Islamic Studies

In 37 bijdragen schetsen de auteurs een caleidoscopisch
beeld van de stand van zaken op gebied van beeldvorming,
geschiedenis, rituelen en feesten, moraal, politiek, islam als
levensstijl, kunst en cultuur.
De bijdragen zijn van Joseph Alagha, Edien Bartels, Carmen
Becker, Maurits Berger, Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort,
Gert Borg, Marjo Buitelaar, Henk Driessen, Dick Douwes,
Annemarie van Geel, Martijn de Koning, Khadija
Kadrouch-Outmany, Christian Lange, Nina ter Laan, Roel Meijer, Karin van Nieuwkerk, Thijl Sunier, Rachida Talal-Azimi, Claudia Venhorst en Joas Wagemakers. 
Deel 2 in de gelijknamige serie Islam in verandering behandelt een breed scala aan onderwerpen en maakt ingewikkelde
thema’s begrijpelijk voor wie zich in de publieke discussie
wil mengen.

The fall of the Muslim civilization resulted from the rejection of reason. The rejection of reason was a result of the characterization of the use of reason to know revelation as kufr. The rejection of reason became explicit in the shutting of the gates to ijtihad and was reinforced by al-Ghazali’s attack on philosophers. The rejection of reason found political expression in the repression of the rationalists by Musa al-Hadi in 786. The slaughter of five-thousand philosophers was an event analogous to the Reign of Terror of the Jacobins, under Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. Sixteen thousand followers of “tradition” were beheaded at the guillotine with the emergence of the Age of Reason, touted by the European Enlightenment, a millennium afterwards. In Islam, the rejection of reason made it harder to understand and follow revelation. The perception that “all knowledge is in the Quran” did not help matters. This was an example of perfunctory thought. For it automatically withheld the designation of “knowledge” from all knowledge not in the Quran. This perception was based on a problematic understanding of epistemology or what constitutes knowledge. It was a reflection of hubris. In response to the bewilderment caused the prohibition of the use of reason, exegetes alleged that revelation features “ambiguous” passages. The rejection of reason made it hard to know and follow revelation. It also made it hard to understand key terms as “mutashabihat,” “hikma,” and “hawa.” As a result, Muslims turned to tradition, which replaced reason for the purpose of explaining revelation. But to “explain” revelation, tradition had to be elevated to an “equal” of revelation and subsequently even “above” revelation.
For the expectation that it would “explain” revelation placed tradition in the position of a “judge” of revelation. The elevation of tradition above revelation reversed the relation of revelation and tradition. The word of God was subordinated to the words of persons. The reversal of the relationship between revelation and tradition facilitated the adoption of the teaching of abrogation. The abrogation of the peace verses by the ayah as-sayf transformed Islam into “political Islam.” The abrogation of revelation by tradition transformed Islam into “traditional Islam.” The application of the teaching of abrogation warped penal law. The abrogation of revelation by tradition subjugated revelation to tradition. Hence, the process that led to this requires attention. It is necessary to restore revelation to its pre-eminence in relation to tradition, to rehabilitate reason, and to ensure that all laws are in agreement with revelation rather than based on inclination. (4 pages)

In the middle of the 20th century the texts of two waqf documents, drawn up in the 11th century in Arabic in Samarḳand, were discovered, which are of great significance for studying the history and culture of Central Asia of the Ḳarakhanid period. One of them was drawn up for madrasa, and the second for the hospital in Samarḳand, which were donated for public use as a charitable donation by the Ḳarakhanid ruler of Samarḳand Ṭamghādj Bughrā Khān (ruled in 444-460/1052-1068) in the month of Radjab 458/June 1066. The originals of these two documents have not reached us, but their text was included in some works on jurisprudence by medieval jurists. Many manuscripts of these works, containing copies of these two documents, are kept in various manuscript collections of the world. In the Shāh-i Zinda complex at the Afrāsiyāb settlement in Samarḳand, the remains of a monumental building were excavated, which were identified with the madrasa of Ṭamghādj Bughrā Khān. The present book consists of a critical edition of two waqf documents of Ṭamghādj Bughrā Khān, a Russian translation and a detailed historical-geographical and archaeological-topographic commentary with the involvement of data from archaeological and toponymical studies.

Abu al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sulaymān al-Tanūkhī lived 363–449AH/973–1057 ce. Despite his blindness, he was very observant of both people and animals. Al-Maʿarrī, of Maʿarrat al- Nuʿmān, a town in Syria, thought that God would take note of whoever suffers and who causes suffering. When someone dies, there will be compensation for the good deeds done on earth. But what about sheep who offer their wool to be turned into coats? According to al-Maʿarrī, God is never to blame. He has the right to the throne and unceasing praise belongs to Him, for He is most elevated in the world, which appears as his reflection. The stars above observe people through a net hanging in heaven; they look like shimmering lights in the water. Al-Maʿarrī loved poetry and prose, and was interested in the nature of scriptural language. Having returned from his visits to neighboring Aleppo and then to distant Baghdad, he gathered many pupils to his hometown, Meanwhile, enemies tried to have ...

