Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions

Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions PDF Author: Shahzad Bashir
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570034954
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions tells the story of the Nurbakhshiya, an Islamic messianic movement that originated in fifteenth-century central Asia and Iran and survives to the present in Pakistan and India. In the first full-length study of the sect, Shahzad Bashir illumines the significance of messianism as an Islamic religious paradigm and illustrates its centrality to any discussion of Islamic sectarianism. By tracing Nurbakhshi activity in the Middle East and central and southern Asia through more than five centuries, Bashir brings to view the continuities and disruptions within Islamic civilization across regions and over time. Bashir effectively captures the way Nurbakhshis have understood and debated the meaning of their tradition in various geographical and temporal contexts. Bashir provides a detailed biography of the movement's founder, Muhammad Nurbakhsh (d. 1464). Born to a Twelver Shi'i family, Nurbakhsh declared himself the mahdi, or the Muslim messiah, as an adept of the Kubravi Sufi order under the influence of the teachings of the great Sufi master Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1240). Nurbakhsh's religious worldview, which Bashir treats in depth in this volume, offers a

Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions

Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions PDF Author: Shahzad Bashir
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570034954
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions tells the story of the Nurbakhshiya, an Islamic messianic movement that originated in fifteenth-century central Asia and Iran and survives to the present in Pakistan and India. In the first full-length study of the sect, Shahzad Bashir illumines the significance of messianism as an Islamic religious paradigm and illustrates its centrality to any discussion of Islamic sectarianism. By tracing Nurbakhshi activity in the Middle East and central and southern Asia through more than five centuries, Bashir brings to view the continuities and disruptions within Islamic civilization across regions and over time. Bashir effectively captures the way Nurbakhshis have understood and debated the meaning of their tradition in various geographical and temporal contexts. Bashir provides a detailed biography of the movement's founder, Muhammad Nurbakhsh (d. 1464). Born to a Twelver Shi'i family, Nurbakhsh declared himself the mahdi, or the Muslim messiah, as an adept of the Kubravi Sufi order under the influence of the teachings of the great Sufi master Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1240). Nurbakhsh's religious worldview, which Bashir treats in depth in this volume, offers a

Dreams and Visions in African Pentecostal Spirituality

Dreams and Visions in African Pentecostal Spirituality PDF Author: Anna M. Droll
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004541225
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Euro-Western descriptions of knowledge and its sources fall short of accommodating the spiritual, experiential terrain of the imagination. What of the embodied, affective knowing that characterizes Pentecostal epistemology, that is, the distinctive Pentecostal-Charismatic knowing derived from dreams and visions (D/Vs)? In this stunning ethnographic work, the author merges African scholarship with an investigation of what visioners say about the significance of their D/Vs for Christian life and spirituality. Revealing data showcases case studies for their biblical and theological articulations of the value of D/V experiences and affirms them as sources of Pentecostal love, ministerial agency, and the missionary impulse.

Yearnings of the Soul

Yearnings of the Soul PDF Author: Jonathan Garb
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022629594X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
In Yearnings of the Soul, Jonathan Garb uncovers a crucial thread in the story of modern Kabbalah and modern mysticism more generally: psychology. Returning psychology to its roots as an attempt to understand the soul, he traces the manifold interactions between psychology and spirituality that have arisen over five centuries of Kabbalistic writing, from sixteenth-century Galilee to twenty-first-century New York. In doing so, he shows just how rich Kabbalah’s psychological tradition is and how much it can offer to the corpus of modern psychological knowledge. Garb follows the gradual disappearance of the soul from modern philosophy while drawing attention to its continued persistence as a topic in literature and popular culture. He pays close attention to James Hillman’s “archetypal psychology,” using it to engage critically with the psychoanalytic tradition and reflect anew on the cultural and political implications of the return of the soul to contemporary psychology. Comparing Kabbalistic thought to adjacent developments in Catholic, Protestant, and other popular expressions of mysticism, Garb ultimately offers a thought-provoking argument for the continued relevance of religion to the study of psychology.

The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History

The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History PDF Author: Touraj Daryaee
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199732159
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
This handbook is a guide to Iran's complex history. The book emphasizes the large-scale continuities of Iranian history while also describing the important patterns of transformation that have characterized Iran's past.

The A to Z of Sufism

The A to Z of Sufism PDF Author: John Renard
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 081086343X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
With more than 3,000 entries and cross-references on the history, main figures, institutions, theory, and literary works associated with Islam's mystical tradition, Sufism, this dictionary brings together in one volume, extensive historical information that helps put contemporary events into a historical context. Additional features include: · chronology of all major figures and events · introductory essay · glossary of 400 Arabic, Berber, Chinese, Persian, and Turkish terms · comprehensive bibliography Ideal for libraries, as well as students and scholars of religion.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality PDF Author: Vincent J. Cornell
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470674202
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
A ground-breaking and comprehensive collection on various facets of Islamic spirituality throughout history and in the modern world The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality is an authoritative reference work comprising twenty-eight scholarly essays that explore the expressive and performative dimensions of Islamic spirituality. Edited by two of its most prominent scholars, and bringing together a stellar cast of contributors, this wide-ranging volume covers religious practices, sacred texts, history and places, gender, music, poetry, the visual arts, and politics. Spirituality has had a long and important history in Islam, where a focus on spirituality is required of every believer. Each Muslim is asked to achieve a state of devotion through prayer, fasting, supplications, recitations, pilgrimage, and ascetic practices. The essays in this volume explain the role of spirituality in Islam—from its beginnings, through the development of its institutions, and into the present day. They also reflect important new research, and discuss contemporary debates and issues affecting Islamic spirituality such as the Internet, social justice, the role of women, ethics, and religious fundamentalism. Offering readers a thought-provoking way to engage with the topic, this comprehensive work includes: The spirituality of words and letters, including the Qur’an, prophetic traditions in Islam, and litanies, invocations, and devotional texts Devotional practices in Islam, including the spirituality of prayer, ascetic spirituality, Qur’an recitation, and spirituality of the Sufi path Spirituality in literature, including Arabic and Persian poetry, spirituality in the modern novel, and the art of translation Spirituality in the arts, including the visual arts, music, song, and film Islamic spirituality and post-modern practices, including the Internet, Islamic hip-hop, and Salafism From the personal to the political, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality offers a fresh and revitalized view of all aspects of spirituality in Islam. It is a must-have scholarly resource for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, instructors and scholars studying Islam, spirituality, and Asian and Middle Eastern history as well as general readers with an interest in the subject.

