ISLAMIC RELIGION
Dr Christopher Melchert & Dr Nicolai
Sinai
Hilary-Trinity Terms 2012
One Qur’an tutorial with Sinai this week or
the next.
•HT, 6th week
SET TEXTS
Qur’an, 3 hrs (NS)
Qur’an 37 and 5:1–38.
•HT, 7th week
Nawawī, Arbaʿūna ḥadīthan, nos 4, 8, 12,
16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, and 40.
Hadith, 3 hrs (CM)
Ibn Qudāmah. Al-Mughnī. Edited by ʿAbd
Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī and
ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥulw. 15
vols. Cairo: Hajr, 1406-11/1986-90.
9:391-4.
One hadith tutorial with Melchert this week
or the next.
•HT, 8th week
Hadith (al-Nawawī), 3 hrs (CM)
Al-Shaʿrānī. Al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrá. 2 vols in
1. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Muṣṭafá al-Bābī
al-Ḥalabī, 1373/1954. 1:150.
•TT, 1st week
Al-Ghazālī. Tahāfut al-falāsifa. Edited by
S. Dunyā. 6th ed. Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, n.d.
90–100.
One law tutorial with Melchert this week or
next.
ʿAbduh, Muḥammad and Muḥammad
Rashīd Riḍā. Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ḥakīm
al-mushtahir bi-ism Tafsīr al-Manār. 12
vols. 2nd ed. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Manār,
1947–61. 1:7–10.
Law (Ibn Qudāmah), 3 hrs (CM)
•TT, 2nd week
Law (Ibn Qudāmah), 3 hrs (CM)
•TT, 3rd week
Sufism (al-Shaʿrānī), 3 hrs (CM).
Pdf versions of the readings from the
Qur’an, al-Ghazālī and the Tafsīr al-manār
will be distributed by e-mail; please print
these out yourselves and bring them with
you to class. Photocopies of the other set
texts may be obtained for a low price from
Elizabeth Cull in the faculty office on the
third floor (but please approach her all at
once so she knows how many copies to
make). There will be some copies of
Nawawī for sale at £1 each.
SCHEDULE
•HT, 5th week
Qur’an, 3 hrs (NS)
One Sufism tutorial with Melchert this
week or next.
•TT, 4th week
Sufism (al-Shaʿrānī), 3 hrs (CM)
•TT, 5th week
Ghazālī, 3 hrs (NS)
One theology/philosophy tutorial with
Sinai this week or next.
•TT, 6th week
Islamic Religion HT-TT 2012
Ghazālī, 3 hrs (NS)
page 2
•TT, 8th week
introduction to the historical background of
the Qur’an, see the first chapter of Fred
Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At
the Origins of Islam (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2010) or id.,
‘The Background to Islam’, in Michael
Maas, ed., The Cambridge Companion to
the Age of Justinian (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005),
510-33.
Tafsīr al-Manār, 3 hrs (NS).
Suggestions for essays:
About dictionaries. Cowan-Wehr is a fine
dictionary for modern literary Arabic, as
the title says, but it has its limitations when
it comes to medieval Arabic. Three highly
useful dictionaries of medieval Arabic are
Lane at FOL. PJ6640.L3 LAN 1984 and
PJ6635 LAN.2, Biberstein-Kazimirski at
PJ 6635 BIB, and Hava at PJ 6635 HAV
and in various college libraries. The chief
drawback to Lane’s dictionary, a synthesis
of medieval Arabic dictionaries, is that he
died before finishing, so it peters out at qāf.
A continuation at FOL. PJ 6635 WOR
covers kāf and lām. Secondarily, it’s better
for poetry than religion, history, and other
fields. The trouble with Kazimirski is that it
requires French. Hava is a shorter alternative. Specifically on the Qur’an see Arne
Ambros, A Concise Dictionary of Koranic
Arabic (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004).
1) Read the first chapter and a few of the
case studies in Reynolds, The Qurʾān and
Its Biblical Subtext. How does his approach
of reading the Qur’an differ from that
espoused by Carl Ernst and/or Neil Robinson?
•TT, 7th week
Tafsīr al-Manār, 3 hrs (NS).
One tutorial on modern Islamic thought
with Sinai this week or next.
TOPICS FOR TUTORIAL ESSAYS
I. Qur’an. The principal stress of tutorials
will be on the Qur’an in its historical
context, i. e. late antique Arabia and its
literary composition. Be sure to discuss
specific textual examples in your essay.
