Canon and Censorship in the Islamic Intellectual and Theological History (original) (raw)
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Like that of other scripturalist religions, the Islamic literary canon consists of various texts and layered textual traditions of varying degrees of sanctity, authority, and stability, acquired at various times in history. The Qur ān and adīth (collections of Prophetic and Shī ī Imāmist logia and exempla) have complex histories of composition and canonisation , accompanied and sustained by scholarly and institutional traditions and sanctions, called consensus (ijmā ) among Sunnīs, that have the pragmatic authority of a lower-order canon. These components of the Muslim canon might be seen to correspond schematically to scriptural, apostolic, patristic, and church traditions among Christian denominations.
Some sociohistorical reflections on the canonisation of the Qurānic qiraʾāt
2024
Within a century after the threshold of Islam, many readings of the Qurān, the holy book of this religion, became common. In the 9th century, the authoritative readings of the Qurān were declared to be seven according to a reciter named Ibn Mujahid. I have argued that this restriction was not an exclusively linguistic attempt but also the result of many social and historical events. Using Ter Borg’s definition of canon I have considered the gathering of the Qurān, the addition of its supplements and the restriction of its readings three canonisations. I reached the conclusion that the last canonisation step was carried out in order to, among others, restrict the readings and thus the interpretations that were not in conformity with what was going to later be presented as the orthodox Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims. At the same time, the success of this restriction is due to the certainty and a relative uniformity that it afforded Muslims about their holy book when the Islamicate was being threatened from many sides.
Censorship in the Study of Early Islam
CyberOrient 15, 78-99, 2021
This article argues that an important driver for complaints about anti-Muslim blasphemy has been the political and legal environment of Pakistan. It examines a case where an academic text on early Islam was suppressed because of fears over its reception in Pakistan. It argues that university presses ought to keep open a space where ideas can be critiqued in a non-polemical fashion, but that, in this case, the globalized network in which university presses operate has served to stifle open discussion.
WHO SPEAKS FOR WHOM: AUTHORITY, TRADITION AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS OF ISLAM
In retrospect, 1913 seems relatively unremarkable, especially compared to the following year, which ushered the world into the first of the two great wars of the twentieth century. Although not many would consider the publication of a reference work in a Dutch town by a small publishing house a world-historical event, Brill’s First Encyclopaedia of Islam, with its revealing subtitle (“A Dictionary of the Geography, Ethnography and Biography of the Muhammadan Peoples”),1 became a milestone in Western academia. It marked a turn in the attempt to establish definitive knowledge about the Orient, becoming dated so quickly that by the time it was completed in 1936 there was already need for a revised edition. This article examines making of the Western academic tradition of encyclopdias of Islam, especially in reference to Brill's Encyclopedias of Islam.
Rethinking the Canons of Islamic Intellectual History
Studying the Near and Middle East at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1935–2018, 2018
Modern research on Islamic intellectual history has been selective in its coverage. A number of historic figures are by now relatively well-known and well-researched and their works available in numerous editions easily accessible in modern university libraries. Others, by contrast, have elicited little interest and their works are available only in rare early prints or manuscripts. Selectivity is of course unavoidable, but the criterion on which it is based is often not clear: is it for example intrinsic merit, or historical impact, or contemporary relevance? Such questions become all the more pressing in light of the fact that the "canons" of Islamic intellectual history have changed quite dramatically in the past century: Some of the figures who now loom large were not nearly so prominent a century ago, whereas others who were extremely influential until the mid-nineteenth century are now largely forgotten. My paper will discuss some examples of such dramatic shifts and will argue that unreflective acceptance of historically contingent and shifting canons has seriously limited our understanding of the nature and development of the Islamic intellectual tradition.
Islam, critique, and the canon: an introduction
Contemporary Islam, 2024
This special issue is one of the most exciting products of 8-year-long conversations with critical-minded friends and colleagues. The conversations have begun with the reading group that Dr. Sehlikoglu has hosted at Pembroke College, the University of Cambridge. In 'Is Critique Islamic?' reading group (2017-2020), we visited the classical Muslim scholars and polymaths from theology, philosophy and sciences to understand how concepts related to power, authority, critique and resistance were understood by some of the most acclaimed scholars ranging from Al-Ghazali to Ibn Khaldun, Al-Kindi, Maimonides and Ibn Taymiyya. Professor Humeira Iqtidar's intellectual contributions to those meetings have been quite influential in conceptualizing the formation of the Islamic canon across time and space. These conversations played a crucial role in the 2-day conference Sehlikoglu co-convened with Mahv