Rethinking Ibn ʻArabi

Rethinking Ibn ʻArabi PDF Author: Gregory A. Lipton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019068450X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Exploring how the medieval mystic Ibn 'Arabi has been read as an inclusive universalist through the interpretative field of Perennial Philosophy, this book shows how his metaphysics is inseparably intertwined with Islamic supersessionism. Ibn 'Arabi's universalist reception is thus traced to lineages of Eurocentrism, revealing how Perennialism is itself exclusionary.

Rethinking Ibn 'Arabi

Rethinking Ibn 'Arabi PDF Author: Gregory A. Lipton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190684526
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
The thirteenth century mystic Ibn `Arabi was the foremost Sufi theorist of the premodern era. For more than a century, Western scholars and esotericists have heralded his universalism, arguing that he saw all contemporaneous religions as equally valid. In Rethinking Ibn `Arabi, Gregory Lipton calls this image into question and throws into relief how Ibn `Arabi's discourse is inseparably intertwined with the absolutist vision of his own religious milieu--that is, the triumphant claim that Islam fulfilled, superseded, and therefore abrogated all previous revealed religions. Lipton juxtaposes Ibn `Arabi's absolutist conception with the later reception of his ideas, exploring how they have been read, appropriated, and universalized within the reigning interpretive field of Perennial Philosophy in the study of Sufism. The contours that surface through this comparative analysis trace the discursive practices that inform Ibn `Arabi's Western reception back to the eighteenth and nineteenth century study of "authentic" religion, where European ethno-racial superiority was wielded against the Semitic Other-both Jewish and Muslim. Lipton argues that supersessionist models of exclusivism are buried under contemporary Western constructions of religious authenticity in ways that ironically mirror Ibn `Arabi's medieval absolutism.

Rethinking Ibn 'Arabi

Rethinking Ibn 'Arabi PDF Author: Gregory A. Lipton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190684518
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
The thirteenth century mystic Ibn `Arabi was the foremost Sufi theorist of the premodern era. For more than a century, Western scholars and esotericists have heralded his universalism, arguing that he saw all contemporaneous religions as equally valid. In Rethinking Ibn `Arabi, Gregory Lipton calls this image into question and throws into relief how Ibn `Arabi's discourse is inseparably intertwined with the absolutist vision of his own religious milieu--that is, the triumphant claim that Islam fulfilled, superseded, and therefore abrogated all previous revealed religions. Lipton juxtaposes Ibn `Arabi's absolutist conception with the later reception of his ideas, exploring how they have been read, appropriated, and universalized within the reigning interpretive field of Perennial Philosophy in the study of Sufism. The contours that surface through this comparative analysis trace the discursive practices that inform Ibn `Arabi's Western reception back to the eighteenth and nineteenth century study of "authentic" religion, where European ethno-racial superiority was wielded against the Semitic Other-both Jewish and Muslim. Lipton argues that supersessionist models of exclusivism are buried under contemporary Western constructions of religious authenticity in ways that ironically mirror Ibn `Arabi's medieval absolutism.

Sufi Narratives of Intimacy

Sufi Narratives of Intimacy PDF Author: Sa'diyya Shaikh
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807869864
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
Thirteenth-century Sufi poet, mystic, and legal scholar Muhyi al-Din ibn al-'Arabi gave deep and sustained attention to gender as integral to questions of human existence and moral personhood. Reading his works through a critical feminist lens, Sa'diyya Shaikh opens fertile spaces in which new and creative encounters with gender justice in Islam can take place. Grounding her work in Islamic epistemology, Shaikh attends to the ways in which Sufi metaphysics and theology might allow for fundamental shifts in Islamic gender ethics and legal formulations, addressing wide-ranging contemporary challenges including questions of women's rights in marriage and divorce, the politics of veiling, and women's leadership of ritual prayer. Shaikh deftly deconstructs traditional binaries between the spiritual and the political, private conceptions of spiritual development and public notions of social justice, and the realms of inner refinement and those of communal virtue. Drawing on the treasured works of Sufism, Shaikh raises a number of critical questions about the nature of selfhood, subjectivity, spirituality, and society to contribute richly to the prospects of Islamic feminism as well as feminist ethics more broadly.

Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition

Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition PDF Author: Alexander D. Knysh
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791439678
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 470

Book Description
Examines the fierce controversy over the legacy of Ibn 'Arabi, the great Islamic mystic.

Following Muhammad

Following Muhammad PDF Author: Carl W. Ernst
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807875805
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
Avoiding the traps of sensational political exposes and specialized scholarly Orientalism, Carl Ernst introduces readers to the profound spiritual resources of Islam while clarifying diversity and debate within the tradition. Framing his argument in terms of religious studies, Ernst describes how Protestant definitions of religion and anti-Muslim prejudice have affected views of Islam in Europe and America. He also covers the contemporary importance of Islam in both its traditional settings and its new locations and provides a context for understanding extremist movements like fundamentalism. He concludes with an overview of critical debates on important contemporary issues such as gender and veiling, state politics, and science and religion.

Sufis and Anti-Sufis

Sufis and Anti-Sufis PDF Author: Elizabeth Sirriyeh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136812768
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Despite its continuing appeal in the Muslim world, Sufism has faced fierce challenges in the last 250 years. This volume assesses the evolution of anti-Sufism since the middle of the eighteenth century and Sufi strategies for survival. It also considers the efforts of a few significant Muslim intellectuals to contemplate a future for a mystical approach to Islam without traditional Sufism. Many studies of Islam in the modern period have focused on the attempts of Muslim 'modernists' or 'fundamentalists' to come to terms with western modernity, and Sufis have often been marginalised in the process. Elizabeth Sirriyeh redresses this neglect by assigning to Sufism a central place in the broader history of Islam in the modern world and by examining how changing understandings of Sufism's role in modern conditions have affected Muslims of all shades of opinion.

Islam in Contemporary World

Islam in Contemporary World PDF Author: Asghar Ali Engineer
Publisher: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd
ISBN: 9781932705690
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
This book reflects on and re-evaluates various socially relevant topics of present times by bringing out the transcendental nature of the Qur'an and relating them to the demands of the contemporary world. Written lucidly, this well-researched and informative book will be a delightful read for scholars, students of Islamic Study, social scientists, as well as lay readers.

Ibn Al-Arabi's Fusus Al-Hikam

Ibn Al-Arabi's Fusus Al-Hikam PDF Author: Binyamin Abrahamov
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131756765X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Book Description
Ibn al-Arabi’s Fusus al-Hikam is a translation of one of the most important works written on Islamic Mysticism. Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240) is deemed the greatest mystic of Islam and his mystical philosophy has attracted the attention of both Muslims and non-Muslims from his time to the present day. Believing that the world is the self- manifestation of God, he claimed that all religions are equal and that the perfect human being is he who knows all the religious phenomena in the world. Fusus al-hikam examines the singular characteristics of twenty seven prophets of Islam and constitutes the best summary of Ibn al-Arabi's thought. The translation of these twenty seven chapters is preceded by an introduction that explains the main ideas of Ibn al-Arabi and is accompanied by explanatory notes to the text. Providing an easily accessible translation of one of the greatest mystics of Islam, Ibn al Arabi’ Fusus al-Hikam is essential reading for students, scholars and researchers of Islamic Philosophy, Mysticism and Islamic Mysticism in particular.

Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century

Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century PDF Author: Khaled El-Rouayheb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107042968
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
This book investigates the intellectual currents among Ottoman and North African scholars of the early modern period.