Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-Bigamous Kyrgyz Cleric Is Unrepentant
The popular ex-mufti insists that polygamy is tradition, sparking a debate on the role of Islam in the officially secular state.
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The popular ex-mufti insists that polygamy is tradition, sparking a debate on the role of Islam in the officially secular state.
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Iran nuclear negotiations, which resulted in an agreement in Vienna on the 14 July 2015 after signing The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and its aftermath is one of the key topics of inquiry in recent decade. The density of the debate is primarily emanating from concerns related to the security questions of the Middle East and to the sensitivity of Israeli security situation. Moreover, it arises from the complexity of the whole negotiation process. Such issues like Supreme Leader’s Ali Khamene’i’s fatwa designating sinfulness to the nuclear capacity, his after-deal speech, calling for the enmity between Iran and the United States, Iran’s declared aim to implement global justice and other cases are not customary acts of the state and the study of Iranian foreign policy is not substantive using customary instruments of analysis of International Relations. The article refers to the problem of knowledge production on Iran, and suggests that it mainly resulted from the lack of exchange between International Relations and Middle Eastern studies. This article aims to point at the authority of the ideas in Iran’s foreign policy that Islam or Islamic ideologies like Khumaynism produce. Therefore the article focuses on the main narratives of the First Supreme Leader Ruhullah Khumayni’s concept of justice in order to, first, explain the key points in Iran’s position during negotiations and its aftermath and, second, to introduce the study of the concept of justice as a productive source of information and an approach for further analysis of Iranian foreign policy.
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The human soul is the subject of debates in numerous scientific disciplines. Philosophical considerations encompass a special dimension of the human soul that is related to ontological truths. Among different philosophical questions raised regarding the human soul, the issue of innate ideas particularly stands out. Well-known points of disagreement between Plato and Aristotle regarding this question are usually focused on whether a person possesses knowledge and thoughts from their creation, i.e. birth, or they acquire them through time and experience. With the appearance of Cartesian scepticism and following the solutions Descartes offered for the problem of certain knowledge, the issue of innate ideas has remained the focal question for many prominent philosophers. In the Islamic philosophy, the rational explanation of the nature of innate ideas originates from the more comprehensive theory of the human soul and it states that a person, according to their nature, possesses already existent cognitive abilities they were born with. Innate cognitive abilities discussed in the Islamic philosophy do not refer just to theoretical, but to practical knowledge, as well. Therefore, the analysis of innate ideas in the works of Muslim philosophers is connected to a larger number of scientific disciplines than when it comes to most Western philosophers. The difference between the practical and theoretic intellect will serve as a cognitive basis for defining another aspect of innate ideas. The products of a practical intellect, the human will and his actions, are personal and particular and, therefore, can be connected to the everyday life of a person. Owing to the general presence of the practical intellect in all life spheres, the influence of innate ideas, which are determined in a human being, is recognizable in all most detailed moments of their life.
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This study will attempt to clarify the methods of balancing between benefits and harm in the Islamic law. The legal balancing means science that aims to discover and explain the methods and ways through which we can compare between benefits and damages in the most beneficial scientific way, or between interest and damage when they come into collision and try to translate stated theorizing examples into reality. The most important principles or rules underlying Fiqh Al-Muwazanat, ie. legal balancing are: 1- balancing between the benefits in terms of their preferences and neglect, 2- balancing between harms in terms of their mandatory acceptance when they are impossible to avoid, and their neglect or delay, 3- balancing between benefits and harm in terms of defining the rules on which it is required to prefer the harm over the benefit, or to ignore the damage at the cost of benefits. Regarding the legal balancing of benefits and harm, Islam follows the principle of harmonization and reconciliation between benefits whenever possible, and if not, then resorts to overcoming and preference. The subject of studying this type of Islamic law are Sharia regulations and standards, ie. acts of legal addresses which involve worldly and otherworldly interests because Sharia norms are related to these acts and interests. Sharia regulations and standards require just for the realization of human benefit and the removal of harm, as stated by Imam Suyuti who claims that all of God's commands and prohibitions ultimately aim to take into account the interests, and removal of harm is basically a kind of benefit.
