Intellectual Life in the Ḥijāz before Wahhabism: Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī’s (d. 1101/1690) Theology of Sufism

Abstract

The Islamic intellectual thought of the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries has long been represented as an intellectual “decadence” or “sclerosis,” due to the discourse of orientalists. In recent decades, however, researchers have sought to challenge the orientalist paradigm by highlighting the scholarly currents and vigorous discussions that characterized the period in question. As a direct critique of the narratives of either “decline” or “ignorance” that persist in Islamic intellectual historiography, Naser Dumairieh’s recent book attempts to reveal the situation of rational and theoretical sciences in the Hijāz by focusing on the life and work of al-Kūrānī, the seventeenth-century Shāfi‘ī hadith scholar, Sufi, and theologian. Following the footsteps of Khaled el-Roauyheb's influential book Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century, Dumairieh not only examines al-Kūrānī’s ideas, but also offers a comprehensive glimpse into the intellectual life in contemporary Hijāz.