Tulisan ini mengkaji tentang buku Interpreting the Qur'an Towards A Contemporary Approach karya Abdullah Saeed yang menawarkan sebuah metodologi interpretasi konteksual, yang dia sebut sebagai contextual approach, secara lebih rinci dibandingkan para pengkaji Qur'an kontemporer lainnya. Dalam buku tersebut, dia menawarkan sebuah hierarki nilai dalam rangka memahami ayat-ayat ethico-legal. Penulis merasa adanya kebutuhan mendesak untuk mengenal lebih jauh tentang interpretasi kontekstual Abdullah Saeed sebagai counter atas maraknya interpretasi tekstual yang mewabah di kalangan umat Islam dewasa ini. Untuk itu, artikel ini akan mengkaji metodologi interpretasi kontekstual yang digagas oleh Abdullah Saeed secara umum, dan konsep hierarki nilai yang dia tawarkan secara khusus. Penulis melihat bahwa konsep hierarki nilai yang dia perkenalkan sebenarnya adalah kelanjutan dari 'general principles' yang digagas oleh Fazlur Rahman. This writing is study about book by title : Interpreting the Qur'an Towards A Contemporary Approach whose was written by Abdullah Saeed. He offers a methodology of contextsual interpretation, clearly he mentioned as contextual approach, specifically he made it in more detail than other. In his book, he present the hierarchy values in understanding ethical-legal verses. I assume that this method of is as counterpart of textual interpretation which popular in fundamentalist. This paper focus on method of contextual interpretation which contents of hierarchy values where I think it is continuity from ideas of Fazlur Rahman as general principles.

The design argument, also known as the teleological argument, is one of the most commonly used evidences of the existence of a Creator God. Over the centuries, the argument has taken many forms, from the pre-Socratics to Jewish rabbis to Hindu philosophy and the modern debate over Intelligent Design (ID) and theistic evolution (TE). Present day controversies seem to show that disagreements over the apparent design of nature have roots in deep historical and metaphysical differences. We believe there is much to learn from how different religious traditions (here, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have engaged or are engaging with design discourse. So, we are arranging a two-day online closed-door workshop on the history and metaphysics of design arguments, to be hosted at the University of Helsinki.

The first Warwick Islamic Education Summer School, held in September 2016 marked the formation of a learning community consisting of practitioners and researchers, from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, interested in exploring issues related to education, Islam and Muslims within the context of contemporary and historical Muslim societies. In reviving the Muslim educational tradition of taaruf, openness to learning from one another, the Summer School offers a collegial academic space within which critical inquiry and reflective practice in Islamic Education are encouraged. Each annual meeting explores in-depth a specific theme related to the teaching and learning of Islam within diverse formal and informal educational settings. The aim is to enable the formation of a new transformative Muslim culture of learning and reflective inquiry through rethinking Islamic Education within the context of a secular and culturally/religiously diverse Western Europe and the wider Muslim world. A further central objective is to improve the quality of educational thinking and pedagogic practice within the diaspora and global Muslim communities essential for facilitating effective civic engagement, social welfare and economic prosperity. The Summer School has led to the establishment of the Warwick Islamic Education Research Network which facilitates critical dialogue between the educational narratives of Islam and the West and fosters collaborative research and knowledge-transfer among diverse groups

Con questa preziosa analisi Carlo Pallard tratteggia un vivace e puntuale disegno della storia più recente di questo complesso Paese, del suo tormentato percorso verso la modernità. Un cammino segnato da colpi di stato riusciti e da altri falliti, da processi riformatori e da regressioni autoritarie. Da aperture laiche e da chiusure tradizionaliste dell'ideologia islamica. Chiarisce quello che è stato il ruolo reale del potere militare nella vicenda storica della Turchia. Ruolo che spesso in Occidente è stato equivocato e addirittura mitizzato. Getta una luce sui passaggi cruciali della storia repubblicana della Turchia la cui corretta conoscenza è di fondamentale importanza per interpretare con fedeltà, senza distorsioni, anche questa fase politica transitoria dalle prospettive incerte per il futuro del paese. La Turchia, da quello che appare nei media è un paese di cui si parla molto, ma di cui si conosce molto poco... e si scrive altrettanto poco, in particolare in Italia. Ragion per cui il lettore in questo saggio troverà una utile e fedele chiave interpretativa dell'evoluzione del complesso quadro politico della Turchia dal 1960 ad oggi, utile soprattutto per comprendere quella che sembra essere la parabola discendente dell'era di Erdoğan e del suo partito.

