scholarly journals The Bitter Lot of the Rebellious Wife: Hierarchy, Obedience, and Punishment in Q. 4:34

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-111
Author(s):  
Saqib Hussain
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
Marital Infidelity ◽  
Gender Hierarchy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Qur'an Commentaries ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Islamic Literature

Q. 4:34 was universally interpreted in premodern Qur'an commentaries and legal works as permitting a husband to strike his wife if she is guilty of nushūz, a term that was understood to mean some manner of disobedience on the wife's part. Thus, according to the traditional interpretation of the verse, a wife is required to show obedience to her husband, and the husband is placed in authority over his wife. In this paper I first engage in a close reading of the verse within its literary context, and re-examine the verse's gender hierarchy and the question of the wife's obedience to her husband. Second, I attempt to re-evaluate the key term nushūz in light of its use elsewhere in the Qur'an, in Jāhilī and early Islamic poetry, and in other early Islamic literature beyond the Qur'an commentaries and legal works. I argue that the evidence consistently shows that nushūz refers not to disobedience, but to a desire to leave one's husband, usually coupled with being involved with another man, and thus may be a euphemism used to refer to marital infidelity. Finally, I explore the relationship between Q. 4:34 and the rabbinic rules for the sotah, or wife suspected of adultery. As we shall see, there is a remarkable overlap in the legislation for the wife suspected of nushūz and the rabbinic sotah, suggesting that the two are addressing the same issue.

Encountering Ambiguity: Muʿtazilī and Twelver Shīʿī Approaches to the Qur'an's Ambiguous Verses

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 91-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tehseen Thaver
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
Primary Determinant ◽  
Linguistic Challenges ◽  
Qur'anic Exegesis ◽  
Exegetical Tradition ◽  
Qur'an Commentaries ◽  
Early Islamic

Within the broader discipline of Qur'anic exegesis, the sub-genre of the mutashābihāt al-Qurʾān (the ambiguous verses of the Qur'an) is comprised of works dedicated to the identification and explication of those verses that present theological or linguistic challenges. Yet, the approach, style, and objective of the scholars who have written commentaries on the ambiguous verses are far from monolithic. This essay brings into focus the internal diversity of this important exegetical tradition by focusing on the Qur'an commentaries of two major scholars in fourth/eleventh-century Baghdad, al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1016) and Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025). Al-Raḍī was a prominent Twelver Shīʿī theologian and poet while ʿAbd al-Jabbār was a leading Muʿtazilī theologian during this period; al-Raḍī was also ʿAbd al-Jabbār's student and disciple. Through a close reading of their respective commentaries on two Qur'anic verses, I explore possible interconnections and interactions between Shīʿī and Muʿtazilī traditions of exegesis, and demonstrate that while ʿAbd al-Jabbār mobilised the language of Islamic jurisprudence, al-Raḍī primarily relied on early Islamic poetry and the etymology of the Arabic language. Methodologically, I argue against a conceptual approach that valorises sectarian and theological identity as the primary determinant of hermeneutical desires and sensibilities.

A Reading of Westcott's Gospel of Creation: An Early Venture into Ecological Theology?

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-202
Author(s):  
Duncan Reid
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Ecological Theology ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Science And Theology ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

AbstractIn response to the contemporary ecological movement, ecological perspectives have become a significant theme in the theology of creation. This paper asks whether antecedents to this growing significance might predate the concerns of our times and be discernible within the diverse interests of nineteenth-century Anglican thinking. The means used here to examine this possibility is a close reading of B. F. Westcott's ‘Gospel of Creation’. This will be contextualized in two directions: first with reference to the understanding of the natural world in nineteenth-century English popular thought, and secondly with reference to the approach taken to the doctrine of creation by three late twentieth-century Anglican writers, two concerned with the relationship between science and theology in general, and a third concerned more specifically with ecology.

