The stranger at the sea: Mythopoesis in the Qur'ân and early tafsîr

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-279
Author(s):  
Aaron Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Near Eastern ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
Sacred Scripture ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Stranger ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
The Way

This study's point of departure is a famous statement issued by Charles Adams in 1967 that contends that the History of Religions and Islamic Studies are essentially incompatible. In revisiting Adams' claim, this study examines the use of myth and mythopoesis in the Qur'ân. For within this sacred scripture there exist many mythemes that connect it, both linguistically and structurally, to wider and deeper semiotics of meaning. The particular focus is on Qur'ân 8:60-82, which recounts Moses' encounter with a mysterious stranger at "the place where the two seas meet." After some methodological reflections, I examine the Qur'ân's ability to absorb, transform, and subsequently erase previous near eastern narratives. Following this, I examine the way in which Tabari, a 10th-century exegete, attempted to make sense of this passage in such a manner as to connect it explicitly back to these earlier narratives.

Between History and Nature

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anik Waldow
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Scientific Models ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Hermeneutic Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
The Way

From within the philosophy of history and history of science alike, attention has been paid to Herder’s naturalist commitment and especially to the way in which his interest in medicine, anatomy, and biology facilitates philosophically significant notions of force, organism, and life. As such, Herder’s contribution is taken to be part of a wider eighteenth-century effort to move beyond Newtonian mechanism and the scientific models to which it gives rise. In this scholarship, Herder’s hermeneutic philosophy—as it grows out of his engagement with poetry, drama, and both literary translation and literary documentation projects—has received less attention. Taking as its point of departure Herder’s early work, this chapter proposes that, in his work on literature, Herder formulates an anthropologically sensitive approach to the human sciences that has still not received the attention it deserves.

Opt traduceri mai puțin cunoscute ale lui Mircea Eliade din Aldo Mieli, Raffaele Pettazzoni și Sylvain Lévi

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 22-34
Author(s):  
Andreea Apostu
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Cultural Transfer ◽  
Mircea Eliade ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

This paper aims to analyze the way in which Mircea Eliade became, in 1926, a vector of the cultural and scientific transfer between Western Europe and Romania, through his translations of eight fragments from Aldo Mieli, Raffaele Pettazzoni and Sylvain Lévi’s major works. Two out of these eight translations seem to have been ignored to this day by researchers, whilst the others have only been mentioned in passing. The choices made by Eliade, the context in which these translations were published (the journal Orizontul/The Horizon and its public, the precarious state of the history of religions at that time in Romania etc.) and their echoes in Eliade’s works prove that they can be seen as an example of cultural transfer. They also play an important part in the foundation of the history of religions as a discipline in Romania, being, in a way, the textual equivalents of Eliade’s institutional aspiration to found an association and a library for the study of religions, as expressed in his letters to Raffaele Pettazzoni.

Conceptualisations of xoshbaxti (‘happiness / prosperity’) and baxt (‘fate / luck’) in Persian

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farzad Sharifian ◽  
Mehri Bagheri
Keyword(s):  
Word Association ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
European Language ◽  
Association Task ◽  
Married Life ◽  
Multidisciplinary Nature ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Linguistics ◽  
The Way

Abstract This paper explores conceptualisations of xoshbaxti (‘happiness / prosperity’) and baxt (‘fate / luck’) in Persian, adopting a combined historical and contemporary analysis. The expression xoshbaxti consists of the free morphemes xosh (‘pleasant’) and baxt (‘fate’). The root of baxt originates from the Proto-Indo-European language (bʰeh₂g). An historical analysis returning all the way to the Proto-Indo-Iranian religion shows that the concept of baxt captured the idea of a pre-determined destiny by conceptualising Bhaga as a god who dispenses fortune. Data from a number of Persian encyclopaedias, dictionaries and weblogs, as well as a word association task carried out by a group of speakers of Persian, revealed that xoshbaxti in contemporary Persian is largely associated with what is considered to be a “good” married life. Overall, the findings of this study illustrate the usefulness of combining diachronic and synchronic approaches when analysing cultural conceptualisations. The study also shows that attempts to trace the historical roots of cultural conceptualisations may benefit from insights gained in other fields, such as the history of religions. In this context, the multidisciplinary nature of the newly developed field of Cultural Linguistics provides an effective basis for cross-disciplinary openness, which has the potential to deepen the scope of analyses undertaken.

Women’s Journeys in the Study of Religion

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Morny Joy
Keyword(s):  
International Association ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Comparative Religion ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Decisive Influence ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Women Scholars ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Way

In 1995, Professor Ursula King published an edited volume, Religion and Gender. This volume comprised a collection of essays that had been presented at the International Association of the History of Religions (IAHR) conference in Rome, 1990. As such, it marked a milestone: it was the first published volume that featured work undertaken solely by women in the history of the IAHR. In her own Introduction, Professor King drew attention to a number of important topics, such as ‘gender’, ‘postmodernism’, that were being debated at that time. The volume remains a testament to Professor King, and her dedication to, as well as support of women’s scholarship in the discipline on the Study of Religions, and to what was then called Comparative Religion. A subsequent volume, edited together with Tina Beattie, Gender, Religion and Diversity: Cross Cultural Perspectives (2004), addressed more complex issues that had emerged in the intervening years. This later volume provided another platform from which to explore not only developments in gender, but a number of other crucial topics, including postcolonialism and globalization. In this essay, I propose to follow the effects of such issues as addressed or acknowledged by Professor King in her various works, as well as to examine the further expansion and qualification of these topics in more recent years. This essay will thus explore issues that have had a formative and even decisive influence on the way that women scholars in the Study of Religions today approach the discipline. I will look to certain of my own essays that appeared in Professor King’s edited volumes as well as essays by other contemporary women scholars in order to illustrate these developments.

