Books by Pieter Coppens
Seeing God in Sufi Qur'an Commentaries: Crossings between This World and the Otherworld, 2018
This history of Sufi conceptions of the hereafter – often imagined as a place of corporeal reward... more This history of Sufi conceptions of the hereafter – often imagined as a place of corporeal reward (Paradise) or punishment (Hell) – is built upon the study of five medieval Sufi Qur'an commentaries. Pieter Coppens shows that boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld, and vice versa, revolves around the idea of meeting with God and the vision of God; a vision which for some Sufis is not limited to the hereafter. The commentary verses selected for study – all on key Qur'anic verses on seeing God – are placed in their broader religious and social context and are shown to provide a useful and varied source for the reconstruction of a history of Sufi eschatology and the vision of God.
Key Features
• First in-depth study of the concept of the vision of God in Sufi eschatology, not only focusing on the hereafter, but also on this-worldly vision
• Compares five understudied tafsir sources, gaining new insights into the genre of Sufi tafsir and its intertextuality • First study that intensively deals with the yet-unpublished Qur'an commentary of Shams al-Din al-Daylami.
Journal Articles by Pieter Coppens
Die Welt des Islams, 2022
'Modern' Salafis of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century have much more in common with con... more 'Modern' Salafis of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century have much more in common with contemporary 'puritan' Salafis than claimed in recent scholarship. Indicative of this is the debate over whether it is allowed to wipe over socks during ritual ablutions (wuḍūʾ), a visual identity marker for Salafis. This is a recurrent theme in contemporary polemics between the four Sunni madhhabs and the lā-madhhabiyya current associated with Salafis. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī's (1866-1914) treatise al-Masḥ ʿalā al-jawrabayn is a late Ottoman 'modern' Salafi forerunner of this debate. By placing this work in its historical context, this article demonstrates how al-Qāsimī used the issue to address fundamental questions of fiqh and ḥadīth methodology in the heated debate over ijtihād. Later Salafi editions with introductions and comments of Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir (1892-1958) and Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (1914-99), show how his method influenced later 'puritan' Salafi scholars.
Journal of Muslims in Europe, 2022
Tafsir studies, due to its focus on reception history and tradition rather than on the origins of... more Tafsir studies, due to its focus on reception history and tradition rather than on the origins of Islam, may be a locus of fruitful cooperation between the new field of Islamic theology and 'regular' Islamic studies that transcends the problematic dichotomy of insider/outsider perspectives. Redefining normativity as negotiating the future of Islam's discursive tradition, arguably a shared concern of Islamic theologians and Islamicists, although their motivations differ, may be a way to further neutralise the conundrum of normativity in Islamic studies. I argue that 'historically and sociologically informed normativity' is the way forward for Islamic theology, and will make the field relevant beyond its own disciplinary boundaries.
Midéo, 2021
If one wishes to practice iǧtihād in any knowledge discipline, knowledge of the uṣūl of that disc... more If one wishes to practice iǧtihād in any knowledge discipline, knowledge of the uṣūl of that discipline is required. In facilitating this focus on uṣūl necessary for iǧtihād, Ǧamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī (d. 1914) from Damascus was a pivotal figure in the early 20th century. I argue that Qāsimī did not introduce a fundamentally new approach to the fundamentals of fiqh, tafsīr or ḥadīṯ. He merely brought long forgotten concepts and texts back into the limelight. This still both necessitated and facilitated iǧtihād in a wider realm than only fiqh, also including tafsīr, ḥadīṯ, creed, and even linguistics. I first show how Qāsimī revived direct engagement with the Islamic primary sources in his environment by disseminating diverse works on uṣūl. Second, I show how his treatise on the fundamentals of tafsīr necessitated a project of reinterpreting the entire Qur’an according to these fundamentals.
Midéo, 2021
This contribution offers an annotated translation to the so-called ‘Muǧtahid-s’ Incident’ (ḥādiṯa... more This contribution offers an annotated translation to the so-called ‘Muǧtahid-s’ Incident’ (ḥādiṯat al-muǧtahidīn), an incident in 1313/1896, in which a group of scholars in Damascus was brought to court on accusations of engaging in the practice of iǧtihād, as well as plotting against the Ottoman authorities. It is an invaluable primary source on the role of the concept of iǧtihād in both the intellectual and socio-political developments in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century. Therefore, it is now first presented here in an English translation, to make it accessible to an audience not capable of reading sources in the Arabic original.
