WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP IN ISLAM: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF A HADITH

This paper aims to describe woman’s leadership in Islam. Woman’s leadership had become considerable polemic in Islamic history. The data source of this qualitative research was taken from books of hadith. The data was analyzed using the hermeneutical Takhrij method and historical approach. A conclusion drawn from this study is that the woman’s leadership prohibition originally was referred from hadith narrated by Abu Bakrah as the common link. He had interpreted the meaning of hadith from his cognizance. It was influenced by his philosophy of cosmology and culture at that time, which cannot be said to represent Islam. In critical studies, hadith has a temporal and conditional meaning. The prohibition for women’s leadership occurred because many ulama interpret the misogynist hadith textually, instead of historically. This historical approach to misogynist hadith has led to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with women’s leadership in government as long as they have the capacity, knowledge, and skills. The psycho-historical approach at the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the socio-cultural conditions that developed during the era increasingly showed that the hadith was not an absolute prohibition for a woman to lead a government.

Philosophy of Cosmology

Physical cosmology, the study of the large-scale structure of the universe and its evolution, has become a central area of research in fundamental physics. Theoretical and observational developments have led to acceptance of a “standard model” describing the history of the universe in impressive detail. These developments raise a number of challenging foundational questions that have stimulated the emerging field of philosophy of cosmology. Many of these questions are closely tied to discussions in general philosophy of science and philosophy of physics, whereas others are distinctive to the field. This bibliography aims to provide an orientation for both kinds of questions. As philosophy of cosmology is an emerging field, the literature in this area is sparse. Hence this bibliography includes two kinds of references that do not explicitly address philosophy of cosmology. First, it identifies several philosophical papers regarding other scientific fields, with the thought that these will inform discussions of parallel issues in cosmology. Second, it includes several references to the scientific literature, to provide philosophers with a useful orientation to contemporary scientific debates.

Which is the Best Model of the Universe?

Modern scientific cosmology pushes the boundaries of knowledge and the knowable. This is prompting questions on the nature of scientific knowledge, and the emergence of the new field “Philosophy of Cosmology.” One central issue is what defines a “good” model. I discuss how “good” models are conventionally chosen, and how those methods operate in data-sparse situations: enabling the implicit introduction of value judgments, which can determine inference and lead to inferential polarization, e.g., on the question of ultimate explanation. Additional dimensions for comparing models are needed. A three-legged comparison is proposed: evidence, elegance and beneficence. This explicitly considers the categories of criteria that are always at least implicitly used. A tentative path to an implementation of the proposed model comparison framework is presented. This extends the Bayesian statistical framework. Model comparison methodology is fertile ground for dialogue between the sciences and the humanities. The proposed framework might facilitate such a dialogue.

The anthropic argument against infinite past and the Eddington-Lemaitre universe

This study in the philosophy of cosmology is a part of an ongoing effort to investigate and reassess the importance of the anthropic (Davies-Tipler) argument against cosmologies containing the past temporal infinity. Obviously the prime targets of this argument are cosmological models stationary on sufficiently large scale, the classical steady state model of Bondi, Gold and Hoyle being the best example. Here we investigate the extension of application of this argument to infinitely old non-stationary models and discuss additional constraints necessary to be imposed on such models for the edge of the anthropic argument to be preserved. An illustrative counterexample is the classical Eddington-Lemaitre model, in the analysis of which major such constraints are presented. Consequences of such an approach for our understanding of the nature of time are briefly discussed.