Light upon Light: Essays in Islamic Thought and History in Honor of Gerhard Bowering

Jamal J. Elias is Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies and South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of numerous publications on a broad range of subjects relevant to the medieval and modern Islamic world.Bilal Orfali is Professor and Sheikh Zayed Chair for Arabic and Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut. He specializes in Arabic literature, Sufism, and Quranic Studies. He co-edits al-Abhath Journal and Brill’s book series Texts and Studies on the Qurʾān. He is the author and editor of more than twenty books on a broad range of subjects relevant to Arabic and Islamic Studies.

“It is an impressive collection of essays that pays real tribute to a great scholar and teacher.” Sotiris S. Livas, Ionian University in: Journal of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 30 (2021).

• PrefacePublications by Gerhard BoweringNotes on ContributorsPART 1Quran and Early IslamScholarship and Folklore? A Comparison of the Earliest Sources: ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr and Wahb b. al-Munabbih (Mareike Koertner)The Rise of Islam in a Judeo-Christian Context(Jonathan Brockopp)Biblical Turns of Phrase in the Quran(Gabriel Said Reynolds)The Interpretation of the Covenant Verse in Classical Imami Theology(Hussein Ali Abdulsater)Kitāb intizāʿāt al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm: A Compendium of Quranic Quotations Attributed to the Fatimid Secretary Abū l-Qāsim ʿAlī Ibn al-Ṣayrafī (d. 542/1147)(Bilal W. Orfali)PART 2Sufism, Shi’ism, and EsotericismRisāla fī l-ṣifāt wa-ʿilm al-tawḥīd: A Sufī Treatise Attributed to Abū Saʿīd Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899)(Nada Saab)Shiʿi Literature in the Late Ninth Century: Isḥāq al-Aḥmar al-Nakhaʿī (d. 286/899) and His Writings(Mushegh Asatryan)The Treatise on the Ascension (al-Risāla al-miʿrājiyya): Cosmology and Time in the Writings of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Shushtarī (d. 668/1269) (Yousef Casewit)The Image of Qalandar in the Dīvān-i Shams(Janis Esots)Pseudo-Shaykh Bahāʾī on the Supreme Name, a Safavid-Qajar Lettrist Classic(Matthew Melvin-Koushki)Sufism and Islamic Identity in Jalaluddin Rumi’s Anatolia(Jamal J. Elias)India as a Sufi Spacetime in the Work of Jamālī of Delhi(Shahzad Bashir)PART 3PhilosophyKnowledge on Display: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's Universal Compendium(Amina M. Steinfels)Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Taxonomy of Extraordinary Acts (Tariq Jaffer)Believing Is Seeing: The Universe in the Eyes of al-Bīrūnī and Ibn Sīnā(Mahan Mirza)Al-Ghazālī’s Philosophical Soteriology(Alexander Treiger)Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and the Art of Knowing(Joseph Lumbard)PART 4Literature and CultureReligious Satire in the Maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānī(Matthew Ingalls)Doctrinal Anxiety and Social Reality regarding Music and Dance in Mamluk Cairo: Ibn al-Ḥājj on al-Samāʿ, To Sing or Not: The Case against Music(Li Guo)Index of Arabic and Persian TermIndex of Proper Names