Modern Islamic Thought

‘[A] valid concept of “Islam” must denote and connote all possible “Islams,” whether abstract or “real,” mental or social’ (104)... Ahmed seeks to avoid two major pitfalls: (1) making Islam into a static essence or a category within an essentialist framework – such as proscription/prescription, ‘religion’,‘civilization’, ‘culture’, ‘orthodoxy’, etc., and (2) rendering Islam into a totally incoherent concept by conceding that there are as many islams as there are communities or individuals. Ahmed’s thesis (presented in Chapter 5) is that Islam is best conceptualized as a process of meaning-making or hermeneutical engagement in which the human agent engages with the Divine Revelation granted to Muhammad in one or more of this Revelation’s hierarchical dimensions – Pre-Text, Text, and Con-Text – in order to constitute meaning for himself."

The aim of this study is to question in what sense the hermeneutic thought that emerged in the context of critics of positivism can be related to Islamic thought or in which channel the paths of these two ways of thinking can intersect. First of all, in order to make this investigation more understandable, a historical and methodological analysis and comparison of two different intellectual media such as positivist and hermeneutic, which are active in today's truth debates, will be made.
The purpose of this analysis and comparison is to emphasize that philosophical hermeneutics, which takes various discourses of truth seriously in the global world and makes it the main goal to reduce subjectivity as much as possible by establishing a dialogue between the different interpretations revealed by this diversity, cannot be ignored in the context of Islamic thought. As a matter of fact, hermeneutic thought, which has the basic problem of correctly reaching, understanding and interpreting the meanings underlying the texts, and Islamic thought seem to have a common problem. While making sense of this common problem, hermeneutic thought's investigation of the truth from the concrete existential world of life rather than objective and ideal questioning draws our attention to the medium where Islamic thought's paths intersect with hermeneutic thought. The positivist method tries to place the investigation of truth in an ideal and objective context by examining the practical life world of man within the framework of fixed, unchanging and quantitative criteria. Contrary to this context, hermeneutic thought, on the other hand, prioritizes different interpretations and interpretations that do not ignore the qualitative context of the truth inquiry, emphasizing the temporal character of the truth inquiry, based on the inevitability of change in practical life.
We claim that how Islamic thought can be positioned in these two different methodological attitudes in truth debates can be reconsidered in the context of the hadith on his return from a battle, the Prophet said: “We are finished with the lesser jihad; now we are starting the greater jihad.” In the context of this claim, the main argument of this study is to emphasize that the investigation of truth, which is based on the moral responsibility of the individual in the concrete human life, is more important and essential than the search for ideal and objective truth in Islamic thought. In the global World, the idea of dialogue between different truth discourses and the moral confrontation that takes place on the axis of this dialogue are priority and important. It is argued that moral confrontation contributes to the updating of the current methodologies of Islamic thought and can provide the opportunity to be productively involved in the solution of global common problems.

This thesis (1999) delves into Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's hermeneutics of the Qur'an, which was, at that time, not yet systematically formulated. It tries to reconstruct his theories of text and interpretation based on his works, and gives some examples in which he implemented his hermeneutics, such as the issues of  evil forces (jinn, shayâtîn, sihr and hasad), ribâ and interest, slavery,  polygamy, and women's Inheritance. Abu Zayd's contribution to Qur'anic hermeneutics is important in developing critical Qur'anic scholarship.

Alija Ali Izetbegović (1925-2003) is one of the outstanding Muslim thinkers in recent history who have re-conceptualized the Islamic worldview and ethos in the context of the contemporary world on the one hand and critically reflected upon the modern Western civilization, on the other. Izetbegović conceives Islam as a system representing a middle path between Christian spiritualism and materialism of modern civilization. However, like any profound philosophical system, his thought requires exposition and interpretation, which the present paper ventures to undertake. Specifically, the paper inquires whether and how far his vision of Islam facilitates coexistence between Muslims and the others, especially regarding the Muslims living in Western societies. The query is crucial because some writers have accused Izetbegović of being a fundamentalist who pursued an agenda of monolithic Islamic culture with little room for meaningful participation of non-Muslims. The paper concludes that c...