(Dalla prefazione di Mariano Giustino)

The book charts the attempts of Islam's largest missionary movement, the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), to build Europe's biggest mosque in London – the so-called Mega Mosque. The book follows TJ from its founding in India in 1926, to its establishment in Britain during the 1940s, to its plans for construction of a controversial mosque in London. The book addresses the issues emerging at the forefront of national debates across liberal democracies: the role of Islam in the west, conceptions of changing citizenship and national identities, and how best to integrate increasingly diverse populations. What happens to illiberal and politically disengaged groups that wish to segregate themselves from what they regard as corrupt and immoral wider societies? How do these groups engage with government policy that seeks to define good citizens as those that are actively engaged in the socio-political life of the community? Zacharias Pieri provides context and insight to answer these and other important questions.

Our recent discoveries are now fully accepted by most of the specialists of Islamic art and the Africanist archaeologists. Our archaeological investigations in Mayotte allowed us to understand the raison d’être of an early Islamic site in the western Indian Ocean. Dembeni was occupied between the ninth to the twelfth century, a period of intensive trad, first with the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq/Iran, then with the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt. Dembeni appears to be a major distribution centre for rock crystal in the Indian Ocean. The fragments of rock crystal discovered in Mayotte were imported from Madagascar. The rock crystal was exported from Madagascar to the Comoros together with other products, notably steatite (soapstone).

An important outcome of our research was to put the Comoros and Madagascar in the “big picture” of East African trade, as rock crystal was a much-valued product. This “Eastern” or Malagasy road could serve as an explanation for the urbanization of Kilwa, the biggest and most well-known city-state of the East African coast. The city state of Kilwa has always been interpreted in relation to the gold trade with Sofala and the gold mines in Zimbabwe. But Kilwa is also located at a major crossroads between the East African coast and the Comoros. I would argue that the development and urbanization of Kilwa was due to this key position at the crossroads, between gold and rock crystal mines, the two most valued products of the Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates.

This critical Arabic text edition of Salwat al-ʿārifīn wa-uns al-mushtāqīn, a manual of early Sufism by Abū Khalaf al-Ṭabarī (d. ca. 470/1077), is based on a very old manuscript preserved in Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣrīya of Cairo, Egypt and copied in 459/1067. It is introduced by a detailed analytical study of the author and his work. Salwat al-ʿārifīn forms an integral part of Sufi literature and reflects Islamic developments in Nishapur in northeastern Iran. This crucial Arabic text, published for the first time, is especially valuable because of its great philological accuracy and sound textual tradition. It represents an essential source for the intellectual history of Islam during the middle of the 4th/10th to the middle of the 5th/11th century.

Abstrak: Tulisan ini mengkaji pengaruh neosufisme terhadap kontinuitas doktrin tasawuf dan tarekat-tarekat baru yang timbul sejak dua abad terakhir periode pertengahan Islam. Kemunculan neosufisme abad ke-14 M berpengaruh besar terhadap corak tasawuf dan tarekat baru abad-abad tersebut. Selain mendorong " purifikasi " doktrin agar tidak dimasuki unsur-unsur non Islam, neosufisme juga memberi arah baru agar tasawuf dan tarekat senantiasa berada dalam bimbingan syariat. Orientasi ini tidak saja memperlemah doktrin emanasi Tuhan atas makhluk-Nya berganti dengan doktrin transendensi, tetapi juga menjadikan tasawuf berada dalam kerangka ortodoks, tarekat juga demikian. Pengembalian ajaran ke sumber asli al-Qur'an dan Sunnah membuat tarekat-tarekat baru yang muncul bebas dari sifat yang tidak islami. Neosufisme berhasil mengubah orientasi tasawuf dan tarekat baru, yang lebih aktif-responsif terhadap urusan duniawi. Abstract: The Influence of Neosufism towards the Development of Tasawuf and New Tarekat. This essay studies the influence of neosufism on the continuity of tasawuf doctrine and new tarekats emerged during the last two centuries of medieval Islamic period. The raise of the fourteeth century neosufism movement had greatly influenced the nature and the characteristics of the new tasawuf and tarekats of the succeeding era. In addition to giving impetus in 'purification' of the doctrines to avoid the tasawuf and tarekat from intrusion of un-Islamic elements, the neosufisme has provided with guidance so that they should be kept under the syariat control. This new tendency has forced the tasawuf and tarekats to weaken their support to the doctrin of immanation of God toward His creatures, and replaces it with the transcendent doctrine. The return to the original stipulations of the Qur'an and the Sunna liberated the tasawuf and tarekats from their un islamic characters. The Neosufism movement had succeeded in changing the orientation of the new tasawuf and tarekas to be more responsive to the worldly interest.