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In the Muslim tradition, month of Rabi'al-Awwal has been devoted to remebrance and memory of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, through special programs, or so called Al-Mawlids every year. Each year with the arrival of the month Rabi'al-Awwal, in which Muhammad, peace be upon him, was born, we have legal Shariah discussions over the issue of marking and celebrating the birthday of Muhammad, through organizing celebrations of Al-Mawlid. Orthodox, puritanistic scholars state that Al-Mawlid is a forbidden, ugly novelty and innovation in religion (AlBid'ah Al-Sajjiah), which was invented as a festival day because of blind imitation of others, like Christians, nonbelievers etc. The other, contemporary scholars have an opinion that Al-Mawlid is a good and commendable act (AlSunnah Al-Hasanah) which has its justification and is applied through the practice and achievemnt of certain permissible forms of worship, such as recitation of the Quran, sending salutations and blessings upon Muhammad, peace be upon him, reciting prayers and dhikr and a reminder about the Seerah, ie. biography of Muhammad, peace be upon him, through religious lectures, speeches, etc. In modern terms, this event can be used in our mosques and community in educational and missionary purposes, as an expression of love for Allah's Messenger, and as a tradition and custom of modern memory and remembrance of Allah's Messenger, his teaching and his mission. Al-Mawlid should not to be taken as a religious, ceremonial event, which is unfortunately often the case in practice.
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The Qur'an, as the last divine revelation, contains regulations relating to all aspects of human life and as such is a basic, fundamental source of all disciplines from the corpus of Islamic sciences. This work aims to present the Qur'an as the basic source of Islamic jurisprudence, without neglecting other segments of the last divine revelation. Although the Qur'an is not a legal document, but rather a Book of religious and moral principles and incentives, it nevertheless contains a number of legal statements. Qur'anic principles pertaining to civil, criminal, domestic, international and other areas of law are presented in five hundred verses which have legal form. This work has through examples exhibited the most significant methodological procedures used by the Qur'an in standardizing its legislation: the methods of principle, the summary and detailed norms. Also, this work mentions the most important Qur'anic styles which the Qur'an uses in explaining its legal regulations.
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Since the days of the Djāhiliyya, when the most beautiful of girls was referred to as a ghāniya – she who needs nothing to add to her natural beauty – procedures to change the appearance such as hair dying, depilation and so forth have been discussed in Muslim law books. We find in the ḥadīth corpus traditions for and against colouring the hair; accounts of Abraham and Muhammad doing (or opposing) it; removal of hair from the armpits by Abraham; and so on. Alongside modernisation and the expanding cosmetics industry, the Islamic world has recently been facing the dilemma of changing what is defined in the Ḳurān as ‘Allah’s creation’ (“And surely I will command them and they will change Allah’s creation. Who so chooseth Satan for a patron instead of Allah is verily a loser and his loss is manifest”: Ṣūrat al-Nisā‘, (4), 119). Globalisation has contributed to a heightened awareness of appearance and exposure to cosmetic surgery, through TV, the Internet, beauty celebrities, and Hollywood movies. When asked about this, the eminent Muslim scholar Shaikh Yūsuf al-Ḳara- ḍāwī stated against what he defined as “Surgeries for beautification”, but we find also other opinions which approve plastic surgery if it is used to treat a deformed organ where the operation will offer a better quality of life. Plastic surgery has advanced at a rapid rate in an attempt to reduce people’s suffering. Islam welcomes plastic surgeries as long as it is practised for people’s benefit, for a sound reason and not for luxury purposes. In this paper I would like to survey the changing attitudes to these issues from the beginning of Islam to the present day.
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Tariq Ramadan is an exciting,and controversial public figure who presents himself as a bridge between Islamic and democratic communities which have at times radically different understandings of justice,morality and even,in some cases,of which basic facts best describe the way our social world operates.This figure presents two distinct messages to those two communities:to his own,a message of confidence and authenticity;to the outside community,a message of trust and conciliation. Liberal democracies must have a firm but also consistent view regarding what they demand intelectually,morally and spiritually of minority communities.Because liberal democracies limit their aspirations to the just and stable ordering of social cooperation, democratic societies ought to require agreement from their fellow citizens on only those matters which are essential to the preservation of justice,political stability and social solidarity from one generation to the next. We must be very cautious about demanding further agreement about ultimate ends and the morality of policies and practices which are not predetermined by the standards of justice.
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The institutionalization of Islam as an aspect of understanding and practical contemporary interpretation of Islam offers to the society indisputable and universal values of the Islamic concept of life as a general universal value. Islamic economics, Islamic banking, Halal quality are only forms of that institutionalization and the evidence that Islam can be practiced and be a part of the system and order in any society and in any country because of its universality. Halal quality is built upon a doctrinal paradigm of Halal as universal goods the „Tayyibat“ which are opposite of everything that opposes universal good or the ,,Khabais". This concept has an ambivalent, doctrinal paradigm; 1. (First) many traditional texts display Halal as Tayyibat; 2. Allah speaks to various addressees through the logic of common sense and intelligence and not just by doctrinal approach and standard norm of obligations or prohibitions. We explained the „Halal we Tayyib“ concept through many traditional Islamic texts.
