scholarly journals The Crisis of Muslim History

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 118-121
Author(s):  
Junaid Quadri
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
System P ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Religious Crisis

A host of recent events – well known to all and not in need of rehearsal here– have had, among a variety of other consequences, the unexpected effect of focusing the world’s attention on the diversity of Muslims and the Islamic tradition.The constant talk of “Sunni triangles,” “Shi`ite clerics,” and “Wahhabiradicals,” however, raises important questions about what precisely dividesthe Muslim community along these lines. For Ayoub, the roots of this sectarianismcan be found, at least in part, in the crucial historical time periodknown as the Rashidite (or “Rightly Guided”) caliphate. It is the “politicaland socio-religious crisis” (p. 4) of this era (stretching from the death of theProphet until `Ali’s assassination) and its implications for subsequent generations,that form the subject matter of this book.Ayoub envisions his work as filling a void found in most general introductionsto Islam, which for all their other merits, often fail to provide a clearaccount of this formative period of Islamic history. As for those who haveventured to write in the area, Ayoub considers the works of both Muslim andwestern scholars to be fraught with the political and theological biases oftheir authors. His desire to avoid this pitfall motivates him to adopt thenovel approach of letting the “primary sources of Muslim thought and history”(p. 4) speak for themselves, a tack not unlike the one he uses in hisimportant contribution to tafsir studies: The Qur’an and Its Interpreters.Using this methodology, Ayoub seeks to construct and present a balancedaccount of the major historical events of the Rashidite era in an effortto explore the interaction between considerations of religion and politics inearly Islamic understandings of the nature of authority. His analysis of thevarious claims to the caliphate advanced by Abu Bakr, `Umar, `Uthman,and `Ali, as well as by less successful contenders, is aimed at supporting hiscentral assertion that because “the Prophet died without leaving a clearpolitical system” (p. 22), the Companions did not agree – indeed they vehementlydisagreed – on answers to questions of political authority: ...

Gendering Emotions: Ṭarab, Women and Musical Performance in Three Biographical Narratives from ‘The Book of Songs’

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-183
Author(s):  
Karen Moukheiber
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Slave Women ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
Literary Biographies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Book Of Songs

Musical performance was a distinctive feature of urban culture in the formative period of Islamic history. At the court of the Abbasid caliphs, and in the residences of the ruling elite, men and women singers performed to predominantly male audiences. The success of a performer was linked to his or her ability to elicit ṭarab, namely a spectrum of emotions and affects, in their audiences. Ṭarab was criticized by religious scholars due, in part, to the controversial performances at court of slave women singers depicted as using music to induce passion in men, diverting them from normative ethical social conduct. This critique, in turn, shaped the ethical boundaries of musical performances and affective responses to them. Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Aghānī (‘The Book of Songs’) compiles literary biographies of prominent male and female singers from the formative period of Islamic history. It offers rich descriptions of musical performances as well as ensuing manifestations of ṭarab in audiences, revealing at times the polemics with which they were associated. Investigating three biographical narratives from Kitāb al-Aghānī, this paper seeks to answer the following question: How did emotions, gender and status shape on the one hand the musical performances of women singers and on the other their audiences’ emotional responses, holistically referred to as ṭarab. Through this question, this paper seeks to nuance and complicate our understanding of the constraints and opportunities that shaped slave and free women's musical performances, as well as men's performances, at the Abbasid court.

scholarly journals On the Possibilities of Researching the Marriage Policies of the Rurikids: The Case of Mstislav Fyodor Vladimirovich Monomakhovich

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 91-110
Author(s):  
Dariusz Dąbrowski
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Source Material ◽  
The Other ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
The Political ◽  
Know How ◽  
Cultural Sphere ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

The main goal of the article is to present the possibilities and methods of research on the Rurikid’s matrimonial policy in the Middle Ages on the example of a selected group of princes. As the subject of studies were chosen Mstislav Vladimirovich and his children. In total, 12 matrimonial relationships were included. The analysis of the source material revealed very unfavorable phenomena from the perspective of the topic under study. The Rus’ primary sources gave information on the conclusion of just four marriages out of twelve. The next four matrimonial arrangement inform foreign sources (Scandinavian and Norman). It should be emphasized particularly strongly that – save for two exceptions of Scandinavian provenance – the sources convey no information whatsoever as regards the political aims behind this or that marriage agreement. It appears, then, that the chroniclers of the period and cultural sphere in question did not regard details concerning marriages (such as their circumstances or the reasons behind them) as “information notable enough to be worth preserving”. Truth be told, even the very fact of the marriage did not always belong to this category. Due to the state of preservation of primary sources the basic question arises as to whether it is possible to study the Rurikids’ matrimonial policy? In spite of the mercilessly sparse source material, it is by all means possible to conduct feasible research on the Rurikids’ marriage policy. One must know how to do it right, however. Thus, such studies must on the one hand be rooted in a deep knowledge of the relevant sources (not only of Rus’ provenance) as well as the ability to subject them to astute analysis; on the other hand, they must adhere to the specially developed methodology, presented in the first part of the article.

