scholarly journals Shifting Religious Identities and Sharia in Othello

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanyak

Despite twenty-first century research advances regarding the role of Islam in Shakespeare’s plays, questions remain concerning the extent of William Shakespeare’s knowledge of Muslim culture and his use of that knowledge in writing Othello. I suggest that the playwright had access to numerous sources that informed his depiction of Othello as a man divided between Christian faith and Islamic duty, a division which resulted in the Moor’s destruction. Sharia, a code of moral and legal conduct for Muslims based on the Qur’an’s teachings, appears to be a guiding force in Othello’s ultimate quest for honor. The advance of the Ottoman Empire into Europe with the threat of conquest and forced conversion to Islam was a source of fascination and fear to Elizabethan audiences. Yet, as knowledge increased, so did tolerance to a certain degree. But the defining line between Christian and Muslim remained a firm one that could not be breached without risking the loss of personal identity and spiritual sanctity. Denizens of the Middle East and followers of the Islamic faith, as well as travel encounters between eastern and western cultures, influenced Shakespeare’s treatment of this theme. His play Othello is possibly the only drama of this time period to feature a Moor protagonist who wavers between Christian and Muslim beliefs. To better understand the impetus for Othello’s murder of his wife, the influence of Islamic culture is considered, and in particular, the system of Sharia that governs social, political, and religious conventions of Muslim life, as well as Othello’s conflicting loyalties between Islam as the religion of his youth, and Christianity, the faith to which he had been converted. From Act I celebrating his marriage through Act V recording his death, Othello is overshadowed by fears of who he really is—uncertainty bred of his conversion to Christian faith and his potential to revert to Islamic duty. Without indicating Sharia directly, Shakespeare hints at its subtle influence as Othello struggles between two faiths and two theologies. In killing Desdemona and orchestrating Michael Cassio’s death in response to their alleged adultery, Othello obeys the Old Testament injunction for personal sanctification. But in reverting to Muslim beliefs, he attempts to follow potential Sharia influence to reclaim personal and societal honor.

Author(s):  
يونس عبد الله ما تشنغ بين الصيني

الملخّص إن بقاء الإسلام، ورغبة المسلمين في الحفاظ على عقيدة الإسلام، وشريعته السمحاء في الصين راجعة إلى جهود علمائنا الأجلاء الذين نَهَلُوا العلم الصافي من مَعِينِ القرآن والسنة. وخدمتهم من خلال ترجمة معاني القرآن الكريم، وتبسيط العقيدة والشريعة باللغة الصينية خير دليل على ذلك. ويحاول الباحث تسليط الضوء من خلال هذا البحث على طبيعة الإسلام في أرض الصين، كاشفا أمر وضع الإسلام وطبيعة حال المسلمين، وتحدياتهم قديما وحديثا، مبينا محاولتهم على حفاظ دين الإسلام، وأداء شعائره. ويؤمن الباحث من خلال توصيف حالة الإسلام والمسلمين، أن صلاح المسلمين، وبقاءهم كأمة مسالمة لا رغبة لها؛ إلا في الإصلاح، والتعمير في الأرض، فهو لا يتحقق إلا بإصلاح النفس، وعودتها إلى طاعة الله سرا وعلانية دون الإنغماس في تحقيق الرغبات المادية، وإشباع المطامع الشهوانية من خلال جمع حطام الدنيا دون الالتفات إلى حلال وحرام، وطاعة ومعصية.    الكلمات المفتاحيّة: جهود العلماء، ثقافة الإسلام، مصادر الإسلام الأصلية، التحديات، الصين، الدعوة.                                                                                             Abstract The continuation of Islam in China and the aspiration of the Muslims to maintain Islamic faith and its true tolerant legal system retract to the struggles of our respected scholars who learnt the knowledge of the Qurʼan and the Prophetic traditions (al-Sunnah). The services they rendered in translating the meaning of the Qurʼan, simplifying the creed and the legal system of Islam into Chinese language are good indications in that context. In this paper, the researcher is trying to highlight the normal nature of Islam in China by exploring the position and nature of the Muslims, their contemporary and past challenges, and revealing their attempts to preserve the religion of Islam in discharging the religious rites. Through the depiction of Islam and the Muslims, the researcher believes that the wellbeing of Muslims and their continuous survival to be a peace-loving nation could not be achieved without the reform and proper development through self-reformation and its return to full submission to Allah both in private and public life, and without indulging in attainment of material desires and satiating the lust of accumulating ephemeral materials of this world without paying any heed to lawfulness or unlawfulness, or to being obedient or disobedient. Keywords: Effort of the Scholars, Islamic Culture, Noble Origin of Islam, Challenges, Propagation of the Religion.


