Theology and society in the second and third centuries of the Hijra.
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Theology and Society is the most comprehensive study of Islamic intellectual and religious history, focusing on Muslim theology. With its emphasis on the eighth and ninth centuries CE, it remains the most detailed prosopographical study of the early phase of the formation of Islam. Originally published in German between 1991 and 1995, Theology and Society is a monument of scholarship and a unique scholarly enterprise which has stood the test of time as an unparalleled reference work.
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1 online resource (700 pages) :
9789004356405 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Critical reflections on religion and media in contemporary Bali /
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Scholars of religion have always worked closely with media of one kind or another, from sacred books and archaic languages to cassette-sermons and the Internet. Yet comparatively little attention has been paid to the ways we actually use these and other media in the pursuit of historical inquiry. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research conducted on the Indonesian island of Bali, this book offers a critique of the media-related assumptions underpinning fields as diverse in their subject matter and approach as the history of religions, British cultural studies and Old Javanese philology. Its central contention is that more nuanced attention to problems of media will have serious implications for how we think about the study of religions, past and present.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047429937 :
0169-8834 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Laws of Ritual Purity : Zand i Fragard i Jud-Dew-Dad (A Commentary on the Chapters of the Widewdad) /
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"Laws of Ritual Purity: Zand iFragard iJud-Dew-Dad (A Commentary on the Chapters of the Widewdad) describes the various ways in which Zoroastrian authorities in the fifth-sixth centuries CE reinterpreted the purity laws of their community. Its redactor(s), conversant with the notions and practices of purity and impurity as developed by their predecessors, attempt(s) to determine the parameters of the various categories of pollution, the minimum measures of polluted substances, and the effect of the interaction of pollution with other substances that are important to humans. It is therefore in essence a technical legal corpus designed to provide a comprehensive picture of a central aspect of Zoroastrian ritual life: the extent of one's liability contracting pollution and how atonement/purification can be achieved"--
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"A commentary on the chapters of the Widewdad." :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004433953
9789004433946
The revival of the Anu cult and the nocturnal fire ceremony at late Babylonian Uruk /
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In The Revival of the Anu Cult and the Nocturnal Fire Ceremony at Late Babylonian Uruk , Julia Krul offers a comprehensive study of the rise of the sky god Anu as patron deity of Uruk in the Late Babylonian period (ca. 480-100 B.C.). She reconstructs the historical development of the Anu cult, its underlying theology, and its daily rites of worship, with a particular focus on the yearly nocturnal fire ceremony at the Anu temple, the Bīt Rēš. Providing the first in-depth analysis of the ceremony, Julia Krul convincingly identifies it as a seasonal renewal festival with an important exorcistic component, but also as a reinforcement of local hierarchical relationships and the elite status of the Anu priesthood.
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Based on the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universität Münster, 2014. :
1 online resource (xiii, 310 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-290) and indexes. :
9789004364943 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The concept of religion : defining and measuring contemporary beliefs and practices /
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In The Concept of Religion Hans Schilderman edits a volume on the definition and empirical study of religion within the changing landscape of modern society. Now that we can no longer assume a simple harmony between the scientific concept of religion, church doctrine and practiced belief, issues concerning the definition and measurement of religion are becoming crucial issues to academic institutions. The contributing authors present empirical studies studying issues of lifespan and socialisation at school settings; of vocation and profession at church and hospital settings; and culture and nation of society at large. The volume offers a beautiful sample of the empirical study of religion; a conceptual and illustrative overview of the academic field for students and scholars in religion.
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1 online resource (198 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004299320 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Pragmatics of Defining Religion : Contexts, Concepts and Contests /
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This volume promotes a pragmatic, anti-essentialist and anti-hegemonic approach to the problem of the definition of religion. It argues that definitions of religion are context-bound strategies for pursuing a variety of purposes, extra-academic as well as academic. Religions being immensely varied, complex and multi-functional phenomena, they need to be studied by several academic disciplines from many different perspectives. It is, therefore, legitimate and useful that many definitions of religions are developed. The volume has contributions from scholars in Philosophy of Religion, the Comparative Study of Religions, Anthropology of Religion, Sociology of Religion and Psychology of Religion. It has chapters on the polemics of defining religion in modern contexts, the history of the concept of religion, and the methodology of its definition; it includes several definition proposals.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004379091 :
0169-8834 ;
Reimaging Zen in a Secular Age : Charles Taylor and Zen Buddhism in the West /
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In Reimagining Zen in a Secular Age André van der Braak offers an account of the exciting but also problematic encounter between enchanted Japanese Zen Buddhism and secular Western modernity over the past century, using Charles Taylor's magnum opus A Secular Age as an interpretative lens. As the tenuous compromises of various forms of "Zen modernism" are breaking down today, new imaginings of Zen are urgently needed that go beyond both a Romantic mystical Zen and a secular "mindfulness" Zen. As a Zen scholar-practitioner, André van der Braak shows that the Zen philosophy of the 13th century Zen master Dōgen offers much resources for new hermeneutical, embodied, non-instrumental and communal approaches to contemporary Zen theory and practice in the West.
