Islamic Theology

The design argument, also known as the teleological argument, is one of the most commonly used evidences of the existence of a Creator God. Over the centuries, the argument has taken many forms, from the pre-Socratics to Jewish rabbis to Hindu philosophy and the modern debate over Intelligent Design (ID) and theistic evolution (TE). Present day controversies seem to show that disagreements over the apparent design of nature have roots in deep historical and metaphysical differences. We believe there is much to learn from how different religious traditions (here, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have engaged or are engaging with design discourse. So, we are arranging a two-day online closed-door workshop on the history and metaphysics of design arguments, to be hosted at the University of Helsinki.

The famous argument for the existence of God is analyzed with a survey of the Greek and Arabic influences of Avicenna's system.

Turning to the text, The Salvation, ‘’Metaphysics,’’ II. 12, it is stated that ‘’at any one and the same time there cannot be for anything that is possible in itself a cause that is possible ad infinitum’’ (II.12.2). Here he’s saying that a possible being cannot have an infinite amount of causes at the same time. Because if that infinite totality of causes would itself have either an internal cause or an external necessary cause. It can’t be internal, because it would either be (a) necessary, which is not an option because everything internal to that totality is possible; then (b) an internal possible cause – which is not an option because that would make it a part of the totality and a part can’t be a cause of the whole. So if that cause is not internal, then it has to be external. It can’t be possible, because all of the possible causes have been established in that inner totality. Therefore it has to be necessary. He concludes the argument by stating that:
Thus, things existing possibly terminate in a cause existing necessarily, in which case not every effect that exists as something possible will have simultaneously with it a cause that exists as something possible, and so an infinite number of causes existing at a single time is impossible. (II.12.2)
This argument can be considered as a subsidiary conclusion to Avicenna’s main argument for the proof of God’s existence (McGinnis 166-67). There are considered to be four main categories of arguments: (1) the metaphysical proof from necessity; (2) the proof from movement; (3) the proof from causality; (4) the proof from ontology (Netton 172-73). The themes are similar to the discussions on the problem of infinite causal regress as discussed for example in book two of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On Aristotle’s Metaphysics. I think that he is essentially concerned with establishing a logical argument that integrates a hierarchy of ontological causality rather than simply natural causality. In that sense, it could be considered similar to the ‘’a posteriori cosmological arguments’’ of the quinque via  of ThomasAquinas (Netton 173).

K endi yaşadıkları dönemde gelenekleri içerisinde sahip oldukları konum bakımından Ebû Mansûr el-Mâturîdî, Ebû'l-Hasan el-Eş'arî'den daha ön plandaydı. Dönemindeki diğer isimlerle kıyaslandığında, onun ortaya koyduğu eserler kelamî açıdan daha derinlikliydi. 1 Hanefî çevrelerde yazılmış olan sonraki eserlerde kendisine yer yer atıfta bulunulmuşsa da, onun keskin hatlarla çerçevesini belirlediği kelam anlayışı, takipçileri tarafından yeterince sürdürülemedi ve geliştirilemedi.

This paper sheds light on the treatment of the 'problem of evil' and human suffering from an Islamic perspective. I begin by providing an overview of the term 'evil' in the Qur'an to highlight its multidimensional meaning and to demonstrate the overall portrait of this notion as it is presented in the Islamic revelation through the narrative of the prophet Job. Having established a Qur'anic framework, I will then provide a brief historical overview of the formation of philosophical and theological debates surrounding "good" and "bad/evil" and the origination of Muslim theodicean thought. This will lead us to Ghazālian theodicy and the famous dictum of the "best of all possible worlds" by one of the most influential scholars of Islamic thought, Abu H .ā mid Ghazālī. The final section of this paper will explore the Sufi/ mystical tradition of Islam through the teachings of one of the most distinguished mystics of Islam, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. The conclusion of the paper will attempt to bring about a new understanding of how the so-called "problem of evil" is not presented in Islam as a problem but rather as an instrument in the actualization of God's plan, which is intertwined with human experiences in this world-an experience that is necessary for man's spiritual development.