"The Word of Mohammad; An Interview with Abdulkarim Soroush" in: Abdulkarim Soroush, The Expansion of Prophetic Experience. Brill, 2009, pp. 271-5


In this interview, Soroush argues that the Koran may be considered a product of the mind of the prophet Mohammed and that this does not necessarily contradict its divine origin. The interview was originally published in the Dutch journal ZemZem (3/2007) preceding the publication of the English edition of Soroush’ book The Expansion of Prophetic Experience in Leiden. A Persian translation of the interview led to a fierce dispute between Soroush and a number of conservative Iranian clerics, such as ayatollah Ja’far Sobhani and ayatollah Nouri Hamedani. The latter declared that Soroush statements were worse than those of Salman Rushdie and amounted to apostasy. Eventually, Iran’s supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khamenei intervened, stating that individuals who mislead the people should be combated with the truth and not by declaring them apostates. Soroush eventually published the interview and the subsequent polemics as appendixes in his book. The controversy was reported in the NYT. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/magazine/07wwln-essay-t.html?_r=0

"Although negative reactions accompanied the reception of Darwinism in the Islamic World from the beginning, a full fledged Islamic creationist movement did not appear before the 1970s. Originally it was restricted to Turkey, where Islamic
groups attempted to undermine the materialist foundation of Marxism and Kemalism. From the late 1990s onwards the subject became popular among Muslims in the diaspora. This was due to the efforts of Adnan Oktar alias Harun Yahya, a
hitherto marginal figure in Turkey, to propagate his ideas via the Internet. The Internet allows him to adapt his propaganda constantly to new issues and creationist and anti-creationist publications and to recruit volunteers willing to translate his
books. Thanks to the combination of a neglected subject with the innovative use of new media Oktar gained the opinion leadership in this field. Even movements, the founders of which had attacked Darwinism, now refer to Oktar as main authority on this issue. However, he failed to gain an equal degree of attention for topics like conspiracy theories and eschatology. In these fields he had to compete with a bulk of
existing material in conventional media. The success of his former disciple Mustafa Akyol shows that using the Internet as main means of propaganda may restrict the political impact. He became the chief Muslim ally of Christian creationists in the
USA by managing to get published by respectable “old media”. For him the Internet only fulfils an auxiliary function."

مكمنُ تفرُّد هذه النسخة، أنها الطبعة الأولى والوحيدة -خلال قرن ونيف- «المطابِقَة» لأقدم أصل مطبوع، أمكَن العثور عليه لجريدتنا الغراء. وهي النسخة المطبوعة بمطبعة التوفيق في بيروت، لصاحبها نسيب صبرا، سنة 1328هـ ق (نحو 1910م).
وتكشِفُ لنا النصوص الكاملة للجريدة، حين توضع بجانب نصوص الأفغاني الأخرى؛ أن دور محمد عبده في هذا السِفر -بوصفه مُحررًا- لم يكُن يتعدَّى دور المصحح اللغوي، أو المستَملي، وهو دور لا يختلف كثيرًا عن دور محمد المخزومي في الخاطرات، كما لا يختلِف عن دور المحرِّر الثاني للجريدة، الذي يتجاهله كافَّة المشتَغلين العرب بهذه المسألة؛ ألا وهو «المثقف» الإيراني غريب الأطوار: ميرزا باقر بواناتي!
إن قلَّة اكتراث السيد بالكتابة، لم تُوهِن حرصه الشديد على إملاء ما يراه ويعتقده كلمة بكلمة، وتحرير كل المصطلحات والتدقيق في كافَّة الألفاظ، بل واختيار عناوين ما يُنشَر باسمه، وذلك كما قد يفعل أي مفكر أصيل يحترِم نفسه. وأدلة ذلك كثيرة، بل ومتواترة. غير أن عدمَ عنايته الكافية بإنتاجه المدوَّن؛ قد جعل من الميسور على بعض «تلاميذه» مُصادرته، حتى لينسب عبده إلى نفسه بعض كتابات جمال الدين، أو يسكُت عن فعل رشيد رضا ذلك!
ورغم ضخامة هذا المجلَّد، فلا زالت رحلتنا مع نصوص الأفغاني في أولها. قد بدأناها بنشر خاطرات السيد كاملة مُحقَّقة، وها نحن نُثني بهذا السِفر العظيم، ونَعِدُ قارئنا الكريم بكتابين آخرين من كُتب السيد، بعد تحقيقهما وضبطهما على صورة لم تُسبَق منذ قرن أو أكثر، وهما: «تتمَّة البيان في تاريخ الأفغان»، و«الرد على الدهريين»؛ فالله المستعان.