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End of the world or the Last Day was and still is a phenomenon that has inspired the imagination of many people in all generations, especially in recent times, when this issue was actualised by the media . Many have been referring to the ancient Mayan calendar, which claims that the world ends on 21st December of 2012. People understood that on that same day the End of the World will occur, so this article is a contribution to a better understanding of this phenomenon. This text treats the mentioned phenomenon and its Islamic perception, with a few important details that try to explain it better to a human perception. Article also mentions a fundamental division of this phenomenon symptoms and cites one example of a small and large sign of the Judgement Day.
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This work which is based upon analysis of educational thought of Fethullah Gulen and Hussein Djozo tries to assess possible correlations between the teachings of these two scholars. Starting hypothesis is that their educational thought contains a large number of similar elements. Because a similar paper has not yet been written, this article has a great importance for the pedagogical science in general, and especially Islamic pedagogy. The work is composed of several chapters, which discuss common aspects of educational thought and Djozo and Gulen. They include: the concept and importance of education, social activism and the importance of uniting theory and practice, the relationship between religious and secular knowledge, personality of students and educators, and the nature of the educational process. Methods which have been used are: analytical method (content analysis, functional analysis, comparative analysis), deductive methods, methods of synthesis and abstraction. Work came to a conclusion that both Gulen and Djozo tried to reintroduce in Islamic Studies or reaffirm a dynamic understanding of the Qur'anic idea of time and history, in the manner of the most classic authorities, creating a brilliant intellectual tradition with which Muslims are listed in order of the most civilized nations in the human history.
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The Almighty Allah has raised His messengers as well as their followers through memorable events and temptations which provided corrective measures and the benefits that will never be forgotten. He did not send any of the messengers except that he was accused of being a lunatic or a mad poet, magician, prophet, etc. In this way the disbelievers, polytheists, idolaters of Quraysh , on the peak of all messengers' mission, have spoken about Muhammad, peace be upon him, waiting for an opportunity to harm him in any way, spike him physically or morally, both his reputation and morale or his family . Just one in a series of such attacks is the event "ifka-a " (hadis al-ifk) in which they wanted to degrade Allah's Messenger morally and psychologically by slandering his wife, mother of believers, Aisha, the daughter of Abu Bakr As-Siddiq. After a month of terrible anguish and discomfort, which had an impact not only on both Allah's Messenger and Aisha, but also on her family and the whole newly formed Muslim society, Allah sent revelation proving the innocence of Aisha. The revealed verses provided educational measures and guidelines which continue to tread the Muslim society after these terrible events, but also pointed out the benefits of all these events through the disclosure and discovery of what Muslims did not know and that is that among them lived hidden hypocrites, indicating that there are those who are not sincere believers. This event disintegrated Muslim society into two categories: sincere believers, the faithful, who kept the truth and those who are not, but they pretended that they are believers and used their hidden nifaq and hypocrisy for attacks on islam and the believers.
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This paper has offered one opinion regarding the form of mistreatment which imposed on the customers by certain merchants. We have presented some concrete and clear Islamic position on this issue. Beside mentioning these problems and the methods of various trade speculations, we also offered some ways for avoiding and eliminating of such a scourge. We have mentioned are examples from around the world where cheating are very diverse, and we are aware of the fact that there are far more than what might be found in this paper. It is certain that this issue deserves even more attention, and perhaps a scientific conference and writing a much larger and important study, because this is the state of society in which we live and where we all are affected by some type of commercial fraud, with or without our will.
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States substantially shape their geopolitical positions, power, and security policies through their geopolitical positions, geopolitical imagery, geopolitical codes and the rhetoric and build their national identities and foreign policies on the basis of their geographical locations. Strategic depth and hinterlands motivate states to become revisionist or compel them to become a status quo player. From the perspective of Iran, Shi’a Islam is the basic reference of geopolitical codes and the factor which forces Iran to pursue proactive policy in all geographical areas where the Shiites exist. The construction of Shia identity is the source of Iranian power and the Shi’a geopolitics is the basis of its security. The article is analyzing the concepts of power and security by examining the intensive effect of realism and constructivism in Iranian foreign policy.
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One of the results of the Arab Spring, both in Egypt and Tunisia, was rise in popularity of the ultraconservative Salafi movement. Despite one-sided media coverage, Salafists cannot be equated only with violence, because the vast majority of its members have taken a quietist approach rejecting not only violence, but any form of political commitment. This does not change the fact, however, that due to the doctrine adopted by Salafists, the boundary between quietism and political activity, and finally the use of violence is not clearly defined. It means that members of the movement, who previously declared themselves to be apolitical, can easily decide to engage in radical actions. The aim of this article is to draw attention to the ideological roots of Salafism, its internal divisions with regard to political commitment, and to analyse the development of the Salafi movement in Egypt and Tunisia before and after Arab Spring. It will also attempt to assess the possible development of this movement in the near future.
