Islamic History and Thought – Serie

For believers in a resurrection of the body, there arises the question of what happens after death but before the Last Day: the intermediate state. For most Muslims, the intermediate state is the barzakh. It is a fantastical and frightening time in the grave. The present study will examine where the belief in the barzakh comes from through a study of the Qur'an.

This in-depth study examines the relation between legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) and speculative theology (ʿīlm al-kalām). It compares the legal theory of four classical jurists who belonged to the same school of law, the Shāfiʿī school, yet followed three different theological traditions. The aim of this comparison is to understand to what extent, and in what way, the theology of each jurist shaped his choices in legal theory.

This volume explores aspects of religious culture in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula across Late Antiquity – the period of dynamic and historically crucial developments, culminating in the emergence of Islam. While it would be impossible to provide an exhaustive examination of the topic in a single volume, it is the main aim of this book to further stimulate scholarly research on the Late Antique context of the origins of Islam and the history of early Arab-Muslim culture.

‘Abd al-‘Azīz b. Marwān (d. 86/705) reigned as the amīr of Egypt and walī al-‘ahd (heir apparent) to the Islamic caliphate for over 20 years. This book intends to revive this largely forgotten amīr and demonstrate the critical role he played in the formation of the Marwānid dynasty. The founding thesis of this study is that ‘Abd al-‘Azīz was appointed the amīr of Egypt and second heir apparent due to the legitimacy his maternal lineage brought the nascent dynasty.

This important work is a source-critical study of a group of traditions (aḥādīth) found in Ibn Isḥāq's Biography (Sīra) of the prophet Muḥammad, widely considered one of the most important early historical texts on the Prophet's life. Through a meticulous isnād-cum-matn analysis, the author reveals that Ibn Isḥāq relied on Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad, a hitherto undocumented source of his. Important new light is also shed on problems with Ibn Hishām’s recension of Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra.

This study of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s (d. 631/1233) teachings on creation offers close analysis of all of his extant works of falsafa and kalām. Some of these were not known to previous scholars, yet they bear witness to key facets of the interaction between the historically inimical traditions of Hellenic philosophy and rational theology at this important intellectual moment. Al-Āmidī is seen to grapple with the encounter of two paradigms for the discussion of creation. On the one hand, Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysical concept of necessity of existence is the basis of his doctrine of the world’s pre-eternal emanation. On the other, for the mutakallimūn, the physical theory of atomism bolsters the view that God created the world from nothing. This study is of interest to scholars of Ibn Sīnā and Ash‘arism alike, as it advances our understanding of the ongoing tradition of rational theology in the Islamic world, long past Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) famous attack on the philosophers.

What is the nature and social role of women? In today’s Shi‘ism, these questions are often answered through the “separate-but- equal” ideology which emphasizes the role of women as wives and mothers, and places men in authority. But is this the only ideology which can be derived from Shi‘i scriptural sources? This book takes a more nuanced approach to that question by exploring how women are portrayed in hadith on ancient sacred narrative – the stories of the prophets. It shows far more diverse views on what it means to be a woman (and, by extension, a man) – and that early Shi‘is held competing views about ideals for women.

The fact that many features are standard to the oldest surviving mosques suggests that a canonical type, mostly a courtyard surrounded by four porticoes, did exist early in Islamic history. While the structure built by the Prophet in Madina, soon after the Hijra in 622 AD, is believed by many to have later provided the prototype of the mosque, the dominant theory that it was only a private residence casts doubt on that belief. The current study provides fresh evidence, based on the Qurʾān, ḥadīth and early poetry, that this structure was indeed built to be a mosque.

This study challenges the conventional image of the tenth-century Sufi mystic Al-Husayn Ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāğ (d. 929) as an anti-philosophical mystic. Unlike the predominantly theological or text-historical studies which constitute much of the scholarly literature on Ḥallāğ, this study is completely philosophical in nature, placing Ḥallāğ within the tradition of Graeco-Arabic philosophy and emphasizing, in a positive light, his continuity with the pagan Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus.

The only child of Muhammad to survive him, Fâṭima was from early times taken up by Shî’a Islam, for whose adherents she is the virgin mother, the heavenly intercessor with untold power before God’s throne, and the grieving mother of al-Husayn, the Shî’a's most important martyr. During her life she was impoverished and weak, neglected, marginalized, and divested of justice: but her reward in heaven comprises incalculable riches, all those in heaven will bow their heads to her, and her company will be the angels and the friends of God. Here, for the first time, her story is told.