صدر لي قبل أعوامٍ خمسة كتابٌ بعنوان: «أفكار خارج القفص»، وهو من نفس فصيلة الكتابة الشذريَّة التي ينتمي إليها هذا الكتابُ. وإنما دفعني إلى تبني هذا اللون من الكتابة الرغبةُ في إطلاع القارئ على بعض مراحِلِ التطور التي يمرُّ بها المفكرُ، لا أعني تطور الأفكار فحسب؛ وإنما تطور منهج النظر الكُلي الذي تُعَالَجُ به شتَّى الموضوعات أيضًا.

وتمثِّل هذه الطريقةُ الشذريَّة سُلَّمًا أساسيًّا في تطور منظومة أي مُفكرٍ حركي يؤمن بتمثُّل كل ما يعتقده وتجسيد كل ما يؤمن به، ككاتب هذه السطور؛ ويبغضُ التقاليدَ الأكاديميةَ المدرسيَّة الجوفاء، ولا يُهدِرُ أبدًا قيمة أنواعٍ أخرى من المعرفة؛ أسمى وأكثر ربانيَّة، ولا الطرائق المختلفة والمتنوعة في تحصيلها؛ مثل المعرفة الحدسيَّة والإلهام والمعرفة الإشراقيَّة (العرفان).

إن هذه الطريقة القرآنيَّة لا تجعل من الفكر الإنساني نسقًا مُنفتحًا دائم الانفتاح فحسب؛ بل تُبرهِنُ لكل ذي عقل موَّارٍ يتحرَّكُ بإدمان النظر، وكل ذي نفسٍ لوَّامةٍ تتحرَّكُ بمكابدة الذكر، وكل ذي جسدٍ أنهكته الحركةُ بالطاعة والامتثال؛ على أن التأمُّل والاستنباط في مواضعِهِ أبلغُ وأحكمُ وأنضجُ من عبثيَّة «الاستقراء»، ومن رصِّ المعلومات «الموثَّقة». بل إن التأمُّلات قد تصير في كثيرٍ من الأحيان هادِمًا مُناقِضًا للمعلومات «الصحيحة».

Recipient of the Inaugural South Asian Muslim Studies Association Book Award 2021

Centering Pakistan in a story of transnational Islam stretching from South Asia to the Middle East, Simon Wolfgang Fuchs offers the first in-depth ethnographic history of the intellectual production of Shi'is and their religious competitors in this “Land of the Pure.” The notion of Pakistan as the pinnacle of modern global Muslim aspiration forms a crucial component of this story. It has empowered Shi'is, who form about 20 percent of the country’s population, to advance alternative conceptions of their religious hierarchy while claiming the support of towering grand ayatollahs in Iran and Iraq.