This paper aims to clarify the meaning of 'renovation of religious discourse' through an analysis of the concept and some related concepts in general, and more specifically by defining the disciplines of this renovation and their importance in determining its meaning. The paper adopts the thesis that these disciplines play a pivotal role in determining the nature, meaning and possibilities of renovating religious discourse. To demonstrate this thesis, the paper distinguishes between internal disciplines and external disciplines. Internal disciplines lie within the religious text itself and in the hermeneutic circle between understanding parts of the text and understanding it as a whole, between understanding and pre-understanding, between the inside and the outside. In talking about external disciplines, the paper focuses mainly on the role of the ruling and/or hegemonic political and economic powers and authorities. The paper concludes that renovating religious discourse is a political and institutional issue rather than a purely religious one related to individuals, and that it is conditional on the state and (the reformation of) its political system, and the extent of its actual adoption of the concept of democracy, and the extent to which it protects freedoms, differences, and pluralism.

Eine Idee kann mehr als einen einzigen Anfang haben, genau wie
viele Wege zum gleichen Ziel hinführen können. Ein Ziel ist in mancher Hinsicht mehr ein dynamisches Befinden als eine konkrete statische Ziellinie. Davon leben Ideen und gewinnen Nachhaltigkeit, wie der Wald seine Seligkeit in der Vielfalt findet.
So ist die Umwelt als Bewandtnis und Begriff. Einerseits spricht
man von der Umwelt und meint dabei seine enge Umgebung. Andererseits spricht man von der Umwelt und meint hier das ganze
Universum.
Spricht man von der Umwelt im Islam, so reicht es meines Erachtens
nicht aus, danach zu fragen, wie oft oder in welchem Kontext
dieser Begriff in dem Koran oder der Sunna vorkommt. Es ist
mehr von Bedeutung zu erfahren, wie die Muslime vor dem Hintergrund
ihrer religiösen Überzeugung in der Gegenwart mit dem Thema „Umwelt und Umweltschutz“ umgehen. Es stellt sich die Frage, welche Handlungswege die Muslime begehen, um das Leben auf diesem Planeten zu bewahren und welche Rolle dabei religiöse Argumentationen spielen.
Wege zu begehen sind Anstrengungen, wozu Muslime verpflichtet
sind. Jeder Muslim und jede Muslima ist nach dem religiösen
Konzept der ḥisba aufgefordert, entsprechend seiner/ihrer Mögichkeiten (wusʿ) und Fähigkeiten (qudra) zu handeln, um das Gute auf dieser Erde zu fördern und das Verwerfliche zu unterbinden.
Dies gilt auch für die Umwelt und den Umweltschutz. Als engagierte
kreative Anstrengungen kann man sie als eine Art iğtihād verstehen
und als Förderung des Guten kann man sie außerdem islamisch
theologisch als ḥisba erkennen. Iǧtihād bedeutet sprachlich
„Anstrengung, um ein Ziel zu erreichen“. Es wird auch als terminus
technicus der islamischen Normenlehre verwendet. Damit ist die
Findung von Normen durch eigenständige Urteilsbemühung gemeint,
was eine gewisse Kreativität implizit.
An dieser Stelle handelt es sich beim Begriff iğtihād mehr um die
kreative Umsetzung von Normen und zwar beim Umweltschutz.
Gleichzeitig bedeutet der Begriff Dschihad etymologisch ebenfalls
die Anstrengung und Bemühung, ein Ziel zu erreichen. Auch wird
darunter eine individuelle Bemühung um den Glauben (großer
Dschihad) oder zum moralischen Handeln und Mission verstanden.
Der Umweltschutz gehört zweifelsohne zum edlen moralischen
Handeln und aus islamischer theologischer Perspektive des
Verhältnisses zwischen Mensch und Natur – wie es später erläutert
wird – zur islamischen Mission. Daher spricht man nicht nur vom
Öko-Islam, sondern auch vom Öko-Dschihad als eine Selbstbezeichnung
einiger muslimischer Öko-Aktivistinnen und -Aktivisten vor allem in Großbritannien, wo der Begriff Öko-Dschihad zum ersten Mal als Slogan für eine Kampagne der Islamic Foundation for Ecology and nvironmental Sciences (IFEES) in Birmingham verwendet wurde. Der Slogan der Kampagne lautete „It’s a campaign! It’s a film! It’s Jihad!“.