Journal of Qur'anic Studies, 2021
The transition from a polyvalent premodern tafsīr tradition to a more monovalent modern tradition... more The transition from a polyvalent premodern tafsīr tradition to a more monovalent modern tradition has been noted by several authors. This article tries to more precisely locate this shift through a case study of commentaries on Q. 53:11, on the controversy over whether the Prophet saw God. I intend to show that from the nineteenth century onwards there indeed was a decline of polyvalence in the discussion of this verse, culminating in a univocal choice for an angelic instead of a divine vision in the twentieth century. I claim that one of the main reasons for the decline of polyvalence on this particular issue is the rise of the trend to approach suras as a unity in tafsīr, instead of a more atomistic approach to separate verses which was more common in premodern tafsīr traditions. A claim sometimes made that the decline of polyvalence has to do with the rise of Salafism or ḥadīth-minded scholarship of the likes of Ibn Kathīr thus seems unjustified.
Journal of Sufi Studies, 2018
This article reflects on some methodological issues in the study of tafsīr, taking the disseminat... more This article reflects on some methodological issues in the study of tafsīr, taking the dissemination of the ideas of Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) on the non-perpetuity of the chas-tisement of Hell in Sufi tafsīr as a case study. I show that Ibn ʿArabī's ideas on the issue were hardly adopted by later Sufi commentators on the Qurʾān. I investigate whether just as its exoteric counterpart, and despite the claim of Sufi tafsīr being rooted in 'experience' and thus being more 'original' , Sufi tafsīr is 'genealogical' and is thus more conservative in its content. Although the Sufi genre of tafsīr generally seems more willing to include Sufi sayings and ideas from outside the boundaries of the genre, this does not make it adaptive of the non-mainstream ideas of Ibn ʿArabī on Hell proposed outside the genre. This brings up some considerations on the use and usability of tafsīr as a source of intellectual history.
Book Chapters by Pieter Coppens
Interlevensbeschouwelijke geestelijke verzorging: Theorie en casuïstiek, 2024
A witness to the perpetual success of al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (“Revival of ... more A witness to the perpetual success of al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (“Revival of the Religious Sciences”) is its exceptionally rich reception history, with dozens of epitomes and commentaries produced over the centuries, from a variety of schools and perspectives. It has also received a lot of criticism through the centuries, among others on its use of unreliable ḥadīth material. This chapter focuses on the reception of the Iḥyāʾ in the Ḥanbalī tradition of Baghdad and Damascus, with the epitomes of Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201) and Ibn Qudāma (d. 689/1290) at its centre. I argue that their criticism on his use of unreliable aḥādīth on virtuous acts (faḍāʾil al-aʿmāl) was among their main motivations for composing their epitomes. Although their epitomes were not very influential in the premodern tradition, and their criticism of unreliable ḥadīth on virtue ethics were still an exception, this changed with the publication in print of Ibn Qudāma’s epitome in 1928 in Damascus, meant for a larger audience. The relatively larger interest in ḥadīth criticism in the twentieth century and the popularisation of Islamic knowledge also influenced the adoption of stricter ḥadīth criteria in other twentieth-century epitomes from Syria, aimed at a lay audience in more Sufi-oriented circles.
End-of-Life Care, Dying and Death in the Islamic Moral Tradition, 2023
“Modernity” is generally associated with a loss of tolerance for ambiguity (Ambiguitätstoleranz).... more “Modernity” is generally associated with a loss of tolerance for ambiguity (Ambiguitätstoleranz). This chapter analyses whether that also counts for deathbed emotions, juxtaposing deathbed stories in Islamic hagiographies from the formative period (first to fourth/seventh to tenth centuries) and on the verge of modernity (thirteenth/nineteenth-fourteenth/twentieth century). Sources from the fourteenth/twentieth century onwards show less space to experience and address ambiguous emotions than sources from the formative period, and a unity is imposed in emotions allowed to experience. Premodern hagiographical literature appears suitable to address a grey area in end-of-life care and ethics. It offers more space for ambiguous emotions than contemporary Islamic ethical discourse and cultural norms. Studies on Muslim patients and palliative care frequently address the concern that Muslims never want to give up treatment. This appears to be an attitude towards death that is not rooted in the pious hagiographic examples.