Fuchs shows how popular Pakistani preachers and scholars have boldly tapped into the esoteric potential of Shi'ism, occupying a creative and at times disruptive role as brokers, translators, and self-confident pioneers of contemporary Islamic thought. They have indigenized the Iranian Revolution and formulated their own ideas for fulfilling the original promise of Pakistan. Challenging typical views of Pakistan as a mere Shi'i backwater, Fuchs argues that its complex religious landscape represents how a local, South Asian Islam may open up space for new intellectual contributions to global Islam. Yet religious ideology has also turned Pakistan into a deadly battlefield: sectarian groups since the 1980s have been bent on excluding Shi'is as harmful to their own vision of an exemplary Islamic state.

For more info and reviews:
https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469649795/in-a-pure-muslim-land/

A South Asian edition is published by Speaking Tiger in Delhi: https://www.speakingtigerbooks.com/shop/non-fiction/in-a-pure-muslim-land/

This dissertation analyzes the ongoing attempts of Omani Ibadis to re-envision Islamic identity in the modern era. Arguably Islam’s oldest distinct sect, Ibadism has offered alternative formulations of Islamic belief and jurisprudence that never claimed the adherence of a majority of Muslims, but thrived in enclaves in Arabia and North and East Africa. Omani Ibadis’ encounter with modernity began around the turn of the 19th century and accelerated after 1970 under Sultan Qaboos. Like Muslims across the globe, the Ibadis of Oman have navigated the transformations of modernity, striving for coherence between their sectarian identity and the evolving world around them.

A mixed methodological approach combines textual analysis and fieldwork to examine the modern religious discourse of Ibadi ʿulamāʾ primarily, and of lay Ibadis secondarily. Interviews with 58 diverse individuals offer a window into the reality of public religious life in Oman. The survey of the works of contemporary ʿulamāʾ encompasses books, articles, pamphlets, video lectures, and social media postings.

The study of these resources enables a set of observations about the engagements of modern Ibadis with their textual tradition. The modern state’s control over public religious life, the centrality of fear as a recognized and valued tool for inspiring positive behavior, and the concern with presenting Ibadi identity in a way that appeals to a broad Sunni audience are important themes that recur throughout the chapters. Additionally, the language of tolerance emerges as a ubiquitous idiom in contemporary Omani Ibadi discourse, and scholars and lay believers alike express their sect’s distinctiveness in terms of positive relations with religious others.

I argue that the spread of Saudi Salafism presents an enduring challenge to Ibadism’s place within the international umma. Here, a study of Salafi scholars’ opinions on Ibadism informs a subsequent exploration of contemporary Ibadis’ responses to those opinions as well as their own discourse on Salafism.

Finally, this dissertation documents the recent emergence of the tayyār ʿaqlānī (rationalist stream) of Ibadism, a movement that challenges the state-affiliated Ibadi mainstream and advocates for internal criticism in order to better integrate Ibadism into modernity.

Reforming Modernity is a sweeping intellectual history and philosophical reflection built around the work of the Morocco-based philosopher Abdurrahman Taha, one of the most significant philosophers in the Islamic world since the colonial era. Wael B. Hallaq contends that Taha is at the forefront of forging a new, non-Western-centric philosophical tradition. He explores how Taha’s philosophical project sheds light on recent intellectual currents in the Islamic world and puts forth a formidable critique of Western and Islamic modernities.

Hallaq argues that Taha’s project departs from―but leaves behind―the epistemological grounds in which most modern Muslim intellectuals have anchored their programs. Taha systematically rejects the modes of thought that have dominated the Muslim intellectual scene since the beginning of the twentieth century―nationalism, Marxism, secularism, political Islamism, and liberalism. Instead, he provides alternative ways of thinking, forcefully and virtuosically developing an ethical system with a view toward reforming existing modernities. Hallaq analyzes the ethical thread that runs throughout Taha’s oeuvre, illuminating how Taha weaves it into a discursive engagement with the central questions that plague modernity in both the West and the Muslim world. The first introduction to Taha’s ethical philosophy for Western audiences, Reforming Modernity presents his complex thought in an accessible way while engaging with it critically. Hallaq’s conversation with Taha’s work both proffers a cogent critique of modernity and points toward answers for its endemic and seemingly insoluble problems.