‎“...Gelin, Tanrı'nın zatına dair bizi şimdiye kadar kördüğümün ötesine götürmemiş eski sorularımızı terk edelim. İnsana, ‎insanın görev ve sorumluluklarına dönelim. Zaten bu görev ve sorumluluklar, Tanrı'nın istediklerinden başka bir şey ‎değildir. Bırakalım, kim olmak istediğine, Tanrı kendisi karar versin! Bütün insanların öncelikle ilahi iradeyi yerine getirmede ‎birleşmesi mümkün, hatta gerekli değil midir?”‎
‎ “...Şimdi soruyoruz: Hıristiyan dünyası İslam dünyası ile bu rasyonel temele dayalı olarak iletişim kurma davetini kabul ‎edecek midir? Hıristiyanlar, Tanrı'nın iradesinin dünyada egemen olmasını sağlama uğruna, sürekli bir epoche içinde, ‎kendi dogmatik teolojisinin öğretilerini askıya almaya hazır mıdır? Müslümanların ahlak yasaları çerçevesinde evrensel bir ‎kardeşlik kurma çabasına karşılık vermeye istekli midir?”‎

Theological Instructions – Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi

Synopsis: This is a must read for every muslim to aid in the development of their theological understanding of the religion of Islam. 

Gathered from lectures given by Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi, may his life be preserved.

This paper deals with the unchangeable pricinciples of the Consitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the final analysis, the so-called Islimc principles are inevitably to follow and accomodate the republican ones. This result is based on the examination of theological foundations of the Islamic elements of the Constitution. That is to say, a Mu`tazilite analysis of the the principles can only provide for the integrity, justness and (certainly) effeciency of the Constitution.

This book aims to bring Muslim theology into the present day. Focused on the relationship of the human to the divine and of faith to righteousness, the book presents a new theological vision rooted in the practice of the religious imagination. Rather than a purely academic pursuit, Modern Muslim Theology argues that theology is a creative process and discusses how the Islamic tradition can help contemporary practitioners negotiate their relationships with God, with one another, and with the rest of creation. The book re-conceptualizes key religious ideas, symbols, and rites - like revelation, tradition, and prayer - in order to develop an engaged approach to Islam that simultaneously fosters faith and enacts righteousness in the modern world. The theological framework developed within draws widely from the intellectual and spiritual traditions of Islam that stretch from the religion's prophetic past up to the present. With the aim of making the work of theology accessible to all, Modern Muslim Theology uses vivid narratives and evocative images of famous religious personalities, sacred sites, and aspects of everyday life to explore and define concepts central for a theology of engagement.

Many textbooks and academic studies on Muslim history and thought take it for granted that Muslims regard the Qur’an as God’s literal speech dictated verbatim to the Prophet Muhammad in Arabic. How this view became established and the possibility of other Islamic models of revelation require further study. This lecture, based on the presenter's dissertation research in progress, explores the development of different models of Qur’anic Revelation in Sunni and Shia Ismaili Islam. Beginning with the Qur’an’s self-definition, the lecture first discusses how recent Qur’anic studies scholarship shows that the earliest idea of revelation in terms of kitab, tanzil, and wahy was a dynamic event inseparable from the Prophet and was far less structured than the later doctrine of “verbal dictation.” Subsequently, the lecture surveys key developments in how the notion of the Qur’an as a “book” pre-existing in the heavenly Tablet – which is then verbally “dictated” to the Prophet – became established in Sunni exegesis along with the doctrine of the Qur’an as Uncreated Divine Speech. The lecture then discusses an alternative understanding of Qur’anic revelation found among the 9th–11th century Shia Ismaili philosophers who recognize Divine guidance as continuing through a lineage of hereditary Imams descended from Prophet Muhammad. In Shia Ismaili thought, divine inspiration issues from and reveals a transcendent or celestial “Pre-Text”, the process of revelation (wahy) is spiritual and non-verbal, and the Prophet Muhammad plays a creative role in composing the Arabic Qur’an as oral prophetic speech.

