Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb By Khaled El-Rouayheb

Abstract

Research into the intellectual history of the seventeenth century in the Ottoman empire and the Maghreb is, as Khaled El-Rouayheb notes, ‘woefully underdeveloped’ (p. 2). This book is a major contribution to shifting this field out of its own ‘dark ages’ (p. 361), challenging accepted views of the intellectual world and constructing new arguments based on a close analysis of the primary material. It overturns established views of the seventeenth century as an intellectual wasteland, stagnant, barren and passively awaiting revival and reform, and opens the way for a new take on the Ottoman intellectual world of the seventeenth century. The book is divided into three parts, each subdivided into three chapters. Part I, on ‘The path of the Kurdish and Persian verifying scholars’, covers ‘Kurdish scholars and the reinvigoration of the rational sciences’, ‘A discourse in method: the evolution of Ādāb al-baḥth’, and ‘The rise of “deep reading” ’. The second part, ‘Saving servants from the yoke of imitation’, examines ‘Maghrebi “theologian-logicians” in Egypt and the Hejaz’, ‘The condemnation of imitation (Taqlīd)’, and ‘al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī and two theological controversies in seventeenth-century Morocco’. The third part is on ‘The imams of those who proclaim the unity of existence’ and its chapters cover ‘The spread of mystical monism’, ‘Monist mystics and neo-Ḥanbalī traditionalism’ and ‘In defense of Waḥdat al-Wujūd’.