Münster journal for Islamic and philosophical studies

Philosophy and the Islamisation of Knowledge

Najib George Awad — 2024-08-08

This paper examines contemporary academic interest in the development of philosophy in the Arab-Islamic world, questioning the philosophical legitimacy of 'Islamic philosophy' and the association of philosophy with a specific religious identity. The study traces the origins of Arabic philosophical discourse to the early Abbasid era, when Muslim Arabs engaged with the Greek philosophical heritage, particularly the works of Plato and Aristotle. Through translation and dialogue, they developed their own unique understanding of philosophy. The paper begins by discussing the concept of philosophy in Platonic and Aristotelian thought, and then examines the philosophical contributions of Yaʿqub Ibn Ishaq al-Kindi and Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi. Finally, it examines whether early Islamic philosophical texts advocated the Islamisation of philosophy or science. The findings suggest that al-Kindi and al-Farabi promoted a distinction between philosophy and jurisprudence, as well as between philosophical and theological discourse, offering insights for contemporary debates on the potential Islamisation of philosophy or the creation of a philosophy with an Islamic jurisprudential and religious identity.

Examining Ṣirfa as an Aspect of Qurʾanic Inimitability

Romdhane Ben Romdhane — 2024-08-08

The concept of "Ṣirfa" has been controversial since its inception due to its implications for the inimitability of the Qurʾan. It appears to challenge the Muslim belief that that it is impossible to produce a text like the Qurʾan, as Ṣirfa theoretically recognizes that humans can emulate the Qurʾan, but God prevents them from being able to do it. However, as the literature on Qurʾanic inimitability became more established, scholars agreed that the Qurʾanic text is miraculous in its rhetoric. This led the later Muʿtazilites to revise the concept of Ṣirfa, endowing it with meanings and connotations that align it with the linguistic inimitability of the Qurʾan. The concept has attracted two main tendencies: a theological-religious tendency, which posits that the inimitability of the Qurʾan comes from an external source, and a linguistic-rhetorical tendency, which seeks to establish the inimitability within the text itself.

Bridging the methodological gap between phenomenology and history

Mohamed Oussama Benatallah — 2024-08-08

This study examines the significant contributions of the historian of religions Raffaele Pettazzoni, a prominent figure among the second-generation pioneers in the Science of Religion. This entails setting Pettazzoni’s contributions within the broader context of 19th-century Western cultural history, which experienced a crisis in the appropriate methodology for the study of religion. This crisis arose due to the devaluation of the sacred in Western life at that time, following the dominance of natural science and the fascination with technological progress, which led to the marginalization of religion and its description as superstitious, not to mention the declaration of an existential break with the other, whether ancient or modern. Against this backdrop, Pettazzoni's work stands out for its insistence on the intrinsic value of religion as a core element of human history. He challenged the prevailing methodologies across the humanities and social sciences, particularly questioning the validity of classical theories like totemism and animism, which were keen to explore the problem of the origin of religion after abandoning the usual theological answers. Identifying the crisis of meaning as a pivotal issue unresolved by the historical method, Pettazzoni advocated for a phenomenological approach. He argued for its effectiveness in deciphering the embedded meanings in religious documents. According to him, these documents indicate a deep religious experience and existential anxiety of the Homo religiosus. Pettazzoni endeavored to bridge the divide between historical and phenomenological methods, suggesting that their epistemological exchange could significantly enrich the field of religious studies.

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza: The Dance of Hermeneutics and the Reconstructionist

Rita Faraj — 2024-08-08

This study sheds light first on german-american professor of theology and researcher Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s work by first outlining the history of Christian feminist theology, which is deeply connected to her writings in terms of its origins and output. Second, it examines Fiorenza’s feminist critical liberation theology, or feminist hermeneutics of liberation, which relies on four pillars: the hermeneutics of suspicion, the hermeneutics of remembrance, the hermeneutics of imagination, and the hermeneutics of the proclamation. It briefly outlines Fiorenza's major findings on the "Jesus Movement" and the "Ecclesia of wo/men".

Ḥanafī Fiqh in Ifrīqiya in the 3rd/9th Century. Scholarly Transmissions of Asad b. al-Furāt from Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī.

Mohammed Eriouiche — 2024-08-08

الهنتاتي، نجم الدين (دراسة وتحقيق). الفقه الحنفي بإفريقية في القرن 3هـ/9م: رواية أسد بن الفرات لكتاب الأصل عن محمد بن الحسن الشيباني. ثلاث مخطوطات من المكتبة العتيقة برقّادة – القيروان منسوبة إلى الأسدية: كتاب الصلاة – كتاب العتق والتدبير – كتاب السرقة وقطع الطريق. تحقيق. لايدن: بريل، 2023. 244 صفحة. ISBN: 978-90-04-54663-9.
e-ISBN: 978-90-04-54664-6.

Historical Criticism

Ian Howard Marshall — 2024-08-08

This article is the seventh chapter of the collected volume presented and published by Ian Howard Marshall. The book contains eighteen articles by professors from various European and American universities. It was published under the direction of Marshall himself in order to address a topic that had arisen in the absence of a literature that summarised the results of discussions on the interpretation of the New Testament, in order to provide a comprehensive and practical guide to the task of interpretation. In this chapter, Marshall introduces the field of New Testament interpretation and the subject of understanding and comprehension for the modern reader of the ancient text by clarifying the religious text and making it more accessible by placing it in its historical context, accurately and narratively, using historical science and its methodology, so that each narrative is treated separately and placed in comparative forms and hypothetical formulations. He also enumerates the historical problems arising from the differences between miraculous narratives and those subject to the method of historical criticism, and the challenges this poses to the historian. Marshall concludes with an obligatory consideration of the aims of the writers of religious texts.

History and phenomenology in the science of religion

Raffaele Pettazzoni — 2024-08-08

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, numerous theories emerged to address the nature and origin of religion. However, the exclusionary conclusions of these theories led to criticisms labeling them as "reductionist" and prompted calls for a new approach that acknowledges the sacred and transcendent dimensions of religion. Raffaele Pettazzoni, a notable historian of religions, advocated for the development of a new and independent field of study that examines religion without relying on reductionist concepts. To enhance objectivity, Pettazzoni adopted the phenomenological approach, emphasizing the suspension of biases. Despite this, he recognized the potential for epistemological integration between phenomenology and the history of religions, stressing the importance of historical analysis in understanding the origins and development of religion. This article aims to explore Pettazzoni's stance on the interplay between historical and phenomenological approaches and the potential for their reconciliation, ultimately contributing to the establishment of the history of religions as an independent discipline within the human and social sciences.