The Concept of an Islamic Reformation

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-56
Author(s):  
Liyakat Takim
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Islam And Christianity

The first chapter defines reformation and examines what it means in a specifically Shi‘i context. It compares reformation in Islam and Christianity and argues that an Islamic reformation has to be an indigenous exercise, one that does not have to capitulate to the demands of a secular or exogenous religious tradition. The chapter considers why reformation in Shi‘ism started much later than it did in Sunnism. The chapter also examines juristic pluralism and the concept of hermeneutics and its effects on the reading of sacred texts. It argues that a hermeneutical approach is important to a discussion of Islamic reformation because of its insistence that the meaning of a text depends on various textual, contextual, and intertextual factors. The chapter demonstrates that a text requires multiple and continuous interpretations if it is to remain valid and able to respond to contemporary challenges.

How to Cite a Sacred Text

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 844-861
Author(s):  
Ron E. Hassner
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Appropriate Treatment ◽  
Ancient Texts

AbstractAllusions to holy scriptures and quotes from sacred texts appear in hundreds of political science articles. Yet while we treat other ancient texts with reverence and diligence, we have not extended a similar care to the holy scriptures of the world's religions. Political scientists often refer to biblical events, statements, and turns of phrase but rarely cite them, chapter and verse. They are careless about referencing the precise translation of the holy texts used, tend to cite religious passages out of context, and disregard the role of religious tradition, interpretation, and practice in shaping and reshaping the meaning of holy texts. I offer examples for these trends, provide evidence for their harmful implications and offer guidelines for the appropriate treatment of sacred texts as formal scholarly sources.

The buffered, technological self: Finding associations between Internet use and religiosity

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-478
Author(s):  
Paul K McClure
Keyword(s):  
Internet Use ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Religious Services ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Religiously Unaffiliated

Explanations for the rise of the religiously unaffiliated have regained attention from sociologists in light of recent declines in religiosity. While the secularization thesis has seen revisions across disciplines, few studies link lower levels of religiosity with greater Internet use. This article draws from Charles Taylor’s widely regarded account of secularity and his concept of ‘the buffered self’ to argue that individuals who use the Internet more frequently are less religious. Using data from the Baylor Religion Survey (2017), I find that with higher levels of Internet use, individuals are less likely to pray, read sacred texts, attend religious services, consider religion personally important, or affiliate with a religious tradition. Greater Internet use is further associated with being an atheist, while other media activity such as watching television is not similarly linked. These findings ground Taylor’s theoretical work by specifying empirically measurable, contextual conditions that explain recent declines in religiosity.

Islamic Images of Isa/Jesus in the Chester Beatty Manuscript Collection: Visual Art as Framework for Comparative Christology

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 488-506
Author(s):  
Miriam Y. Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Theological Reflection ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Textual Interpretation ◽  
Interpretive Process

Abstract Textual analysis has served as a paradigmatic approach to comparative theology for some time while analysis through artistic and visual media has received less attention. Most approaches to comparative theology rely on textual comparison of sacred texts. However, visual art is also a compelling way to engage in comparative theology and specifically comparative Christology. To demonstrate the power of visual art as a tool for comparative theology, I draw upon two recently published sixteenth-century Islamic images of Isa/Jesus from the Chester Beatty manuscript collection to illustrate how artwork can structure the work of comparative Christology by providing an entry point into Islam’s aesthetic tradition and relevant sacred texts. Paul Ricoeur’s theory of textual interpretation provides a theoretical framework, and I draw upon and extend his theory to describe the way visual art can initiate the interpretive process and move us through explanation toward understanding of another religious tradition, which in turn has the potential to transform theological reflection and generate theological insight.

scholarly journals Pemikiran Waleed el-Ansary tentang “A Common Word” dalam Perspektif Metafisika Perennial

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 348
Author(s):  
Suhermanto Ja’far
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Common Word ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Religious People ◽  
The Common ◽  
Islam And Christianity

<p>The discourse of “the Common Word” between us and you have initiated a series of seminars involving world religious institutions. Theological implications of common word become prevalent discussion. Fundamental questions that arise are: “When both Islam and Christianity claim to have received the revelation of God, then what does that mean that the word of God has become a book? Or transformed into the image of Jesus? “However, it does not mean that such matters can simply be brought into the realm of theological studies, because it will lead to a polemic and highlight the differences rather than the pure spirit of faith. Theology will only hold us to understand the main doctrines that had been circling around each religious tradition. Therefore, this article, that explores the idea of Waleed el-Ansary, is presented as an effort to understand the “Word of God” within Islam’s and Christianity’s perspective, so as religious people, we all get the meaningfulness of life or even salvation.</p>