This paper aims to understand how the Qur’an prescribes relations between humans and animals. I discuss the Qur’anic epistemologies of morality and bring them into conversation with esoteric claims of hypernomian versus baseline morality. Various Sufi scholars consider morality to be tiered, with taqlīd serving as a baseline. This paper will argue why treatment of animals beyond what is required might be considered hypernomian and not antinomian. I seek to negate the association of hypernomian moral decisions such as vegetarianism with sacrilege by arguing why they are an extension of, and not in defiance to, shari’a morality. I reference similar delineations of that which is permitted versus that which is preferred, such as in the case of qisas and remittance. This paper will also necessarily deliberate on the meaning (or meanings) of taqwā, and how it relates to human ethical formation. 
On the level of the problematic, this paper will engage with interpretations of Genesis and the role of man as khilafa of the world, as well as the epistemological and circumstantial significances of sacrifice, personhood, dominion, property and custodianship.

هذا الكتاب ليس للمتعة الذهنيّة المجرّدة، وليس الغرض منه نيل رضا القارئ وموافقته وتصفيقه واستحسانه؛ بل الغرض منه تعليمه التفكُّر، ومساعدته على تكوين ملكة للنظر والنقد والحكم. كل ذلك بطريقة غير مباشرة. فحين يُعاين القارئ المتفحّص منهج النظر ذاته وهو يُفكك الفكر السياسي ثم يُقرأ به الأدب ثم تناقش به بعض مسائل العقيدة والفلسفة ثم يتشكّل به دُعاء يستلهم سير الأنبياء؛ فإنه سيُدرك  -ولو بشكل غير واع- وحدة المعارف الإنسانيّة، ومن ثم أهميّة وحدة منهج النظر والرؤية الكونيّة الحاكمة والمهيمنة على التناول. وسيُدرك أيضًا أن الفصل المصطنع بين العلوم والمعارف الإنسانية مُجرّد فصل مدرسي إجرائي لا قيمة له، ولا يتم تكريسه إلا لتوثين حقل من المعارف أو الافتراضات التي بُنيت عليها بعض النظريّات "العلميّة".

Murad’s Commentary on the Eleventh Contentions is a rare and profound book. It consists of 100 pithy aphorisms - termed "contentions" - on a diverse array of topics ranging through ethics, cosmology, metaphysics, theology, law and history. Each contention is a terse distillation of Murad's often exquisitely crafted ruminations on a given matter followed by his own compressed elucidation (the commentary).  Though sometimes abstruse and esoteric, the book weaves itself into a dense, multi-faceted tapestry of insights into a range of contemporary issues that concern the religious mind.

This article analyzes the Aga Khan's discourse on pluralism and cosmopolitan ethics, arguing that these ideals are rooted in and expressive of his Muslim theological vision and constitute his interpretation of Islam. The Aga Khan is the forty-ninth hereditary Imam of the Nizari Ismaili Muslims and a public Muslim intellectual. Whereas many theorists' approaches to pluralism are premised on the religious diversity of America, the Aga Khan pragmatically situates pluralism as a prerequisite for humanitarian development in a global context and as an antidote to dangers posed by both political tribalism and globalism. In common with the scholar of religion Diana Eck, the Aga Khan defines pluralism as a personal and civic orientation toward human diversity that actively embraces difference while also emphasizing commonality without overriding differences. At the same time, he presents pluralism as a divine imperative for humans in responding to God-given diversity and attaining self-knowledge. The theological underpinnings of the Aga Khan's pluralistic vision are the integration of Faith (dīn) and World (dunyā) and a theology of “mono-realism” (waḥdat al-wujūd) stressing God's continuous manifestation through diversity. Certain dimensions of this pluralism are rooted in the pre-modern Ismaili theological heritage. The Aga Khan also presents a concept of cosmopolitan ethics as a necessary concomitant of applied pluralism. Rejecting both moral relativism and a hegemonic universalism, the Aga Khan defines cosmopolitan ethics as universal virtue ethics informed by multiple religious traditions that can also accommodate a pluralism of values in local contexts. The Aga Khan theologically roots cosmopolitan ethics in the Qur'ānic vision of humankind as created from a single soul (Q 4:1).

