Thursday, August 16, 2018
Ottoman Tafsīr: Scholars, Works, Problems
Ottoman Tafsīr: Scholars, Works, ProblemsThe established understanding dominant in academic studies on Islamic culture and civilization is based on the assumption that Islamic thought had lost its productivity since the Middle Ages. As a consequence of this viewpoint, it became widely accepted that the field of Islamic sciences during the Ottoman period, which spanned from the Middle Ages to the modern era, was a period marked by stagnation. In recent years, however, revisionist/critical studies have begun to question these assumptions. Beyond reductionist conceptualizations and the usage of contentious terms such as productivity and stagnation in reference to the Ottoman era of Islamic knowledge and culture, there is a pressing need for academic works that aim to understand the Ottoman tradition in its own context. To this end, ISAR put together a series of scholarly forums aimed at redefining the place of the Ottoman scholarly tradition in the context of both the Islamic sciences and global intellectual history through a multi-layered approach. The first three symposiums of the series were devoted to the sciences of Kalām, Fiqh and Sufism. The fourth meeting of the series will focus on the Ottoman tafsīr tradition.Tafsīr is a discipline in which the Qur'an is studied from various angles. In this particular religious science, Qur'anic verses are examined in terms of reasons underlying the revelations, abrogation (nāsikh-mansūkh), context, the method of recitation (Qirāʾāt), word and sentence structures and the determination of divine will. This study is connected with historical (sīrah, history and hadith); linguistic (lexicology, etymology, morphology and syntax); literary (ma`āni, bayān, badī`) disciplines as well as Kalām, Sufism, and Fiqh, all of which use the Qur'an as a source. In the field of tafsīr, which historically evolved in parallel with the developments of linguistic and religious sciences, many types of exegeses, such as lexical (lughawī), syntactic (nahwī), kalāmī, allegorical (ishārī), fiqhī, had emerged while mixed commentaries were also penned. In addition to exegeses, a body literature of the Qur'anic sciences which deals with the various issues that concern the Qur'an individually or as a whole has taken shape. The Ottoman heritage of tafsīr presents a wealth of material in every field of tafsīr literature. In the Ottoman period, while there are many works in the formats of verse-by-verse and surah-by-surah exegeses, numerous commentaries and glosses on other tafsīr works were also written. Furthermore, a considerable amount of literature has also developed in the field of Qur'anic studies. However, the fact that many of these writings are not properly studied has made it impossible to write an accurate history of tafsīr.This symposium aims to raise the issue of the contribution of Ottoman scholars to the tradition of interpretation. Works, discussions, and contributions in the field of tafsīr from the foundation of the Ottoman state to the Republican period constitutes the theme of the symposium. The symposium will be accepting original works focused on the tradition of Ottoman tafsīr primarily from the following subjects:
https://www.isar.org.tr/en/duyuru-haberler/osmanlida-ilm-i-tefsir-sempozyumu
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Monday, August 13, 2018
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
"Another theme that runs throughout many of the surahs of the Quran
is sacred history and narratives that pertain to prophets of old and their peoples. This sacred history confines itself almost completely to the Abrahamic tradition and the Israelite prophets, although some Arab prophets not found in the Bible are also mentioned. The import of this sacred history is meant, however, to be universal, since the Islamic revelation is addressed to all of humanity rather than to a particular people, as is the case with Judaism. For Muslims, the sacred history narrated in the Quran was revealed by God to the Prophet; it is not simply a compilation of reports heard from Jewish or Christian sources. There is in fact a subtle difference between Biblical and Quranic accounts of sacred history. While the Biblical accounts have a more historical nature, Quranic sacred history is more ahistorical and is revealed primarily to teach ethical and spiritual lessons. Quranic sacred history is seen more as events within the human soul rather than as just historical events in the world. All human beings possess within their being, for example, the qualities of Moses and those of Pharaoh, the beauty of Joseph and the conniving of his brothers; the sacred history is a means of teaching Muslims about their own souls as well as about good and evil and the ultimate triumph of good over evil, if one takes recourse in God, seeks His Help, and has confidence in Him throughout the trials of life, as did prophets of old.--from the "General Introduction" to The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, Seyyed Hossein Nasr editor-in-chief; Caner K. Dagli, Maria Massi Dakake, Joseph E. B. Lumbard, general editors; Mohammed Rustom, assistant editor. (New York, NY: HarperOne, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2015]), xxvii.
"Traditional views of religious history are usually concerned with eschatology,
and Islam's are no exception in this regard. The Quran looks upon history as a finite reality that begins with God's creation of the present humanity and ends with His bringing human and cosmic history to its eschatological end. The Quranic conception of the march of time is in a sense cyclical: each cycle is marked by the descent of a message from God through a prophet, the gradual forgetting of that message by the particular people to whom it was sent, and usually the occurrence of a Divinely willed calamity, followed by the coming of a new prophet. But these cycles of prophecy are not endless. Rather, the Quran announces that the Prophet of Islam is the Seal of prophets (33:40) in the chain of prophecy and that after him will come not another prophet [e: as a new prophet with a new message], but eschatological events that mark the end of this world and present-day humanity.--from the "General Introduction" to The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, Seyyed Hossein Nasr editor-in-chief; Caner K. Dagli, Maria Massi Dakake, Joseph E. B. Lumbard, general editors; Mohammed Rustom, assistant editor. (New York, NY: HarperOne, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2015]), xxvii-xxviii.
Monday, August 6, 2018
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