The best available introductions to the
Qur’an in English are Neal Robinson’s
Discovering the Qur’an: A Contemporary
Approach to a Veiled Text, and Carl Ernst’s
How To Read The QurʾAn: A New Guide,
With Select Translations. For a general
2) Read Ernst’s chapter on the Medinan
surahs and the article by Cuypers.
Critically assess Cuyper’s claim that the
Qur’an displays ring composition on the
basis of the textual examples presented by
him and Ernst.
3) Both Muslim and Western scholars have
attempted to work out a relative dating of
different parts of the Qur’anic corpus (see
chapters 4 and 5 of Robinson, the
encyclopaedia entry by Welch, and the first
chapter of Reynolds, Biblical Subtext).
What are the assumptions und implications
of a chronological reading of the Qur’an?
What are the dating criteria on which it is
based?
4) Whereas Bell, Watt and Welch tend to
view Qur’anic surahs as consisting of
autonomous brief passages, other scholars
such as Neuwirth, Robinson and Cuypers
have argued for a more holistic approach to
individual surahs. Assess their different
approaches on the basis of concrete textual
examples. What do they imply about the
text’s genesis?
Islamic Religion HT-TT 2012
5) Discuss, on the basis of chapters 2 and 3
of Robinson, Discovering and the articles
by Motzki and Crone, whether we can
confidently say where and when the
Qur’anic corpus has emerged.
page 3
Surveys 8. Edinburgh: University Press,
1970. BP 130 BEL.1.
Welch, Alford. ‘Al-Ḳurʾān’.
Encyclopaedia of Islam. New edition.
Leiden: Brill, 1960–2002, vol. 5, 400-432.
Bibliography:
Crone, Patricia. ‘How did the
quranic pagans make a living?’ Bulletin of
the School of Oriental and African Studies
68 (2005): 387-99.
Cuypers, Michel. ‘Semitic Rhetoric
as a Key to the Question of the Naẓm of the
Qur’anic Text’, Journal of Qur’anic
Studies 13/1 (2011): 1-24.
Motzki, Harald. ‘Alternative
Accounts of the Qurʾān’s Formation’. Pp.
59–75 in The Cambridge Companion to the
Qur’an, ed. Jane D. McAuliffe. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Neuwirth, Angelika. ‘Structural,
linguistic and literary features’. Pp. 97-113
in The Cambridge Companion to the
Qur’an. Edited by Jane D. McAuliffe.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006.
Robinson, Neal. Discovering the
Qur’an: A Contemporary Approach to a
Veiled Text. London: SCM, 1996. BOD
M98.E12025. BP 130 ROB. Also 2nd edn.
(2003) BOD M04.E01906.
Ernst, Carl. How to Read the
Qurʾan: A New Guide, With Select Translations. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2011.
Reynolds, Gabriel S. The Qurʾān
and Its Biblical Subtext. London:
Routledge, 2010.
Watt, W. Montgomery, reviser.
Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’ān. Islamic
II. Hadith. See Pouzet for an excellent
commentary on the set text. Dickinson,
chap. 6, offers an excellent summary of
how early-medieval hadith criticism actually worked. You can retrace the steps of a
medieval critic by analysing the asānīd to
half a dozen versions of one hadith report.
In Ibn Ḥajar or Mizzī, look up the names of
the transmitters and record where they were
from and when they died, if known.
(Among the Six Books, Muslim’s is the
easiest to use for this purpose, as he often
provides multiple versions one after
another. Al-Kutub al-sittah includes a
reasonable edition.) Then look up names in
Ibn Ḥajar. See Juynboll’s introduction and
Motzki, ‘Dating’, for alternative accounts
of how to date hadith reports.
Alternatively, you might read half a dozen
biographies in Ibn ʿAdī, then decide what
method he uses to come to his conclusions
about the reliability of different traditionists.
Bibliography: primary sources.
Ibn ʿAdī al-Qaṭṭān (d. Gurgan,
365/975-6?). Al-Kāmil fī ḍuʿafāʾ al-rijāl. 6
vols. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1404/1984. FOL
BP 135.2 ADI.
Ibn Ḥajar (d. Cairo, 852/1449).
Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb. 12 vols. Hyderabad:
Majlis Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-Niẓāmīyah,
1325-7. BP 135.2 ASQ.1.
Al-Kutub al-sittah. Mawsūʿat
al-ḥadīth al-sharīf. Riyadh: Dār al-Salām,
1420/1999. FOL BP 135 SHAY.
Islamic Religion HT-TT 2012
Al-Mizzī (d. Damascus, 742/1341).
