Muslim philanthropy: living beyond a Western definition

The commonly used definition of philanthropy used in Western scholarship excludes many Muslim acts of philanthropy. This definition privileges Western scholarly framing of philanthropy, which has been heavily informed by scientific approaches to philanthropy. This article argues that this framing of philanthropy limits our understanding of Muslim philanthropy and should not be privileged over other cultural and religious traditions’ notions of philanthropy. Muslim philanthropy is explored by examining theological and cultural sources in order to point towards a broader conception of philanthropy within an Islamic context. It illustrates the challenges of strict adherence to the Western definition of philanthropy for scholars of Muslim philanthropy. Ultimately, the article suggests a framework that the field of philanthropic studies can use to go beyond its Western-centric definition to be more inclusive of other cultural and faith perspectives, and proposes that Muslim philanthropy should be interpreted as a discursive tradition.

Contemporary Western Scholarship on Islam: An Appraisal of Selected ‘Introductory’ Reference Works on Islamic History

Writing on Islamand things Islamic has a long history in the West, but has seen a growth in 20thcentury and an unprecedented surgeafter the events of 9/11 (2001)—both because of Islam’s ‘global’ spread and ‘growing global impact’ as well as its diverse interpretations and explanations. Among this plethora of literature, a major portion is devoted to the Islamic historyand its inter-related aspects, in the form of ‘introductory’ reference books.These are primarily targeted for (under) graduate student community as well as for the general people interested in knowing about the faith and beliefs of 1.6 billion Muslims, living globally. This study, in this context, attempts to present an evaluation and brief content-analysis of four (4) latest works by the Western academics (mostly ‘Islamicists’) on Islamic history, published in between 2009 and 2016 (and referring to their latest editions as well). Theoretical in nature, following both descriptive and comparative methodological approaches, this study attempts to (i) get clues of the recent trends, tendencies and tenors in the English (predominantly American) scholarship on Islamic history; and (ii) identify the main topics, themes and issues covered under the broader rubric ofIslamic history/ civilization in these works. The study agrues that such mins of appraisal and evaluation helps in understanding the main themes/ topics discussed under the broader rubric ofIslamic historyas well as helps in knowing and understanding the diverse scholarly approaches adopted in studying different aspects of Islamic history—from classical to contemporary eras.

Shi'ism Revisited

Contemporary Muslims face the challenge of how a legal system that was formulated in the classical period of Islam can respond to the multitudinous challenges that present-day Muslims encounter. Is there a need for reformation in Islam? If so, where should it begin and in which direction should it proceed? Addressing this gap in Western scholarship, and contributing to the ongoing debate in Islamic scholarship, Shi‘ism Revisited: Ijtihad and Reformation in Contemporary Times (1) explores how modernity has impinged on the classical formulation of Islamic law, and (2) analyzes how Shi‘i jurists have responded to the intersection of shari’a (Islamic law) and modernity. The study is original and groundbreaking in that it seeks to tackle issues such as how Islamic law is being revised by Shi‘i scholars on cases such as human rights, gender equality, the rights of non-Muslim minorities, and reconfiguring the rational and moral basis of Islamic law. Such questions have required scholars to apply ijtihad (independent reasoning) in providing solutions to the pressing questions in the religious and social fields. By examining the principles and application of Islamic legal theory (usul al-fiqh) and reformation in Shi‘ism, as well as the current discourse on juristic hermeneutics and the basis of a new ijtihad, this research addresses topics that have attracted much public attention. Since such issues have been largely neglected by Western scholarship, this book provides a unique analysis of ijtihad and reformation in the Shi‘i world.

Against the Monist Model of Tang Poetics

In recent decades, a significant amount of Western scholarship on traditional Chinese poetry and poetics has either proposed or assumed a vision of the art underwritten by the supposed “monism,” “nonduality,” and “immanence” of traditional Chinese worldviews. This essay argues that although these were important ideas in certain periods and contexts, they cannot be taken as unproblematically defining the world of thought in which poetry operated during the Tang dynasty. Instead, Tang writers more routinely drew in their discussions of art upon the epistemological tensions and discontinuities posited by medieval intellectual and religious traditions. For this reason, they often outlined models of poetry very different from those most common in contemporary criticism.

He Rawe Tona Kakahu/She Wore a Becoming Dress: Performing the Hyphen

<p>In the British settler nations of the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, there continues to be debate about how to conduct research across the coloniser-indigene hyphen. Various indigenous scholars have discussed, at length, how western scholarship has been and continues to be implicated in the colonisation of indigenous peoples. While some progress has been made, it continues to be an unresolved issue. As a white American woman, I have responded to this situation by conducting my doctoral research using a decolonising epistemological pluralism that I developed through my practice as an artist and performer. This methodology, which is critical and performative, seeks to dismantle the colonial matrix of power and the dualisms that underpin the hegemony of western knowledge and casts a critical eye on power relations as they manifest out in the world and as they reproduce themselves inside individuals. It is my belief that such an approach will decentre the settler and facilitate working across the hyphen. As an example of how such a methodology could function, I undertook a collaborative and performative research project with Anahera Gildea, a Māori writer and performer from the iwi (tribe) of Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga. Our research examined the intersection of gender and colonisation. The knowledge systems that we chose to use arose naturally out of who we are and what we know. We are both Butoh performers. We both practice Nichiren Buddhism and use it to guide our daily lives. The outcome of our research was He rawe tona kakahu/She Wore A Becoming Dress, a multimedia Butoh performance, which was performed for two nights at the Film Archive in Wellington, New Zealand in 2009. As a collaboration that worked across the hyphen, we both engaged with critical and decolonising theory from our respective positions on the hyphen, as well as brought our respective world views—I, white American and Anahera, Te Ao Māori . This thesis is an attempt to provide a practice-based understanding of what it was like to undertake research using such a decolonising epistemological pluralism.</p>

