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This book engages with the work of Miskawayh, a formative Islamic Philosopher in the 11th century, who is acknowledged as the founder of Islamic Moral Philosophy. Miskawayh’s The Refinement of Character (Tahḏīb al-Aḫlāq) draws from both ancient Greek philosophical tradition and Islamic thought, highlighting the concepts he integrated into what he argued to be the moral core of Islam. This book pursues a comparative study by analyzing and outlining the inherent philosophical concerns of the Aristotelian concepts of Happiness, Justice and Friendship, which are then brought into conversation with Miskawayh’s own concepualizations of them. While Tahḏīb al-Aḫlāq is deeply influenc...
Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Religions, with a Summary by Perry Schmidt-Leukel
Through analysis of the Covenants of the Prophet Muḥammad, which pledge protection to diverse faith communities, this book makes a profoundly important contribution to research on early Islam by determining the Covenants’ historicity and textual accuracy. The authors focus on the Prophet Muḥammad’s relationship with other faith communities by conducting detailed textual and linguistic analysis of documents which have received little scholarly consideration before. This not only includes decrees of the Prophet Muḥammad, ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and Mu‘āwiya ibn Abī Sufyān, but also of important Muslim rulers. They present their findings in relatio...
Leo Baeck (1873–1956) was a famous Jewish thinker and the leader of German Jewry during the Holocaust. This book offers the first interpretation of his religious thought as political, showing how Baeck, along with German-Jewish thought more broadly, cannot be properly understood without the imperial context.
At the turn of the millennium, Middle Eastern and Muslim Germans had rather unexpectedly become central to the country's Holocaust memory culture—not as welcome participants, but as targets for re-education and reform. Since then, Turkish- and Arab-Germans have been considered as the prime obstacles to German national reconciliation with its Nazi past, a status shared to a lesser degree by Germans from the formerly socialist East Germany. It is for this reason that the German government, German NGOs, and Muslim minority groups have begun to design Holocaust education and anti-Semitism prevention programs specifically tailored for Muslim immigrants and refugees, so that they, too, can learn...
This Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion contributes cases of encounters, diversities and distances to an emerging Jewish-Muslim Studies field. The scholarly essays address both discourses about and lived experiences of minorities in contemporary French, German and UK cities. The authors explore how particular modes of governance and secularism shape individual and collective identities while new technologies re-make interfaith encounters. This volume shows that Middle Eastern and North African pasts and presents weigh on European realities, examines how the pull of Jewish intellectual history is felt by a new generation of Muslim scholars and activists, and uncovers how Orthodox communities negotiate living side by side.
Focusing on Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) – one of the foremost scholars and authorities in the Muslim world who is central to the Islamic intellectual tradition – this book embarks on a study of doubt (shakk) and certainty (yaqīn) in his epistemology. The book looks at Ghazālī’s attitude to philosophical demonstration and Sufism as a means to certainty. In early scholarship surrounding Ghazālī, he has often been blamed as the one who single-handedly offered the death-blow to philosophy in the Muslim world. In much of contemporary scholarship, Ghazālī is understood to prefer philosophy as the ultimate means to certainty, granting Sufism a secondary status. Hence, much of ...
In contemporary Western society the church has been pushed to the margins, leading experts to describe the current era as a time ‘after Christendom’. Many traditional churches and congregations are struggling, a condition worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic regulations. As the practice of churchgoing wanes, the performance of the sacrament is called into question. How can we bring the traditional, communal experience of sacrament into the modern world?
Only recently have international relations scholars started to seriously examine the influence of collective memory on foreign policy formation and relations between states and peoples. The ways in which the memories of past events are interpreted, misinterpreted, or even manipulated in public discourse create the context that shapes international relations. Power and the Past brings together leading history and international relations scholars to provide a groundbreaking examination of the impact of collective memory. This timely study makes a contribution to developing a theory of memory and international relations and also examines specific cases of collective memory’s influence resulting from the legacies of World War II, the Holocaust, and September 11. Addressing concerns shared by world leaders and international institutions as well as scholars of international studies, this volume illustrates clearly how the memory of past events alters the ways countries interact in the present, how memory shapes public debate and policymaking, and how memory may aid or more frequently impede conflict resolution.
In light of recent concern over Shari’ah, such as proposed laws to prohibit it in the United States and conflict over the role it should play in the new Egyptian constitution, many people are confused about the meaning of Shari‘ah in Islam and its role in the world today. In Reasoning with God, renowned Islamic scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl explains not only what Shari‘ah really means, but also the way it can revitalize and reengage contemporary Islam. After a prologue that provides an essential overview of Shari‘ah, Abou El Fadl explores the moral trajectory of Islam in today’s world. Weaving powerful personal stories with broader global examples, he shows the ways that some interpr...