scholarly journals The Approach of Islamic Studies In Mapping Richard C. Martin

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-154
Author(s):  
Nur Solikin
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Form ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Academic Anxiety ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Kajian ini berfokus pada pemetaan pendekatan studi Islam dalam salah satu karya Richard C. Martin yang disunting berjudul Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies. Penelitian ini mengambil bentuk deskriptif-analitis yang dimulai dengan mengungkap latar belakang penulisan hingga evolusi sejarah studi agama. Melalui penelitian ini, beberapa kesimpulan yang dapat dikemukakan terkait dengan kecemasan akademik Martin, yang diakuinya dilatarbelakangi oleh kelemahan antara pendekatan teologis yang mempertahankan pemahaman normatif agama, dan sudut pandang sejarah agama yang menekankan pada deskripsi analitis dan membutuhkan jarak bagi para penelitinya. Sementara terkait dengan evolusi studi sejarah agama, ia menilai perkembangan studi independen setelah studi sejarah, antropologi, sosiologi, teologi dan studi timur, dan oleh karena itu, perkembangan studi tersebut cukup berpengaruh dalam cara sejarawan agama bekerja. Pengembangan lebih lanjut dianggap perlu untuk memisahkan studi agama dari disiplin lain. This study focuses on the mapping of the Islamic studies approach in one of Richard C. Martin's edited works entitled Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies. This study takes a descriptive-analytical form which begins by revealing the background of writing to the historical evolution of religious studies. Through this study, several conclusions that can be presented are related to Martin's academic anxiety, which he admits is motivated by a weakness between the theological approach which maintains a normative understanding of religions, and the history of religion point of view which emphasizes analytical descriptions and requires distance for the researchers.While related to the evolution of the study of the history of religion, he assessed the development of independent studies after historical studies, anthropology, sociology, theology and the study of the east, and therefore, developments in these studies were quite influential in the way historians of religions worked. further developments are deemed necessary to separate religious studies from other disciplines.  

scholarly journals Den billedlige vending

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (68) ◽  
Author(s):  
W.J.T. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Modern Thought ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
History Of ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
The Way

W.J.T. Mitchell: "Den billedlige vending"AbstractW.J.T. Mitchell: “The Pictorial Turn”Taking as a point of departure Richard Rorty’s idea of the history of philosophy as a series of “turns”, Mitchell’s essay from 1992 argues that the so-called ‘linguistic turn’, predominant in the 20th century, has been superseded by a ‘pictorial turn’. The essay thus, in Mitchells own words, “looks at the way modern thought has reoriented itself around visual paradigms that seem to threathen and overwhelm any possibility of discursive mastery.” Analysing theories by e.g. Panofsky and Althusser, the essay “looks at pictures ‘in theory’ – and at theory in itself as a form ofpicturing”.

scholarly journals Engaging the history of religions – from an Islamic studies perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-25
Author(s):  
Susanne Olsson ◽  
Leif Erik Stenberg
Keyword(s):  
Critical Approach ◽  
Moral Requirement ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
Definition Of

The future and relevance of the history of religions discipline in the Swedish context has been discussed lately. This article is a response to this debate from an Islamic studies perspective. The authors argue that the history of religions discipline may become more relevant if a more self-critical approach is adopted, an interdisciplinary attitude upheld, and if there is an openness to learn from other disciplines studying religion such as Islamic studies. Moreover, a reflection on ‘history’ in the history of religions is necessary if elitism and a too narrow definition of the discipline are to be avoided. Furthermore, the article addresses the question as to whether or not scholarly engagement in disseminating findings in public should be an intellectual and moral requirement.

scholarly journals Editorial

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Basheer Nafi
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Human History ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Islamic View ◽  
The Way

This issue of AJISS provides a multidimensional perspective of today’sIslamic intellectual experience. What seems to contribute markedly to theshaping of this experience is the ongoing creative process of integrating thecontemporary with the historical and the particular with the universal. TheMuslims’ commitment to humanity’s persistent struggle for meaning andharmony is, in essence, deeply linked to their belonging to the social anddiscursive manifestations of the Islamic historical epoch.Similarly evident is that neither studying Islam nor seeking the constructionof an Islamic view of our times can be conducted coherently withoutinvoking human history and intellectual achievements located outsideof the traditionally defined boundaries of the Islamic intellectual venture.Examples abound. Western epistemological tools and concepts are nowused widely, with little hesitation, by an increasing number of Muslimsocial scientists. On another level, the emergence of world global systemshas left its imprint on the Muslims’ perceptions of universal justice. Theinfluences of non-Muslim suffering and struggle are becoming part of theMuslim consciousness. In a startling reflection of this development, thetragic history of Native Americans has recently been sought as an allegoricalwell-spring by Arab anti-imperialist poets. For Islam and the world,despite many pitfalls and dangers, this process of integration is ultimatelybound to transfer the Muslims’ worldview to an era that is fundamentallydisctinctive from the preceding “centuries of the Islamic experience.”Charles Hirschkind’s “Heresy or Hermeneutics: The Case of NasrHamid Abu Zayd” provides a lucid example of how modem Islamic intellectualismand its image, the discipline of Islamic studies, are predicated ona wide variety of sources, whether historical or contingent, traditional orotherwise. The case of Abu Zayd and his prolonged conflict with Islamiccircles in Egypt has been of particular interest to the western and Arab secularmedia alike. Emerging from the halls of the University of Cairo, thecontentious debate surrounding his ideas has marched all the way to theEgyptian judiciary. But Hirschkind is not a judge, and AJISS is not a courtroom.The focus here is on “the contrastive notions of reason and history,” ...

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