The Particular Will (al-irāda al-juz’iyya): Excavations regarding a latecomer in kalām terminology on human agency and its position in Naqshbandi discourse (original) (raw)
Related papers
Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-c. 1750, edited by T. Krstic and D. Terzioglu, 2020
Although still far from providing a comprehensive picture, recent research on Islamic theology in post-fourteenth-century Central Asia as well as the Ottoman and Safavid realms has challenged the long-established view that in the "postclassical" era, and especially in these regions, the works on kalām became repetitive and derivative at best, or that the discipline experienced a complete demise, at worst.1 This view has long obfuscated new directions and tendencies in later kalām, often articulated in neglected glosses, commentaries, and supercommentaries on the works of older masters, which offer plentiful evidence of what Khaled El-Rouayheb has identified as new "textualphilological methodologies" through which scholars engaged with past works and arguments, not with the purpose of blindly imitating (taqlīd) but elaborating and/or independently verifying them (taḥqīq).2 Reflecting on recent efflorescence in research on early modern Islamic intellectual history, Matthew Melvin-Khoushki observed that unlike their European contemporaries who famously insisted on going back to and emulating the ancients, Ottoman scholars were perfectly content to textually inherit ancient learning through the "well-burnished prism" of their immediate Timurid, Turkmen, and Mamluk scholarly predecessors. Nevertheless, both Islamic and European scholars engaged in translating, commenting on, refining, critiquing, rejecting, subverting, and editing their intellectual patrimony-practices that Melvin-Khoushki groups under the broad rubric of taḥqīq, or verification through independent reasoning-which, he suggests, constituted "a new epistemic style that is distinctively early modern."3 1 For a critical overview of this stance as well as decline narratives that converged on the Ottoman period, see El-Rouayheb, Islamic intellectual history 173-174, 102. Other critical studies include Spannaus, Theology in Central Asia; Özervarlı, Theology in the Ottoman lands; essays in Demir et al. (eds.), Osmanlı'da ilm-i kelâm; Badeen, Sunnitische Theologie; Yazıcıoğlu, Le kalâm, etc. 2 El-Rouayheb, Islamic intellectual history 97-128. On commentaries and supercommentaries, see ibid. 33; Ahmed, Post-classical; Saleh, The gloss as intellectual history. 3 Melvin-Khoushki, Taḥqīq vs. taqlīd 214 and 216.
THE KONYA SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY AS A HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK OF OTTOMAN THOUGHT
Konya School of Philosophy, 2012
Every history faces the problem of periodization, and in order to avoid this problem, we may question the usefulness and legitimacy of periodization. However, this would be denying our understanding of history itself, as well as the more practical way of studying a long history through its properly divided periods. We perceive historical events as meaningful through epistemological frames called 'periods', and if the concept of historical periods is perceived in this sense, it becomes indispensable for any historical study. Thus, we may try to periodize the history of Ottoman thought. Periodization however, cannot take place through just a chronology of events. It must be based on the major trends and the spirit of times. In order to elicit these characteristics of Ottoman thought, we need to cover most of the related materials so that we can come up with a cogent periodization of this history. Unfortunately, until now there is no sufficient study on Ottoman thought to give us a satisfactory division of its periods. For this reason, as a provisional study, we shall divide the history of Ottoman thought simply into two periods: the first is the early period which covers the times from the beginning of the Ottomans until the end of the 17 th century, and the second is the late period which covers the rest of Ottoman history. This periodization is not done haphazardly; it follows the significant changes in Ottoman thought. The Early Period covers the early phases of the Islamic philosophical tradition in the Ottoman Age and its development until the end of the 17th century. Following this century it is possible to observe a sharp change in Ottoman thought and, in this sense, in Islamic thought in general. This change basically represents a decline rather than a change in its spirit and dynamics. Moreover, Ottoman thought cannot be evaluated independently of Islamic thought because it is the continuation of its philosophical ________________
Verifying the Truth on Their Own Terms, 2023