Tahdhīb al-Kamāl fī maʿrifat al-rijāl.
Edited by Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf. 35
vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah,
1980-92/1400-13. BP 135.2 MIZ.
page 4
(e.g. as to whether sunnah may abrogate
Qur’an). Vol. 16 of Māwardī, al-Ḥāwī, is
mainly devoted to uṣūl al-fiqh. Some other
sources are listed below. It will probably
help to read the treatment of the same
problem in Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī or Weiss.
Bibliography: secondary sources.
Dickinson, Eerik. The Development
of Early Sunnite Ḥadīth Criticism. Islamic
History and Civilization, Studies and Texts,
38. Leiden: Brill, 2001. BP136 HAT.D.
Also M01.E11903.
Juynboll, G. H. A. Encyclopedia of
Canonical Ḥadīth. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
BP135.2 JUY. Also Arab. d. 18152.
Motzki, Harald. ‘Dating Muslim
traditions: a survey’, Arabica 52 (2005):
204-53. P 790 ARA.
Pouzet, Louis. Une herméneutique
de la Tradition islamique: la commentaire
des «al-Arbaʿūn an-Nawawīya».
Recherches. Nouvelle série, A, Langue
arabe et pensée islamique 13. Beirut: Dar
el-Machreq Sarl, 1982. BP 135 NAW.5.
III. Islamic law. Here are three suggested
topics for investigation.
1) How schools argue for their rules. Read
five pages of some fairly detailed book of
Islamic law (in the OI Library, again, Ibn
Qudāmah and Māwardī are especially
recommended). Discuss how the argument
proceeds; e.g. how the author deals with
contradictory hadith, to what degree the
author sticks to revealed sources. It will
probably help to read the treatment of the
same problem in Ibn al-Naqīb or Ibn
Rushd.
2) Uṣūl al-fiqh. Read a section of any two
books of uṣūl al-fiqh. That on ijmāʿ is
usually the most compact; that on naskh
may be the most immediately interesting
3) The Qur’an in Islamic law. Compare
Crone, ‘Two Legal Problems’ (to whom
discrepancies between qur’anic rules and
early juristic discussions suggest the
Qur’an was not available to Muslim jurists
in its present form until a century after the
death of the Prophet) and Burton (to whom
discrepancies suggest the special development of qur’anic exegesis).
Alternatively, take one of the essential
duties (ritual purity, ritual prayer, alms,
fasting, and pilgrimage) and gather the
relevant qur’anic passages. What aspects
are covered by the Qur’an, what are not?
Are there any evident contradictions
between the law and the Qur’an?
Alternatively, again: look up some topic in
a book of law, then compare two or three
qur’anic commentaries on a relevant verse.
(For cursory presentations of Islamic law,
see Ibn al-Naqīb, Ibn Rushd, Maghnīyah,
al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, Schacht, Introduction,
and al-Zuḥaylī; also The Encyclopaedia of
Islam.)
Alternatively, find two multivolume
accounts of Islamic law (one that gives not
only the rules but arguments for them) and
read corresponding sections in each to see
how they use the Qur’an. In the OI Library,
Ibn Qudāmah and al-Māwardī are especially recommended. You might like to look
over the relevant section of Ibn al-Naqīb or
Ibn Rushd, first, to acquaint yourself with
the issues; e.g. if you chose to look into the
penalty for stealing, it would be helpful to
see what Ibn al-Naqīb or Ibn Rushd says
about it first, then look up the more detailed
Islamic Religion HT-TT 2012
treatment in Ibn Qudāmah or al-Māwardī.
page 5
1395. BP 153 KHAT. Includes a review of
uṣūl al-fiqh.
Bibliography: primary sources.
Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī. Kitāb
al-Lumaʿ fī uṣūl al-fiqh. Le Livre des Rais
illuminant les fondements de la compréhension de la Loi. Traité de théorie légale
musulmane. Translated and edited with
introduction by Eric Chaumont. Studies in
Comparative Legal History. Berkeley:
Robbins Collection, 1999. BP 153 SHI.5.
Translation of an 11th-century Shāfiʿi work
on uṣūl al-fiqh with extensive notes.
Al-Ghazālī (d. Tus, 505/1111).
Al-Mustas.fá min ʿilm al-uṣūl. 2 vols. Bulaq:
al-Maṭbaʿah al-Amīrīyah, 1322-4. BP 153
GHA. Easier-to-read editions at the
Bodleian.
