Call for Papers by Mohammad Gharaibeh
The study of commentaries (sharḥ, ḥawāshī, nukat) has steadily increased in recent years. Yet man... more The study of commentaries (sharḥ, ḥawāshī, nukat) has steadily increased in recent years. Yet many aspects of this genre of scholarly writing, its function and its context need further research. Why did commentary become the preferred mode of authoring, across almost all the scholarly disciplines in medieval Islam? While commentators could have chosen to write a "non-commentarial" text, they preferred to elaborate their ideas on the basis of an earlier text. One of the reasons behind the popularity of this mode of writing was that commenting itself suited a professional professorial class of scholars who needed to keep a discipline grounded on common accepted texts. The commentator was a mediator par excellence, keeping a text relevant, both by commenting on it and adding to it, and by connecting that text to the everchanging environment that studied it. With that, a commentator both confirmed the intellectual and social significance of the base text, while at the same time bridging the gap between the base text and the changing audience, playing the role of an intermediary between them.
Muslim cultures and societies as well as Muslim theologies did not witness the emergence of a sin... more Muslim cultures and societies as well as Muslim theologies did not witness the emergence of a single institution that determines normative positions and establishes a binding canon for everyone who adheres to Islam. Instead, the constitutional texts and positions for schools of law and theology, for Sufi brotherhoods and ḥadīth-scholars and others were -and still are -(re)negotiated constantly in a scholarly discourse over certain periods of time. Besides very few 'canonical' texts that find acceptance among a large majority of Muslims -one might only be able to name the Qurʾān and a consensual body of Prophetic traditions -most of the texts, ideas and individuals that gained authority were accepted by only certain groups, communities or schools. This fact makes the study of canon and censorship in the Islamic Intellectual and Theological History particularly important.
International conference from 25th - 27th in Bonn
In regard to its literary and scholarly production, the Mamluk period is often described as one o... more In regard to its literary and scholarly production, the Mamluk period is often described as one of commentaries and supercommentaries, predominantly occupied with hadith-studies unfolding within a broader age of Arabic encyclopaedism. This has caused many to assume an intellectual decline beginning in this period and continuing into subsequent ones. Despite this devaluating opinion, it is simply impossible to ignore the immense intellectual output of the Mamluk period. The sharp increase of writing and scholarly activity in a wide variety of knowledge fields including the hadith sciences, historiography, poetry, Islamic jurisprudence, Sufism and many others, actively disproves any narratives or paradigms of decline. Numerous biographical dictionaries which describe the lives and relationships of thousands of intellectuals interacting with each other, along with the many schools (madrasa, dār al-hadīṯ, dār al-qurʾān and ḫānqāh) that boosted knowledge circulation and production, and the popularization of knowledge disciplines that became visible in the engagement of non-scholarly men (demonstrating a possibly higher rate of literacy), all indicate that the scholarly hubs of Cairo and Damascus were in fact thriving academic centers with a highly active intellectual scene.
Books by Mohammad Gharaibeh
Religion im Allgemeinen und Christentum wie Islam im Besonderen sind (wieder) gesellschaftlich se... more Religion im Allgemeinen und Christentum wie Islam im Besonderen sind (wieder) gesellschaftlich sehr umstritten. Beide Religionsgemeinschaften sind aber nicht nur Objekt gesellschaftlicher Kritik, sondern bringen zugleich eigene Anfragen in politische und religionsbezogene Debatten ein. In einem interreligiösen Rahmen sollen verschiedene Formen der Religionskritik in ihrem aktuellen gesellschaftlichen Kontext analysiert und theologische Anknüpfungs- und Gesprächsmöglichkeiten sondiert werden.
Flucht, Migration und Vertreibung sind existenzielle menschliche Erfahrungen, die in der christli... more Flucht, Migration und Vertreibung sind existenzielle menschliche Erfahrungen, die in der christlichen und islamischen Tradition schon immer auch theologisch gedeutet wurden. Im globalen „Zeitalter der Migration“ stehen Christen und Muslime hierbei vor spezifischen Fragen und Aufgaben – sowohl in der individuellen Begegnung als auch im Einsatz für eine gerechte Zivil- und Weltgemeinschaft: Was ist der spezifisch christliche bzw. muslimische Beitrag im Umgang mit Migration, Flucht und Vertreibung? Wo und wie können Christen und Muslime hier zusammenwirken? Wie können die durch Migrationsbewegungen bedingten Veränderungen für die Gesellschaft und für religiöse Gemeinschaften als konstruktive Ressource gesellschaftlichen Zusammenlebens eingebracht werden?
