{"title":"Freedom in amina wadud's Tawḥīdic Hermeneutics and Mouhanad Khorchide's Theology of Mercy","authors":"Katharina Völker","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1914405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1914405","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Western Islamology often regards liberal Islamic intellectuals as the exotics among the exotics. However, contemporary freethinkers from within academia employ concepts already prominent among the first generation of postcolonial Muslim emancipators, and they also refer to philosophical thought not only from the Islamic heritage but also from other traditions. In the following description and comparison of amina wadud and Mouhanad Khorchide, we trace their ideas on hermeneutics and freedom. With an individual confessional outlook on a cosmopolitan and essentially humanistic Islam, both authors provide authentic versions of a profoundly anthropocentric faith. Their aim is to do justice to the dynamism of life by actively safeguarding Islam's relevance for today. It is time to give these alternative voices the weight they deserve within the rich landscapes of Islamic philosophies.","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"33 7 1","pages":"261 - 278"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82776604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gender, Identity and Conversion: A Comparison of Male and Female Converts to Islam in Australia","authors":"P. Mitchell, Jessica Mamone, Halim Rane","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1960694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1960694","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Over the past several decades, the phenomenon of conversion to Islam in Western societies has received a significant amount of attention, both in academia and in the mass media. Much of this attention has focused on the motives and experiences of female converts, a likely result of suggestions that higher numbers of Western women than men are converting to Islam, as well as pervasive views of Islam as a religion that mistreats women. Yet despite this fixation on conversion and gender, understanding of the compared experiences of male and female converts remains limited. This article seeks to address this key gap in the existing literature by examining the differences and commonalities in the experiences, beliefs and identities of male and female converts to Islam in Australia. It is hoped that this research will contribute to a greater understanding of the complex relationships between gender, conversion and identity, while encouraging further research in this area.","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"28 1","pages":"279 - 306"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90491808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Comparative History of Catholic and Ašʿarī Theologies of Truth and Salvation","authors":"John Renard","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1950408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1950408","url":null,"abstract":"In the larger field of religious studies, cross-traditional comparison of hard-core systematic or ‘doctrinal’ creedal formularies as a sub-discipline is still in its infancy. Broad mono-traditional explorations of Christian theological themes have been widely available for generations, while Islamic counterparts have remained relatively scarce until quite recently. One can virtually count on one’s fingers explicit and academically substantial comparisons of parallel Christian and Muslim theological concerns. Among such rarities is a collaboration by James A. Bill and John Alden Williams in Roman Catholics and Shiʿi Muslims. David Thomas also offered a rich variation on the theme of implied comparison in his Christian Doctrines in Islamic Theology. The present volume is a worthy entry into this field of inquiry. Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour’s educational background includes important experience of work at Cairo’s venerable Al-Azhar as well as at Durham University’s Department of Theology. He begins his study by situating it in the context of previous Christian and Muslim contributions to the theology of religions (and its three-fold typology – exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism), and further qualifies his approach as a contribution to the emergent sub-discipline of comparative theology, as he proposes a synthesis of methods articulated by Francis Clooney, Robert Neville and Keith Ward. He retains the triple typology as a structural/heuristic ingredient throughout the book. Abdelnour clearly lays out his six goals: focus on theological schools rather than individual theologians; keep a clear distinction between soteriology and epistemology by separating the assumption of others’ possible salvation from acknowledging others’ truth claims; connect present to past by drawing a thread from earliest to most recent times; ask whether claims of two major ‘schools’ (Ashʿarite and Roman Catholic) lead to kindred conclusions; and supply the need for non-Christian broad-canvas studies of theology. His breakdown of essential methodological concerns is excellent, digging forthrightly into historically nettlesome problems and potential dialogue-assassins. I have poked around for possible lacunae in this regard but found none. Abdelnour has organized this expansive exploration clearly and convincingly into three parts, each covering a historical period, with separate chapters for the two traditions in each: Formative (Catholicism 100–700; Ashʿarism 