Translations of Sacred Texts and the Shaping, Reshaping and Circulation of Religious Knowledge in Monotheistic Religions with Written Traditions: A South African Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacobus A. Naudé
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Translation Method ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Written Traditions ◽  
The Masses

Translation is centrally important for religion in two ways. First, most religious communities encounter their sacred texts entirely through translations; and, second, religious texts as an object of study are usually read in translation by scholars of religion. The translation of sacred texts is problematic in terms of its nature (translation method/strategy, process, readership) and the status of the product (as authoritative sacred text). When the translation of sacred texts is institutionalised, translations are regulated with strict controls on translators, source texts, translation methods, and readership. On the one hand, regulation may entail forbidding all translation; on the other, regulation may focus on the source text resulting in a literal translation, which keeps the sacred text largely incomprehensible to the masses. When intercultural and interlinguistic comprehension of the text matters more than its linguistic form, more openness towards translation method results to the detriment of the principle that sacred texts should be heard, read, and understood as religious artefacts derived from their ancient cultural context. Furthermore, the future of a religion as a living historical tradition depends on the translation of its sacred texts for new contexts. Where a sacred text is well-known, the continual impulse for re-translation is driven by expanded readership, improvements of earlier translations, and remediation of misinterpretations and outdated language. Focusing on the South African context, examples are presented from the history of religious translation within the Jewish religious tradition, Christianity, and Isl?m, to illustrate the spreading, circulation, shaping and reshaping of religious knowledge by translation.

Redefining the Miraculous: al-Ghazālī, Ibn Rushd and Said Nursi on Qur'anic Miracle Stories

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isra Yazicioglu
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Ibn Rushd ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
Indirect Confirmation ◽  
Said Nursi

Miracle stories in sacred texts have been a source of both fascination and heated debate across religious traditions. Qur'anic miracle stories are especially interesting because they are part of a discourse that also de-emphasises the miraculous. By looking at how three scholars have engaged with Qur'anic miracle stories, I here investigate how these narratives have been interpreted in diverse and fruitful ways. The first part of the article analyses how two medieval scholars, al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198), engaged with the implications of miracle stories. Taking his cue from miracle stories, al-Ghazālī offered a sophisticated critique of natural determinism and suggested that the natural order should be perceived as a constantly renewed divine gift. In contrast, Ibn Rushd dismissed al-Ghazālī’s critique as sophistry and maintained that accepting the possibility that the natural order might be suspended was an affront to human knowledge and science. In the second part, I turn to Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1870–1960), whose interpretation offers a crystallisation of al-Ghazālī’s insights as well as, surprisingly, an indirect confirmation of Ibn Rushd's concerns about human knowledge and science. Nursi redefines the miraculous in light of miracle stories, and interprets them as reminders of ‘everyday miracles’ and as encouragements to improve science and technology in God's name.

Looking at Words

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 67-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Brent Plate
Keyword(s):  
Print Culture ◽  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Words And Images ◽  
The Way

Regardless of their semantic meaning, words exist in and through their material, mediated forms. By extension, sacred texts themselves are material forms and engaged in two primary ways: through the ears and eyes. This article focuses on the visible forms of words that can stir emotional and even sacred responses in the eyes of their beholders. Thus words can be said to function iconically, affecting a mutually engaging form of "religious seeing." The way words appear to their readers will change the reader's interaction, devotion, and interpretation. Examples range from modern popular typography to European Christian print culture to Islamic calligraphy. Weaving through the argument are two key dialectics: the relation of words and images, and the relation of the seen and the unseen.

Infusions and Fumigations

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Wilkens
Keyword(s):  
Ideal Point ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Social Acceptability ◽  
Medical Procedure ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Point Of Entry ◽  
Linguistic Model ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
Different Types

Written texts, especially sacred texts, can be handled in different ways. They can be read for semantic content; or they can be materially experienced, touched, or even be inhaled or drunk. I argue that literacy ideologies regulate social acceptability of specific semantic and somatic text practices. Drinking or fumigating the Qurʾan as a medical procedure is a highly contested literacy event in which two different ideologies are drawn upon simultaneously. I employ the linguistic model of codeswitching to highlight central aspects of this event: a more somatic ideology of literacy enables the link to medicine, while a more semantic ideology connects the practice to theological discourses on the sacredness of the Qurʾan as well as to the tradition of Prophetic medicine. Opposition to and ridicule of the practice, however, comes from representatives of an ideology of semantic purity, including some Islamic theologians and most Western scholars of Islam. Qurʾanic potions thus constitute an ideal point of entry for analyzing different types of literacy ideologies being followed in religious traditions.

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