This article contrasts Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī’s (d. 1914 CE) treatise on the fundamentals of tafs... more This article contrasts Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī’s (d. 1914 CE) treatise on the fundamentals of tafsīr -the introduction to his famous Qurʾan commentary Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl- with the mainstream discipline of tafsīr as practiced in his late-Ottoman home town Damascus. I propose that we should interpret his tafsīr as part of the Salafi project to construct an Arabist religious identity as an alternative to Ottoman religious identity. By formulating an approach to tafsīr rooted in the thought of scholars like Ibn Taymiyya and al-Shāṭibī, emphasizing ḥadīth and akhbār rather than kalām, he broke with the traditional Ottoman madrasa-curriculum in which (glosses on) al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayḍāwī formed the basis. He thus helped create a new Salafi approach to tafsīr which would become dominant in the 20th century, and -like his call to abandon the traditional schools of law- formed an Arabist religious attack on the Ottoman religiopolitical establishment.
The paper consists of two parts: it first explores what the common practice of tafsīr was in Damascus during the lifetime of al-Qāsimī, which tafsīr works were circulating, how the discipline was taught within the mainstream madrasa-curriculum, and which role this played in al-Qāsimī’s own religious education. Second, it offers a preliminary reading of al-Qāsimī’s Tamhīd khaṭīr, the sources he uses, the approach to tafsīr he suggests, and how that relates to the existing Ottoman tradition in his time.
Edited volumes by Pieter Coppens
Geestelijk verzorgers komen op de werkvloer volop in aanraking met levensbeschouwelijke diversite... more Geestelijk verzorgers komen op de werkvloer volop in aanraking met levensbeschouwelijke diversiteit. In hun dagelijkse praktijk ontmoeten zij cliënten, patiënten en andere gesprekspartners die soms op heel andere wijze dan zijzelf in het leven staan. Omgaan met deze diversiteit vraagt om interlevensbeschouwelijke competentie. Met behulp van theorie, methoden en casuïstiek laat deze bundel zien hoe geestelijk verzorgers zich interlevensbeschouwelijke competentie eigen kunnen maken.
In het eerste deel van deze bundel bespreken de auteurs theoretische en methodische aspecten van interlevensbeschouwelijke geestelijke verzorging. Tegen de achtergrond van de levensbeschouwelijke ontwikkelingen in Nederland verkennen zij wat de huidige context van geestelijk verzorgers vraagt en wat de specifieke inhoud, doelbepaling en gespreksmethode van geestelijke verzorging is. In het tweede deel van de bundel wordt verkend hoe geestelijk verzorgers, werkend vanuit een eigen levensbeschouwelijk perspectief, invulling (kunnen) geven aan interlevensbeschouwelijke ontmoetingen. Welke rol speelt de levensbeschouwing van de geestelijk verzorger in de wijze waarop de cliënt wordt begeleid? En welke methode(n) gebruikt de geestelijk verzorger om de begeleiding vorm te geven? Geestelijk verzorgers, docenten en onderzoekers buigen zich over deze vragen vanuit boeddhistisch, christelijk, hindoeïstisch, humanistisch, islamitisch, joods, ongebonden en intercultureel perspectief.
Deze bundel is geschikt voor studenten die in opleiding zijn tot geestelijk verzorger en zich de beginselen van geestelijke verzorging in een levensbeschouwelijk diverse context eigen willen maken. Tegelijk biedt het verdieping aan geestelijk verzorgers die al langer werkzaam zijn in de praktijk en hun eigen interlevensbeschouwelijke competentie willen (door)ontwikkelen. Met behulp van reflectievragen bij ieder hoofdstuk zet deze bundel de lezer aan zich de aangeboden stof eigen te maken.
Reviews of own work by Pieter Coppens
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2020
Reviews by Pieter Coppens
Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2021
Journal of Qur'anic Studies
Translations by Pieter Coppens
Ibn Qudāma - Samenvatting van de Weg van de Strevers, 2019
Annotated translation of Ibn Qudāmah's Mukhtaṣar minhāj al-qāṣidīn, an epitome of Ghazali's famou... more Annotated translation of Ibn Qudāmah's Mukhtaṣar minhāj al-qāṣidīn, an epitome of Ghazali's famous Iḥyāʾ, with introduction on the work and the author.
Uploads
Books by Pieter Coppens
Key Features
• First in-depth study of the concept of the vision of God in Sufi eschatology, not only focusing on the hereafter, but also on this-worldly vision
• Compares five understudied tafsir sources, gaining new insights into the genre of Sufi tafsir and its intertextuality • First study that intensively deals with the yet-unpublished Qur'an commentary of Shams al-Din al-Daylami.
