Monday, October 12, 2009

Contextualizing the Developlment of Islamic Theological Schools

This relates to something Dr. Jackson really emphasizes in his introduction to Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering in the development of schools of creed within human history. I found this passage is the beginning of an article "Currents and Countercurrents" by R.M. Frankf that I'm reading for a class on Imam Gazzali with Professor Everett Rowson:

"Philosophical and theological traditions, systems and subsystems, are generated within particular cultural and social milieux and their histories are necessarily bound to the histories of these broader contexts. Certain fundamental givens of the historically common world are inevitably taken for granted and incorporated at some level. In some cases this takes place on the explicit basis of tradition or of religious belief while in others it occurs simply because of the way the world presents itself "naturally" and so manifestly so. "Language is Being's house and in its dwelling man resides."

...I don't think I fully understood the last line though..perhaps how we are so shaped by the worldview of our language?

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