QUR'A¯N AND THE VEIL: CONTEXTS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF THE REVELATION

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emi Goto
Keyword(s):  
Muslim Women ◽  
The Veil ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Islamic Society ◽  
Over Time

Though veiling by Muslim women has been discussed from many angles and with various methodologies, the very basis of the discussion – the relationship between the Qur'a¯n and the veil – still remains unclear. This paper returns to this basis, focusing on three relevant passages from the Qur'a¯n (33:59, 33:53, 24:31). An analysis of the first two of these passages in association with a number of prophetic traditions [hadi¯th] shows clearly that one of the main purposes of veiling in early Islamic society was to distinguish, and secure the safety or status of, privileged women. Problematic is Verse 24:31, which contains another reason for veiling in Islam: to cover women's beauty. Because of the ambiguity of the words contained in this passage, and the absence of any solid hadi¯th concerning it, ample room for interpretation was provided for later religious authorities. The extent of covering changed over time and so did the grounds for argument. By following major exegetic texts [tafsi¯r] on this verse from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, this paper shows the relationship between the Qur'a¯n, hadi¯th, tafsi¯r, and the veil.

scholarly journals On the Exception of Hannah Arendt

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 684-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayça Çubukçu
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Banality Of Evil ◽  
The Relationship

This article offers a close reading of Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. It argues that in this text, Arendt consistently, even obsessively, evaluates the legal and moral challenges posed by Eichmann’s trial through the relationship between exception and rule. The article contends that the analytical lens of the exception allows us to appreciate the perplexities that Eichmann in Jerusalem presents – some fifty years after the book’s publication – from a still uncommon perspective, and enables us to attend in new ways to Arendt’s own suppositions, propositions, and contradictions in this text.

scholarly journals Iris Hanika's Treffen Sich Zwei: Reception, Analysis and Interpretation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kerry Alistair Nitz
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
Narrative Functions ◽  
The One ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Relationship

<p>Iris Hanika’s commercially and critically successful novel Treffen sich zwei makes use of several techniques in the characterisation of its protagonists. Many of its reviews focus on the author’s deliberate placement of links to a wider literary context. Their interest extends from questions of genre-mixing through to the identification of direct quotes from other authors’ works. The critical preoccupation with intertexts demonstrates their importance for the readers’ response to the novel. More specifically, certain reviews highlight the important role intertexts play in the characterisation of the protagonists. This study catalogues the intertexts, metaphors and parodies in Treffen sich zwei and, by means of quantitative analysis, identifies high-level patterns in the use of these techniques. In particular, patterns are identified between, on the one hand, the different narrative functions of the intertexts and, on the other hand, the different ways in which they are interwoven in the text. The data also shows that distinct patterns are associated with each of the two protagonists and that certain patterns change in the course of the novel in parallel with the changes in the relationship between them. This quantitative evidence is supported by a more detailed, qualitative approach, which examines how specific intertexts or metaphors are used for the purposes of characterisation. In addition, variations in voice are used to distinguish the two main protagonists in a manner consistent with the intertexts and metaphors. It is thanks to the combination of these techniques that the theme of meeting encapsulated in the title, Treffen sich zwei, is woven into the textual fabric of the novel.</p>

scholarly journals HADITH DAN SEJARAH

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
Khairul Amal
Keyword(s):  
Islamic History ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Early Islamic

This paper attempts to discuss the proper methodology in search for the authentic Islamic History. It discusses the relationship between two sister-disciplines, i.e. ?ad?th and History, their likenesses, many problems which the historians of Early Islam have to face in their research and the possibility of employing unique methodology of the study of ?ad?th on the study of Early Islamic History. The paper benefits from a plethora of monographs written by contemporary scholars of Islamic Studies. I conclude that Isn?d-cum-Matn Analysis developed separately by Gregor Schoeler and Harald Motzki seems promising for the study of Early Islam.This paper attempts to discuss the proper methodology in search for the authentic Islamic History. It discusses the relationship between two sister-disciplines, i.e. ?ad?th and History, their likenesses, many problems which the historians of Early Islam have to face in their research and the possibility of employing unique methodology of the study of ?ad?th on the study of Early Islamic History. The paper benefits from a plethora of monographs written by contemporary scholars of Islamic Studies. I conclude that Isn?d-cum-Matn Analysis developed separately by Gregor Schoeler and Harald Motzki seems promising for the study of Early Islam.

scholarly journals ‘A Kind of Sensory, Strange Thing to Experience’: Speaking Environmental Disaster in the Sea Empress Project Archive

