Modern Debates on Prophecy and Prophethood in Islam: Muhammad Iqbal and Said Nursi

By Mahsheed Ansari

Publisher: Routledge

Publication Date: November 28, 2024

Hardcover: 288 pages

ISBN: 9781032231242

While prophethood is the backbone of the Islamic tradition and an uncompromised tenet of faith, the impact of modernity with its ambivalent status afforded to the prophet and institution of prophethood shook many Muslim scholars. Through analysis of these modern debates on prophethood in Islam, this book situates Muhammad Iqbal’s (1877–1938) and Said Nursi’s (1877–1960) discourses within it and assesses their implications on the modern period. This book introduces the “what, who and how” of the prophets in the Islamic tradition. It unveils the rich Islamic literature of both the classical and modern periods and analyses the construction of their philosophies and theologies. Concise in both historical and textual analyses, this book makes an important contribution to our understanding of contemporary debates on prophecy and prophethood in Islam and will be of great interest to postgraduate students and researchers of Islam, religious studies, medieval studies and contemporary studies of Islam and religion.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• 1. Demystifying the Prophetic Vocation in Islam
• 2. Theologising Resurgence of Prophetology in the Modern Muslim World
• 3. Iqbal’s and Nursi’s Methodology in Context of Their Global and Local Histories.
• 4. Rational Challenges and New Understandings of Prophethood
• 5. Traditional and Metaphysical Tensions of Prophethood
• 6. Conclusion: Towards a New Philosophy of Prophethood in Islam

About the Author

Mahsheed Ansari is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilization and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Religion and Ethics and Society (CRES), Charles Sturt University. She is a community activist working in the areas of interfaith dialogue, education, social harmony and leadership-mentoring programes with Muslim youth and women. Her research interests include the history of Islamic thought, spirituality and culture. She has been working on the Australian Muslim Heritage Project, that captures the contributions of Muslim Pioneers Post World War II, and she is currently writing a book on the Institutional integration of the Muslim community in Australia and Dr. Ashfaq Ahmad’s contributions to it.

Reviews

• “Mahsheed Ansari offers a rigorous study of prophethood in Islam, focusing on the twentieth century responses of two major thinkers, Said Nursi and Muhammad Iqbal. The potential for the continued development of constructive contemporary Islamic approaches to this topic is enriched through Ansari’s detailed exposition of classical doctrines on prophecy as well as the South Asian and Turkish contexts during this period of challenges from modernity. Through its presentation of the creative responses of Nursi and Iqbal, who employed both critical intellectual analysis and mystical sensitivities in understanding both the historical human and the cosmic significance of the Prophet for their age, this work provides an important contribution in the field of Islamic religious thought and a resource for interfaith dialogue and understanding.” – Marcia Hermansen, Loyola University Chicago

Source: Routledge

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued a final ruling on Tuesday, July 2, rejecting the appeal against the ban on halal slaughter in Belgium. Filed by Islamic and Jewish organizations, the appeal argued that the ban violates religious freedom, but the court said it found no grounds to review the ban.

According to a statement from Belgium’s most influential animal rights organization GAIA, the ECHR’s decision on February 13 was upheld, confirming that the ban on halal and kosher slaughter does not constitute a violation of religious freedom.

GAIA added that the ECHR’s final decision effectively closes the case, Anadolu Agency reported. GAIA President Michel Vandenbosch stated: “The European Court of Human Rights has confirmed its decision from February 13, 2024, asserting that the ban on halal slaughter does not infringe on religious freedom.”

Belgium banned the practice of halal slaughter, as per Islamic tradition, and kosher slaughter, as per Jewish tradition, in the Flemish region in 2017 and the Walloon region in 2018 through respective legislation. In March 2024, Islamic and Jewish organizations brought the case to the ECHR.

In halal slaughter, the animal is killed by a swift incision to the throat and draining the blood, as prescribed by Islamic law. Meanwhile, Kosher slaughter, similar in many respects, follows Jewish dietary laws and also involves a precise method of cutting the throat and draining the blood.

Currently, halal slaughter is only permitted in the Brussels-Capital Region. Last year, the Brussels Parliament considered a proposal to ban halal slaughter, but it faced significant backlash from the Muslim and Jewish communities and was not approved.

Both Muslim and Jewish communities stress that these practices are central to their religious observances, as well as argue that they are humane when performed correctly. The bans have been perceived by many as an infringement on religious freedom.

Source: Morocco World News

Edited by Nevin Reda and Yasmin Amin

Publisher: McGill-Queen’s University Press (December 10, 2020)

Since the 1980s, Muslim women reformers have made great strides in critiquing and reinterpreting the Islamic tradition. Yet these achievements have not produced a significant shift in the lived experience of Islam, particularly with respect to equality and justice in Muslim families. A new approach is needed: one that examines the underlying instruments of tradition and explores avenues for effecting change.

In Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice leading intellectuals and emerging researchers grapple with the problem of entrenched positions within Islam that affect women, investigating the processes by which interpretations become authoritative, the theoretical foundations upon which they stand, and the ways they have been used to inscribe and enforce gender limitations. Together, they argue that the Islamic interpretive tradition displays all the trappings of canonical texts, canonical figures, and canon law – despite the fact that Islam does not ordain religious authorities who could sanction processes of canonization. Through this lens, the essays in this collection offer insights into key issues in Islamic feminist scholarship, ranging from interreligious love, child marriage, polygamy, and divorce to stoning, segregation, seclusion, and gender hierarchies.

Rooting their analysis in the primary texts and historical literature of Islam, contributors to Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice contest oppressive interpretative canons, subvert classical methodologies, and provide new directions in the ongoing project of revitalizing Islamic exegesis and its ethical and legal implications.

Source: MQUP.ca