Als eine aktuell einflussreiche islamische Strömung nimmt die Wahhābīya starken Einfluss auf das ... more Als eine aktuell einflussreiche islamische Strömung nimmt die Wahhābīya starken Einfluss auf das gesellschaftliche Leben in der islamischen Welt und Europa. Ein wichtiger Aspekt ihrer Theologie ist die Lehre der Attribute Gottes geworden, welche die Wahhābīya als Mittel der Ausgrenzung andersdenkender Muslime nutzt. Der 2001 verstorbene wahhābitische Gelehrte Muḥammad b. ʿUṯaimīn prägte die Position der Wahhābīya auf diesem Gebiet mit zahlreichen Schriften maßgeblich. Dabei behauptet er – sowie die Wahhābīya im Allgemeinen –, seine Meinung unmittelbar aus dem Qurʾān und Sunna ableiten und auf die Altvorderen (salaf) zurückführen zu können. Er glaubt, die einzig gültige und wahre Position diesbezüglich zu vertreten.
Die vorliegende Studie geht dieser Behauptung nach, indem sie Art und Charakter der Attributenlehre der Wahhābīya unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Schriften Ibn ʿUṯaimīns untersucht. Dabei wird aufgedeckt, dass die hermeneutischen Prinzipien so gewählt sind, dass das anthropomorph anmutende Gottesbild in den Qurʾān hinein gedeutet werden kann. Zudem zitieren wahhābitische Gelehrte Autoritäten der islamischen Gelehrsamkeit nur selektiv, um sie im Lichte ihrer eigenen Position erscheinen zulassen.
Papers by Mohammad Gharaibeh
Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2017
Religion im Allgemeinen und Christentum wie Islam im Besonderen sind (wieder) gesellschaftlich se... more Religion im Allgemeinen und Christentum wie Islam im Besonderen sind (wieder) gesellschaftlich sehr umstritten. Beide Religionsgemeinschaften sind aber nicht nur Objekt gesellschaftlicher Kritik, sondern bringen zugleich eigene Anfragen in politische und religionsbezogene Debatten ein. In einem interreligiösen Rahmen sollen verschiedene Formen der Religionskritik in ihrem aktuellen gesellschaftlichen Kontext analysiert und theologische Anknüpfungs- und Gesprächsmöglichkeiten sondiert werden.
New Readings in Arabic Historiography from Late Medieval Egypt and Syria
Studies on the History and Culture of the Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517)
The writings of Shams al-Dī nAbūʿAbd Allā hMuḣammad b. Aḣ mad al-Dhahabī are probably among the m... more The writings of Shams al-Dī nAbūʿAbd Allā hMuḣammad b. Aḣ mad al-Dhahabī are probably among the most-cited works within Mamluk Studies. His voluminous Tā r ī kh al-islā m ,h is Siyara ʿ l ā ma l-nubalā ʾ or his al-ʿIbar fī khabar man ghabar are only afew titles of his that serveasvaluable sources for many scholars in different fields. Surprisingly, only afew studies dedicated to this major figure of Mamluk history by Western scholarse xist. 1 And while his writings are the foundation of many studies, they rarely are themselves subjects of research. The work that has attractedm ost attention from scholarsi st he Tā r ī kh al-islā m. 2 It covers the first seven centuries of Islamic history and is sometimes called his most popular work. Al-Dhahabī himself seems to haveused the vast amount of material and information contained in the Tā r ī kh to compile seven other abridged historiesa nd biographical dictionaries. Those are al-Dhahabī ' s k. Duwal al-islā m , al-Tā r ī kh al-ṡ aghī r , k. al-ʿIbar fī khabar man ghabar, al-Tā r ī kh alawsaṫ , Ṫ abā q ā tal-ḣ uffā z˙, T˙abaqā tal-qurrā ʾ and Siyar aʿlā mal-nubalā ʾ. 3 Among the few studies that address al-Dhahabī ' swritings, we must mention the work of Joseph de Somogyi, who studied al-Dhahabī ' sh istoriographical contributions. In four articles, all published in the early twentieth century,h e studied the Tā r ī kh and the Duwal al-islā m in greater detail, describing al-Dhahabī ' sstyle in compiling the historical events and the biographies, as well as the sources he used. In larger detail,d eS omogyif ocuses on the destruction of Baghdad and Damascusb yt he Mongols. 4 The very recent study of Maxime 1A mong them the (very short) encyclopedic entries written by Mohamad Ben Cheneb and Joseph de Somogyi, "al-Dhahabī , " EI 2 ,2:214-16; al-Qā d˙ī ,1998, and Amitai-Preiss, 1998. 2M any who havewritten about Muslim historiography mention al-Dhahabī ' s T ā r ī kh al-islā m and explain its structure, but often do not go much further than that. See e. g. Rosenthal, 1952, where he mentions al-Dhahabī frequently to compare him to others but only makes lengthier statements about the Tā r ī kh at the following pages: 75, 128-30, 277-80, 316-21. See also Robinson, 2007. 3S ee de Somogyi, 1932b,839. De Somogyi also gives asummary of the historicale vents contained in the Tā r ī kh for the years 301-700.
