Sabine Schmidtke

The study of Islamic philosophy has entered a new and exciting phase in the last few years. Both the received canon of Islamic philosophers and the narrative of the course of Islamic philosophy are in the process of being radically questioned and revised. Most twentieth-century Western scholarship on Arabic or Islamic philosophy has focused on the period from the ninth century to the twelfth. It is a measure of the transformation that is currently underway in the field that, unlike other reference works, the Oxford Handbook has striven to give roughly equal weight to every century, from the ninth to the twentieth. The Handbook is also unique in that its 30 chapters are work-centered rather than person- or theme-centered, in particular taking advantage of recent new editions and translations that have renewed interest and debate around the Islamic philosophical canon. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy gives both the advanced student and active scholar in Islamic philosophy, theology, and intellectual history, a strong sense of what a work in Islamic philosophy looks like and a deep view of the issues, concepts, and arguments that are at stake. Most importantly, it provides an up-to-date portrait of contemporary scholarship on Islamic philosophy.

The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy

Maribel Fierro

Camilla Adang

Hassan Ansari

A Diachronic Perspective On &lt;i>Takf&#299;r&lt;/i>

Accusations of Unbelief in Islam

Professor of Islamic Intellectual History Sabine Schmidtke

Within the field of Islamic Studies, scientific research of Muslim theology is a comparatively young discipline. Much progress has been achieved over the past decades with respect both to discoveries of new materials and to scholarly approaches to the field. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the current state of the field. It provides a variegated picture of the state of the art and at the same time suggests new directions for future research. Part One covers the various strands of Islamic theology during the formative and early middle periods, rational as well as scripturalist. To demonstrate the continuous interaction among the various theological strands and its repercussions (during the formative and early middle period and beyond), Part Two offers a number of case studies. These focus on specific theological issues that have developed through the dilemmatic and often polemical interactions between the different theological schools and thinkers. Part Three covers Islamic theology during the later middle and early modern periods. One of the characteristics of this period is the growing amalgamation of theology with philosophy (Peripatetic and Illuminationist) and mysticism. Part Four addresses the impact of political and social developments on theology through a number of case studies: the famous mihna instituted by al-Ma'mun (r. 189/813-218/833) as well as the mihna to which Ibn 'Aqil (d. 769/1367) was subjected; the religious policy of the Almohads; as well as the shifting interpretations throughout history (particularly during Mamluk and Ottoman times) of the relation between Ash'arism and Maturidism that were often motivated by political motives. Part Five considers Islamic theological thought from the end of the early modern and during the modern period.

The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology

Within the field of Islamic Studies, scientific research of Muslim theology is a comparatively young discipline. Much progress has been achieved over the past decades with respect both to discoveries of new materials and to scholarly approaches to the field. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the current state of the field. It provides a variegated picture of the state of the art and at the same time suggests new directions for future research. Part One covers the various strands of Islamic theology during the formative and early middle periods, rational as well as scripturalist. To demonstrate the continuous interaction among the various theological strands and its repercussions (during the formative and early middle period and beyond), Part Two offers a number of case studies. These focus on specific theological issues that have developed through the dilemmatic and often polemical interactions between the different theological schools and thinkers. Part Three covers Islamic theology during the later middle and early modern periods. One of the characteristics of this period is the growing amalgamation of theology with philosophy (Peripatetic and Illuminationist) and mysticism. Part Four addresses the impact of political and social developments on theology through a number of case studies: the famous mi?na instituted by al-Ma'mun (r. 189/813-218/833) as well as the mihna to which Ibn 'Aqil (d. 769/1367) was subjected; the religious policy of the Almohads; as well as the shifting interpretations throughout history (particularly during Mamluk and Ottoman times) of the relation between Ash'arism and Maturidism that were often motivated by political motives. Part Five considers Islamic theological thought from the end of the early modern and during the modern period.

Reza Pourjavady

For a long time, the study of the life and work of the Jewish thinker ?Izz al-Dawla Ibn Kamm?na (d. 683/1284) remained limited to a very small number of texts. Interest in Ibn Kamm?na in the Western Christian world dates back to the 17th century, when Barthelemy d'Herbelot (1624-1695) included information on two of Ibn Kamm?na's works - his examination of the three faiths ("Tanq al-ab th li-l-milal al-thal?t"), i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and his commentary on Avicenna's "al-Ish?r?t wa l-tanb?h?"t - in his "Bibliotheque orientale," Subsequent generations of Western scholars were focused on Ibn Kamm?na's "Tanq al-ab th," whereas his fame in the Eastern lands of Islam was based exclusively on his philosophical writings. These include a commentary on the "Kit?b al-Talw t" by the founder of Illumationist philosophy, Shih?b al-D?n al-Suhraward? (d. 587/1191) and numerous independent works on philosophy and logic. Since most of the manuscripts of Ibn Kamm?na's philosophical writings are located in the public and private libraries of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, they were (and are) out of reach for the majority of Western scholars. The volume gives a detailed account of the available data of Ibn Kamm?na's biography, provides an outline of his philosophcial thought and studies in detail the reception of his thought and his writings among later Muslim and Jewish philosophers. An inventory of his entire oeuvre provides detailed information on the extant manuscripts. The volume furthermore includes editions of nine of his writings.