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The aim of the current paper is to compare the reception of the Qur’an and Hadith texts related to science in the classical and modern world of Islamic culture. For this purpose, we have made the reinterpretation of certain texts related to science, within the constituent sources of Islam, the Qur’an and the Sunnah of Muhammad s.a.w.s., on the one hand, and the presentation of the attitude of Muslim people towards science in the medieval and modern times, on the other hand. Only certain texts from the Qur’an and Hadith, those, in the author’s opinion, the most relevant ones, were chosen for the further analysis. Moreover, the flash indicators in relation to the Muslim attitude towards science were presented through scientific innovations and current statistical data. For the purposes of this paper, a methodological approach based on the combination of traditional and rational tafsir (Halilović, 2015) and the application of a historical method (Granić & Karić, 2009) was used. The findings reveal the discontinuity of the initial scientific strenuousness within the Muslim circles, as well as the correlation between the multi-century scientific impotence and the long-lasting civilizational flounder of the Muslim community –ummah.
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The work on iqtiḍāun-naṣṣ explores the theoretical interpretations of Ḥanafi scholars in relation to the necessarily assumed meaning of the legislative text (iqtiḍāun-naṣṣ) and the consequences of such an interpretation on the regulations to which the Ḥanafis came in their legal reasoning (ijtihād). At the beginning of the paper, the linguistic and terminological definition of the concept of iqtiḍāun-naṣṣ in the Ḥanafi Law School is considered. Through the examples of iqtiḍāun-naṣṣ it is explained that the Ḥanafis used iqtiḍāun-naṣṣ in the argumentation of legal regulations. Furthermore, the status of iqtiḍāun-naṣṣ in the Ḥanafi Law School, and the way of giving preference in the case of contradiction between iqtiḍāun-naṣṣ and other indications are clarified. At the end of this paper, the basic results of this research are presented.
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Tesawwuf is an authentic Islamic science like fiqh, tafsir, hadith, and similar. Tasawwuf is not mysticism, nor philosophy, but the essence of Islamic spirituality. Gnosis and education are its two main determinants, so it is embedded in the core of the Islamic concept of education. This was confirmed by Gazi-Husrev bey, a founder of high religious education in our region, who just next to his Madrasah built the Hanikah School for Spiritual Education, the attendance of which was an integral part of education in that time. The Islamic community and its educational institutions have an overwhelming need for the reintroduction and revitalization of the subject of tesawwuf in curricula, as a modern method of spiritual education.
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A year after Atatürk abolished the institution of the caliphate, Ali Abdel Razek, an Islamic scholar from the traditional alAzhar University, published a not-too-thick volume entitled Islam and the Foundations of Political Power and initiated a new and dynamic discussion of completely unexpected proportions about the relationship between Islam and politics. Distinguished professors of al-Azhar had an urgent meeting and made a decision that Abdel Razek should be stripped of his title of an Islamic cleric because of the views he had expounded in his book. However, despite this, in the following decades his book became one of the most popular texts among the contemporary Muslim thinkers in the Egyptian scientific and political circles and beyond. On the basis of a detailed analysis of the contents of this book we notice that Abdel Razek persistently attempts to show that the caliphate did not have any benefit for the Muslims, and that it even was a source of permanent injustice and evil. He concludes that the political power, the state and even the judiciary should not be connected with religion, because they are exclusively political phenomena. He also insists that the Prophet Muhammad was a purely spiritual leader and that he had never contemplated the concepts of political authority or the state. For this reason he explicitly claims that politics and religion are mutually incompatible and warns Muslims that they must follow the latest results of human reason in the field of political science if they wish to consolidate the foundations and structure of the political power in their societies. However, we notice that, due to his frequent and generally objective criticism of the Caliphs and their policies in various historical periods, Abdel Razek ignores the fact that in the Quran and the Islamic tradition there are frequent references to the political power, the judiciary, defense issues, economic control, and the organization of internal and international politics, that is, that both the Quran and the Islamic tradition contain teachings about a different policy that leads one toward eternal bliss. Such policy, the ultimate purpose of which is the enlightenment of man and society, was written about extensively by the representatives of a brilliant political philosophy and political jurisprudence in Islam, who relied on the cognitive credibility of the religious texts and the various categories of theoretical and practical reason.
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In the article the author presents the problem of miracles in Sufism, illustrating them with typical examples from all over the Islamic world – from Central Asia through India to Maghreb. Topic is made in the anthropological context of holiness of pīrs and cosmology of Sufism. Miracles and wonders are analyzed their value and usefulness of religion (from the perspective of theology), and the conclusion confirms the hypothesis that the dimension and the spiritual sense is faint, or no. The only function they perform, is to build the image of pīrs, as asaint, a man afflicted with the grace of Allah. Examples of miracles reveal the influence of the cultures and traditions of local and regional form and course miracles, for example. faqirismus confirm the influence of Islamic mysticism in India.
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