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Environmental Disaster ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sensory Experiences ◽  
Sensory Event ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores embodied encounters with the Sea Empress oil spill of 1996 and their representation in oral narratives. Through a close reading of the personal testimonies collected in the Sea Empress Project archive, I examine the relationship between intense sensory experiences of environmental change and everyday interpretations of the disaster and its legacy. The art­icle first outlines the ways in which this collection of voices reveals sensory memories, embodied affects and narrative choices to be deeply entwined in oral representations of the spill, disclosing a ‘sensory event’ that created a powerful awareness of both environmental surroundings and their relationship to everyday social processes. Then, reading these narratives against-the-grain, I argue that narrators’ accounts tell a paradoxical story of a disaster that most now wish to forget, and reveal an ambivalent legacy of environmental change that is similarly consigned to the past. Finally, I relate this social forgetting of the Sea Empress to the wider history of environmental consciousness in modern Britain.

scholarly journals W czasie wiersza. "Posłańcy" Stanisława Grochowiaka

2021 ◽  
pp. 10-25
Author(s):  
Helena Hejman
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Problem Of Time ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Reading Experiment ◽  
The Relationship

This paper – presenting a close reading of Stanisław Grochowiak’s poem Posłańcy [The Messengers] – proposes reflections on the “time of the poem”. It deals with the issue of experiencing different temporalities while reading (when and where you are while experiencing written words; what is the relationship between the reader's "real" and "fictional" – immersed in the process of reading – lives), and proposes a depiction of pace moderations in the analyzed work – of its own, differential dynamics. The problem of time and velocity is the starting point for a hermeneutic interpretation, or rather hermeneutic exercises (inspired by Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style): a conceptual, anthropological and semiotic reading experiment carried out on Grochowiak's poem. This essay is an attempt to pave a few paths for understanding The Messengers and their messages. Following in the footsteps of the title characters (with the help of associations and seemingly trivial observations) becomes a cognitive and imaginative adventure, a revolve around an ineffable, dark mystery of the poem (perhaps of all poems and their messengers).

The Heart of Wang Daiyu’s Philosophy: The Seven Subtleties of Islamic Spiritual Physiology

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-201
Author(s):  
Kristian Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Language ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Spiritual Nature ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Sufi Order ◽  
Han Kitab ◽  
Islamic Literature

Abstract The True Explanation of the Orthodox Teaching (Zhengjiao zhenquan 正教真詮), published in 1642 by Wang Daiyu 王岱輿 (ca. 1590–1658), is the oldest extant text in the Han Kitab, a Sino-Islamic canon. This literature employed Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist language and imagery to explain Islamic thought. Wang was a pioneering figure in the institutionalization of this distinct Sino-Islamic discourse and crystallized much of the terminology used throughout subsequent Han Kitab literature. In the Zhengjiao zhenquan, Wang analyzes the spiritual nature of the heart, dividing it into three aspects and seven levels. These seven levels are correlative of the classification of subtleties (laṭāʾif ) or stages (aṭwār) developed by authors affiliated with the Kubrawi Sufi order. In this article, Wang’s spiritual taxonomy is analyzed in comparison with delineations of the multiple levels of the heart determined by Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 1256) and Nūr al-Dīn Isfarāyīnī (d. 1317). Through a close reading of the sources I establish the intellectual influences from these authors’ thought on Wang’s explanation of Islam. By doing so we begin to determine the various sources for Sino-Islamic thought and determine an exact lexical register of Chinese language Islamic literature.

‘Till the whisper…You know…When you can't hear the words’: Narrated Memory and the ‘Fragmented’ Body in Samuel Beckett's Late Drama

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155
Author(s):  
Michelle Charalambous
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
The Body ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Works

Samuel Beckett's interest in the experience of memory and the central role the body plays in the re-experience of the past has been most evident since the time he composed Krapp's Last Tape (1958), one of his most famous memory plays where the body can actually ‘touch’ its voice of memory. In this context, the present article provides a close reading of two of Beckett's late works for the theatre, namely That Time (1976) and Ohio Impromptu (1981), where the author once again addresses the relationship between the body and memory. Unlike his earlier drama, however, in That Time and Ohio Impromptu Beckett creates a ‘distance’, as it were, between memory and the body on stage by presenting the former as a narrative and by reducing the latter to an isolated part or by restricting it to limited movements. Looking closely at this ‘distance’ in these late plays, the article underlines that the body does not lose its authority or remains passive in its re-experience of the past. Rather – the article argues – the body essentially plays a determining role in these stripped-down forms as is shown in its ability to ‘interrupt’ and somatically punctuate the fixity of the narrative form memory takes in these works.

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