Ibn al-Naqīb (d. Cairo, 769/1368).
The Reliance of the Traveller. Translated
by Noah Ha Mim Keller. Evanston, Ill.:
Sunna Books, 1991. BP 153 NAQ.
Unimportant in itself, but this is a reliable
translation (just about the only one) of a
manual of Shāfiʿi law (except that certain
distasteful books have been omitted; e.g. on
slavery).
Ibn Rushd (d. Marrakech,
595/1198). The Distinguished Jurist’s
Primer. Translated by Imran Ahsan Nyazee
with Muhammad Abdul Rauf. 2 vols. Great
Books of Islamic Civilization. Reading:
Garnet, 2000. BP 154 RUS.2. McGowan
Z/RUS. BOD Arab. d. 10565, M01.E06041,
M01.E07316. A translation of Bidāyat
al-mujtahid wa-nihāyat al-muqtaṣid, the
great philosopher’s survey of khilāf; i.e. the
different Sunni schools’s opinions on
questions of law.
Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. Baghdad,
463/1071). Al-Faqīh wa-al-mutafaqqih.
Edited by Ismāʿīl al-Anṣārī. 2 vols. in 1.
N.p.: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Sunnah al-Nabawīyah,
Al-Māwardī (d. Baghdad,
450/1058). Al-Ḥāwī al-kabīr. Edited by
ʿAlī Muḥammad Muʿawwaḍ and ʿĀdil
Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Mawjūd. 20 vols. Beirut:
Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyah, 1414/1994. BP
153 MAW.10.
Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. Cairo,
363/974). Daʿāʾim al-islām. Edited by
ʿĀṣif ibn ʿAlī Aṣghar Fayḍī. 2 vols. Cairo:
Dār al-Maʿārif, 1379-83/1960-3. BP 156
NUM. The Pillars of Islam. Translated by
Asaf A. A. Fyzee. Revised and annotated
by Kurban Husein Poonawala. Oxford:
University Press, 2002-4. BP 156 NUM.
Also M04.F05966. The only extant manual
of Fāṭimi law.
Bibliography: secondary sources.
Burton, John. ‘The Corruption of
the Scriptures’, Occasional Papers of the
School of Abbasid Studies, no. 4, 1992
(1994), 95-106. DS 62.4 SCH.
——————. ‘The Interpretation
of Q 4,23 and the Muslim Theories of
Naskh’, Occasional Papers of the School of
Abbasid Studies, no. 1 (1986), 40-54. DS
62.4 SCH.
——————. ‘Law and Exegesis:
The Penalty for Adultery in Islam’. Pages
269-84 in Approaches to the Qurʾān.
Edited by G. R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader
A. Shareef. London: Routledge, 1993. BP
130 HAW.
——————. ‘The Qurʾān and
the Islamic Practice of wuḍūʾ’ Bulletin of
the School of Oriental and African Studies
1 (1988): 21-58. P. 100 BUL.
——————. The Sources of
Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abro-
Islamic Religion HT-TT 2012
gation. Edinburgh: University Press, 1990.
BP 145 BUR.
——————. ‘Those Are the
High-Flying Cranes’, Journal of Semitic
Studies 15 (1970): 246-65. P. 740 JOU.
——————. ‘The “Travel
Prayer”: ṣalāt al-safar’, Occasional Papers
of the School of Abbasid Studies, no. 2
(1988), 57-87. DS 62.4 SCH.
Crone, Patricia. ‘Two Legal
Problems Bearing on the Early History of
the Qurʾān’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic
and Islam, no. 18 (1994), 1-37. P. 790 JER.
Maghnīyah, Muḥammad Jawād.
Al-Fiqh ʿalá al-madhāhib al-khamsah. 6th
edn. Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm lil-Malāyīn, 1979.
Arab. d. 10155. Extends to Twelver law.
page 6
2) Is it sensible to try to write a history of
Sufism? Karamustafa has been declared
much more successful at this than
Schimmel and Ernst. Do you agree? What
are the advantages of their approach?
3) Discuss the spread of Sufism. Besides
Karamustafa, chap. 3, read Chabbi,
Melchert, & Sviri on Khurasan, Marín on
Andalusia, and Cornell on North Africa.
What does it mean for Sufism to appear
somewhere?
4) Read al-Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 431-2, against
loose talk of jamʿ (‘union’). Compare from
Qushayrī, Hujvīrī, and other sources what
early sources said about jamʿ. Were the
Sufis hypocrites who said one thing among
themselves but something else to outsiders?