Included in the volume 'Islamic political theology', edited by Massimo Campanini and Marco Di Donato (2021), the chapter explores the doctrine of tawhid, as elaborated by the Egyptian scholar Muhammad 'Abduh in his book Risalat al-tawhid (1898). The chapter argues that ‘Abduh’s re-elaboration of tawhid as an agent of social change and the basis for egalitarian ethics represented a marked epistemological break in Islamic exegetical history, one that had an enduring effect on subsequent Islamic political thought.

Over nearly 1,500 years of history, Islam has produced extraordinary intellectual innovation, characterised by limitless curiosity and creativity. It has inspired profound theological and philosophical debate, a rich artistic legacy, and great scientific discoveries. 'The Architects of Islamic Civilisation' provides readers with a concise yet detailed range of essays sketching the life, thought and significance of forty-three prominent Muslim thinkers responsible for producing this rich tradition, individuals from as far afield as North Africa, Europe, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia and China. Stretching from the time of the Prophet down to the late twentieth century, this book outlines the intellectual foundations of Islam, its multifaceted development through its classical period and, finally, its modern quest for reform and revival. Presenting a broad and inclusive range of Muslim thinkers, 'The Architects of Islamic Civilisation' will be of interest to both general readers and students alike.

This study aims to identify and analyze ‘national romanticism’ in Turkey’s political culture during the modernization process. Despite the recognition of modernization (temeddün, civilizing) and modernity (the standards of modern civilizations) as self-declared goals and the adoption of modern concepts, geographic, social, and cultural differences modified the meanings associated with terms like modernity and modern concepts, sometimes erasing crucial nuances. Romanticism went under similar modifications in its Turkish instantiation. Hence, Turkish romanticism has not been identical to the Western European experience: instead, a type of Romanticism developed in Turkey which grows more national the more one goes Eastward and significantly changes and transforms, greatly losing its philosophical depth. In various chapters, I intend to demonstrate that these claims are justified.

This study focuses on the concept of ‘Romanticism’ and its political bearings in monographic approach. The chief interest here will be the relation between ‘Romanticism’ and the emergence of ‘national identity’ from the mid-19th century to the Cold War Era, even though, as we shall see, these two notions or evolutionary trends cannot be understood without the context of the other great changes of modern times. A consideration of the relationship between Romanticism and national consciousness suggests from the beginning some issues, or problematic themes, that we need to approach first. In general, the subject of this research revolves around how central and critical a role Romanticism plays in Turkish “belated modernity” and its political culture.

As is generally accepted, Romanticism and the Romantics try to re-enchant the world which had become mostly disenchanted through the secularization process with the rise of modernity. Romantic weltanschauung in this regard is an intellectual movement which came out of the cultural, philosophical and political channels of the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries in European thought, mostly in affiliation with Counter-Enlightenment. Therefore, the study starts by a general framework of the theoretical and historical background of European Romanticism(s), and consists of four more main sections. The first is a general discussion, which aims to characterize the nature of Turkish Romanticism. This chapter also highlights and outlines some critical issues of modern Turkish thought. It also discusses how to classify the historical periods and basic problems of Turkish social-political thought in accordance with Romanticism.