FRANKFURTER ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR ISLAMISCH-THEOLOGISCHE STUDIEN, 2019
This article looks at religious issues in Saudi Arabia and examines strategies used by the ʿulamā... more This article looks at religious issues in Saudi Arabia and examines strategies used by the ʿulamāʾ to legitimize the religious policy and the political power of the Saudi elite. It contextualises and analyses fatwas and statements by religious scholars on issues such as criticising the government, gender segregation, working women and the driving ban for women.
Migration, Flucht, Vertreibung: Orte islamischer und christlicher Theologie, 2018
Der Band resümiert Diskussionen der Jahrestagung des Theologischen Forums Christentum – Islam, di... more Der Band resümiert Diskussionen der Jahrestagung des Theologischen Forums Christentum – Islam, die mitgeprägt waren durch die Aktualität des Themas angesichts der großen Zahl Geflüchteter, die seit 2015 auch Europa und Deutschland erreicht haben und deren Thematik drängend bleibt. Der Umgang mit Flucht, Vertreibungen und Migrationen hat ebenso die damit zusammenhängenden Fragen (Un-)Gerechtigkeit die Religionen, ihre Organisationen und Theologien tief geprägt. Sie stellen auch gemeinsame Zukunftsthemen dar. Es handelt sich nicht um bloße Anwendungsgebiete theologischer Wissenschaft, sondern um kritische Orte der Kontrasterfahrung und der Infragestellung, die im besten Fall selbst »theologiegenerierend« sind, jedenfalls aber Bewährungsorte der Relevanz und Plausibilität des Religiösen darstellen.
Säkular und religiös: Herausforderungen für islamische und christliche Theologie, 2019
Die ›klassische‹ Säkularisierungsthese ging von einem Zusammenhang zwischen Modernisierung und de... more Die ›klassische‹ Säkularisierungsthese ging von einem Zusammenhang zwischen Modernisierung und dem Bedeutungsrückgang von Religion aus. Diese These erfährt Kritik ebenso wie vielfältige Fortschreibun-gen und Modifikationen. Wie hat sich das Verhältnis zwischen Religion und nichtreligiöser Weltdeutung gewandelt? Wie gestaltet es sich in politischer und rechtlicher Hinsicht heute? Wie können die unter-schiedlichen Gestaltungsformen und Verständnisse bewertet werden? Welche Gesichtspunkte erlauben es, den Begriff der Säkularisierung positiv theologisch anzueignen oder kritisch weiterzuführen? Diese und weitere Fragen diskutieren, im Gespräch mit den Nachbardisziplinen, die theologischen Beiträge des Bandes als gemeinsame gesellschaftliche Herausforderung.
Call for Paper - International Conference and Collective Volume
This paper offers new approaches on how to analyze ḥadīṯ collections and to make them useable for... more This paper offers new approaches on how to analyze ḥadīṯ collections and to make them useable for social and intellectual history. While focusing on the so called buldāniyyāt (geographical ḥadīṯ collections) – a subgroup of the forty ḥadīṯ collections – the study explores new forms of knowledge that an author includes into his collection to make it innovative for his reference group. The idea of what an innovative work should be is significantly related to the shared ideas of the reference group to which an author belongs and/or for which he writes. Therefore, a thorough analysis of the structure and content of the collection reveals something about the author’s very reference group and its shared ideas. Putting their contributions in the light of previous works, authors usually choose a strategy of knowledge specialization or knowledge brokerage to develop innovative moments in their work. Consequently, a comprehensive study of scholarly pieces needs to contextualize both the social context of the author and the intellectual references he makes.
