Islam and the Possibility of World Redemption

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-38
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hassan Khalil
Keyword(s):  
Universal Salvation ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The World

Abstract Rosenzweig’s account of Islamic universalism might lead us to question the extent of that universalism itself. In the context of Islam, it is widely understood that the possibility of redemption is available to “righteous” believers. But what about the world as a whole, the world beyond the realm of righteous believers? These questions have not elicited straightforward responses, as Muslim theologians have long debated the question of who exactly can be saved and admitted into paradise and God’s mercy. In the present essay, I consider certain influential Muslim theological approaches to the topic of world redemption, or universal salvation, with a focus on Sunni thought.

With and Beyond Epistemologies from the South: Ontological Epistemology of Participation, Multi-topial Hermeneutics and the Calling of Planetary Realisations

2021 ◽  
pp. 003802292110146
Author(s):  
Ananta Kumar Giri
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The South ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Multiple Cultures ◽  
The World ◽  
Crisis Of Modernity ◽  
Universe Of Discourse ◽  
The Human Condition

Our contemporary moment is a moment of crisis of epistemology as a part of the wider and deeper crisis of modernity and the human condition. The crisis of epistemology emerges from the limits of the epistemic as it is tied to epistemology of procedural certainty and closure. The crisis of epistemology also reflects the limits of epistemology closed within the Euro-American universe of discourse. It is in this context that the present essay discusses Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. It also discusses some of the limits of de Sousa Santos’ alternatives especially his lack of cultivation of the ontological in his exploration of epistemological alternatives beyond the Eurocentric canons. It then explores the pathways of ontological epistemology of participation which brings epistemic and ontological works and meditations together in transformative and cross-cultural ways. This helps us in going beyond both the limits of the primacy of epistemology in modernity as well as Eurocentrism. It also explores pathways of a new hermeneutics which involves walking and meditating across multiple topoi of cultures and traditions of thinking and reflections which is called multi- topial hermeneutics in this study. This involves foot-walking and foot-meditative interpretation across multiple cultures and traditions of the world which help us go beyond ethnocentrism and eurocentrism and cultivate conversations and realisations across borders what the essay calls planetary realisations.

Some Thoughts About Genre in Old Javanese Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter John Worsley
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Poetic Work

Robson in 1983 and 1988 in his reconsideration of the poetics of kakawin epics and Javanese philology drew readers’ attention to the importance of genre for the history of ancient Javanese literature. Aoyama in his study of the kakawin Sutasoma in 1992, making judicious use of Hans Jauss’s concept of “horizon of expectation”, offered the first systematic discussion of the genre of Old Javanese literary works. The present essay offers a commentary on the terms which mpu Monaguna and mpu Prapañca, authors of the thirteenth century epic kakawin Sumanasāntaka and the fourteenth century Deśawarṇana, themselves, employ to refer to the generic characteristics of their poems. Mpu Monaguna referred to his epic poem as a narrative work (kathā), written in a prakṛt, Old Javanese, and rendered in the poetic form of a kakawin and finally as a ritual act intended to enable the poet to achieve apotheosis with his tutelary deity and his poem to be the means of transforming the world, in particular to ensure the wellbeing of the readers, listeners, copyists and those who possessed copies of his poetic work. Mpu Prapañca described his Deśawarṇana differently. Also written in Old Javanese and in the poetic form of a kakawin—he refers to his work variously as a narrative work (kathā), a chronicle (śakakāla or śakābda), a praise poem (kastawan) and also as a ritual act designed to enable the author in an ecstatic state of rapture (alangö), and filled with the power and omniscience of his tutelary deity, to ensure the continued prosperity of the realm of Majapahit and to secure the rule of his king Rājasanagara. The essay considers each of these literary categories.

Participation and Causality

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory W. Dawes
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Cognitive Dimension ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Modes Of Thought ◽  
Experimental Attitude

A recurring debate within discussions of religion, science, and magic has to do with the existence of distinct modes of thought or “orientations” to the world. The thinker who initiated this debate, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, distinguished two such orientations, one characterized as “participatory” and the other as “causal.” The present essay attempts to clarify what a participatory orientation might involve, making use of the social-psychological category of a “schema.” It argues that while the attitude to which Lévy-Bruhl refers is to be distinguished from an explicit body of doctrine, it does have a cognitive dimension and can embody causal claims. It follows that if such a distinction is to be made, it is not helpfully characterized as a contrast between participation and causality. A better distinction might be that between a mythical and an experimental attitude to the world.

The Intimacy of Belonging: Literacy and the Experience of Sunjata in Mali

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 103-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Local People ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Extensive Field ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Literacy is a personally acquired skill, and the way it is taught to a person changes how that person thinks. Thanks to David Henige historians of Africa are much more aware of how literacy influences memory and historical imagination, and particularly how literacy systems introduce linear concepts of time and space. This essay will deal with these two aspects in relation to Africa's most famous epic: Sunjata. This epic has gained a major literary status worldwide—text editions are taught as part of undergraduate courses at universities all over the world—but there has been little extensive field research into the epic. The present essay focuses on an even less studied aspect of Sunjata, namely how Sunjata is experienced by local people.Central to my argument is an idea put forward by Peter Geschiere, who links the upheaval of autochthony claims in Africa (and beyond) to issues of citizenship and processes of exclusion. He analyzes these as the product of feelings of “belonging.” Geschiere argues that issues of belonging should be studied at a local level if we are to understand how individuals experience autochthony. Analytically, Geschiere proposes shifting away from ”identity” by drawing from Birgit Meyer's work ideas on the aesthetics of religious experience and emotion; Meyer's ideas are useful to explain “how some (religious) images can convince, while other do not.”

