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Misquoting Muhammad - Jonathan A.C. Brown

Misquoting Muhammad

The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy
Buch | Softcover
384 Seiten
2015
Oneworld Publications (Verlag)
9781780747828 (ISBN)
CHF 23,90 inkl. MwSt
A much needed and timely work on the contentious issues of Islamic thought in the modern world
AN INDEPENDENT BEST BOOKS ON RELIGION 2014 PICK



Few things provoke controversy in the modern world like the religion brought by Prophet Muhammad. Modern media are replete with alarm over jihad, underage marriage and the threat of amputation or stoning under Shariah law. Sometimes rumor, sometimes based on fact and often misunderstood, the tenets of Islamic law and dogma were not set in the religion’s founding moments. They were developed, like in other world religions, over centuries by the clerical class of Muslim scholars.



Misquoting Muhammad takes the reader back in time through Islamic civilization and traces how and why such controversies developed, offering an inside view into how key and controversial aspects of Islam took shape. From the protests of the Arab Spring to Istanbul at the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and from the ochre red walls of Delhi’s great mosques to the trade routes of the Indian Ocean world, Misquoting Muhammad lays out how Muslim intellectuals have sought to balance reason and revelation, weigh science and religion, and negotiate the eternal truths of scripture amid shifting values.

Jonathan A.C. Brown is Professor and Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the author of Slavery & Islam, Misquoting Muhammad and Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World.

List of Illustrations



Foreword



Preface



Acknowledgments



Notes on dates, transliteration, abbreviations and citations



 



1  The Problem(s) with Islam



     A world full of God



     Taking Islamic scripture and its interpreters seriously



 



2  A Map of the Islamic Interpretive Tradition



     The word of God, the teachings of His Prophet and the mind of man



     Obey God and obey His Messenger



     The beginnings of the Islamic interpretive tradition



     Abu Hanifa and the Partisans of Reason



     Malik and the authority of custom



     The power of reason: the Greek legacy and Islamic theology



     Shafi‘i and the beginnings of Sunni Islam



     The collection and criticism of Hadiths



     Putting reason in its place in Sunni theology and law



     The great convergence of Sunni Islam



     Legal theory and its discontents



     Sufism and inspiration from God



     The iconoclasts and Islamic revival



     Twilight of an era



 



3  The Fragile Truth of Scripture



     A crisis of confidence



     Canons and reading scripture with charity



     The turning over of an era



     Reading scripture so it’s true



     The Islamic science of epistemology and interpretation (Usul al-Fiqh)



     The language of God and the rhetoric of His Prophet



     The Qur’an: valid for all times and places



     Hadiths and interpreting the life of the Prophet



     Changing times and the reasons behind scriptural law



     The interaction of the Qur’an and Hadiths in time



     Into the weeds: the case of raising one’s hands in prayer



     The summer of the liberal age



 



4  Clinging to the Canon in a Ruptured World



     Upstarts at the end of time



     The treason of interpretation



     Heresy acceptable: ruptures in canonical communities



     Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them: jihad and (re)interpreting scripture



     Women cannot lead: historicizing scripture versus God’s inscrutable law



     Sex with little girls: interpreting scripture amid changing norms



     The ulama, the state and Shariah authenticity without scripture



     The court must not be political – morality and truth in a ruptured world



 



5  Muslim Martin Luthers and the Paradox of Tradition



     The paradox of interpretive control



     The rule of interpretation in the conflict between Sunni and Shiite Islam



     Tradition as governor, scripture as subject



     Killing one’s children: tradition betraying scripture



     Reconsidering the penalty for apostasy: tradition redeeming scripture



     Women leading prayer: should scripture trump tradition?



     The ‘Qur’an Only’ movement



     No escaping tradition



     The price of reformation



     The guide of tradition: a necessary but thankless job



 



6  Lying about the Prophet of God



     The truth, what’s that?



     Noble Lies and profound truths



     The ulama as guardians



     Appealing to the flesh: using unreliable Hadiths in Sunni Islam



     A familiar habit: assisting truth in Western scripture and historiography



     Seventy-two virgins: pragmatic truth and the heavenly reward of martyrs



     The cost of Noble Lying



     Muslim objections to the Noble Lie



     Genre versus book: reviving an old approach to authenticating Hadiths



     The dangers of Noble Lying for Muslims today



     Pragmatic truth and the beauty of Noble Lying



 



7  When Scripture Can’t Be True



     The Qur’an and domestic violence



     Who decides what God means?



     Courts have the final word



     Saying ‘no’ to the text and the hermeneutics of suspicion



 



Appendix I: Marracci and Ockley on Aisha’s Marriage to the Prophet



Appendix II: Hadiths on a Parent Killing His Child



     Ratings of the Hadith by Muslim critics



     Examination of individual narrations



     My evaluation of the Hadith



     Citations for Hadith of a Father Killing His Child



Appendix III: The Hadith of riba and Incest



     Ratings by Hadith critics



     My evaluation of the Hadith of Riba and Incest



     Citations for the Hadith



Appendix IV: The Hadith of the Seventy-Two Virgins



     Overall rating



     Citations for the Hadith of the Seventy-Two Virgins



 



Notes



Select Bibliography



Index

Reihe/Serie Islam in the Twenty-First Century
Zusatzinfo 8 Plates, color
Verlagsort London
Sprache englisch
Maße 129 x 198 mm
Themenwelt Geschichte Teilgebiete der Geschichte Religionsgeschichte
Geisteswissenschaften Religion / Theologie Islam
ISBN-13 9781780747828 / 9781780747828
Zustand Neuware
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