Sunni Tradition Research Articles

Cultural Memory of the Pious Ancestors (Salaf) in al-Ghazālī

The superiority and truth of the way of the first few generations of Muslims, the Salaf , has been a key theological premise of Sunni Islam, which Sunni ulamā have tried to defend against incursions of intellectual sophistication as well as foreign systems of reasoning and spirituality. However, they have also been attracted by the promises of greater intellectual coherence, sophistication, or ultimate truths that other traditions seemed to offer to a remarkable and underappreciated extent. Al-Ghazālī, an iconic defender of the intellectualist branch of Sunni tradition (Asharism) against challenges posed by rationalist theologians (Mutazilites), Aristotelian philosophers, and Neoplatonist Batinites, attempted to synthesize these various traditions, and in the process, struggled with the cultural memory of the Salaf . His attempts at resolution ranged from the projection of a selective and romanticized view of the Salaf as proto-mystics, neglect and implicit deprecation of the Salaf in his mysticial writings, and finally a qualified return to the Salaf ’s way in his last treatise. Although he never seems to settle on a stable alternative to the Sunni teleology in which the Salaf always came out on top, he consistently resorts to esotericism and elitism whenever attempting to transcend the Salaf . Such tensions and attempts at resolution continue to characterize subsequent intellectualist Sunni tradition.

Sufis on Exile and Ghorba: Conceptualizing Displacement and Modern Subjectivity

Sufis' theory of ghorba (estrangement or exile) underlies here a reflection on exile in contemporary Arab cultures. Hence Ibn al-Arabi's speculations on ghorba in Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya shed a new light on Arjun Appadurai's notion of “ethnoscape.” The Sufi concept of ghorba paves the way for a modern Arab ethnoscape, where the Arab subject experiences transnational movement in the global space without associating this experience with the negative aspects of exile. Ibn al-Arabi dismisses the negative effects of “geographic” displacement. According to his reasoning, an expatriate does not feel estranged anywhere he or she travels, since the world—and the divine—are in continuity with the human subject. The real exile is a psychological experience resulting from the disruption of monist unity and harmony between human and divine, man and the world. This conception of exile challenges nationalist theories of estrangement based on the assumption that a sense of displacement is bound to physical movement out of the national territory. Ghorba is a state in which the subject is far from his or her ethical and spiritual plenitude (thanks to the Sufi mystical unity with the divine), not a geopolitical situation. This conception challenges the dogmatic distinction of House of Islam versus House of War in Arab Islamic Sunni tradition, where the displacement out of the former results in an experience of exile. In modern terms, ghorba—as conceptualized by Sufis—provides a traditional basis helping the modern Arab subject cope with the experience of displacement, by shifting the paradigm of belonging from the realm of geopolitics to that of spirituality and ethics. Thus the construction of a modern postnational Arab subjectivity can be achieved thanks to the investment of the ethnoscape—a virtual space that transcends national boundaries but keeps active a network of affects and cultural references and products unifying an ethnically distinct subject. The Sufi sense of belonging to the whole world makes it politically and ethically acceptable to feel at home outside of one's homeland, without being stripped from one's ethnicity. It adds to this compromise a dimension of spiritual fulfillment, since the horizontal ethnoscape intersects with a vertical spiritual axis, constantly neutralizing nostalgia to the geographic paradise of origins.

Identidades religiosas e fronteiras étnicas: um estudo do ritual da oração na comunidade muçulmana do rio de janeiro

Este artigo focaliza o papel que o ritual da oração coletiva de sexta-feira, praticado pelos muçulmanos sunitas do Rio de Janeiro, tem na construção de suas identidades religiosas. Considerando que a ideia de obtenção de conhecimento religioso (textos doutrinais e práticas rituais) da tradição sunita é central nos discursos dos membros dessa comunidade, as várias formas através das quais esse conhecimento é posto em circulação, apropriado e mobilizado via ritual da oração criam distinções cumulativas, que estabelecem diferentes fronteiras, poderes e identidades para os membros da comunidade sunita do Rio de Janeiro, de acordo com suas etnicidades e inserções no Islã (nascidos muçulmanos ou convertidos).