He Rawe Tona Kakahu/She Wore a Becoming Dress: Performing the Hyphen

<p>In the British settler nations of the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, there continues to be debate about how to conduct research across the coloniser-indigene hyphen. Various indigenous scholars have discussed, at length, how western scholarship has been and continues to be implicated in the colonisation of indigenous peoples. While some progress has been made, it continues to be an unresolved issue. As a white American woman, I have responded to this situation by conducting my doctoral research using a decolonising epistemological pluralism that I developed through my practice as an artist and performer. This methodology, which is critical and performative, seeks to dismantle the colonial matrix of power and the dualisms that underpin the hegemony of western knowledge and casts a critical eye on power relations as they manifest out in the world and as they reproduce themselves inside individuals. It is my belief that such an approach will decentre the settler and facilitate working across the hyphen. As an example of how such a methodology could function, I undertook a collaborative and performative research project with Anahera Gildea, a Māori writer and performer from the iwi (tribe) of Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga. Our research examined the intersection of gender and colonisation. The knowledge systems that we chose to use arose naturally out of who we are and what we know. We are both Butoh performers. We both practice Nichiren Buddhism and use it to guide our daily lives. The outcome of our research was He rawe tona kakahu/She Wore A Becoming Dress, a multimedia Butoh performance, which was performed for two nights at the Film Archive in Wellington, New Zealand in 2009. As a collaboration that worked across the hyphen, we both engaged with critical and decolonising theory from our respective positions on the hyphen, as well as brought our respective world views—I, white American and Anahera, Te Ao Māori . This thesis is an attempt to provide a practice-based understanding of what it was like to undertake research using such a decolonising epistemological pluralism.</p>

Verses at the Court of the King: Shifts in the Historical Imagination of the Sanskrit Literary Tradition during the Second Millennium

This essay argues that the rise and circulation of large numbers of Sanskrit literary anthologies as well as story traditions about poets in the second millennium together index important changes in the ‘author-function’ within the Sanskrit literary tradition. While modern ‘empirical authorship’ and external referentiality in Sanskrit has long been deemed ‘elusive'by Western scholarship, the new forms of literary production in the second millennium suggest a distinct new interest in authorship among wider literary communities. This new ‘author-function’ indexed a shift in the perceptions of literary production and the literary tradition itself. Focusing on the famous sixteenth-century work known as the Bhojaprabandha as both an anthology as well as a storybook about poets, this essay further argues that the paradigmatic courts of kings like Vikramāditya and Bhoja (but particularly the latter), placed not in historical time but in an archaic temporality, became the mise en scène for the figure of the poet in the second-millennium literary imagination. They were courts where the finest poets of the tradition appeared and where their virtuosity could be savored and reflected upon by generations of readers.

Nota su Cor. xlix:13 ǧaʿalnākum šuʿūban wa-qabāʾila

During my field work in Yemen, a frequent topic of discussion has been relevance of tribes in the Yemeni society. Part of the Qurʾanic verse 13 of the sūrah al-Ḥuǧurāt (xlix, Apartments) “wa-ǧaʿalnakum šuʿūban wa-qabāʾila” was frequently cited as a legitimation of the very existence of tribes among the Arabs. But what about šuʿūb? The first occurrence of the term is attested in Epigraphic South Arabian ŠʿB, which has been interpreted as “sedentary tribe, commune, group of village communities” (Beeston et al.), with a specific reference to the South Arabian social organization, not to be confused with the (Northern-)Arab tribal one. The term does not seem to be attested in the old Arabic lexicon. Having found no satisfactory explication in the Arabic sources, my working hypothesis has been that the presence of South Arabian sedentary communities in the oasis of Medina at the time of the Prophet could suggest a possible relationship with the Qur’anic šuʿūb. Probably this peculiar South Arabian term entered into the ʿarabiyyah with the northward emigration of South Arabian peoples. In the course of time, and in a different context, its original meaning evolved into a more general one, according to the political and ethnical developments of the Islamic empire. Šuʿūb, sing. šaʿb, has been traditionally interpreted as ʿaǧam, non-Arabic peoples, races, confederations etc. Many disagreements appear in the Qur’anic commentaries, as well as in the genealogical, lexical, historical, literary sources. Among the several interpretations in Qurṭubī’s al-Ǧāmiʿ one is noteworthy: “Someone says that Šuʿūb are the Arabs of Yemen, the descendants of Qaḥṭān”. As to Qurʾanic (Western) scholarship, I did not find a specific interest nor a consistent contextualization of this Medinan verse. The problematic balance of influence among the believers in Medina, Qurayshi muhāǧirūn and South Arabian anṣār, should not be disregarded. A new possible partial translation of Qurʾan xlix:13 is here suggested: “We appointed you (South Arabian) communities and (Arab) tribes, that you may know one another”.