Al-Jāḥiẓ and Religious Knowledge

A Forgotten Islamic Rationalism

Inbunden, Engelska, 2025

Av Hussein Ali Abdulsater, University of Notre Dame) Abdulsater, Hussein Ali (Associate Professor

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While it may seem paradoxical to combine trust in rational religion with distrust of human reason, this is exactly what a group of understudied Muslim theologians proposed. Known as the Epistemists, they pushed for an inclusive epistemology that broadened the scope of knowledge. They argued that humans can acquire rational knowledge without discursive arguments, through an unconscious process of social exposure. In this, the Epistemists presented a radical alternative to other Islamic conceptions of rationalism, with immense promise for modern contexts. This book reconstructs a worldview prominent among the Epistemists, and explores how it correlates with their rise and fall as a theological trend. It examines the intellectual project of their premier advocate, al-J??i? (d. 868-9), offering a systematic reading of his oeuvre as an Epistemist, and situates it in the formative ?Abbasid moment of Islamic history.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2025-05-31
Mått156 x 234 x 27 mm
Vikt664 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieEdinburgh Studies in Islamic Scripture and Theology
Antal sidor360
FörlagEdinburgh University Press
ISBN9781399521970

Tillhör följande kategorier

Religion: allmänt inom Filosofi och religion
Koranen inom Filosofi och religion
Filosofiska discipliner inom Filosofi och religion

Hussein Ali Abdulsater is Associate Professor of Arabic Culture and Islamic Studies in the Department of Classics at the University of Notre Dame. His research is concerned with uncovering the historical roots and social contexts of major theological themes in Islam. It also traces the ethical and philosophical aspects of Islamic religious thought as expressed in humanistic disciplines such as historiography and literature.His publications include:· “A Jāḥiẓian Contribution to Reason in Islam? Revisiting al-Muḥāsibī’s Māʾiyyat al-ʿaql,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 142:1 (2022), 1-32.· Shiʿi Doctrine, Muʿtazili Theology: al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā and Imami Discourse (Edinburgh University Press, 2017).· “Reason, Grace and the Freedom of Conscience: The Period of Investigation in Classical Islamic Theology,” Studia Islamica, 110:2 (2015), 233-262.

Foreword by James MontgomeryAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Expansive Empire and Inclusive ReligionIslamic Rationalism and its DiscontentsThe Afterlife of a MaverickThe Great VentureThe Semantics of a ParadigmPassions, Beliefs, ActionsThe Intelligent and the ReasonableEpistemological Road MapTheological ConsequencesConclusion: Social Empiricism and the Quest for Rational ReligionAppendix: Notes on a Few Terms and TranslationsBibliographyIndex

Professor Abdulsater’s monograph deeply enriches our understanding of al-Jāḥiẓ as a humanistic intellectual of the medieval Arabic tradition, and he has written one of the most compelling portraits of him available in the English language. Here, we encounter al-Jāḥiẓ not merely in his usual guise, as a somewhat mischievous theologian with an unrivaled talent for literary prose, but also as a keen observer of humans and their curious quibbles: an astute psychologist and an intuitive cognitive scientist avant la lettre.