A Muslim Theologian in the Sectarian Milieu

A Muslim Theologian in the Sectarian Milieu
Author: Gabriel Reynolds
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2005-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 904740582X

In 385 AH/AD 995 the Qāḍī ‘Abd al-Jabbār, well known for his Mu‘tazilī theological writings, wrote the Confirmation of the Proofs of Prophecy, a work that includes a creative polemic against Christianity. ‘Abd al-Jabbār reinterprets the Bible, Church history (especially the lives of Paul and Constantine) and Christian practice to argue that Christians changed the Islamic religion of Jesus. The present work begins with an examination of the controversial theory that this polemic was borrowed from an unkown Judaeo-Christian group. The author argues that ‘Abd al-Jabbār's polemic is better understood as a response to his particular milieu and the on-going inter-religious debates of the medieval Islamic world. By examining the life and thought of ‘Abd al-Jabbār, along with the Islamic, Christian and Jewish antecedants to his polemic, the author uncovers the intimate relationship between sectarian controversy and the development of an Islamic doctrine on Christianity.

The Sectarian Milieu

The Sectarian Milieu
Author: John E. Wansbrough
Publisher:
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2006
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

In this influential work originally published in 1978, the author, one of the most innovative thinkers in the field of Islamic Studies, analysed 'early Islamic historiography -- or rather the interpretative myths underlying this historiography -- as a late manifestation of Old Testament salvation history'. Continuing themes that he treated in a previous work, Quranic Studies, Wansbroguh argued that the traditional biographies of Muhammad are best understood, not as historical documents that attest to 'what really happened', but as literary texts written more than 100 years after the facts and heavily influenced by Jewish, and to a lesser extent, Christian, interconfessional polemics. Thus Islamic 'history' is almost completely a later literary reconstruction, which evolved out of an environment of competing Jewish and Christian sects. As such the author felt that the most fruitful means of analysing such texts was literary analysis. Although Wanbrough's work remains controversial to this day, his fresh incites and approaches to the study of Islam continue to inspire scholars.

The Qur'an and Its Biblical Subtext

The Qur'an and Its Biblical Subtext
Author: Gabriel Said Reynolds
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2010-06-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1135150206

Traditionally the Qur’an has been interpreted through medieval commentaries shaped by the biography of the prophet Muhammad. This book presents the Muslim holy book in light of its conversation with Jewish and Christian scripture, challenging the dominant scholarly method of reading the Qur'an.

The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter

The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 642
Release: 2016-01-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004297219

The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter is a Festschrift in honour of David Thomas, Professor of Christianity and Islam, and Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Inter Religious Relations, at the University of Birmingham, UK. The Editors have put together a collection of over 30 contributions from colleagues of Professor Thomas that commences with a biographical sketch and representative tribute provided by a former doctoral student, and comprises a series of wide-ranging academic papers arranged to broadly reflect three dimensions of David Thomas’ academic and professional work – studies in and of Islam; Christian-Muslim relations; the Church and interreligious engagement. These are set in the context of a focussed theme – the character of Christian-Muslim encounters – and cast within a broad chronological framework. Contributors, excluding the editors, are: Clare Amos, John Azumah, Mark Beaumont, David Cheetham, Rifaat Ebied, Stanisław Grodź SVD, Alan Guenther, Damian Howard SJ, Michael Ipgrave, Muammer İskenderoğlu, Risto Jukko, Alex Mallett, Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Lucinda Mosher, Gordon Nickel, Jørgen Nielsen, Claire Norton, Emilio Platti, Luis Bernabé Pons, Peniel Rajkumar, Peter Riddell, Umar Ryad, Andrew Sharp, Sigvard von Sicard, Richard Sudworth, Mark Swanson, Charles Tieszen, John Tolan, Davide Tacchini, Herman Teule, Albert Walters.

Never Wholly Other

Never Wholly Other
Author: Jerusha Tanner Lamptey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2016
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0190458011

Drawing upon the work of Muslim women interpreters of the Qur'an, feminist theology, and semantic analysis, Never Wholly Other offers a novel re-interpretation of the Qur'anic discourse on religious "otherness." Lamptey challenges notions of clear and static religious boundaries.

The Islamic World

The Islamic World
Author: Andrew Rippin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 699
Release: 2013-10-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1136803432

The Islamic World is an outstanding guide to Islamic faith and culture in all its geographical and historical diversity. Written by a distinguished international team of scholars, it elucidates the history, philosophy and practice of one of the world's great religious traditions. Its grounding in contemporary scholarship makes it an ideal reference source for students and scholars alike. Edited by Andrew Rippin, a leading scholar of Islam, the volume covers the political, geographical, religious, intellectual, cultural and social worlds of Islam, and offers insight into all aspects of Muslim life including the Qur’an and law, philosophy, science and technology, art, literature, and film and much else. It explores the concept of an ‘Islamic’ world: what makes it distinctive and how uniform is that distinctiveness across Muslim geographical regions and through history?

Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought
Author: Marco Demichelis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2018-07-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1350070319

Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought uses classical Islamic sources to trace the development of Islamic eschatology during the formative centuries of Islamic intellectual history. Marco Demichelis draws on classical Islamic scholars, including Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya, and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, to bring together concepts from Islamic philosophy, theology and mysticism – including proto-Sufism – to examine the interplay of these concepts between these traditions. The doctrines of salvation from Hell are examined in depth, in particular the theory of the annihilation of Hell, which proposes the idea that there will be a time when Hell will be empty and no longer inhabited. This is the first book to examine Islamic eschatology in the classical period, and adds to the growing scholarship on Islamic views on salvation and the eternity of Hell. It will be essential reading for scholars of Islamic intellectual history, theology, and comparative religion.

The Oxford Handbook of Christology

The Oxford Handbook of Christology
Author: Francesca Aran Murphy
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
Total Pages: 689
Release: 2015
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199641900

The Oxford Handbook of Christology brings together 40 authoritative essays considering the theological study of the nature and role of Jesus Christ. This collection offers dynamic perspectives within the study of Christology and provides rigorous discussion of inter-confessional theology, which would not have been possible even 60 years ago. The first of the seven parts considers Jesus Christ in the Bible. Rather than focusing solely on the New Testament, this section begins with discussion of the modes of God's self-communication to us and suggests that Christ's most original incarnation is in the language of the Hebrew Bible. The second section considers Patristics Christology. These essays explore the formation of the doctrines of the person of Christ and the atonement between the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and the eve of the Second Council of Nicaea. The next section looks at Mediaeval theology and tackles the development of the understanding of who Christ was and of his atoning work. The section on 'Reformation and Christology' traces the path of the Reformation from Luther to Bultmann. The fifth section tackles the new developments in thinking about Christ which have emerged in the modern and the postmodern eras, and the sixth section explains how beliefs about Jesus have affected music, poetry, and the arts. The final part concludes by locating Christology within systematic theology, asking how it relates to Christian belief as a whole. This comprehensive volume provides an invaluable resource and reference for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the study of Christology.

The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Philosophy

The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Philosophy
Author: John Marenbon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 768
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190246979

This Handbook shows the links between medieval and contemporary philosophy. Topic-based essays on all areas of philosophy explore this relationship and introduce the main themes of medieval philosophy. They are preceded by the fullest chronological survey now available of the different traditions: Latin and Greek, Islamic and Jewish.