Sufi Bodies

Sufi Bodies PDF Author: Shahzad Bashir
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231144911
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
"Bashir weaves a rich history of Sufi Islam around the depiction of bodily actions in Sufi literature and miniature paintings produced circa 1300-1500 CE. Focusing on the Persianate societies of Iran and Central Asia, he explores medieval Sufis' conception of the human body as the primary shuttle between interior (batin) and exterior (zahir) realities with particular attention to three arenas: religious activity in the form of rituals, rules of etiquette, asceticism, and a universal hierarchy of saints; the deep imprint of Persian poetic paradigms on the articulation of love, desire, and gender; and the reputation of Sufi masters for working miracles, which empowered them in all domains of social activity. Bashir ultimately offers a new methodology for extracting historical information from religious narratives"--Cover p. [4].

Singing with the Mountains

Singing with the Mountains PDF Author: William Sherman
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 1531505708
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
An illuminating story of a Sufi community that sought the revelation of God. In the Afghan highlands of the sixteenth century, the messianic community known as the Roshaniyya not only desired to find God’s word and to abide by it but also attempted to practice God’s word and to develop techniques of language intended to render their own tongues as the organs of continuous revelation. As their critics would contend, however, the Roshaniyya attempted to make language do something that language should not do—infuse the semiotic with the divine. Their story thus ends in a tower of skulls, the proliferation of heresiographies that detailed the sins of the Roshaniyya, and new formations of “Afghan” identity. In Singing with the Mountains, William E. B. Sherman finds something extraordinary about the Roshaniyya, not least because the first known literary use of vernacular Pashto occurs in an eclectic, Roshani imitation of the Qur’an. The story of the Roshaniyya exemplifies a religious culture of linguistic experimentation. In the example of the Roshaniyya, we discover a set of questions and anxieties about the capacities of language that pervaded Sufi orders, imperial courts, groups of wandering ascetics, and scholastic networks throughout Central and South Asia. In telling this tale, Sherman asks the following questions: How can we make language shimmer with divine truth? How can letters grant sovereign power and form new “ethnic” identities and ways of belonging? How can rhyme bend our conceptions of time so that the prophetic past comes to inhabit the now of our collective moment? By analyzing the ways in which the Roshaniyya answered these types of questions—and the ways in which their answers were eventually rejected as heresies—this book offers new insight into the imaginations of religious actors in the late medieval and early modern Persianate worlds.

Spanning the Strait

Spanning the Strait PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004256644
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Spanning the Strait: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean brings together a multidisciplinary collection of essays that examines the deep connections that bound together the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib in the medieval and early modern periods. Six articles on topics ranging from the eighth-century slave trade to sixteenth-century apocalypticism trace and analyze movement, mutual influence and patterns shared in the face of political, religious, and cultural difference. By transcending traditional disciplinary and temporal divisions, this collection of essays highlights the long history of contact and exchange that united the two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. A comprehensive introduction by the editors contextualizes the articles within the last half-century of scholarship and salient contemporary trends. Contributors are Adam Gaiser, Linda G. Jones, Hussein Fancy, S.J. Pearce, David Coleman, and Marya T. Green-Mercado.

Accusations of Unbelief in Islam

Accusations of Unbelief in Islam PDF Author: Camilla Adang
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004307834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
The present volume—the first of its kind—deals with takfīr: accusing one ́s opponents of unbelief (kufr). Originating in the first decades of Islam, this practice has been applied intermittently ever since. The nineteen studies included here deal with cases, covering different periods and parts of the Muslim world, of individuals or groups that used the instrument of takfīr to brand their opponents—either persons, groups or even institutions—as unbelievers who should be condemned, anathematized or even persecuted. Each case presented is placed in its sociopolitical and religious context. Together the contributions show the multifariousness that has always characterized Islam and the various ways in which Muslims either sought to suppress or to come to terms with this diversity. With contributions by: Roswitha Badry, Sonja Brentjes, Brian J. Didier, Michael Ebstein, Simeon Evstatiev, Ersilia Francesca, Robert Gleave, Steven Judd, István T. Kristó-Nagy, Göran Larsson, Amalia Levanoni, Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, Hossein Modarressi, Justyna Nedza, Intisar A. Rabb, Sajjad Rizvi, Daniel de Smet, Zoltan Szombathy, Joas Wagemakers.