You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This well-rounded introduction takes an expansive view of Islamic ideology, culture, and tradition, sourcing a range of historical, sociological, and literary perspectives.
This book starts with the premise that while there are good comparisons and bad comparisons, what is common to both is the sheer artificiality of the enterprise. It then develops an analytical framework for using the method in the context of religious studies.
The scholarly study of Islam has become ever more insular and apologetic. Academic Islamic Studies has tried to maintain a focus on truth, authenticity, experience and meaning and has effectively avoided discussion of larger social, cultural and ideological issues. Many scholars of Islam have presented themselves to their colleagues, the media and the public as the interpreters of Islam and have done so with an interpretation which tends, almost universally, to the liberal and egalitarian. The ignorance and hostility which the Islamic faith has faced since 9/11 has partly necessitated the taking of such a position. But, as Theorizing Islam argues, the issue remains that only one interpretation of Islam is generally being presented and, as with any interpretation, this has its own assumptions. The aim of Theorizing Islam is to explore the potential for a fuller, more honest and more sophisticated approach to both theory and methodology in the academic study of Islam.
Aaron Hughes examines the creation and dissemination of 'Abrahamic religions'. Part genealogical and part analytical his study seeks to raise and answer questions about the appropriateness and usefulness of employing these religions as a vehicle for understanding and classifying data.
The Texture of the Divine explores the central role of the imagination in the shared symbolic worlds of medieval Islam and Judaism. Aaron W. Hughes looks closely at three interrelated texts known as the Hayy ibn Yaqzan cycle (dating roughly from 1000--1200 CE) to reveal the interconnections not only between Muslims and Jews, but also between philosophy, mysticism, and literature. Each of the texts is an initiatory tale, recounting a journey through the ascending layers of the universe. These narratives culminate in the imaginative apprehension of God, in which the traveler gazes into the divine presence. The tales are beautiful and poetic literary works as well as probing philosophical treatises on how the individual can know the unknowable. In this groundbreaking work, Hughes reveals the literary, initiatory, ritualistic, and mystical dimensions of medieval Neoplatonism. The Texture of the Divine also includes the first complete English translation of Abraham Ibn Ezra's Hay ben Meqitz.
Considers Jewish studies as an academic discipline from its origins to the present. The relationship between Jewish studies and religious studies is a long and complicated one, full of tensions and possibilities. Whereas the majority of scholars working within Jewish studies contend that the discipline is in a very healthy state, many who work in theory and method in religious studies disagree. For them, Jewish studies represents all that is wrong with the modern academic study of religion: too introspective, too ethnic, too navel-gazing, and too willing to reify or essentialize data that it constructs in its own image. In this book, Aaron W. Hughes explores the unique situation of Jewish studies and how it intersects with religious studies, noting particular areas of concern for those interested in the fieldÂ’s intellectual health and future flourishing. Hughes provides a detailed study of origins, principles, and assumptions, documenting the rise of Jewish studies in Germany and its migration to Israel and the United States. Current issues facing the academic study of Judaism are discussed, including the role of private foundations that seek inroads into the academy.
Muslim and Jew: Origins, Growth, Resentment seeks to show how and why Islam and Judaism have been involved in political and theological self-definitions using the other since the seventh century. This short volume provides a historical and comparative survey of how each religion has thought about the other and, in so doing, about itself. It confines itself to those points at which Judaism and Islam intersect and cross-pollinate, and explores how this delicate process continues into the present with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Muslim and Jew thus seeks to move beyond the intersection of a monolithic Judaism and a monolithic Islam and instead examines and organizes the messiness of the encounter as both religions sought to define themselves within, from, and against the other.
This book empirically substantiates a re-conceptualization of Islam as produced and consumed by both Muslims and non-Muslims. Non-Muslim Islam is too often condemned and decried by scholars, rather than investigated. However, non-Muslim politicians, journalists, and public debaters preaching and missionizing their own interpretations of Islam to both Muslim and non-Muslim audiences, and venturing into theological debates with Muslims as non-Muslim Islamic authorities, cannot be reduced to cynical power politics, bigotry, political opportunism, prejudice, or apologetics (even if this may sometimes be the case). Neither do these labels increase our understanding of non-Muslim Islam as a phenomenon. This book argues the case for studying non-Muslim Islam and demonstrates the value of doing so through 11 case studies, opening up a new field of research, while also giving an insight into the many epistemologies at play in the production of different non-Muslim Islams.
"Somewhere Between Islam and Judaism is of interest to scholars and students of religion concerned with comparison and those studying Islam, Judaism and Jewish-Muslim relations. The essays collected in this volume provide a set of critical reflections on what it means to study these two religious traditions within the larger context of the academic study of religion"--
The Routledge Companion to Jewish History and Historiography provides an overview of Jewish history from the biblical to the contemporary period, while simultaneously placing Jewish history into conversation with the most central historiographical methods and issues and some of the core source materials used by scholars within the field. The field of Jewish history is profitably interdisciplinary. Drawing from the historical methods and themes employed in the study of various periods and geographical regions as well as from academic fields outside of history, it utilizes a broad range of source materials produced by Jews and non-Jews. It grapples with many issues that were core to Jewish lif...