The present volume offers a detailed analysis of a fifteenth-century court debate on God’s unicity (tawḥīd), involving the Ottoman scholars Mollā Zeyrek (d. 903/1497-98 [?]) and Ḫocazāde Muṣliḥuddīn Muṣṭafā (d. 893/1488), as a chance to highlight the dynamics of knowledge production at the time: in post-classical Islamic scholarship, an essential element of the process was scholars’ adroitness in synthesizing arguments from differing schools of philosophy and theology – via close readings of past masters. This dialectic unfolded during a period of imperial restructuring, at a time when Sultan Meḥmed II (d. 886/1481) realized his cosmopolitan and universalistic ambitions through his persistent patronage of philosophy and science, a case that is illustrated by his glorious palatine library. The setting, audience, and format of the debate, along with the analyses reveal that the production of knowledge in the early modern Islamic world was intricate, vibrant, and dynamic – not stale or derivative as previously thought. This book attempts at reconstructing the debate through the information found in bio-bibliographical sources, and comments on certain social and cultural aspects of the fifteenth-century Ottoman scholarship. Analyses of lemmata in the plethora of commentaries and glosses reveal that Ottoman scholars could posit numerous and disparate doctrinal positions, each referencing specific texts, through which the scholars gave their own syntheses based on their unique perspectives. This method of scholarly arbitration is called ‘verification’ (taḥqīq) and is exemplified here in Ḫocazāde’s defense and recontextualization of Avicennan philosophy in early Ottoman philosophical theology. The court debate at hand concerns Avicenna’s often-contested ontological formulation, which equaled God’s quiddity/essence to His existence and necessity, a view that went against the theological principle of God’s singularity according to a tradition of Muslim theologians. Ḫocazāde’s defense of the philosophers’ proof demonstrated that one of the senses of the ontological term ‘necessity’ that Avicenna put forth was identical to God’s quiddity/essence, as well as His ‘pure existence’. Having gained the upper hand in the debate by verifying Avicenna’s thesis, Ḫocazāde’s argumentative efforts proved that not only could the philosophers’ claim be reconciled with post-classical Islamic theology, but this proof also held true on their own terms despite Zeyrek’s (and the theologians’) objections.
Tashwirul Afkar , 2023
Whether Abu Hamid al-Ghazali contributed to the decline of rationalist and scientific tradition in the Muslim world is a grand debate in Islamic studies. However, the literature on this question ventures only to construct a historical debate. Though al-Ghazali died in 1111, his opinions still influence Muslims today. So this research, rather than contribute to that historical debate, studies how al-Ghazali is interpreted in contemporary Turkey, and what this inter-pretation reveals about approaches to natural law, knowledge and philosophy (essentially, the study of conceptual lucidity and the valid procedures of reaso-ning). These three disciplines are chosen because al-Ghazali is accused of contributing to the decline of the scientific tradition in the Islamic world beca-use of his criticism of philosophy, his occasionalist view of causality, and his incorporation of inner knowledge into Sunnism. The research aims to answer questions like: ‘Are al-Ghazali’s works referenced today to justify a hostile stance on philosophy?’ To achieve this goal, the research studies how al-Ghazali is interpreted by two Islamic social movements in Turkey: Işıkçılar and Erenköy. Studying these cases, the paper concludes that how al-Ghazali is interpreted and transmitted in Turkey contributes to (i) a highly sceptical stance on natural law, (ii) a deep suspicion of rational knowledge and the consequent belief in inner knowledge, and (iii) a highly critical stance on philosophy.
2019
there is a paradox inherent in late Medieval and early modern Sufism: 1 even though its practitioners believed this world to be nothing but an apparition, and aspired to eschew it in their pursuit of divine reality, Sufi masters who had fully detached themselves from this world were also thought to be in possession of tremendous power in the here and now. Even if the rise of more powerful territorial empires-most notably, those of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals-reined in the political ambitions of the Sufis in the early modern era, charismatic Sufi leaders continued to use their spiritual authority and worldly connections to weigh in on a variety of political matters in the new imperial contexts also. Because of a narrow conceptualisation of early modern Ottoman politics as the affairs of an increasingly bureaucratised state, however, Ottomanists have paid only scant attention to the political roles of Sufis after the fifteenth century. 