https://www.ijherjournal.com/journaldetail/comparative-religions-reality-and-challenges-methodological-approach_118#:~:text=COMPARATIVE%20RELIGIONS%2C%20REALITY%20AND%20CHALLENGES%3A%20METHODOLOGICAL%20APPROACH

The branch of comparative religions has developed during the poste-globalisation era, and has gained great popularity worldwide for several reasons, among the most important events related to terrorism, which the western media has been attributing to demonized religions, especially Islam. This was one of the most inciting cognitive motives for conducting this study. However the main motive was to contribute to the renewal of the comparative religions curriculum, and avoid the traditional teaching and researches approaches whether it is accredited in Islamic universities and in fundamental and western traditional theology, these institutions are working excursively on whitewashing their religion and condemning other religions while ignoring the historical and geopolitical context. In conclusion this was the essence of this study about the methodological approach of comparative religions, and its various challenges through the exemplary comparison between the conservative Jewish woman and the Christian woman. Keywords: History, Record, Curriul, Extremism

Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s Concept of Religion: An Islamic Appraisal

In the vein of many Western scholars of comparative religions, Wilfred Smith also realizes the difficulty implicated in defining religion but he is unique in daring to call for discarding religion, arguing that the concept is inadequate. According to him, the inadequacy of the concept leads to the intellectual dilemma of the relation between many religious traditions and the One Ultimate Reality, the historical change and abiding truth, the world and God. The solution to such a dilemma is to revise the categories of intellectual discourse in the field of theology/religious studies and move towards a better alternative. These alternatives should aim to depict human religious life in a more adequate and universal way. Hence, Smith suggests splitting the esoteric and exoteric dimensions of religion and proposes for them the categories of faith and cumulative tradition respectively. Primarily, this research seeks to explore the significance of Smith’s critique of religion as well as the practicality and utility of the alternative categories i.e., faith and cumulative tradition in the modern global scenario from an Islamic perspective.

Urdu Dissertations of Islamic Studies on Semitic Religions (MPhil, PhD) in Pakistani Universities: An Index and Bibliometric Review

پاکستانی جامعات میں سامی مذاہب پر علومِ اسلامیہ کے(ایم فل ،پی ایچ ڈی) اردو سندی مقالات کا اشاریہ و شماریاتی جائزہ Urdu Dissertations of Islamic Studies on Semitic Religions (MPhil, PhD) in Pakistani Universities: An Index and Bibliometric Review Study of religions or Comparative Religions is a globally significance subject. Pakistan is also resourceful in this field. In many universities, there are special departments on this valuable subject. It is taught as compulsory course at BS & MA level in the departments of Isalmic studies in all universities. In many universities it’s also taught at MPhil and PhD level, some of them have produced hundreds of MS and PhDs dissertations on this subject. Due to its importance, it was a dire need to review and compile the titles of theses and dissertations, which are produced from the universities on the subject. In this study, efforts are made to review and compile a comprehensive index of such theses at MPhil and PhD level from Pakistani universities with statistical analysis. Due to its huge amount, the data is divided into two major types, Semitic and non-Semitic religions. The current study covers only Semitic/ Revealed and related topics. The word Semitic refers to the race of the son of Prophet Noah (A.S) or the areas where this race was spread and grew. Semitic Religions consists of; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In this study, Biblometric approach is adopted with mix method approach. Total 393 theses of Islamic Studies on Semitic Religions are compiled and statistically evaluated in this paper. The study concludes that a good deal of literature and dissertations are available in Pakistani universities on Comparative Religions and Interfaith Studies. It is recommended that contents of theses should be analyzed for improvement of the Study of Religions in Pakistan

Obituary. Roman Malek, SVD (1951-2019)

Esteemed sinologist, renowned scholar and professor, prolific author and editor, director of the Monumenta Serica Institute (MSI), Fr. Roman Malek, passed away in his native Poland on November 29, 2019. Father Malek was born on Oct. 3, 1951 in Bytów, in the northern region of Kashubia, and joined the Divine Word Missionaries (SVD) in 1969. After his study of philosophy and theology in the Seminary in Pieniężno, Poland, completed with the graduation at the Catholic University of Lublin (with additional focus on the study of religion), he was ordained as a priest in 1976 and assigned to the academic and editorial work at Monumenta Serica Institute (MSI) - an SVD establishment for Chinese studies - at Sankt Augustin (Germany). He subsequently moved to the Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan, where he was improving his communication skills in Chinese, as well as pursued studies of Chinese and Japanese cultures and history, followed by the study of comparative religions and Church history at the University of Bonn, Germany, where he also successfully defended his doctoral thesis in sinology on Daoist fasting rituals (1984).

Saints across Traditions and Time Periods: Methods for Increasing Range and Reading in Comparative Frameworks

This paper offers a nascent attempt at best practices for the comparative method in a conference setting. Exploring the value in transcendence of traditions and specialization, it traces the preparation and outcome of a recent comparative hagiology panel and develops a list of possible steps for facilitating meaningful interchange between scholars. Building on Freiberger’s methodology for Comparative Religions, it applies a method specifically to hagiographical studies.

ڈاکٹر داؤد رہبرؔ بحیثیت شاعر: ایک تعارف

Daud Rahber (1926 - 5 October 2013) was a scholar of comparative religions, Arabic, Persian, Urdu literature and Indian classical music. Rahber is regarded as accomplished essayist, poet, composer, translator, philosopher, contributer to Inter civilization dialogue, musicologist, drummer, singer and guitarist. In 1949, he left Pakistan for Cambridge University where he got his Ph.D. He served as a teacher at reputable Universities in Canada and Turkey. His love for poetry and music can never be subsided. In 1968, he became a member of the faculty of Boston University where he taught comparative religions for 23 years. He retired in 1991 and settled in Florida. In rich tradition of Urdu poetry, Daud Rahber's comprehensive 'kulliyat' and 'Baqiyat' show an amazing breadth of content. His diction includes words from Hindi, Arabic, Persian and Urdu, all assimilated into flawless, rhythmic phrases. He is sensitive to the human conditions and always sees the infinite in the infinitesimal. His poetry is a colourful canvas portraying all around him.

Purity

Purity is an extremely varied and heterogeneous religious ideal that lies at the critical intersection between the individual physical body, the social body, and the cosmos as a whole. At once a material and a spiritual ideal, purity overlaps partially with but far exceeds modern notions of cleanliness or hygiene; indeed, it may in some cases even contradict the latter. One can distinguish five different forms of purity, each in this chapter illustrated by one primary example: physical purity, social purity, mental purity, sexual purity, and the ritual use of impurity. There is also a variety of contemporary theoretical approaches to purity, drawn from psychology, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, gender studies, and comparative religions.