scholarly journals Overcoming Taqlid in Muslim Institutions of Learning

ICR Journal ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-57
Author(s):  
Abdul Karim Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The Status ◽  
Major Turning Point

The emergence of taqlid or indiscriminate imitation of the work of former scholars by later scholars was a major turning point in Islamic history. It created two classes of scholars, those who referred to the primary sources of the Shariah (the early scholars), and those that did not (the later scholars). As a result of the expectation to follow and build on the work of the early scholars, the Qur’an and Sunnah attained the status of “remote” sources, at least as far as the later scholars were concerned. The works of the early scholars, by contrast, were brought forward and came to be treated, for all practical purposes, as “primary sources.” The distancing of the later Muslims from the Qur’an was reflected in how Muslims came to relate to the sacred text. Scholars began to look outside of the Qur’an itself for the meaning of the Qur’an, more specifically in the commentaries of their predecessors. Other Muslims were advised to focus on recitation and leave the interpretation of the sacred text to scholars. As it was the Qur’an that provided the impetus to the rise of the Islamic civilisation in the first place, civilisational renewal will require a re-engagement with the Qur’an, by scholars as well as the wider Muslim community. Reopening access the Qur’an will have to begin with a reappraisal of learning methodologies currently in use. This will require first and foremost overcoming taqlid.

Islamic Revivalism in Minangkabau at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

1974 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Dobbin
Keyword(s):  
Social Revolution ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Northern India ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Islamic Revivalism

The revivalist movements which developed in so many Muslim communities at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries are well known to students of Islamic history. The Fulanijihādof Usuman dan Fodio, the Sanūsīyah movement in Libya, the rise of the Wahhābīs in Arabia, the reforms instituted among the Volga Tatars, the Mujāhidīn movement in Northern India and the Fara'idis of Bengal have all been the subject of study to a greater or lesser extent. Scholars have pointed out that movements which aimed initially at internal reform in a particular Muslim community often developed the added dimension of attack on what was conceived as an external, generally foreign, threat to that community, this being most clearly the case with the Wahhābīs and the Mujāhidīn. A contemporary movement which has features in common with all those mentioned above, that of the Padisr among the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, has on the contrary received scant scholarly attention. This is all the more surprising since a European state—the Kingdom of the Netherlands—became involved in a war with the Minangkabau while the Padri movement was still in its full vigour; but although Dutch records and memoirs deal more than amply with this war, they have remained ignored for what they can tell us about the Padris themselves. This is not to deny that scholars who have attempted a brief characterization of the Padri movement have recognized that its complexity goes beyond the mere epithet ‘Islamic revivalism’, and the more perceptive have tried to link it to certain changes taking place within Minangkabau society, depicting the movement as ‘a social revolution’, ‘a coup d'étai’or, by implication, as a revolt of the intellectuals. In the later stages of the movement, after European intervention had gathered momentum, a French scholar has characterized the war fought by the Padris as a ‘war of independence’.

scholarly journals Humility in Islamic Contemplative Ethics

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 223-252
Author(s):  
Atif Khalil
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
The One

Abstract From the origins of Islamic history, humility (khushūʿ/tawāḍuʿ) has occupied a central place in Muslim piety. This has been in large part due to its defining role in the Qurʾān and ḥadīths, and no less because it stands as the opposite of pride (kibr)—the cardinal sin of both Iblīs and Pharaoh in Scripture. By drawing on the literature of Sufism or taṣawwuf from its formative period to the 20th century—spanning the writings of such figures as al-Makkī (d. 386/996), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072), Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), Rūmī (d. 672/1273), al-Sha⁠ʿrānī (d. 973/1565), al-Darqāwī (d. 1239/1823), and al-Sharnūbī (d. 1348/1929)—the article examines the defining characteristics of this virtue, its marks or signs, and the dangers that lie in its embodiment. In the process, we shall see how humility occupies a place somewhere in between pride, conceit, and self-admiration, on the one hand, and self-loathing, self-denigration, and outright self-hatred, on the other. Although humility is, in theory, to be exercised towards both God and other human beings, the precise nature of its embodiment, as we might expect, varies in relation to both. The article ends with an epilogue on what it means to transcend humility altogether.