As Abû ʿAbd Allâh al-Ḥusayn, son of ʿAlî and Fâṭima and grandson of Muḥammad, moved inexorably towards death on the field of Karbalâʾ, his sister Zaynab was drawn ever closer to the centre of the family of Muḥammad, the ‘people of the house’ (ahl al-bayt). There she would remain for a few historic days, challenging the wickedness of the Islamic leadership, defending the actions of her brother, initiating the commemorative rituals, protecting and nurturing the new Imâm, al-Ḥusayn’s son ʿAlî b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlî b. Abî Ṭâlib, until he could take his rightful place. This is her story.

The only child of Muhammad to survive him, Fâṭima was from early times taken up by Shî’a Islam, for whose adherents she is the virgin mother, the heavenly intercessor with untold power before God’s throne, and the grieving mother of al-Husayn, the Shi’a's most important martyr. During her life she was impoverished and weak, neglected, marginalized, and divested of justice: but her reward in heaven comprises incalculable riches, all those in heaven will bow their heads to her, and her company will be the angels and the friends of God. Here, for the first time, her story is told.

The present work provides a new edition and substantial German commentary of the important theological Arabic work Al-Tamhīd fī bayān al-tauḥīd (“Introduction to the explanation of monotheism”) by the 5th/11th century scholar Abū Shakūr al-Sālimī. The work and its author belong to the theological school that succeeded Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (died 333/944) and still serve as important markers of Sunnī theology into the nineteenth century.

When, on an autumn Medina night in 61/680, the night that saw al-Ḥusayn killed, Umm Salama was torn from her sleep by an apparition of a long-dead Muḥammad, she slipped effortlessly into a progression of her co-religionists who, irrespective of status, gender or standing with God, were the recipients of dark and arresting visions. At the core of those Delphian dreams, peopled by angels or ğinn or esteemed forbears and textured with Iraqi dust and martyrs' blood, was the Karbalāʾ event. Her dream would be recounted by an array of Muslim scholars, from al-Tirmiḏī, stellar pupil of al-Buḫārī, and Ibn ʿAsākir, untiring chronicler of Syrian history, to bibliophile theologian Ibn Ṭāʾūs and Egyptian polymath al-Suyūṭī. But this was not Umm Salama’s only otherworldly encounter and she was not the only one to have al-Ḥusayn’s fate disturb her nights. This is their story.

As Abû ʿAbd Allâh al-Ḥusayn, son of ʿAlî and Fâṭima and grandson of Muḥammad, moved inexorably towards death on the field of Karbalâʾ, his sister Zaynab was drawn ever closer to the centre of the family of Muḥammad, the ‘people of the house’ (ahl al-bayt). There she would remain for a few historic days, challenging the wickedness of the Islamic leadership, defending the actions of her brother, initiating the commemorative rituals, protecting and nurturing the new Imâm, al-Ḥusayn’s son ʿAlî b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlî b. Abî Ṭâlib, until he could take his rightful place. This is her story.

The Futūḥ al-Shām (The Conquests of Greater Syria), usually attributed to Abū Ismāʿīl Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Azdī al-Baṣrī, is one of the primary sources used for historians studying the early Muslim expansion into Greater Syria. This study revaluates the Futūḥ al-Shām narrative and the question of its compiler-author, investigating the history of the narrative as text through an analysis of a new manuscript and important parallel texts, and revisiting the evidence and hypotheses previous scholars have put forward on both al-Azdī’s life and the Futūḥ al-Shām narrative’s text. It thus offers an overview of the history of Oriental and Islamic Studies on the basis of one work.

When, on an autumn Medina night in 61/680, the night that saw al-Ḥusayn killed, Umm Salama was torn from her sleep by an apparition of a long-dead Muḥammad, she slipped effortlessly into a progression of her co-religionists who, irrespective of status, gender or standing with God, were the recipients of dark and arresting visions. At the core of those Delphian dreams, peopled by angels or ğinn or esteemed forbears and textured with Iraqi dust and martyrs’ blood, was the Karbalāʾ event. Her dream would be recounted by an array of Muslim scholars, from al-Tirmiḏī, stellar pupil of al-Buḫārī, and Ibn ʿAsākir, untiring chronicler of Syrian history, to bibliophile theologian Ibn Ṭāʾūs and Egyptian polymath al-Suyūṭī. But this was not Umm Salama’s only otherworldly encounter and she was not the only one to have al-Ḥusayn’s fate disturb her nights. This is their story.

A translation of al-Samarqandī's Bustān al-ʿārifīn – a tenth-century religio-legal primer to navigating the chaos and conflict of everyday life – accompanied by an introduction to its literary and historical contexts, and an accessible commentary exploring the larger themes encountered in the work.