900–1111) Middle (Catholicism 700–1750; Ashʿarism 1111 [death of al-Ghazali]–1850); and Modern (Catholicism 1750–1965 [as Vatican II ends]; Ashʿarism 1870–1978). Each chapter is further divided (generally) into discrete segments on epistemology and soteriology. Each of the three main parts surveys the contributions of major theologians from both traditions. Featured ‘early’ figures include Augustine (with briefer attention to half a dozen Greek and Latin Fathers), and al-Ashʿari himself along with major Ashʿarite figures ","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"326 1","pages":"353 - 354"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78418186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Keeping Faith’: An Exploration of Welsh Muslim Identity","authors":"S. Gilliat‐Ray","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1934292","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1934292","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article contributes to research about Muslim communities in Wales by exploring some of the ways in which Muslims identify with Wales and have brought their faith and traditions into conversation with Welsh cultural, religious and civic life. This occurs through strategic use of the Welsh language, especially on occasions that ‘celebrate the nation’, recognition and identification with features of the landscape and geography of Wales, and the continuity of leadership of Muslim communities. In addition, the vibrancy of Welsh Muslim institutions suggests that they have a significant role to play in the contemporary religious landscape of Wales. I suggest that they are responsible for sustaining some of the characteristic features of historic Welsh religious culture, in a context where the main denominations of the Christian churches are struggling to maintain active congregations. The energy and activism of Welsh Muslims suggests that they are taking on some responsibility for ‘keeping faith’ in Wales and creating new post-secular spaces and practices in the urban public sphere that engage in a dialogical and reflexive relationship with aspects of Welsh tradition.","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"20 1","pages":"307 - 328"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84591985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Obscurity to Authority: The Changing Reception of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma from the Eighth/Fourteenth to the Fifteenth/Twenty-first Century","authors":"A. Bosanquet","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1912271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1912271","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article reviews the changing reception of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma between the fourteenth century and modern times. I argue that the book had little influence on legal discourse about Christian and Jewish subjects under Muslim rule when it was written and during the following centuries. However, after the publication of a printed edition in 1961 and particularly from the 1990s, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma has become an important resource for discussions of non-Muslim minorities in a Muslim state. I attribute the altered reception to a number of factors, including the now changed status of the author and the Ḥanbalite school to which he belonged, and the new relationship between the character of the book and the expectations of its readers. Consideration of the trajectory of Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century is revealing for the insights that it offers into the changing status of Ibn al-Qayyim and the Ḥanbalite legal tradition, and the approach to non-Muslim subjecthood in Islamic legal discourse. It should also encourage caution when using this book as a source for understanding the social or legal history of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the fourteenth century.","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"5 1","pages":"237 - 259"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87065569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From the ‘New Country’ to the Holy Land: Two Norwegian-American Pilgrims’ Encounters in the Middle East","authors":"I. Nitter","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1907068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1907068","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The nineteenth century saw a massive surge, in both the United States and Europe, of travel literature about journeys to the Holy Land. This corpus included travelogues of both pilgrims and explorers but the two travelogues that are the objects of study in this article are quite unique. They were written by Norwegian-American Lutheran travellers who chose to write and publish books about their travels in Norwegian in the US. Thus, the accounts of Nehemias Tjernagel (1868–1958) and Ola Johann Særvold (1867–1937) are hybrid cultural productions that emerged at the intersection of a migratory flow that linked Norway, the US and the eastern Mediterranean. As a result, the analysis of the accounts offers a new take on American Orientalism that considers the religious, social and political contexts from which the authors came. Although they both have similar cultural and religious backgrounds, their views on people in the Holy Land, and particularly their views regarding Muslims and Jews, are distinct from one another.","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"7 1","pages":"329 - 