2 † I dedicate this article to the memory of my dear friend Vangelis Kechriotis. He was a brilliant historian, a kind-hearted person, and a true embodiment of the Aristotelian idea of "man as a political animal". * Boğaziçi University. 1 The results of the present article are based on research funded by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2015-2020)/ERC Grant Agreement 648498, 'The Fashioning of a Sunni Orthodoxy and the Entangled Histories of Confession-Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15 th-17 th centuries'. I wrote the final version of the article as a visiting researcher at the Institut für Islamwissenschaft at the Freie Universität in Fall 2016. I would like to thank Gudrun Krämer for having made this affiliation possible. I would also like to thank
The Universal and the Particular: A View from Ottoman Homs ca. 1700
Between 1688 and 1722 a resident of the unheralded Syrian provincial town of Homs recorded his impressions of life in the town and its surroundings. Muhammad al-Makki’s account offers glimpses of the worldview of an Ottoman subject who shared the Ottoman Empire’s politically dominant religion (Islam) yet who was firmly grounded in his provincial environment. This rare document from one of Syria’s smaller towns illustrates tension between a pre-modern Muslim universalism rooted in the symbolism of the Ottoman Sultanate, and local affiliations that were parochial and highly particularistic. This article discusses al-Makki’s understanding of himself and his world, his connection to local elites, his and their connections to wider networks within the Ottoman Empire, his sense of identity and his understandings of justice and oppression. The reader encounters local paramilitaries, urban notables, tribal communities, Christians, and Ottoman provincial administrators. Through al- Makki, one also senses the precariousness of pre-modern life where little margin for error existed in the face of environmental conditions and the forces of nature Öz Suriye taşrasında bulunan Humus kasabası sakinlerinden biri, 1688 ve 1722 yılları arasında yaşadığı kente ve kentin çevresindeki hayata dair izlenimlerini kayda geçir-di. Muhammed el-Mekkî'nin anlatısı, imparatorluğun siyaseten baskın olan dinine (İslam'a) mensup olmakla birlikte kendi mahalli çevresine de sıkı sıkıya bağlı olan, Osmanlı tebaasından birinin dünya görüşüne dair kesitler sunmaktadır. Suriye'nin küçük kasabalarından birinde kaleme alınmış olan bu nadir belge, modern dönem öncesi Osmanlı iktidarının ikonografisinde köklü bir yer tutan cihanşümul İslam telakkisi ile sınırlı ve son derece hususiyetçi olan mahalli mensubiyetler arasındaki gerlimi gözler önüne serer. Bu makale, el-Mekkî'nin kendisini ve içinde yaşadığı dünyayı nasıl kavradığını, mahalli seçkinlerle olan ilişkisini, söz konusu seçkinlerin Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda mevcut olan daha geniş ilişkiler ağıyla olan bağlantılarını, el-Mekkî'nin kimlik algısını, adalet ve zulüm kavramlarını anlayış biçimini tartışmaya açmaktadır. El-Mekkî'nin anlatısını okuyanlar bu anlatıda yerel başıbozuk askerlerle, şehirli seçkinlerle, kabile topluluklarıyla, Hristiyanlarla ve Osmanlı'nın taşradaki idarecileriyle karşılaşırlar. El-Mekkî'nin tarihçesi, acımasız çevre ve doğa şartları karşısında modern öncesi insanın yaşadığı tehlikeli hayatı da resmetmektedir.
Nazariyat İslam Felsefe ve Bilim Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi (Journal for the History of Islamic Philosophy and Sciences), 2015
Studies regarding Islamic thought have previously focused on the early period of Islamic history due to the classic Orientalist presumption of regression and declension after al-Ghazālī. Recently, there has been an evident increase in studies concerning both kalām in the late period and the philosophical tradition of Iran. However, we must say that studies regarding Ottoman thought are still at the beginning stage for many reasons, among them mental apathy, lack of methodologies, the periodization problem, the political obstacles, and the non-publication of an important section of the texts. Ömer Mahir Alper, who is known for his studies on such philosophers as al-Kindī, al- Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, and Ibn Kammūna, as well as his Existence and Man: The Reconstruction of a Vision within the Context of Kamāl Pashazāda,1 has now issued another important study: Ottoman Philosophy: Selected Texts. In addition to the texts, the majority of which he translated into Turkish, are translations by Mustakim Arıcı, Mehmet Özturan, and Yasin Apaydın.