The dissertation starts with a general discussion on Romanticism in Turkish thought followed by four main chapters that aims to highlight the four fields in which romantic elements were more dominant in national political culture. While I often cross-reference from chapter to chapter, I preferred to rewind to the main framework at the beginning of each chapter. Each chapter thus first examines the historical and philosophical cradle of the subject in question and points to various reflections and manifestations in different countries and later turns back to Turkey to engage in a historically specific discussion on Turkey. This method is part of the effort to make this study comparative and historical.
The first chapter tries to trace Romanticism in Turkish thought and lists the main avenues and characteristics of romanticism in literature, social thought and politics. The chapter tries to answer the question “Can we speak of a Turkish romanticism?” This is probably the most critical and problem based part of the study – hence the section most vulnerable to criticism. To see how a spiritualist discourse keeps reproducing ‘the idea of the nation,’ one must see which references are selected by social consciousness. The second chapter picks up from this question and uses the concept Volksgeist in its title so as to suggest the place of this concept in the narratives of national spirit in literature and history, political discourse and cultural studies. The third chapter focuses on the province as it becomes the object of Romanticism – the search for the sine-i millet (the heart of the nation), the nondrying spring of romantic nationalism, by way of folklore, populism, and villageism. The fourth chapter critically investigates the place of concepts homeland and state, the essential fetish objects of “national romanticism” besides the nation. In doing so, the chapter focuses on the interrelations between Romanticism and the myths of state and homeland. The discussion shows how and why the Romantic perspective makes the state a ‘sublime’ and ‘esteemed’ entity and perceives the homeland to be a ‘holy’ place or a ‘piece of paradise.’ Chapter Five attempts to understand and interpret the questions of romantic historiography and historical romanticism. Here, I argue that literary romantics and romantic historians often supported one another, consciously or unconsciously, and created legends or epic conceptions of history that can rapidly slide into chauvinism. The conclusion includes an extensive repetition and summary of the four main chapters and adds some points on the place of Romanticism in Turkish political culture.

The present work is a critical study of the dynamics of Muslim understanding of Christianity during the late 19th and the early 20th century in the light of the polemical writings of the well-known Syro-Egyptian Muslim reformist Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865-1935) and his associates. It is observable that neither Muslim nor Western scholars paid due attention to his views on Christianity. No full-scale study of his perspectives on that subject has been undertaken so far. Although there are scattered and brief remarks in some individual studies on some of his works on Christianity, investigation is still needed by focusing on his polemics and answers to the social, political and theological aspects of missionary movements among Muslims of his age. The base of our analysis in the present study encompasses Rida’s voluminous publications embodied in his magnum opus, the journal al-Manar (The Lighthouse). The core of these writings on the Christian beliefs and scriptures consisted of polemic and apologetic issues, which had already existed in the pre-modern Islamic classification of Christianity. However, al-Manar polemicists have added to their investigations many modern aspects largely influenced by Western critical studies of the Bible. There is no documented public debate (munazarah) between Rida and his contemporary missionaries. But al-Manar developed certain sorts of arguments drawn from critical studies about biblical texts, church history, political confrontations in the period of colonialism, and evidence of what it perceived as the wrong picture portrayed by missionaries (and some Christian Arabs) of Islam.

There are now a number of Oxford Handbooks providing review essays by leading specialists around the world, assessments of current research and often indications of future research relating to the study of Islam, historically, textually, and in different contexts. Many of these contain at least the odd token essay on the Shiʿi traditions in Islam, and even then this inclusion is usually confined to the Twelver Shiʿi tradition.  The Shiʿa have historically constituted a significant element of the wider Muslim population – usually estimated around 10-15% - not least, since the early modern period, and, as Sayyid Ḥasan al-Ṣadr famously wrote in an influential work from the 1930s, they have made important contributions to the intellectual and cultural life of the world of Islam. Beginning as the ‘party of ʿAlī’ (shīʿat ʿAlī) in a dispute over the nature of authority and the mandate to define the spiritual connection with the divine after the death of the Prophet, the Shiʿa developed into a number of confessions following different lineages of spiritual leaders from the descendants of the Prophet through his daughter Fāṭima and son-in-law and cousin ʿAlī (the Imams). It was precisely the idea of Shiʿi Islam as both a theological account of the nature of God and an account of that manifestation of the divine in the person of the Imam that characterised it as a set of confessions, and Imamology in particular – the status and agency of the Imam – that was much debated between the differing confessions.