349"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78298062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Muslim Preaching in the Middle East and Beyond: Historical and Contemporary Case Studies","authors":"A. Belhaj","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1911447","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1911447","url":null,"abstract":"and their occasional self-contradiction (as on polygamy), are an important complement to Shaham’s depiction of al-Qaradawi’s views. The benefit to reading these clearly argued and well-evidenced books together, which those interested in modern fatwas should do, is precisely the interplay of convergence and divergence. We are reminded by Larsen how much local context matters; we are reminded by Shaham of al-Qaradawi’s global influence. Larsen shows that fatwas are social documents, shaped by audience questions and expectations; Shaham shows that they are legal ones, shaped by jurisprudential method, precedent and commitments. While accessible in its language and organization, Rethinking Islamic Legal Modernism will primarily be of interest to specialists in Islamic law or perhaps contemporary Muslim thought. The more ambitious How Muftis Think is likewise useful for specialists, engaging scholarly debates about maqāsịd and fatwa-giving, but will also appeal to broader audiences, including students and scholars of Muslims in Europe and of gender and Islam. As I feel compelled to do whenever I review books by Brill, I note the prohibitive price tag: only libraries can afford them. In the case of Larsen’s book in particular, that is a shame as the book could be assigned for courses on Islamic law as well as contemporary Muslim life; for those who would like to assign a fair-use portion, I would recommend Chapters 3, 4 and/or 5 as accessible introductions to modern fatwa-giving. Finally, as my current research investigates how women as historical agents and as authors of scholarly work tend to be overlooked and under-cited, I want to say a word about those dynamics here. Shaham’s book, by defining its scope narrowly and mostly engaging the secondary literature on al-Qaradawi specifically and usụ̄l al-fiqh broadly, ignores vibrant bodies of work on, for example, assisted reproduction, Islamic bioethics, and gender and law. There is barely any engagement with women’s literature on Qur’an, tafsīr or intermarriage. In addition, Shaham tends to credit male scholars in the body of the work and others only in the notes. While there are exceptions, as with Felicitas Opwis’s work on masḷaḥa, the pattern largely holds. For instance, Bettina Graf’s articles about al-Qaradawi and his thought are relegated to the footnotes. As usual, those not named in the text are also excluded from the index. Of course, insofar as muftis remain mostly male, the focus of these studies on male-authored texts and male-dominated institutions is unavoidable.","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"8 1","pages":"228 - 230"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89938029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Arab-Islamic or Greek Dialectics? Revisiting the Origins and Development of Jadal","authors":"Mohammad Syifa Amin Widigdo","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1904692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1904692","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article presents a survey of the development of the theory and practice of jadal (disputation, dialectics) and, more importantly, examines various accounts of jadal development by addressing the issue of its origins and the extent of Greek influence on its formation and advancement. The main argument set out in this article is that dialectical practices in pre-Islamic Arabia, early Islamic tradition and qur’anic discourse, as well as Greek dialectical scholarship, have contributed significantly to the formation and development of jadal theory. If the Arab-Islamic sources provide Arab-Islamic jadal raw materials, the Greek sources shape the structural and systematic formation for the fully systematized theory of jadal in Islamic scholarship. This description of Arab-Islamic and Greek contributions to the advancement of jadal theory in the medieval period challenges the current understanding. Jadal as a dialectical art is neither solely Islamic nor solely Greek, as some scholars maintain. Rather, both have played distinct roles and contributed to its development.","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"149 1","pages":"203 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73061043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Knowledge, Authority and Change in Islamic Societies: Studies in Honor of Dale F. Eickelman","authors":"T. Sunier","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1930759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1930759","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"7 1","pages":"234 - 236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85265521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Muftis Think: Islamic Legal Thought and Muslim Women in Western Europe; Rethinking Islamic Legal Modernism: The Teaching of Yusuf al-Qaradawi","authors":"Kecia Ali","doi":"10.1080/09596410.2021.1904619","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2021.1904619","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45172,"journal":{"name":"Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations","volume":"11 1","pages":"225 - 228"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86573148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}