2024
Résumé Catégoriser, discriminer ou encore délimiter semblent inévitables pour saisir le monde qui nous entoure. Cependant, au-delà de l’aspect éphémère de toute classification, lorsqu’il s’agit de domaines aussi vastes que l’islamologie ou même du soufisme dont les objets d’études font appel à de nombreuses disciplines et relèvent d’aires culturelles hétérogènes, projeter une périodisation ou une catégorisation propre `a la recherche académique occidentale, qui met le plus souvent l’accent sur les ruptures plutôt que sur les continuités, se révèle parfois problématique. C’est ainsi que pour de nombreux savants musulmans modernes, de telles ruptures n’ont pas lieu d’être ; ces savants se réclament souvent d’une longue tradition et font fi de ces distinctions aussi bien historiographiques que disciplinaires. On observe alors un véritable décalage entre la manière dont ces auteurs conçoivent leur histoire et leur héritage et la manière dont ils sont étudiés en Occident. C’est pourquoi de plus en plus de chercheurs évoluant au sein des sphères académiques occidentales tentent de s’affranchir de ces cloisonnements disciplinaires et/ou temporels. On pourra ainsi se reporter, entre autres, aux travaux de Shahab Ahmed (m. 2015) sur l’Islam en général, de Khaled El-Rouayheb pour les mondes arabe et ottoman, d’Ousmane Kane et de Fabienne Samson pour l’islam d’Afrique ou encore par exemple, `a ceux d’Alexander Knysh en ce qui concerne le soufisme. Il s’agit là de quelques exemples d’auteurs ayant tenté de dépasser les catégories d’analyse occidentales et/ou de souligner les continuités existantes entre les périodes classiques et modernes. A la suite de cette démarche, cet atelier souhaite dépasser les binarités de périodisation entre période ”classique” et ”moderne”, mais aussi, par exemple, l’opposition entre pensée philosophique et pensée soufie. Cela pourra se faire : en nous intéressant d’abord à des auteurs modernes et/ou contemporains, ainsi qu’aux lectures des savants classiques ou postclassiques qu’ils délivrent ; en examinant l’impact des savants musulmans de la période classique sur le contemporain ainsi que les diverses lectures, interprétations et réinterprétations que leurs travaux ont inspirées ; en étudiant la manière dont ces auteurs contemporains conçoivent eux-mêmes la relation entre pensée philosophique et pensée mystique; enfin, dans la mesure où ils représentent notamment un chaînon manquant de l’histoire intellectuelle musulmane, en portant notre attention sur des auteurs soufis de la période postclassique tardive (entre les 15e et 17e siècles). Abstract Philosophical thought and mystical thought in Islam, beyond binarities Categorising, discriminating and delimiting seem inevitable if we are to grasp the world around us. However, beyond the ephemeral aspect of any classification, when it comes to fields as vast as Islamology or even Sufism, whose subjects of study call on many disciplines and fall within heterogeneous cultural areas, projecting a periodisation or categorisation specific to Western academic research, which more often than not emphasises ruptures rather than continuities, sometimes proves problematic. For many modern Muslim scholars, there is no need for such ruptures; these scholars often claim a long tradition and disregard both historiographical and disciplinary distinctions. As a result, there is a real gap between the way in which these authors conceive of their history and heritage and the way in which they are studied in the West. This is why more and more researchers in Western academic circles are trying to break down these disciplinary and/or temporal barriers. These include the work of Shahab Ahmed (d. 2015) on Islam in general, Khaled El Rouayheb on the Arab and Ottoman worlds, Ousmane Kane and Fabienne Samson on African Islam, and Alexander Knysh on Sufism. These are just a few examples of authors who have attempted to go beyond Western categories of analysis and/or to highlight the continuities that exist between the classical and modern periods. Following on from this approach, this working group aims to go beyond the binary periodisation between ’classical’ and ’modern’ periods, and also, for example, the opposition between philosophical thought and Sufi thought. This can be done : by looking first at modern and/or contemporary authors, as well as the readings of classical or post-classical scholars that they deliver; by examining the impact of Muslim scholars of the classical period on the contemporary, as well as the various readings, interpretations and reinterpretations that their work has inspired ; by studying the way in which these contemporary authors themselves conceive the relationship between philosophical thought and mystical thought; and finally, insofar as they represent a missing link in Muslim intellectual history, by turning our attention to Sufi authors of the late post-classical period (between the 15th and 17th centuries). Bibliographie indicative Ahmed, Shahab. What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic, Princeton University Press, 2016. Bauer, Thomas, et al. A Culture of Ambiguity: An Alternative History of Islam. Columbia University Press, 2021. Kane, Ousmane. Muslim Modernity in Postcolonial Nigeria. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003. Knysh, Alexander. Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism (English Edition). Princeton University Press, 2017 Rouayheb (el-), Khaled. Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth-Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb, Cambridge University Press, 2015. Samson, Fabienne (Dir.). L’islam au-del`a des cat´egories, Cahiers d’´etudes africaines, n◦206/207, EHESS, 2012. Shamsy (el-), Ahmed, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics. How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2020. Steinberg, Leif; Wood, Philip (Ed.). What Is Islamic Studies? European and North American Approaches to a Contested Field, Edinburgh university press, 2022. Mots-Clés: Conceptualisation de l’islam, Civilisation islamique, Frontières, Catégories, Soufisme.