Author(s):  
يونس عبد الله ما تشنغ بين الصيني

الملخّصإن بقاء الإسلام، ورغبة المسلمين في الحفاظ على عقيدة الإسلام، وشريعته السمحاء في الصين راجعة إلى جهود علمائنا الأجلاء الذين نَهَلُوا العلم الصافي من مَعِينِ القرآن والسنة. وخدمتهم من خلال ترجمة معاني القرآن الكريم، وتبسيط العقيدة والشريعة باللغة الصينية خير دليل على ذلك. ويحاول الباحث تسليط الضوء من خلال هذا البحث على طبيعة الإسلام في أرض الصين، كاشفا أمر وضع الإسلام وطبيعة حال المسلمين، وتحدياتهم قديما وحديثا، مبينا محاولتهم على حفاظ دين الإسلام، وأداء شعائره. ويؤمن الباحث من خلال توصيف حالة الإسلام والمسلمين، أن صلاح المسلمين، وبقاءهم كأمة مسالمة لا رغبة لها؛ إلا في الإصلاح، والتعمير في الأرض، فهو لا يتحقق إلا بإصلاح النفس، وعودتها إلى طاعة الله سرا وعلانية دون الإنغماس في تحقيق الرغبات المادية، وإشباع المطامع الشهوانية من خلال جمع حطام الدنيا دون الالتفات إلى حلال وحرام، وطاعة ومعصية.   الكلمات المفتاحيّة: جهود العلماء، ثقافة الإسلام، مصادر الإسلام الأصلية، التحديات، الصين، الدعوة.                                                                                   AbstractThe continuation of Islam in China and the aspiration of the Muslims to maintain Islamic faith and its true tolerant legal system retract to the struggles of our respected scholars who learnt the knowledge of the Qurʼan and the Prophetic traditions (al-Sunnah). The services they rendered in translating the meaning of the Qurʼan, simplifying the creed and the legal system of Islam into Chinese language are good indications in that context. In this paper, the researcher is trying to highlight the normal nature of Islam in China by exploring the position and nature of the Muslims, their contemporary and past challenges, and revealing their attempts to preserve the religion of Islam in discharging the religious rites. Through the depiction of Islam and the Muslims, the researcher believes that the wellbeing of Muslims and their continuous survival to be a peace-loving nation could not be achieved without the reform and proper development through self-reformation and its return to full submission to Allah both in private and public life, and without indulging in attainment of material desires and satiating the lust of accumulating ephemeral materials of this world without paying any heed to lawfulness or unlawfulness, or to being obedient or disobedient.Keywords: Effort of the Scholars, Islamic Culture, Noble Origin of Islam, Challenges, Propagation of the Religion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-74
Author(s):  
Mogens Müller

Taking departure in the invitation in Slenczkas new book todiscuss the role of the Jewish Holy Scriptures in a Christian canon, thisarticle starts with contesting the validity of the arguments for introducingOld Testament readings in the service of the Danish Church.Reading the Old Testament in the light of Christian faith as if it in realityis about Christ was no longer possible after Enlightenment. With ahistorical and critical study, it became clear, that the Old Testament wasJewish and not Christian Scripture. In continuation of some deliberationsin Luther, and especially the thoughts of F. Schleiermacher, A. vonHarnack and R. Bultmann, Slenczka argues, that we today need to drawthe consequence of this view. It was only in the reception of the Churchthat the Old Testament became a Christian text, and this cannot beascribed a retroactive effect, a Jewish understanding and reception beingmuch more appropriate. Its meaning in a Christian Bible, therefore,can only be to witness about man’s place towards God without Christ.From this follows that in a Christian Bible the Old Testament cannotfigure with the same degree of canonicity as the New, instead it shouldbe reckoned at the same level as the Old Testament Apocrypha.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason W. Reece

A reexamination of the role of equity in planning is critical at this contentious period in US history. Racism and anti-immigrant sentiments have arisen in our public policy debates, cities have again experienced riots, and inequality has grown. Equity has long been a center of tension throughout planning history, and the field has struggled to balance activism and technocratic expertise. This article provides a literature review to inform and explore how planners can engage equity in this current contentious time period.