La  révélation en tant que forme de langage exprime la vérité en termes non apodictiques. Cette définition, qui insiste sur la dimension linguistique du Coran, implique des éléments de tension. Et cela non seulement, comme le reconnaissaient déjà les théologiens du Kalām, à cause de l’écart qu’il faut nécessairement poser entre le langage de Dieu et celui de l’homme. La réflexion philosophique ne peut pas s’empêcher d’ajouter, aux difficultés sémantiques de la théologie, une question ultérieure : quel est le rapport entre le texte sacré et la vérité ? Le problème de la philosophie n’est donc plus seulement celui de la langue – le langage divin est supérieur, éternel et inaccessible mais il doit en même temps être soumis aux règles de la langue (il doit être compréhensible voire signifiant et analysable dans les termes de la critique sémantique) – mais aussi celui de son contenu de vérité.

The prophet of Islam has prescribed these five things as the foundation of Islam and they are: Faith, prayer, fasting, Zakat and Hajj for the Sunnis and prayer, fasting, Zakat, Hajj and Imamate for Shia. These five things contain the totality of the religion of Islam as we shall see.

Abu Ja’far al-Ṭaḥāwī`s (d. 321/933) Sharḥu Mushkil al-Athār is the largest work in the mukhtalif al-hadith (conflicting traditions) literature. In SharḥMaʿāni al-Athār he dealt only with the contradictory traditions regarding Islamic law, but in Sharḥ Mushkil al-Athār he focused not merely on Islamic law or theology like Imam al-Shafi’i (d. 204/820) and Ibn Qutaiba (d. 276/889) before him, but he also studied therein great number of Hadiths regarding several Islamic disciplines except kalam. To him, the term mushkil denotes (1) the seemingly unclear message of hadiths, (2) the contradiction in variousinterpretations of one and the same hadith and (3) the apparent conflict between two hadiths. Although the hadith understanding of al-Ṭaḥāwī has been researched from different aspects, there is hardly any work in Turkish researches which particularly deals with the Ṭaḥāwī’s method in mushkil for the solution to the proplem concerning apparently contradictory hadiths. Ṭaḥāwī himself does not give any information about his method of treating mushkil traditions. He considers the authentic hadith as a revelation from God. He was, therefore, of the strong view that two authentic hadiths can in no way contradict each other as they are from Allah. In order to explain the apparent contradictions in Hadiths Ṭaḥāwī generally applies three methods, jamʿ, naskh and tarjīḥ. Jamʿ (جمع (method refers to modus operandi which consists of three dimensions. (1) jamʿ by looking at contextual differences among contradictory traditions, (2) jamʿthrough semantic analysis of various words occuring in the traditions, and (3) jamʿ by speculating analogy (comparison). In the first modus operandi, Ṭahâwî tries to resolve the apparent differences between two narrations by tracing different contexts related to different time, place, and person due to which most people consider the two traditions contradictory. According to Ṭahâwî, by keeping in view the relevant contexts of the traditions, none can ever identify any contradiction in the Prophetic traditions. In the second modus operandi, Ṭahâwî analyzes all the possible meanings of the words occurring in the traditions so as to find out common imports of the apparently controversial words. In the third modus operandi,Ṭaḥâwî tries to solve two narrations that seem to be mutually contradictory through analogy by taking into consideration some generally accepted higher principle. When Ṭaḥâwî does not succeed in resolving disputes by applying three dimensions of the jamʿmodus operandi, he applies the theory of abrogation (naskh). When Ṭaḥâwî cannot resolve the dispute between the contradictory narrations with the methods of jamʿ and naskh, he turns to the method of preference (tarjih) where one narration out of two contradictory narrations is preferred to the other. He completes this process with the analysis of the chain of narrators (sanad) in which he determines the position of narrators as reliable or weak. The other principles Ṭaḥâwî applies for preference are: (1) superiority of transmitters, (2) compatibility of the reported text with the the Qur’an and the highly authentic sunnah, (3) availability of addional information (ziyada) about the preferred narration, (4) preference of a more harmonious narration with analogy, (5) preference of the narration of traditions reported by majority, and (6) preference of the traditions used by well-known Fuqaha. In the present article attempts will be made to identify the principles with concrete examples Ṭaḥâwî developed in his application of the three methods. For this purpose, the edition of Mushkil edited by Shuayb al-Arnawūṭ will be used.

A synthesis and extension of the theology of al-Māturīdī and Ibn Taymiyya. In this essay I propose a way of reconciling free will, predestination and divine foreknowledge in Islam by asking a question that no Muslim theologian has asked before as far as I am aware: Is God powerful enough to create a creature whose choices are intrinsically unpredictable?

Mohammed Ghaly (b. 1976) reviews three approaches to theodicy within Islamic thought. As a theistic religion, Islam faces the same fundamental problem of evil—that is, of reconciling evil and suffering with the supreme power, goodness, knowledge, and justice of God. Ghaly organizes responses by Islamic theologians and scholars into three categories: anti-theodicy, pro-theodicy, and the median approach. Theistic concepts are employed to develop each position in combination with different emphases from various schools of Islam.

This book addresses the relationship between religion and knowledge from a sociological perspective, taking both religion and knowledge as phenomena located within ever changing social contexts. It builds on historical foundations, but offers a distinctive focus on the changing status of religious phenomena at the turn of the twenty-first century. Including critical engagement with live debates about intelligent design and the ‘new atheism’, this collection of essays brings recent research on religious movements into conversation with debates about socialisation, reflexivity and the changing capacity of social institutions to shape human identities. Contributors examine religion as an institutional context for the production of knowledge, as a form of knowledge to be transmitted or conveyed and as a social field in which controversies about knowledge emerge.

In numerous circumstances on daily basis, the pathetic religious authorities of Islam prove to be worthless and shameful. They want to be involved in the social affairs of their collapsed societies that they even have no mental ability to study. And they want to have a say on the political decision-making of their trashy countries that are, despite their involvement, used as tools by the colonial powers – which in and by itself proves how idiotic, silly and disreputable these religious authorities are.

The basic characteristic of all – indiscriminately – religious authorities of all Muslim societies and countries from Makkah and Medina to Al Azhar to Jerusalem is their immense ignorance. Engulfed in useless studies of unimportant issues, the students of all Islamic religious universities and high schools do not study a wide range of subjects that are far more important than what they worthlessly learn. These students after the completion of their fake studies are appointed in different mosques, waqfs and other related positions whereby they disastrously propagate their valueless knowledge which at the same time entails full ignorance of very important topic, subjects, and fields.

This calamitous reality will bring a dead end to the Islamic World. What is even worse is that it brings also disaster to many other faithful people, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Confucians and followers of diverse traditional African religions (like Waaqeffannaa, the venerated monotheistic religion of the Oromo Nation), who – sticking to their tradition and principles, values and virtues – reject today’s world deviations and perversions.
In what sense does the ignorance of the pathetic religious authorities, fake religious universities, and false scholars of Islam afflict faithful people of other religions worldwide?

Today’s world is marked by the vicious Freemasonic – Zionist attack against all values, virtues, principles and concepts of all the religious systems in the world. The long evangelized Global Economy and Global State (where hypothetically all will have ‘peace’) is going to be a militant atheist state whereby all perversions, sins and crimes will be depenalized, legitimized and even institutionalized in order to turn the Human Being into a worthless beast proscribed to disappear.

The reality of our world that the Freemasonry-Zionism-controlled mass media do their best to conceal is not that of a fight against the fake Islamic Caliphate or against the theatrical Islamic Terrorism; it is not even a clash of civilizations – which is actually impossible to happen and consists in a ludicrous, pseudo-scholarly aberration. And there has never been a polarization between East and West as so persistently the global mass media of falsehood claim.

