A culture of ambiguity: an alternative history of Islam

1. Introduction -- 2. Cultural Ambiguity -- 3. Does God Speak in Textual Variants? -- 4. Does God Speak Ambiguously? -- 5. The Blessing of Dissent -- 6. The Islamization of Islam -- 7. Language: A Serious Business and a Game -- 8. The Ambiguity of Sexual Desire -- 9. The Serene Look at the World --...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Bauer, Thomas 1961- (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser: Biesterfeldt, Hans Hinrich 1943- (ÜbersetzerIn), Tunstall, Tricia (ÜbersetzerIn)
Format: Buch
Sprache:English
German
Veröffentlicht: New York Columbia University Press [2021]
Schlagworte:
Zusammenfassung:1. Introduction -- 2. Cultural Ambiguity -- 3. Does God Speak in Textual Variants? -- 4. Does God Speak Ambiguously? -- 5. The Blessing of Dissent -- 6. The Islamization of Islam -- 7. Language: A Serious Business and a Game -- 8. The Ambiguity of Sexual Desire -- 9. The Serene Look at the World -- 10. In Quest of Certainty -- Bibliography
"Islamic cultures seem to be ideal examples of cultures dominated entirely by religious norms. But in this sense the modern understanding of Islam differs markedly from that of the classical period (i.e., the premodern until well into the nineteenth century). Whereas modern fundamentalist movements aim at the greatest possible legitimization of religious norms throughout the entire society and see this as being the most Islamic structure (and are confirmed in this view by the western public opinion of Islam), a glimpse at premodern Islamic cultural forms offer a much more complex picture. Already the extraction of norms from the authoritative texts reveals itself to be an exacting process of disambiguation that included several subjective processes and rational procedures.
The fact that these procedures led to a juxtaposition of competing norms was widely accepted--see the much quoted prophet's hadith "Difference of opinion is a mercy for my community." This kind of tolerance of ambiguity manifests itself not only in Islamic law but also in many other spheres of Islamic scholarship (for example, in Qur'an exegesis and in linguistics), in several literary genres, and also in the mentality of social conditions and of the people themselves, which included tolerance of religious minorities, sympathetic attitudes towards foreigners, and high social mobility). Symptomatic is also the considerably conflict-free coexistence of religious and secular discourses in classical Islamic culture, which stands in striking contrast to the inseparability of Islam and the worldly sphere postulated today.
Beschreibung:Includes bibliographical references and index
Beschreibung:xii, 323 Seiten Illustrationen
ISBN:9780231170642
9780231170659

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