Pneuma ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-71
Author(s):  
Monte Lee Rice

Abstract Scholars are steadily situating pentecostal studies within the embodiment turn, recognizing its foci as imperative to ongoing twenty-first-century pentecostal/charismatic studies. Yet this enjoins greater movement beyond the earlier “linguistic turn,” which too often overlooked the crucial perspectival role of human flesh. For from the horizons of incarnation and Pentecost, Christian faith propagates God’s turn toward flesh. This suggest that pentecostal spirituality generates an eschatological urgency. Fostering this “urgency” into the twenty-first century, however, requires recasting its source and expression within pentecostal spirituality. Drawing from Acts 2:17 (“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh”), this essay explores how this turn to the flesh might aptly ground and generate eschatological fervor. Doing so, however, exposes deficiencies with pentecostal sacramentality, recognizing links between it and eschatology. The essay addresses this by engaging Kearney’s “anatheistic sacramentality.” It concludes with several implications with particular attention to the violent tragedy of world hunger.


2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
ECKHARD J. SCHNABEL

Abstract<title> Abstract </title>This article contextualises Paul's speech on the Areopagus as reported in Acts 17 in the light of the contemporary religious situation obtaining in Athens in the middle of the first century C.E. Against the background of the pluralistic and polytheistic religious context of life in Athens, Paul's speech is interpreted and situated primarily in the light of the role of the Council of the Areopagus as guardians of traditional Athenian ways. The speech before the Council is characterised by agreements with Graeco-Roman philosophy (Stoicism and Epicureanism), as well as by contradictions with these. It is clear that the thrust of the speech derives from Old Testament prophetic traditions and contemporary Jewish apologetics. Rather than drawing on Graeco-Roman philosophical traditions as a kind of preparation for the gospel, then, Paul is transcending these with revealed theology.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-38
Author(s):  
Jonathan Octavianus

As every epoch there are there a transition time, on Old Testament like Moses with Joshua, Joshua selected by God an supported fully by Moses, Conversely Moses have liberally to be changed. Like Elijah to Elisha too.Pattern on New Testament there are an examples of transition time too, like Jesus Christ to His Disciples, an transition from Paul to his successor Timothy. This is a heart and soul a big leader, and shall all leadership owners shepherd in church, Christian institution, etc.Which most be remembered in transition of leadership, that people of God leadership, about who will lead, who continue leadership, like a principle in biblical, hence a role of God, is determinant an anoint man which be selected the absolute God choice and constitute all other, but a succession router leader is which have been selected His own. An can be anointed in front of believers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 88-99
Author(s):  
Andrey A. Lukashev

The typology of rationality is one of major issues of modern philosophy. In an attempt to provide a typology to Oriental materials, a researcher faces additional problems. The diversity of the Orient as such poses a major challenge. When we say “Oriental,” we mean several cultures for which we cannot find a common denominator. The concept of “Orient” involves Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Turkish and other cultures, and the only thing they share is that they are “non-Western.” Moreover, even if we focus just on Islamic culture and look into rationality in this context, we have to deal with a conglomerate of various trends, which does not let us define, with full confidence, a common theoretical basis and treat them as a unity. Nevertheless, we have to go on trying to find common directions in thought development, so as to draw conclusions about types of rationality possible in Islamic culture. A basis for such a typology of rationality in the context of the Islamic world was recently suggested in A.V. Smirnov’s logic of sense theory. However, actual empiric material cannot always fit theoretical models, and the cases that do not fit the common scheme are interesting per se. On the one hand, examination of such cases gives an opportunity to specify certain provisions of the theory and, on the other hand, to define the limits of its applicability.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document