The rise in interest in Shiʿi studies – with three journals and increasing numbers of publication series, specialist conferences, and even specialists in university departments teaching courses – suggests that the time is ripe for a broad-ranging Handbook that can be the foremost and primary work of reference for students and for a general readership interested in Islam in the contemporary world. It will fit well alongside the existing Handbooks on Islamic Theology, Islamic Philosophy, Islamic Law, Qurʾanic Studies and Hadith.

Shiʿi Islam in this context is understood to comprise the various dispensations and theological confessions that considered the prophetic inheritance to lie with his cousin ʿAlī and then with a line of succession among his descendants who constituted a continuance of his spiritual authority. Therefore, the Handbook will include the largest grouping of the Twelver Imāmī Shiʿa, as well as the Zaydīs and Ismāʿīlīs. There will also be a consideration of some of the ‘non-conformists’ such as the Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs who survive in Syria and surrounding areas. Critically important is the aim of bringing together a set of essays that not only provide a masterly survey of existing scholarship but also suggest new directions and formations as well as interdisciplinary approaches to the study of Shiʿi Islam from history, anthropology and sociology, political science, the study of religion, and philosophy.

This presentation will attempt to describe the revival and rediscovery of
Māturīdī’s theology in modern Turkey, a movement that I refer to as “Turkish Neo- Māturīdism.” This movement has its roots in a number of important theological and institutional developments in the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic. These roots, which I will discuss in turn, include: 1) late Ottoman-era kalām debates, 2) the rise of Islamic modernism1 throughout the Muslim world in the late 19th and early 20th century, 3) the transition to a modern state just before and during the republican period, and 4) the growth of Islamic theology as an academic project in 20th and 21st century Turkey. In fact, it is probably best to describe the modern Turkish theological interest in Māturīdī as one important strain of Islamic modernism among many examples in modern Turkey. Turkish Neo-Māturīdism is a broad movement across modern Turkish history that began in the search for a distinctively Turkish national Islamic heritage. As a part of this search, Muslim theologians in Turkey identified Māturīdī as a key part of a distinctively Turkish heritage of Islam and Islamic thought. I argue that the modern Turkish rediscovery of Māturīdī is not just significant for modern Turkish history, but for the history of Islamic theology as a whole. In my view, it can be considered a part of the history of the Māturīdī school of thought in general, and it grows from powerful and persuasive interpretations of Māturīdī’s theological ideas.

This paper deals with the Sufi shaykh Haji Imdad Allah Muhajir Makki's (1817-1899) efforts for conciliation of different strands of Muslim religious thought in the late nineteenth century with particular reference to his main work on this theme-a short treatise titled Faisalah-i Haft Mas'alah (literally: A Resolution of the Seven Controversies). After an exposition of his hermeneutics of conciliation, it is opined that his teachings in this regard bear universal significance, and thus these can be helpful for our times.

The return of the Moroccan philosopher Muhammad-Aziz Lahbabi (d. 1993) to the history of philosophy seems to have been not to learn more about the problems that preoccupied the philosophers of the past, nor to solve philological or hermeneutical problems, as is usually the case in this discipline, but rather his return was for a more "substantial" cause that was the basis of his career throughout his intellectual life, namely, the future of the human.  Perhaps the characteristics of this future that Lahbabi wanted to attribute to this philosophy guided his reading of the history of philosophy in Muslim contexts. From this point of view, one should perhaps understand the nature of his approach to the Muslim philosophies that were the focus of his research and reflection. He has reconstructed the history of this philosophy in order to bring it in line with his objectives and challenges, which do not consist in the accumulation of new studies on this or these philosophies, but in their use in the challenges of his time.