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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.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Part I: Islamic Theolog(ies) during the formative and the Early Middle Period
- 1: Alexander Treiger: Origins of Kalam
- 2: Steven Judd: The Early Qadariyya
- 3: Cornelia Schöck: Jahm b. Safwan (d. 128/745-46) and the "Jahmiyya" and .Dirar b. Amr (d. 200/815)
- 4: Mohammed-Ali Amir-Moezzi: Early Shi"i Theology
- 5: Sidney Griffith: Excursus I: Christian Theological Thought during the First "Abbasid Century
- 6: Patricia Crone: Excursus II: Ungodly Cosmologies
- 7: Racha el-Omari: The Mu"tazilite movement (I): Origins
- 8: David Bennett: The Mu"tazilite movement (II): The Early Phase
- 9: Sabine Schmidtke: The Mu"tazilite movement (III): The Scholastic Phase
- 10: Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke: The Shi"i Reception of Mu"tazilism (I): Zaydis
- 11: Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke: The Shi"i Reception of Mu"tazilism (II): Twelver Shi"ites
- 12: Harith Bin Ramli: The Predecessors of Ash;"arism: Ibn Kullab, al-Muhasibi, and al-Qalanisi
- 13: Jan Thiele: Ash"arism in the East and the West
- 14: Wilferd Madelung: Ibadiyya
- 15: Aron Zysow: Karramiyya
- 16: Binyamin Abrahamov: Scripturalist and Traditionalist Theology
- 17: Ulrich Rudolph: Hanafi Theological Tradition and Maturidism
- 18: Peter Adamson: Philosophical Theology
- 19: Daniel de Smet: Isma"ili Theology
- 20: Martin Nguyen: Sufi Theological Thought
- Part II: Intellectual Interactions of Islamic theology(ies)-Four Case Studies
- 21: Ulrich Rudolph: Occasionalism
- 22: Jan Thiele: Abu Hashim al-Jubba"i's (d. 321/933) Theory of the States (ahwal) and its Adaptation among Ash"arite Theologians
- 23: Ayman Shihadeh: Theories of Ethical Value in Kalam: A New Interpretation
- 24: Khaled el-Rouayheb: Theology and Logic
- Part III: Islamic Theology(ies) During the Later Middle and Early Modern Period
- 25: Frank Griffel: Theology versus Philosophy: al-Ghazali's Tahafut al-falasifa and Ibn al-Malahimi's Tuhfat al-mutakallimin fi l-radd "ala l-falasifa
- 26: Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke: Twelver Shi"ite Theology
- 27: Hassan Ansari, Sabine Schmidtke, and Jan Thiele: Zaydi Theology in Yemen
- 28: Heidrun Eichner: Handbooks in the Tradition of Later Eastern Ash"arism
- 29: Delfina Serrano: Later Ash"arism in the Islamic West
- 30: Aaron Spevack: Egypt and the later Ash"arite School
- 31: Gregor Schwarb: Excursus III: The Coptic and Syriac Receptions of neo-Ash"arite Theology
- 32: M. Sait Ozervarli: Theology in the Ottoman Lands
- 33: Nathan Spannaus: Theology in Central Asia
- 34: Asad Q. Ahmed and Reza Pourjavady: Theology in the Indian Subcontinent
- 35: Jon Hoover: Hanbali Theology
- Part IV: Poli
Report
A collection of forty-one innovative articles, the volume widens the scope of scholarship to include geographical areas and theological topics that have remained explored... the Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology is a go-to place for the latest scholarship on Islamic theologies that flourished in diverse Islamic lands, and for lucid expositions of a number of philosophical and theological difficulties that the mutakallimun sought to resolve. Tariq Jaffer, Department of Religion, Amherst College