The few works on the Yezidi Genocide that have appeared thus far have mainly focused on the violence perpetrated against the Yezidis and no work has attempted the construction of a general historical narrative covering the essential political dimensions of the Genocide and its aftermath. This chapter begins to address this need by providing a basic chronology and description of pivotal episodes in the political history of the Yazidi Genocide.

Along the lines of a reappraisal of the so-called Byzantine “Dark Ages,” this contribution addresses
the question of the re-emergence of classical culture in Byzantium in the 9th century and how Syriac
sources can throw some light on the continuation and yet transformation of late antique teaching
and scholasticism. The continuous work by Syriac scholars on Greek scientific and philosophical
texts in the 7th–10th centuries shows the availability of Greek manuscripts in the East, even beyond
the Roman-Sasanian border. Syriac literature can help understand the transformation of Hellenism
and the constitution of a cultural koine in other languages than Greek. A Christian as well as more
specifically Syrian Hellenism blended the cultural idioms of Greek and “oriental” culture. Not only
did Greek culture survive, but it spread in the Arabic polity and ultimately re-emerged in Byzantium
from the shelves of the Byzantine libraries. Oblivion of classical “pagan” literature was parallel to the
transmission of a new canonised knowledge in Syriac and then Arabic but was ultimately reversed:
not so much thanks to the “return” of Greek manuscripts and texts from the East however as from a
competition over the appropriation of ancient Greek culture beyond Christianity.

The house of wisdom is recognized wand memorized with terms like Grand Library of Bagh or Bait al-Hikmah and it was a big library and translation center for the medieval period founded by the Abbasids in Baghdad, Iraq. It has brought a revolution for translations of Greek, Persian, Indian scientific works into Arabic. This study examines the importance of this scientific institution, which contributed extensive progress in science, philosophy, history and literature and growth of the Islamic world. The grand library of Bagdad was a very important industry for translation services, and it became a great asset to earlier Muslim history to touch the pinnacle of the Muslim glory to meet the golden age of Islam. The precious effects o f this h ave influenced the world of east and west for many years, and the best colleges around the world have used its blessings. The services of the house of wisdom services were not only confined to translation but it also urged many scholars to contribute to produc ing the original works. The Abbasid Khalifa Harun al-Rashid and Mamun emphasize scientific works and encouraged literary development. The Abbasids period flourished throughout the world due to its recognition of the Abbasid era, as the Golden Age of Islam. This paper discusses the importance of the Bait al-Hikmah in preserving Greek, Persian and Indian works and materialized the scientific research.

‘Based on exhaustive work in numerous archives and in several languages, Lorenzo Kamel has produced what I think is one of the most definitive works on the transition from empire to nation-state. It is impressively ambitious and does what many major historians have been promising to do: to show how hard, Western conceptions of identity shaped and formed the thinking and decisions of statesmen and other political elites in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It also deals with the penetration of hard national categories among the various peoples of the empire. It is an authoritative book and will be very widely consulted.’
NICHOLAS DOUMANIS
Author of Before the Nation and Professor, School of Humanities and Languages, The University of New South Wales – Sydney
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‘This book will make an important mark on the field. From Empire to Sealed Identities shows the ways in which ethnic and other divisions were historically constructed in the Middle East under the influence of imperial powers. The work combines meticulous archival research in multiple languages with careful analysis of broader trends to map the transition from empire to homogenized nation-states. This ability to document with rich detail and at the same time be able to present the larger picture with great clarity is rare. The author pulls off the feat with great erudition.’
BETH BARON
Distinguished Professor of History, The Graduate Center and City College, CUNY
Past President, Middle East Studies Association (MESA)
Director, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center
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‘In this engaging revisionary study, Lorenzo Kamel shows how modern Western-ist intellectual prejudices have distorted our understanding of identity and conflict in the modern Middle East. Based on original archival research and an exhaustive survey of secondary literature, the author reveals a world that can only be characterized as “medieval” if one misunderstands the Middle Ages. Focussing on the long nineteenth century, the book provides a chronological continuation of much of the most interesting work being done in pre-modern Mediterranean Studies.’
BRIAN A. CATLOS
Author of Muslims of Latin Christendom and Professor, Faculty of Religious Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
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‘Lorenzo Kamel is a dedicated and meticulous scholar, extremely experienced and internationally recognized for his research methodology. His extensive archival work, which forms the basis of many of his most important publications, is impressive by any academic standard. His archival research, informed by exemplary linguistic skills, has, without question, created new understandings of the complex dynamics shaping our inquiry into modern European empires, and the history of the Middle East in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Middle East from Empire to Sealed Identities will continue this outstanding trend.’
SARA ROY
Senior Research Scholar, Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES)