Introduction

Abstract

Abstract In the lead essay to this special section, Talal Asad explores some of the avenues opened up by Wittgenstein's work for students of religion. Highlighting some of the philosopher's key insights on the life of language, Asad argues that, instead of taking the opposition between belief and practice as a starting point, scholars should attend to the variety of ways language comes to be used in contexts of embodied learning, contexts wherein the abilities and aptitudes germane to religious life are developed and honed. Turning his focus to what Wittgenstein called the “grammar” of such key concepts as conviction, persuasion, and critique, Asad points to some of the ways that our secular understandings of these notions are inadequate for grasping their place within religious lives. In the latter part of the essay, Asad brings a Wittgensteinian perspective to bear on a key debate within the Islamic tradition concerning the “rationality” of divine speech. The article is followed by five commentaries that take up and expand on different themes found in Asad's essay and developed elsewhere in his work.