Qoheleth and the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch

2008 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Henze
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
First Century ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
Wisdom Tradition ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe roots of early Jewish apocalypticism are diverse. Within the realm of ancient Israel, one of the main contributory streams is the wisdom tradition. The present essay examines the impact of Israel's sapiential tradition, and specifically of that of the book of Qoheleth, on the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, a Jewish apocalypse of the late first century C.E. My thesis is that, while both authors agree in their assessment of the present human condition, they draw dramatically different conclusions. Qoheleth persistently points to the limits and fallibility of this world and advises his readers to enjoy life before they die, whereas the author of 2 Baruch looks to the world to come and, in the meantime, calls on his readers to live their lives in compliance with the Mosaic Torah.

scholarly journals Studying Attitudes to Work Worldwide, 1500–1650: Concepts, Sources, and Problems of Interpretation

2011 ◽  
Vol 56 (S19) ◽  
pp. 25-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel van der Linden
Keyword(s):  
New Work ◽  
Work Ethics ◽  
Work Attitude ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Different Parts

SummaryThe period 1500–1650 was characterized by huge global transformations. These had a major impact on a wide range of societal forms and cultures. As a result, different work ethics clashed and formed hybrid combinations, and new work ethics came into being during many-sided confrontations. The question of how the labouring poor in different parts of the world experienced these changes in the context of their work is an extremely difficult one. The present essay attempts to define a number of key concepts (“work”, “attitude”); it evaluates critically the various sources which might give us an insight into attitudes to work; and it reflects on interpretative difficulties. The essay concludes by presenting a few substantive hypotheses.

The Two Manias: A Study of the Evolution of the Modern Concept of Mania

1981 ◽  
Vol 138 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Hare
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Dementia Praecox ◽  
Sixth Edition ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Manic Depressive ◽  
Almost Everywhere ◽  
The World ◽  
Functional Psychoses ◽  
First Time

In the year 1899 there occurred an event which has had great consequence for psychiatry. This was the publication of the sixth edition of Emil Kraepelin's textbook, where he introduced for the first time his distinction between manic-depressive insanity and dementia praecox. It was a distinction which rapidly became accepted almost everywhere in the world, and it still forms the basis of our thinking about the nature of the functional psychoses. Kraepelin's concept of mania was quite different from the concept of mania held during most of the nineteenth century; and so, historically speaking, there are two manias, more or less sharply separated by the Kraepelinian revolution. The purpose of the present essay is to give some account of the term mania in its pre-Kraepelinian sense and of the events which led Kraepelin to his new concept; and also (in Part II) to put forward a new idea of why this revolution came about.

scholarly journals The Outsider's Gaze: Reflections on recent non-Byzantinist Readings of Byzantine History and on their Implications for our Field

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 183
Author(s):  
Dimitris KRALLIS
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Byzantine History

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'"><font size="3">The present essay </font></span>reviews recent work on Byzantium, its politics, religion, and culture published outside the world of Byzantine Studies and discusses the significance of such readings for the evolving relationship of our field with audiences both lay and academic.

scholarly journals Losing Real Life: James Baldwin and the Ethics of Trauma

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-127
Author(s):  
Mikko Tuhkanen
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Real Life ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
Native Son ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Sarah Schulman ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Cost

This essay proposes that we turn to James Baldwin’s work to assess the cost of, and think alternatives to, the cultures of traumatization whose proliferation one witnesses in contemporary U.S. academia. Beginning with some recent examples, the essay briefly places these cultures into a genealogy of onto-ethics whose contemporary forms arose with the reconfiguration of diasporic histories in the idioms of psychoanalysis and deconstructive philosophy in 1990s trauma theory. Baldwin speaks to the contemporary moment as he considers the outcome of trauma’s perpetuation in an autobiographical scene from “Notes of a Native Son.” In this scene—which restages Bigger Thomas’s murderous compulsion in Native Son—he warns us against embracing one’s traumatization as a mode of negotiating the world. In foregoing what Sarah Schulman has recently called the “duty of repair,” such traumatized engagement prevents all search for the kind of “commonness” whose early articulation can be found in Aristotle’s query after “the common good” (to koinon agathon). With Baldwin, the present essay suggests the urgency of returning to the question of “the common good”: while mindful of past critiques, which have observed in this concept’s deployment a sleight-of-hand by which hegemonic positions universalize their interests, we should work to actualize the unfinished potential of Aristotle’s idea. Baldwin’s work on diasporic modernity provides an indispensable archive for this effort.

scholarly journals WILL FISH DISAPPEAR BY 2048?

OSEANA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-30
Author(s):  
Wanwan Kurniawan
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Joint Paper ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The World ◽  
Collapse Prediction ◽  
Global Collapse ◽  
Ocean Ecosystem ◽  
Over Time

In 2006, a tumult arose in the world of fisheries. A controversial paper titled “Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services” by Worm et al. (2006) was published in Science. The paper was sensational since it alluded to a prediction that global populations of marine fish (finfish and invertebrates) will be 100% collapsed by 2048. The paper was written by a group of marine ecologists and economists in which Boris Worm from Dalhousie University Canada led the authorship. After the paper was published, the issue of fish disappearance in 2048 became hot topics in the world’s mass media. In fact, the Worm et al. paper triggered the debates among researchers. Over time the debates heated up. Surprisingly, a reconciliation took place in 2009, marked by a collaboration between Worm’s team and his critics, writing another paper in Science. The present essay reaffirms the invalidity of the global collapse prediction in 2048 as revealed by many researchers. It is also shown that the Worm et al. paper did not state that all fish will disappear and through the joint paper in 2009, Worm and colleagues have indirectly rectified the prediction already.

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