'Izz al-Dawla Ibn Kamm?una (d. 683/1284) and his writings

A Jewish philosopher of Baghdad [electronic resource]

Wilferd Madelung

The Mu‘tazila was a rationalist school of Islamic theology and one of the important streams of Islamic thought. Its beginnings were in the eighth century and its “classic” period of development was from the latter part of the ninth century until the middle of the eleventh. During these four centuries, the theological movement of the Mu‘tazila played a major role in the Islamic intellectual scene. Over time it fell out of favor in Sunni Islam and had largely disappeared by the fourteenth century. It is mainly due to the reception of Mu‘tazili thought by the Imamis and the Zaydis within Shi‘ism, as well as by Rabbanite and particularly Karaite Jews, that we are relatively well informed today about Mu‘tazili doctrines and even have access to a significant quantity of authentic textual materials. The book contains editions, translations, and an analytical introduction of Karaite Mu‘tazili texts of the late Fatimid period that were hitherto unknown and that shed fresh light in the reception of Mu‘tazili thought among the Karaites.

Abu-I-Husayn al-Basri's Mu'tazili Theology among the Karaites in the Fatimid Age

Rational Theology in Interfaith Communication

The articles brought together in this volume deal with Muslim perceptions and uses of the Bible in its wider sense, including the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament as well as the New Testament, albeit with an emphasis on the former scripture. While Muslims consider the earlier revelations to the People of the Book to have been altered to some extent by the Jews and the Christians and abrogated by the Qurʾān, God's final dispensation to humankind, the Bible is at the same time venerated in view of its divine origin, and questioning this divine origin is tantamount to unbelief. Muslim scholars approached and used the Bible for a variety of purposes and in different ways. Thus Muslim historians regularly relied on biblical materials as their primary source for the pre-Islamic period when discussing the creation as well as the history of the Israelites and the prophets preceding Muḥammad. Authors seeking to polemicize against Jews and Christians were primarily interested in the presumed biblical annunciations of Muḥammad and his religion and / or in perceived contradictions and cases of internal abrogation in the Bible. These various concerns resulted from and had an impact on the ways in which Muslim authors accessed the scriptures.

Texts and Studies

Muslim Perceptions and Receptions of the Bible

Ibn Khallād was a disciple of the famous Muʿtazilī theologian, Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (d. 933). His otherwise lost theological summa, K. al-Uṣūl, has reached us embedded in the Ziyādāt Sharḥ al-Uṣūl by the Zaydī Imām al-Nāṭiq bi-l-ḥaqq (d. 1033). This volume contains an editio princeps of this text.

A Critical Edition of the Ziyādāt Sharḥ al-uṣūl by the Zaydī Imām al-Nāṭiq bi-l-ḥaqq Abū Ṭālib Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. Hārūn al-Buṭḥānī

Baṣran Muʿtazilite Theology: Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad b. Khallād’s Kitāb al-uṣūl and its reception

David Hollenberg

Christoph Rauch

The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition offers new scholarly contributions to the study of the manuscript codex and Zaydi scholastic culture in Yemen from the rise of the Islam to the modern period.

The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition

Gudrun Krämer

Focuses on Middle Eastern Muslim majority societies in the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. This work contains papers which highlight the scope and variety of religious authorities in Muslim societies.

Religious Authorities in Muslim Societies

Speaking for Islam

Jan Thiele

Jewish-Muslim Intellectual History Entangled unearths forgotten texts that once belonged to the library of the Karaite community in Cairo. Consigned to oblivion for centuries, many of these manuscripts were sold in the second half of the nineteenth century to the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, where they remained inaccessible to most scholars until the end of the Cold War. The texts from the Karaite library cover a remarkable spectrum of medieval literary genres and scholarly disciplines, spanning works by Jewish, Muslim and Christian authors, in both Hebrew and Arabic. As such, they provide unique access to an otherwise lost body of literature from the medieval Islamicate world. This timely volume presents, for the first time, edited fragments of six texts by adherents of the Muʿtazila, a school of rational theology that emerged in the eighth century CE, including Karaite copies and recensions of works by Muslim authors, notably ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī and ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿīd al-Labbād, as well as original Jewish Muʿtazilī treatises. The collection is concluded by an anonymous Rabbanite refutation of the highly influential polemical tract against Judaism, entitled Ifḥām al-yāhūd. This collection offers unprecedented insights into the intellectual crossroads between Muslims and Jews of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. It will be an invaluable resource to students and scholars engaged with this period of history.

Jewish-Muslim Intellectual History Entangled: Textual Materials from the Firkovitch Collection, Saint Petersburg

Khaled El-Rouayheb

This volume represents the state of the art in research on the Muslim legal scholar, theologian and man of letters Ibn ?azm of Cordoba (d. 456/1064), who is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant minds of Islamic Spain.

Sabine Schmidtke

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