Bibliography: primary sources.
Schacht, Joseph. An Introduction to
Islamic Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1964. BP 144 SCH.1.
Weiss, Bernard G. The Search for
God’s Law. Islamic Jurisprudence in the
Writings of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī. Salt Lake
City: University of Utah Press, 1992. BP
153 AMI.W. Paraphrase of a 13th-century
Shāfiʿi work on uṣūl al-fiqh.
Zuḥaylī, Wahbah. Al-Fiqh al-islāmī
wa-adillatuhā. 11 vols. 4th corrected edn.
Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1425/2004. BP 144
ZUH. Most detailed modern survey of
disagreements among the schools.
Ibn Ḥajar (d. Cairo, 852/1449). Al-Durar
al-kāminah fī aʿyān al-miʾah al-thāminah.
4 vols. Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Majlis Dāʾirat
al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmānīyah, 1348-50. DS
42 HAJ.
Al-Sakhāwī (d. Medina, 902/1497).
Al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ li-ahl al-qarn al-tāsiʿ.
Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsī, 1353-5. DS 42
SAK.
IV. Sufism
Al-Sarrāj (d. Nishapur? 378/988). The
Kitáb al-Lumaʿ fi ʾl-taṣawwuf. Edited by
Reynold Alleyne Nicholson. E. J. W.
Gibb Memorial Series 22. Leiden: E. J.
Brill & London: Luzac & Co., 1914. Or.
d.25 (22). (IND) 53 C 27/22. BP189 SAR.
Suggestions for essay topics:
Bibliography: secondary sources.
1) A research question. How did Sufis fit
into the civilian élite? Survey a random
sample of, say, 100 biographies from either
Ibn Ḥajar, al-Durar al-kāminah, or
al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ.
Chabbi, Jacqueline. ‘Remarques sur le
développement historique des mouvements
ascétiques et mystiques au Khurasan’,
Studia Islamica, 46, 1977, 5-72. P. 790
STU.
Islamic Religion HT-TT 2012
Cornell, Vincent J. Realm of the Saint:
Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.
Gladstone Link Open Shelves, (UBHU)
M03.E17472.
Karamustafa, Ahmet T. Sufism: The
Formative Period. New Edinburgh Islamic
surveys. Edinburgh: University Press, 2007.
BP 189.1 KAR.1 PMB Z/KAR.
Marín, Manuela. ‘The Early Development
of Zuhd in al-Andalus’. Pp. 83-96 in Shīʿa
Islam, Sects and Sufism. Edited by Frederick De Jong. Utrecht: M. Th. Houtsma
Stiftung, 1992. BP 192 S56 SHI 1992.
Melchert, Christopher. ‘Sufis and
Competing Movements in Nishapur’, Iran
39 (2001): 237-47. P. 670 IRA.
Al-Qushayrī (d. Nishapur, 465/1072).
Al-Risālah, bāb al-jamʿ wa-al-farq. Also
Al-Qushayri’s Epistle on Sufism.
Translated by Alexander D. Knysh,
reviewed by Muhammad Eissa. Great
Books of Islamic Civilization. Reading:
Garnet Publishing, 2007. 87-91.
M07.E13223. BP 189 QUS.4.
Sviri, Sara. ‘Ḥakīm Tirmidhī and the
Malāmatī Movement in Early Sufism’. Pp.
583-613 in Classical Persian Sufism.
Edited by Leonard Lewisohn. New York:
Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1993.
BP 189.1 LEW.1.
V. Theology (kalām) and philosophy
page 7
acquired a basic grasp of the historical
sequence and internal evolution of both
schools.)
2) Avicenna was arguably the most
influential representative of falsafah whose
synthesis of Islamic Aristotelianism
reverberated for centuries to come and
engaged generations of later thinkers.
Based on McGinnis, Avicenna, and the
relevant chapters of Davidson’s two books,
present Avicenna’s position on a particular
philosophical issue, such as the structure of
the universe, the nature of the human soul,
or the possibility of proving the existence
of God. Make sure you do not simply
reproduce McGinnis’ and Davidson’s
paraphrases of Avicenna. One way of doing
this is to try to raise objections to
Avicenna’s assumptions and to the
arguments he constructs. It might also be
interesting to think about whether
Avicenna can, in your view, be said to
attempt to harmonize Aristotelian
philosophy with Islam.
