Making Connections with Milton’s Epitaphium Damonis

Milton’s Epitaphium Damonis is often described as a profoundly lonely work, marking the loss of his oldest and most intimate friend, Charles Diodati. It also one of the first works to announce Milton’s epic ambitions, and accordingly it holds an important place in narratives that describe Milton as a singular, or even antisocial, poet, producing poetry from the deep well of his interior self. But this chapter examines the poem as a deeply social, collaborative work, and one of Milton’s important early experiments in using print publication to cultivate and maintain relationships. Milton needed printers to establish his name; printers like Augustine Mathewes and Matthew Simmons needed authors with established names as allies in their own extended war against print licensing and monopolies. The wider context of the Epitaphium Damonis’s production makes it clear that the circumstances of Milton’s stationers cannot be disentangled from the arc of his own career. His emerging authorial identity was not solitary but social, and print was an essential strategy for constructing, promoting, and preserving it.

The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680)

At the centre of the local world of The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680) is an alehouse whose keeper’s son is modelled on the young Bunyan’s intimate friend in Bedford. A focus on the representation of ‘alehouse culture’ in this work leads to a consideration of the social implications of blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking, and domestic violence in Bunyan’s local community. Badman not only breaks the Sabbath himself but prevents his first godly wife from keeping it, leading to conflict in the household, and to domestic violence. The Life and Death of Mr. Badman thus tells the story—through its narrators, Attentive and Wiseman and their digressive, eye-witnessed tales of providence and judgement—of a damnable life in the making: the journey, not of a pilgrim to heaven, but of an unrepentant, blasphemous, and violent sinner to hell.

Reflections in Honour of the Reverend Ernest Nkatazo Baartman

I count it a special honour and a singular privilege to be asked to write an essay on the life and contribution of this esteemed honourable son of the soil, the revered, Rev. Ernest Nkatazo Baartman—a personal intimate friend, brother and spiritual guide. Writing an essay on our esteemed leader, mentor, teacher, prophet and a fearless fighter, the Honourable Reverend Ernest Nkatazo Baartman was not easy as no amount of words can fully capture and describe who he was—his leadership contribution, work and witness in Church and society, what he means to most people who have been touched by his personality and Ministry—Yingwe emabala bala (“multi-talented’’). The aim of this essay is to briefly capture the life, Ministry, leadership and contribution of Baartman in Church and society, locating that narrative in the socio-political context in which his Ministry and personality found roots and blossomed.

Abraham: la unidad que subyace a la diversidad de creencias.

Resumen: Abraham es reconocido por judíos, cristianos y musulmanes como el patriarca de la tradición monoteísta. Se sometió a la realidad única que abarca todo y no se asoció con nada más. Esta sumisión a lo más esencial comienza en un nivel unificado que trasciende la diversidad de las formas de creencia. El místico murciano, Ibn ʿArabī, relata cómo estuvo bajo la protección de Moisés, Jesúsy Muhammad, los mensajeros de estas tres religiones monoteístas. Tuvo una relación cercana con Abraham, la cual es explorada por referencia a sus propios relatos e historias coránicas y bíblicas. En el Corán, a Abraham se le conoce como el “Ḫalīl”, el amigo íntimo de Dios. Abraham se sacrificó a sí mismo, representado por su hijo en forma de carnero, y se impregnó de cualidades divinas. Estaba rebosante de amor divino y presente a la Realidad en todo momento. Los escritos de Ibn ʿArabī muestran cómo esta figura atemporal representa una presencia que subyace a la diversidad de creencias y está disponible para toda la humanidad.Palabras clave: Abraham. Ḫalīl Allāh. Monoteísmo. Ibn ʿArabī. Única Realidad Absoluta.Abstract: Abraham is recognized by Jews, Christians and Muslims as the patriarch of the monotheistic tradition. He submitted to the One Reality which encompasses everything and associated nothing else with that. This submission to what is most essential starts at a unified level which transcends the diversity of forms of belief. The Murcian mystic, Ibn ʿArabī, relates how he came under the protection of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, the messengers of these three monotheistic religions. He had a close relationship with Abraham, which is explored by reference to his own accounts and Quranic and bibical stories. In the Quran, Abraham is referred to as the “Khalīl”, the intimate friend of God. Abraham sacrificed his own self, as represented by his son in the form of a ram, and became permeated by divine qualities. He was suffused with divine love and present to the Reality at everymoment. Ibn ʿArabī’s writings show how this timeless figure represents a presence which underlies the diversity of beliefs and is available to the whole of humanity.Key words: Abraham. Ḫalīl Allāh. Monotheism. Ibn ʿArabī. Unique Absolute Reality.

Death in the City

Popular culture has long conflated Mexico with the macabre. Some persuasive intellectuals argue that Mexicans have a special relationship with death, formed in the crucible of their hybrid Aztec-European heritage. Death is their intimate friend; death is mocked and accepted with irony and fatalistic abandon. The commonplace nature of death desensitizes Mexicans to suffering. Death, simply put, defines Mexico. There must have been historical actors who looked away from human misery, but to essentialize a diverse group of people as possessing a unique death cult delights those who want to see the exotic in Mexico or distinguish that society from its peers. Examining tragic and untimely death—namely self-annihilation—reveals a counter narrative. What could be more chilling than suicide, especially the violent death of the young? What desperation or madness pushed the victim to raise the gun to the temple or slip the noose around the neck? A close examination of a wide range of twentieth-century historical documents proves that Mexicans did not accept death with a cavalier chuckle nor develop a unique death cult, for that matter. Quite the reverse, Mexicans behaved just as their contemporaries did in Austria, France, England, and the United States. They devoted scientific inquiry to the malady and mourned the loss of each life to suicide.

I lære som Allahs ven: Selvets renselse på et islamisk universitet i Yemen

Islamic education and existential learning is directed at purifying the self (nafs) and the cultivation of certitude (yaqîn). A central aspiration in the learning process is to become an intimate friend of Allah (a walî), who embodies the prophetic presence (istihdâr al-nûr almuhammadiyya) and who by that presence directs other people to Islam. This article uncovers life and learning in a leading Islamic institution of learning and analyzes the processes of selftransformation and education that constitute the foundation for the rise of a walî. It is based on my work on the Bâ´Alawî tradition, one of the most influential Islamic traditions of learning and self-cultivation in the present age, since 2006 and in particular on my visit to the Islamic university Dar al-Mustafa in Yemen during the summer and the fall of 2011. The paradoxical tension between Sufism’s ideal of ascetic seclusion on one hand, and the extremely hectic and much courted social lifestyle of leading Sufis on the other, is discussed. It is suggested that the cultivation of a prophetic will to direct others to Islam is the key to understanding this tension.