The Formation of the Classical Tafsir Tradition

While one may question the title of the book under review, there is littledoubt that Walid Saleh’s revised Yale doctoral dissertation is a major developmentin Qur’anic studies and, in particular, of the exegetical traditions inIslam. Al-Tha`labi was important, but remains neglected in the field. A Sunniauthor widely cited by Shi`i exegetes and polemicists, a traditionist who drew upon Sufi commentaries, and a Muslim thinker interested in pre-Islamicreligious lore, he had a major influence on the development of the IslamicEast’s exegetical traditions. This is signalled by citations from his famousexegesis Al-Kashf wa al-Bayan, a monumental work that still awaits a criticaledition, and by the disputes during the medieval period over his probityand reliability.After a useful introduction to the problematic of exegesis, the bookcomprises seven chapters. The introduction is not, however, free from contention.Saleh would like to argue that al-Tha`labi represents the “intellectualvictory” of Sunnism during a period when it was “weak but most culturallyopen”; Sufi exegesis was co-opted some time before al-Ghazzali,Shi`ism through the incorporation of philo-`Alid material, and rationalism“dethroned by proclaiming the salvific power of belonging to the Muslimcommunity.” I am not so sure. While Al-Kashf was influential, al-Tha`labiwas widely derided in the medieval Sunni tradition, not least by everyIslamicist’s favourite bête noire Ibn Taymiyya. His supposed “inclusive”Sunnism was clearly not favored in a time when Sunni political power dominatedand was institutionally perpetuated in the madrasah. The gradualdevelopment of the nature of Sunni consensus and hegemony probablyexplains the process of al-Tha`labi’s work and its reception ...

In Amma's Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India (review)

Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, In Amma's Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular in South India. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006. 320 pp. In 1989 Flueckiger met Amma, a middle-aged woman, who identified herself as a pimnima (wife of a pir, a Sufi teacher) who meets patients in the healing room and writes taviz (amulets with Quranic verses) for them. Amma describes her healing practice as one that is based on the Quran, and its success guaranteed for illness caused by spiritual forces. Amma's patients and clients come from many different religious traditions. Despite critiques of Amma's practice as heretical, Amma sees herself and her practices not as peripheral but at the very center, a location through which multiple axes of religious identities meet and cross at what Flueckiger calls crossroads, caurâstâ in Hindi and Urdu. Taking seriously Amma's self-identification as Muslim, Flueckiger seeks to understand how and when this identity is shaped, enacted, and articulated at this site of what she marks as Islam. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger's In Amma's Healing Room is an exemplary ethnography focusing on one Muslim female spiritual healer in Hyderabad, South India. Following the genre of autobiographical ethnographic model of Shostak's Misa, the significance of Amma's work and life is marked by the space and contents of human interactions that unfold in her healing room (that is an extension of her private home). This is a space and place that represents a level of popular, non-institutionally based Islamic practice that has been underrepresented in religious studies on in South Asia (2). Through Amma's philosophical perspective, that is richly narrated in Amma's own voice, about the and contents of religions, genders, and the in-distinctions of the human heart and condition across these differences; we are introduced to the vernacular Islam of one Hyderabad! location. Amma's Sufi Islamic inspired and embedded healing practice and philosophical outlook on life, relationships, and humanity welcomes Hindu, Christian, and Muslims across different sects seeking healing, guidance, and teaching from her. The healing-room discourse, in addition to holding a and permeable religious boundaries between Hindu and Muslim traditions, highlights Amma's conceptions of the human heart that is reflected in the complex and historical relationship between Shii and Sunni traditions of in Hyderabad (194). For example, Amma who is considered Sunni claims the Shii Muslim festival of Muharram as Ours and speaks proudly of the Hyderabad! tradition of Muslims and Hindus always getting along (195). With the contemporary politicization of religious identities in India, Hindus are participating less in the Muharram processions explains Flueckiger. Yet, despite this trend, Amma's healing room attracts equal numbers of Muslims and Hindus. Amma's healing work, among other approaches, centers on communication/counseling the clients and provision of written and non-written herbal medicinal prescriptions. Flueckiger illustrates how the ritual grammar of many of Amma's prescriptions is shared across religious boundaries. For example, utara is a prescription that Amma orders for forms of what Amma calls heavy evil eye. The that involves the circling of an attractive physical object around the head of a person in order to draw away the evil eye is one commonly practiced in numerous contexts in South Asia-Hindu, Muslim, and Christian. Both Hindus and Muslims visiting Amma accept the possibility that social and physical illnesses can be transferred through material substance such as through food. Herbal prescriptions to be buried and burned for healing is another material substance shared across religious identities. Amma explains that, There's great sakti [spiritual power] in jan-butT (herbs) and goes on to narrate a story of Hanuman (from the Ramayana) who had flown to a special mountain to find similar healing herbs in order to bring the dying hero Lakshman back to life. …