3) Although al-Ghazālī considered at least
some of the ideas advanced by philosophers such as al-Fārābī and Ibn Sinai to
be heretical, he also proved to be an
important gateway for the introduction of
philosophical ideas and concepts into
Ashʿarite theology and has even been
accused of intellectual disingenuity. Outline and assess al-Ghazālī’s stance towards
the practice of philosophy (in doing so,
address the difference of opinion between
Griffel and Marmura) and/or his importance for the further evolution of Islamic
theology.
Suggestions for essay topics:
1) On the basis of the articles by Frank,
Hourani, and van Ess, present and compare
the Muʿtazilites’ and Ashʿarites’ understanding of the structure of the natural
world, of human action, and of the nature of
ethical norms. (Make sure that you have
Bibliography
(i) Early and classical (pre-1100) kalām
– van Ess, Josef, ‘Muʿtazilah’, in
Encyclopedia of Religion. 2nd ed. Edited by
Lindsay Jones. Detroit: Macmillan, 2005.
Islamic Religion HT-TT 2012
– Frank, R. M., ‘Ashʿari, al-’, and
‘Ashʿariyah’, in Encyclopedia of Religion.
2nd ed. Edited by Lindsay Jones. Detroit:
Macmillan, 2005.
–––––––––––. ‘Several Fundamental
Assumptions of the Baṣra School of the
Muʿtazila’, Studia Islamica, no 33 (1971),
5–18.
– Hourani, George F., ‘Two Theories of
Value in Early Islam’. Pp. 57-66 in id.
Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1985.
(ii) Falsafah from al-Kindī to Averroes
– Pines, Shlomo. ‘Philosophy’. Pp.
780-823 in The Cambridge History of
Islam 2 B: Islamic Society and Civilization.
Edited by P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton,
and Bernard Lewis. (Although this essay is
forty years old, Pines’ erudition is not
easily rivalled.)
– McGinnis, Jon. Avicenna. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010. (An
engaging and comprehensive survey of
Avicenna’s philosophical system based on
his Kitāb ash-Shifāʾ.)
– Davidson, Herbert A. Proofs for Eternity,
Creation, and the Existence of God in
Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. (A
study of different types of arguments for
and against the eternity of the world and for
the existence of God. Makes for dense
reading, but has very good summaries at
the end of sections and chapters; go to these
first and then read the remainder of the
book selectively.)
– Davidson, Herbert A. Alfarabi, Avicenna,
and Averroes, on Intellect. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992. (A thorough study
of central aspects of the cosmology and
epistemology of the three philosophers
listed in the title, and their influence and
page 8
subsequent thinkers. Again, go to the
summaries first.)
(iii) Philosophy and theology after 1100
– Griffel, Frank. Al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009. (Tries to make sense of the
fact that al-Ghazālī both puts forward a
sustained criticism of falsafah, yet adapts
numerous philosophical teachings, albeit
in an Islamicized guise. For a summary
overview see Frank Griffel, “Al-Ghazali,”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/al-ghazali/
.)
– Marmura, Michael E. ‘Al-Ghazālī’. Pp.
137-54 in The Cambridge Companion to
Arabic Philosophy. Edited by Peter
Adamson and Richard C. Taylor.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2005.
– Shihadeh, Ayman. ‘From al-Ghazālī to
al-Rāzī: 6th / 12th Century Developments in
Muslim Philosophical Theology’, Arabic
Sciences and Philosophy 15 (2005):
141-79. (Good overview of the century
that follows the death of al-Ghazālī.)
V. Modern Islamic thought
Suggested essay topics:
1) What is the attitude towards the classical
Islamic heritage that can be discerned in the
writings of Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Rashīd
Riḍā? Give examples.
2) Explore the extent to which Sayyid Quṭb
can be considered to develop and transform
the thought of ʿAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā, or
to mark a decisive break with them.
– Adams, Charles C. Islam and Modernism
in Egypt. Oxford: University Press, 1933.
Islamic Religion HT-TT 2012
– Calvert, John. Sayyid Qutb and the
Origins of Radical Islamism. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2010.
– Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the
Liberal Age 1789–1939. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1962.
– von Kügelgen, Anke. ‘ʿAbduh,
Muḥammad.’ Encyclopaedia of Islam
Three. Edited by Gudrun Krämer, Denis
Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett
Rowson. Leiden: Brill,
http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entri
es/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/abduh-muha
mmad-COM_0103?s.num=0&s.rows=20&
s.q=Abduh&s.f.s2_parent_title=s.f.book.E
ncyclopaedia+of+Islam%2C+THREE
– Sedgwick, Mark. Muhammad Abduh.
Oxford: Oneworld, 2009.
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