Historical Cognition: Interpretation As Mythologizing

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-22
Author(s):  
С. Яровенко ◽  
S. Yarovenko
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Personal Attitudes ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

The subject ofthe present studyis the phenomenon ofmy theologizing of historical knowledge.The problem of the mythologization of history is actualized by the unavoidable interpretation of historical cognition, which connects it with the mythological components of the personal attitudes of the subject of historical knowledge, partly determined by the contemporary sociocultural myth-environment, and, accordingly, allows us to considerthe interpretation ofhistorical events and factsas a wayofmythologizing. The problem is examined in two different aspects: on the one hand, it is the "anti-historicism" of the myth, the fundamental discrepancy between mythical and historical time; on the other hand, the actualization of the processes of mythologization (mythological design, mythic construction) of history.Theoretical arguments supporting this conclusion – the work of contemporary philosophers of myth, art dystopia of the twentieth century, the works of the genre pseudohistory.The general conclusionof this article: the need for awareness ofthe immanence ofmythologicalelements in the theoryandmethodology of historicalknowledge as anormativeresearch attitude.

scholarly journals KEKERASAN INTELEKTUAL DALAM ISLAM (TELAAH TERHADAP PERISTIWA MIHNAH MU’TAZILAH)

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Fahruddin Faiz
Keyword(s):  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Violence ◽  
Violent Behaviour ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Violent Acts ◽  
The Subject

Religious violence is a term that covers phenomena where religion, in its  diversity, is either the subject or object of violent behaviour. Religious violence is, specifically, violence that is motivated by or in reaction to religious precepts, texts, or doctrines. Islam has been associated with violence in a variety of contexts, including Jihads (holy wars), violent acts by Muslims against perceived enemies of Islam, violence against women ostensibly supported by Islam's tenets, references to violence in the Qur'an, and acts of terrorism motivated and/or justified by Islam. Muslims, including clerics and leaders have used Islamic ideas, concepts, texts, and themes to justify violence. One among popular religious violence in Islamic History is mihnah (inquisition). To socialize Mu’tazilah teaching, Al-Ma’mun and his successors managed Mihnah or inquisition, that is the dispersion of this belief and teachings forcefully and even violently. As the ruler, Al Ma’mun thought that it was his duty to maintain the purity of the religion and the  truth enforcement in the state community. As described in this article, Mihna is a kind of intellectual violence conducted by Mu’tazilah and Al-Ma’mun as a kind of coalition between religion and politics.

scholarly journals Time at a Standstill

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Oyarzun R.
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Double Effect ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Late Modernity ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Experience Of Time ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

From an experiential point of view, acceleration is a space-shrinking and a time-stressing phenomenon. Assuming that this phenomenon has reached a decisive pervasiveness in late modernity, so that it has become determinative of social relations in general, a question about its impact on the structure of experience and of the subject of experience bears a double signification: on the one hand, it concerns temporality, i.e., the structure of the experience of time, and, on the other hand, it concerns historicity, that is, the structure of the experience of historical time. I suppose that the development of this question requires examining the structure of the experience of the present, given that acceleration may be considered at first sight as an intensive experience of the present. But, then, an examination of the structure of the experience of the present is deeply rooted in the structure of the present itself. So, my argument relates three concepts: experience, present, and acceleration, the latter according to the double effect in which this phenomenon appears (space-shrinking and time-stressing).

SENTRALISASI ISLAM MARJINAL

2017 ◽  
pp. 83-112
Author(s):  
Lukmanul Hakim
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Ibn Khaldun ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The Third ◽  
Work First

This paper aims to analyze the thoughts of Hamka in Malay Islamic Nysties Historiography. The method used is historical method, especially historiography approach. Characteristic of Hamka's work; First, writing techniques; Not using footnotes, style of language; Simple, alive, and communicative. The sources used by Hamka can be grouped into three groups; Primary sources, historical books composed by Muslim authors themselves; Second, the second source of material is the Dutch and British writers' writings on Indonesia and the Malay Land; Third, the third source of material materials that allegedly most of the writers of Islamic history in Indonesia did not get it. While from the Method of Historical Criticism, according to Hamka there are two ways to write history among Muslims; First collecting all the facts wherever it comes from, no matter whether the facts make sense or not, what needs to be taken care of is where this history is received. Second, judging the facts and giving their own opinions, after the facts were collected, this is the system used by Ibn Khaldun.

Religion and Politics under the Ptolemies (300 BCE-215 BCE)

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-29
Author(s):  
Athanasios Koutoupas
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
The One

The article examines the relation that is developed between the policy and the religion in Hellenistic Egypt during the period of the first four Ptolemies. It presents two levels of promotion of the practice of deification of the king: on the one hand the recognition of divine nature from the descendants of each king when he or she dies and on the other the recognition of divine nature from their subjects and the various civic communities during their life.

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