between secularized and secularizing freedom practices/experiences and devout Muslim diasporic consciousness and subjectivity?He engages these ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions, by Christian Lange, 2016. New York: Cambridge University Press, xvi + 365 pp., ills., £18.99. isbn: 978-0-521-73815-6.This solid, scripturally based study of Muslim beliefs pertaining to the afterlife is a welcome addition to the literature on Islamic eschatology. It traces the development of Muslim beliefs about the afterlife chronologically, from early Muslim thought until today, and with respect to theological movements, such as Akhbārism and Ismaʿilism. While previous literature on Islamic eschatology has primarily addressed Sunni thought, this book integrates the views of Muslim thinkers from a variety of denominational and ideological backgrounds, including Shiʿism; it ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Note: In some words and names of Persian origin, ‘e’ and ‘o’ have been used in lieu of ‘i’ and ‘u’ to conform to standard spellings.TRANSLITERATION ... Read More Keywords: Shīʻah; Hawsamī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb,; Hadith (Shiites); Hadith (Shiites); Qurʼan; Feminism; Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan,; Wazīr al-Maghribī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAlī PubDate: 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00
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