Journal Articles by Pieter Coppens
Book Chapters by Pieter Coppens
The paper consists of two parts: it first explores what the common practice of tafsīr was in Damascus during the lifetime of al-Qāsimī, which tafsīr works were circulating, how the discipline was taught within the mainstream madrasa-curriculum, and which role this played in al-Qāsimī’s own religious education. Second, it offers a preliminary reading of al-Qāsimī’s Tamhīd khaṭīr, the sources he uses, the approach to tafsīr he suggests, and how that relates to the existing Ottoman tradition in his time.
Edited volumes by Pieter Coppens
In het eerste deel van deze bundel bespreken de auteurs theoretische en methodische aspecten van interlevensbeschouwelijke geestelijke verzorging. Tegen de achtergrond van de levensbeschouwelijke ontwikkelingen in Nederland verkennen zij wat de huidige context van geestelijk verzorgers vraagt en wat de specifieke inhoud, doelbepaling en gespreksmethode van geestelijke verzorging is. In het tweede deel van de bundel wordt verkend hoe geestelijk verzorgers, werkend vanuit een eigen levensbeschouwelijk perspectief, invulling (kunnen) geven aan interlevensbeschouwelijke ontmoetingen. Welke rol speelt de levensbeschouwing van de geestelijk verzorger in de wijze waarop de cliënt wordt begeleid? En welke methode(n) gebruikt de geestelijk verzorger om de begeleiding vorm te geven? Geestelijk verzorgers, docenten en onderzoekers buigen zich over deze vragen vanuit boeddhistisch, christelijk, hindoeïstisch, humanistisch, islamitisch, joods, ongebonden en intercultureel perspectief.
Deze bundel is geschikt voor studenten die in opleiding zijn tot geestelijk verzorger en zich de beginselen van geestelijke verzorging in een levensbeschouwelijk diverse context eigen willen maken. Tegelijk biedt het verdieping aan geestelijk verzorgers die al langer werkzaam zijn in de praktijk en hun eigen interlevensbeschouwelijke competentie willen (door)ontwikkelen. Met behulp van reflectievragen bij ieder hoofdstuk zet deze bundel de lezer aan zich de aangeboden stof eigen te maken.
Reviews of own work by Pieter Coppens
Reviews by Pieter Coppens
Translations by Pieter Coppens
Key Features
• First in-depth study of the concept of the vision of God in Sufi eschatology, not only focusing on the hereafter, but also on this-worldly vision
• Compares five understudied tafsir sources, gaining new insights into the genre of Sufi tafsir and its intertextuality • First study that intensively deals with the yet-unpublished Qur'an commentary of Shams al-Din al-Daylami.
The paper consists of two parts: it first explores what the common practice of tafsīr was in Damascus during the lifetime of al-Qāsimī, which tafsīr works were circulating, how the discipline was taught within the mainstream madrasa-curriculum, and which role this played in al-Qāsimī’s own religious education. Second, it offers a preliminary reading of al-Qāsimī’s Tamhīd khaṭīr, the sources he uses, the approach to tafsīr he suggests, and how that relates to the existing Ottoman tradition in his time.
In het eerste deel van deze bundel bespreken de auteurs theoretische en methodische aspecten van interlevensbeschouwelijke geestelijke verzorging. Tegen de achtergrond van de levensbeschouwelijke ontwikkelingen in Nederland verkennen zij wat de huidige context van geestelijk verzorgers vraagt en wat de specifieke inhoud, doelbepaling en gespreksmethode van geestelijke verzorging is. In het tweede deel van de bundel wordt verkend hoe geestelijk verzorgers, werkend vanuit een eigen levensbeschouwelijk perspectief, invulling (kunnen) geven aan interlevensbeschouwelijke ontmoetingen. Welke rol speelt de levensbeschouwing van de geestelijk verzorger in de wijze waarop de cliënt wordt begeleid? En welke methode(n) gebruikt de geestelijk verzorger om de begeleiding vorm te geven? Geestelijk verzorgers, docenten en onderzoekers buigen zich over deze vragen vanuit boeddhistisch, christelijk, hindoeïstisch, humanistisch, islamitisch, joods, ongebonden en intercultureel perspectief.
Deze bundel is geschikt voor studenten die in opleiding zijn tot geestelijk verzorger en zich de beginselen van geestelijke verzorging in een levensbeschouwelijk diverse context eigen willen maken. Tegelijk biedt het verdieping aan geestelijk verzorgers die al langer werkzaam zijn in de praktijk en hun eigen interlevensbeschouwelijke competentie willen (door)ontwikkelen. Met behulp van reflectievragen bij ieder hoofdstuk zet deze bundel de lezer aan zich de aangeboden stof eigen te maken.