The real divide of our times is between Faith and Lawlessness.
First published on 4th October 2014 here;
https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/the-idiotic-sheikhs-of-islam-islam-christianity-freemasonry-and-homosexual-marriages/

The study introduces a definition of Salafism from the perspective of Islamic intellectual history by analyzing specific ideas, cases, processes and entanglements in Muslim theology and jurisprudence. The essay considers the ongoing scholarly debates within Middle Eastern and Islamic studies by simultaneously scrutinizing Arabic-Islamic sources to delineate a set of key relevant Muslim theological and legal debates. The analysis tackles some major issues of the typology and classification of the Salafī movement. Thus, the issue of the enigmatic and ambivalent character of the term Salafism is touched upon insofar as the concept is still applied in a too vague manner to some modernist reformers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as well as to the markedly different contemporary Salafī movement encompassing a wide range of individuals and groups, including political formations like the Nūr Party in Egypt or jihadist groups, such as the Islamic State (IS). In so doing, the analysis also re-examines some conceptualizations of Islam, and particularly Salafism, within Western social thought.

Keywords: Salafism; quietist Salafīs; political Salafīs; Jihādī-Salafīs (al-salafiyya al-jihādiyya); Wahhābism; Islamic law (sharī‘a) and Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh); Islamic creed (‘aqīda) and method (manhaj); the Islamic State (IS) group; social theory

This Study examines the relationship between Muslim legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) and Muslim speculative theology (ʿilm al-kalām) within the Shāfiʿī School of law. It compares the legal theory of four classical jurists who belonged to the same legal school, yet followed three different theological trends. The main aim of this comparison is to understand to what extent and in what way the theology of each jurist informed his choices in legal theory.

There has been a lot of media attention devoted to the Islamic prohibition of interest and how this affects financial transactions such as mortgages. Other key Islamic principles that could have a bearing on business include social justice and inclusion, honesty, protection of the weak, and a strong sense of fair play. What are the key influences on marketing ethics and what distinguishes "Islamic" marketing?

This book contains an edition and annotated translation of the remaining fragments of a maqālāt treatise written by Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī at the end of the 3rd/9th or beginning of the 4th/10th c. Unlike al-Balḫī and al-Ašʿarī, the two main authors of maqālāt from the same period, al-Qalānisī is a theologian who was never part of Muʿtazili circles but rather belongs to Ibn Kullāb’s school that aims to defend Sunni doctrines by the use of the dialectical method. These are the only remaining fragments of the great albeit little-known theologian who probably never left the city of Rayy. They reflect his intellectual agenda of integrating the traditionnist milieux in the main theological debates of the 3rd/9th c. The history he writes of early kalām differs from that of the Muʿtazilis and the Hanbalis, who both agree that theologians and traditionnists are two mutually exclusive professions. Through the category of «　traditionnists theologians　» which appears for the first time in these fragments, al-Qalānisī takes part with al-Ašʿarī in the great synthesis of the 4th/10th c. However, despite all their similarities, their two historiographical projects differ greatly one from another. The study preceding the edition sheds a new light on the strategy of al-Qalānisī in order to explain the reasons behind the success of al-Ašʿarī whose school relegated this early and flourishing period of Sunni kalām in the margins of orthodoxy.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110732740/html

Dewasa ini, akal dan agama menjadi istilah yang berkaitan dengan akal dan wahyu. Semuanya terdapat dalam berbagai karya pemikir Timur maupun Barat, namun adapula sekelompok pemikir yang keberatan menggunakan istilah ini dalam beberapa alasan. Salah satunya adalah kesalah pahaman mereka dalam memposisikan akal dan agama. Sejak awal mereka mengandaikan posisi keduanya saling bertentangan. Sehingga perlu bagi penulis khususnya dan pembaca untuk mengetahui bagaimana keterkaitan antara akal dan wahyu.