The Meaning Structures of Muslim Bereavements in Israel: Religious Traditions, Mourning Practices, and Human Experience

ABSTRACT The grief and mourning of Muslim citizens in Israel are considered. First, a series of mourning customs spanning the period from notification of death until post-mourning are presented from 3 perspectives: (a) the requirements of the Islamic Sunni tradition; (b) the manner in which Islamic mourning rituals are practiced; and (c) the authors' interpretative perspective. Next, a synopsis of the personal experiences of two adult children to the death of their elderly father illustrates Muslim bereavement from a narrative point of view. Lastly, the concluding section continues a consideration of the distinction between the Islamic religious emphasis on return to functioning and the myriad ways in which the memory and relationship to the deceased are experienced. The article demonstrates how belief system, Islamic mourning rituals, and the power of loss create an experiential blend that is neither monolithic nor stereotypical.

The Shiites: ritual and popular piety in a Muslim community

Part 1 An introduction to the Shiite tradition in Islam: Shiism - an overview esentials of Islam common to the Shiite and Sunni traditions Shiite Ta'wil - the esoteric dimension of Quranic scripture variations on the esoteric tradition in poetry and theosophy - examples form Attar, Hafez, and Suhrawardi of Aleppo the patterns that inform history - Shiite worldviews and the understanding of past and future Shiism in India - historical background and cultural influences representations of Muharram in British fiction and memoirs from the Raj. Part 2 Ritual and popular devotion in a Shiite community - Muharram liturgies of Hyderabad: Shiite shrines of the old city Shiite men's guilds of Hyderabad lamentation rituals - Shiite justifications for Matam - liturgical forms of Matam the Majlis liturgy - sermon topics and Shiite self-definition the role of liturgy in reinforcing communal identity preparations for the Muharram season - rehearsal sessions and the training of the chorus in a Shiite men's guild liturgy as drama - the seventh of Muharram and the bridegroom of Karbala's procession co-operation and competition among the men's guilds criticisms directed against the men's guilds Muharram liturgies and Hindu-Muslim relations in Hyderabad. Part 3 Conclusion: Hyderabad and the world community of Shiite Islam.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah: A Fourteenth Century Defense against Astrological Divination and Alchemical Transmutation

This article is a review of the arguments of the hanbalt theologian Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (d. 1349 A.D.) against the occult sciences that existed in Islam during his time. The article takes as its point of departure Professor Armand Abel's argument (La place des sciences occultes dans la d6cadence, in Classicisme et declin culturel dans l'histoire de l'Islam, edited by R. Brunschwig and G. E. Von Grunebaum, Paris, 1957) that the Sunni religious institution protected, and indeed sanctioned, the rising tide of occultism which, according to Abel, inundated the lands of Islam in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the Christian era. Ibn Qayyim, one of the great spokesmen of the Sunni tradition, devoted over two hundred pages in his Miftah Dar al-SaCadah in harshly denouncing divinatory practices, especially astrology and alchemy, which does not at all tally with the conclusions drawn by Professor Abel. Some of Ibn Qayyim's arguments appear to be original, while some, according to his own admission, definitely are not. The author of the present article deals with Ibn Qayyim's refutations of astrology and alchemy and has tried to show from what sources the theologian may have learned his arguments.

Proposed Index to the Sunni Traditions

Proposed Index to the Sunni Traditions

Proposed Index to the Sunni Traditions

Proposed Index to the Sunni Traditions