ISLAMIC RELIGION for third-year readers of Arabic, Persian and Turkish Hilary Term 2017

Transcription

1 ISLAMIC RELIGION for third-year readers of Arabic, Persian and Turkish Hilary Term 2017 Prof. Christopher Melchert and Dr. Pascal Held Outline: The aim of the first four weeks of this course is to provide students with a competent understanding of the traditions of Islamic mysticism and Islamic theology from its beginnings in nascent Islam to the late medieval ages. Format: The course will meet weekly for a lecture on Mondays 10 am in Lecture Room One of the Oriental Institute and for a reading class of the set text on Thursdays 2-4 pm in the same place. Additionally, there are tutorials in weeks six and eight between 5 and 7 pm held in office 209 of the Oriental Institute. Requirements: Attendance of the lectures and the tutorials is required. Completion of the weekly assigned readings is likewise mandatory. Students will only arrive at the level of knowledge targeted in this course through independent reading. Lectures will merely provide a sense of guidance, complementary to the reading. All readings assigned should be available either in the Oriental Institute library or the Bodleian. Essays: Furthermore required is the submission of two essays. Please bring them along to the tutorials. Essays should be between 5-7 pages double spaced and use proper referencing (footnotes and bibliography). If in doubt, please consult the Oxford Style Manual or the Chicago Manual of Style, available in the Oriental Institute library or the Bodleian. For the essays, students are encouraged to draw on additional reading beyond the assigned sources. If in need for guidance in this, please come and ask.

2 2 Set Text: Sarrāj, Abū Naṣr Abd Allāh ibn Alī. Kitāb al-luma fī al-taṣawwuf. Edited by R. A. Nicholson. Leiden: Brill, BP188.9 S35 SAR Pp. 68-8, General Ernst, Carl. The Shambhala guide to Sufism. Boston, Mass.: Shambhala, BP E76 ERN Karamustafa, Ahmet T. Sufism: the formative period. New Edinburgh Islamic surveys. Edinburgh: University Press, BP K37 KAR Knysh, Alexander D. Islamic mysticism: a short history. Themes in Islamic studies 1. Leiden: Brill, BP189.K69 KNY Nagel, Tilman. The History of Islamic Theology. Princeton: Markus Weiner, BP166.1 N3413 NAG Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, BP S34 SCH Watt, Montgomery. Islamic Philosophy and Theology. Edinburgh: University Press, BP166.1.W33 WAT Van Ess, Joseph. The Flowering of Muslim Theology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, (UBHU) M06.G01477 (Bod. Library). Week 1: Early forms of piety and Baghdadī Sufism Chabbi, Jacqueline. Remarques sur le développement historique des mouvements ascétiques et mystiques au Khurasan, Studia Islamica, no 46 (1977), P. 790 STU. Marín, Manuela. The early development of zuhd in al-andalus. Pp in Shī a Islam, sects and Sufism. Edited by Frederick De Jong. Utrecht: M. Th. Houtsma Stiftung, BP 192 S56 SHI Melchert, Christopher. Sufis and competing movements in Nishapur, Iran 39 (2001): P. 670 IRA. Sells, Michael. Early Islamic mysticism: Sufi, Qurʼan, Miraj, poetic and theological writing. New York: Paulist Press, BP188.9 E2 EAR 1996.