This article presents an annotated translation of "The Equivalence between Giving and Receiving" (al-Taswiya bayna al-ifāda wa-l-qabūl), a short Arabic treatise on essence (dhāt) and existence (wujūd) composed by the South Asian philosopher-Sufi, Shaykh Muḥibb Allāh Ilāhābādī (996–1058/1587–1648). Although modern scholarship has habitually referred to Muḥibb Allāh as an ardent defender of the doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd (“unity of existence”) associated with the figure of Ibn al-ʿArabī, such generalized formulations fail to do justice to the uniqueness of Muḥibb Allāh’s intellectual contributions. Most authors who had set out to provide a philosophical defense of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s teachings – including the well-known likes of Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī, ʿAfīf al-Dīn al-Tilimsānī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq Kāshānī, Dāwud al-Qayṣarī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Mullā Ṣadrā, and so on – had tended to prioritize a philosophically utilizable formulation of wujūd or “existence.” Muḥibb Allāh, in notable contrast, favors a presentation of the divine Reality in terms of “pure essence/quiddity” (dhāt/māhiyya maḥḍa), at times going to considerable lengths to uphold his alternative formulation. Such a strategy of argumentation is uncommon amongst philosophical defenders of Ibn al-ʿArabī, the distinctiveness of which is further enhanced by Muḥibb Allāh’s peculiar mode of disputation, which straddles the line between metaphysics and natural philosophy/physics. The Taswiya occasioned at least sixteen commentaries and refutations; this translation benefits from consulting the earliest of these, composed by Mullā Maḥmūd al-Jawnpūrī (d. 1062/1652) and Khwāja Khwurd (d. 1073/1663), as well as three later commentaries by Ḥabīb Allāh Paṭnaʾī (d. 1140/1728). Most significantly, this translation makes extensive use of Muḥibb Allāh’s own Persian auto-commentary, the Sharḥ-i taswiya, which is a critical aid for deciphering the author’s at times opaque manner of expression and argumentation.

This is an English translation of Tuan Guru's transcription of the Ummul Barahin, a late Ashari theological treatise by Shatkh Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Sanusi [d. 1490]of Tlemcen. A commentary by one of Shaykh al-Sanusi's students, Shaykh Abdullah al-Malali was also transcribed.

We were one strong Ummah, believing in Tawheed, then differed, thus weaknesses. Division and differences in Islam are something inevitable, to which history bears witness.
A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group.  This Ummah was prophesized to be divided into 73 sects, all of them in the hellfire except one; that which Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and his companions (may Allaah be pleased with them) are upon.
However, leniency is one of the major characteristics of every sunnah scholar regarding the explanation of Kitaab and Sunnah to the erred sects or groups but this is not in the book of many young scholars today. Thus, lots of right-thinking and religiously committed Islamic intellectuals, scholars, and professionals have been disenchanting with the state of the Muslim Ummah presently.
This called for more elaboration on sects in Islam, and a dire need of this Ummah for a correct way of regulating our differences and living with them, collaborating on common grounds, and excusing one another on naysaying issues by Kitaab and Sunnah.
Oh brethren, adhere to the jamaa’ah (group) of the Muslims and their leader. And if there is no jamaa’ah and no leader, then, keep away from all those different sects.

“Those who are intelligent as well as righteous must vehemently protest, and carry on a pactless fight against dogma, because that which throttles the free intellect of human beings is sure to frustrate their intellectual liberation,” exclaims Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar. “On one side the malevolent forces are keen to establish their professed dogmas, and on the other hand, Parama Puruśa (the Supreme Being) wants the all-round development of human intellect. Hence I call upon you to carry on a ceaseless and pactless fight against dogma. You are sure to be crowned with victory.” This is the third of several discourses (the first is “Dogma and Human Intellect” and the second is “Dogma—No More”) for all intellectuals about dogma, mental expansion and the liberation of intellect. P. R. Sarkar, (1921-1990), was a spiritual guru (also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) in the tradition of Shiva and Krishna, who founded Renaissance Universal to promote a new global renaissance, and who founded the socio-spiritual movement Ananda Marga (“the Path of Bliss”).  –  Richard Gauthier, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California, USA, May 7, 2021.

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This is a translation of a small section from Imam al-Sanusi's work ''Sharh al-Aqida al-Wusta.'' I have translated a page dedicated to proving the impossibility of unification of multiple beings whilst remaining as is - and by extension the Trinity. This is a refutation of the understanding ''3=1 and 1=3.''

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• Did theology decline in Muslim world?