In this paper, the focus shall lie on the buldāniyyāt of Šams ad-Dīn Muḥammad as-Saḫāwī (d. 902/1496). In a first step, his collection will be compared with preceding written buldāniyyāt to identify the knowledge specialization and knowledge brokerage processes that make his collection innovative in the context of the text group of the buldāniyya. In a second step, an analysis of as-Saḫāwī’s social and intellectual context, represented through horizontal and vertical intellectual and social ties, reveals that the concrete structure and content of his collection is also influenced by the shared ideas of his reference group.
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Call for Papers by Mohammad Gharaibeh
Books by Mohammad Gharaibeh
Die vorliegende Studie geht dieser Behauptung nach, indem sie Art und Charakter der Attributenlehre der Wahhābīya unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Schriften Ibn ʿUṯaimīns untersucht. Dabei wird aufgedeckt, dass die hermeneutischen Prinzipien so gewählt sind, dass das anthropomorph anmutende Gottesbild in den Qurʾān hinein gedeutet werden kann. Zudem zitieren wahhābitische Gelehrte Autoritäten der islamischen Gelehrsamkeit nur selektiv, um sie im Lichte ihrer eigenen Position erscheinen zulassen.
Papers by Mohammad Gharaibeh
In this paper, the focus shall lie on the buldāniyyāt of Šams ad-Dīn Muḥammad as-Saḫāwī (d. 902/1496). In a first step, his collection will be compared with preceding written buldāniyyāt to identify the knowledge specialization and knowledge brokerage processes that make his collection innovative in the context of the text group of the buldāniyya. In a second step, an analysis of as-Saḫāwī’s social and intellectual context, represented through horizontal and vertical intellectual and social ties, reveals that the concrete structure and content of his collection is also influenced by the shared ideas of his reference group.
Die vorliegende Studie geht dieser Behauptung nach, indem sie Art und Charakter der Attributenlehre der Wahhābīya unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Schriften Ibn ʿUṯaimīns untersucht. Dabei wird aufgedeckt, dass die hermeneutischen Prinzipien so gewählt sind, dass das anthropomorph anmutende Gottesbild in den Qurʾān hinein gedeutet werden kann. Zudem zitieren wahhābitische Gelehrte Autoritäten der islamischen Gelehrsamkeit nur selektiv, um sie im Lichte ihrer eigenen Position erscheinen zulassen.
In this paper, the focus shall lie on the buldāniyyāt of Šams ad-Dīn Muḥammad as-Saḫāwī (d. 902/1496). In a first step, his collection will be compared with preceding written buldāniyyāt to identify the knowledge specialization and knowledge brokerage processes that make his collection innovative in the context of the text group of the buldāniyya. In a second step, an analysis of as-Saḫāwī’s social and intellectual context, represented through horizontal and vertical intellectual and social ties, reveals that the concrete structure and content of his collection is also influenced by the shared ideas of his reference group.
We commonly expect documents to state simple, straightforward, “neutral” content, but we should not ignore the fact that even historical records were written by people with an agenda, by people who transported their own view on past, but also on present events into the texts they were producing. At the same time, “literature” or mainly narrative texts also have their own ideological framework in which they act. Deviations from an otherwise established text must therefore be regarded as a result of deliberate manipulations; of manipulations whose aim was to lead the prospective audience towards certain ideas. The use of terminology in texts; be they primarily documentary or literary, also points to possibilities of shaping the perception of e.g. a profession or a group of individuals over time.
The shared aim of this panel’s papers is showing the interactions and influences that often occur between texts that receive the categorization “documentary” or “literary,” i.e. narrative. Its disadvantage is that it creates a dichotomy that is mostly based on shape and outer appearance of the texts, but does not take their multiple functions into account. We will present texts and developments that show the interplay between “documentary” and “narrative” aspects of text genres, and the strategies by which writers integrated them into each other.
Image credit: The Sufi Saint Mian Mir Praying at Medina, MSS 1238, The Khalili Collections