3 3 Sviri, Sara. Ḥakīm Tirmidhī and the Malāmatī movement in early Sufism. Pp in Classical Persian Sufism. Edited by Leonard Lewisohn. New York: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, BP I55 C53 CLA Week 2: The Formalization and popularization of Sufism Cornell, Vincent J. Realm of the saint: power and authority in Moroccan Sufism. Austin: University of Texas Press, BP M6 C67 COR 1998 Ref. Graham, Terry. Abū Sa īd ibn Abī l Khayr and the school of Khurasan. Pp in Classical Persian Sufism from its origins to Rumi. Edited by Leonard Lewisohn. London: Khaniqani Nimatullahi Publications, BP188.8 I55 C53 CLA Karamustafa, Ahmet T. God s unruly friends: dervish groups in the Islamic later middle period, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, BP188.6 K37 KAR Meier, Fritz. Khurāsān and the end of classical Sufism. Pp in Essays on Islamic piety and mysticism. Edited by John O Kane and Bernd Radtke. 0. Leiden: Brill, BP189.1 MEI Meri, Joseph W. The cult of saints among Muslims and Jews in medieval Syria. Oxford Oriental monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, BP188.8.S95 M47 MER Netton, Ian Richard. The breath of felicity: adab, aḥwāl, maqāmāt and Abū Najīb al- Suhrawardī. Pp in Classical Persian Sufism from its origins to Rumi. Edited by Leonard Lewisohn. London: Khaniqani Nimatullahi Publications, BP188.8 I55 C53 CLA Silvers-Alario, Laury. The teaching relationship in early Sufism: a reassessment of Fritz Meier s definition of the shaykh al-tarbiya and the shaykh al-ta līm, Muslim world 93 (2003): P.790 MUS. Sobieroj, Florian. Ibn Khafīf s Kitāb al-iqtiṣād and Abū al-najīb al-suhrawardī s Adāb al-murīdīn. A comparison between two works on the training of novices, Journal of Semitic studies 43 (1998): P.740 JOU. Taylor, Christopher S. In the vicinity of the righteous: ziyāra and the veneration of Muslim saints in late medieval Egypt. Islamic history and civilization, studies and texts, 22. Leiden: Brill, BP188.8 E3 T39 TAY Trimingham, Spencer J. The Sufi orders in Islam. Oxford: University Press, 1971, repr BP T75 TRI Chaps 1-3.

4 4 Week 3: The growing importance of Persian and Poetry in Sufism and the school of Ibn Arabī Awn, Peter. Satan s tragedy and redemption: Iblīs in Sufi psychology. Studies in the history of religions 44. Leiden: Brill, BP A95 AWN Pp , 90-96, Chodkiewicz, Michel. An ocean without shore: Ibn Arabî, the Book, and the law. Translated by David Streight. Albany: State University of New York Press, BP80.I2 C49 CHO Ernst, Carl. Words of ecstasy in Sufism. Albany: State University of New York Press, Knysh, Alexander D. Ibn Arabi in the later Islamic tradition: the making of a polemical image in medieval Islam. SUNY series in Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press, BP K58 KNY Lewis, Franklin. Rumi. Past and present, East and West. The life, teaching and poetry of Jalâl al-din [sic] Rumi. Revised edition. Oxford: Oneworld, Intro., Chaps 4, PK6482.L49 LEW Lewisohn, Leonard. Overview: Iranian Islam and Persianate Sufism. Pp in The Legacy of medieval Persian Sufism. Edited by Leonard Lewisohn. London: Khaniqani Nimatullahi Publications, BP188.8 I55 L44 LEW Week 4 Islamic Theology Crone, Patricia. Medieval Islamic political thought. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, DS38.2 CRO Rudolph, Ulrich. Al-Māturīdī and the development of Sunnī theology in Samarqand. Translated by Rodrigo Adem. Islamic history and civilization, studies and texts, 100. Leiden: Brill, BP166.1 R83 RUD 1996 (German version). Also available electronically through SOLO. Madelung, Wilferd. The Murji'a and Sunnite traditionalism, in Religious trends in early Islamic Iran. Albany, N.Y: Persian Heritage Foundation, BP63.I68 M33 MAD 1988.

5 , The theology of al-zamakhshari, in Studies in medieval Muslim thought and history. Farnham: Ashgate Variorum, B741.M33 MAD Schmidtke, Sabine. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, BP166.O94 OXF 2016 Ref. Questions: Discuss the spread of Sufism. What does it mean for Sufism to appear somewhere? Why did Persian and poetry become such prominent features in Islamic mysticism from the 12th century onward? In what ways did the life of a Sufi in the 10th century differ from the life of a Sufi in the 13th/14th century? How do you account for the emergence of antinomian movements in mystical Islam? What were the contributions of the Murji a to later Sunni Islam? What were the main debates that dominated early Islamic theology?