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1 online resource. :
9789004435087
9789004435070
Fabrications of the Greek past : religion, tradition, and modern identities /
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Taking seriously critiques of historiography produced in recent decades, Vaia Touna advocates for an alternative approach to the way the past is studied. From Euripides' tragedy Hippolytus , to the notion of voluntary associations in the Greco-Roman world, to the authenticity of traditional villages in Greece, Fabrications of the Greek Past argues that meanings (and thus identities) do not transcend time and space, and neither do they hide deep in the core of material artifacts, awaiting to be discovered by the careful interpreter. Instead, this book demonstrates that meanings are always relative to their present-day context; they are historical products created by social actors through their ever-contemporary acts of identification. ---- "By disturbing the notion of an easily knowable Greek past, Touna makes an invaluable contribution to critical scholarship regarding ancient cultures and to contemporary theory about ideological uses of history." - Naomi Goldenberg, University of Ottawa "From an insider to Greek tradition, expert in its modern appropriations and translations, Fabrications is an important stimulus to metatheory and self-reflexivity in the study of religion, ancient and contemporary." - Gerhard van den Heever, University of South Africa "Vaia Touna expertly dissects modern discourses on the past, arguing that our contemporary interests don't just color our accounts of the past, they constitute them. A fantastic book." - Brent Nongbri, author of Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004348615 :
2214-3270 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
F.C. Baur's synthesis of Bohme and Hegel : redefining Christian theology as a gnostic philosophy of religion /
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In this book, Professor Simuț shows how Christian theology started to be understood as a Gnostic philosophy of religion in the thought of the 19th-century scholar F. C. Baur. Although Baur was seen traditionally as a theologian and biblical exegete, Simuț argues that he was in fact a philosopher of religion, and it was his philosophical reading of Christian theology that informed his biblical preoccupations. Specifically, Baur's perspective on Christian theology was heavily influenced by Jakob Böhme's esoteric theosophy and Hegel's religious philosophy in some key issues such as creation, Lucifer, dualism and the connection between spirit and matter coupled with that between philosophy and religion.
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1 online resource (viii, 362 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004275218 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Enlightening Europe on Islam and the Ottomans : Mouradgea d'Ohsson and His Masterpiece /
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Mouradgea d'Ohsson's Tableau général de l'Empire othoman offered the Enlightenment Republic of Letters its most authoritative work on Islam and the Ottomans, also a practical reference work for kings and statesmen. Profusely illustrated and opening deep insights into illustrated book production in this period, this is also the richest collection of visual documentation on the Ottomans in a hundred years. Shaped by the author's personal struggles, the work yet commands recognition in its own totality as a monument to inter-cultural understanding. In form one of the great taxonomic works of Enlightenment thought, this is a work of advocacy in the cause of reform and amity among France, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004377257 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religious minorities in the Middle East : domination, self-empowerment, accommodation /
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The relationship between religious majorities and minorities in the Middle East is often construed as one of domination versus powerlessness. While this may indeed be the case, to claim that this is only or always so is to give a simplified picture of a complex reality. Such a description lays emphasis on the challenges faced by the minorities, while overlooking their astonishing ability to mobilize internal and external resources to meet these challenges. Through the study of strategies of domination, resilience, and accommodation among both Muslim and non-Muslim minorities, this volume throws into relief the inherently dynamic character of a relationship which is increasingly influenced by global events and global connections.
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The result of a workshop held in 2008 in Bergen, Norway and in 2009 in Aix-en-Provence, France. :
1 online resource (viii, 369 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004216846 :
1385-3376 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Islam in Post-communist Eastern Europe : Between Churchification and Securitization /
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In Islam in Post-communist Eastern Europe: Between Churchification and Securitization Egdūnas Račius reveals how not only the governance of religions but also practical politics in post-communist Eastern Europe are permeated by the strategies of churchification and securitization of Islam. Though most Muslims and the majority of researchers of Islam hold to the view that there may not be church in Islam, material evidence suggests that the representative Muslim religious organizations in many Eastern European countries have been effectively turned into ecclesiastical-bureaucratic institutions akin to nothing less than 'national Muslim Churches'. As such, these 'national Muslim Churches' themselves take an active part in securitization, advanced by both non-Muslim political and social actors, of certain forms of Islamic religiosity.
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1 online resource. :
9789004430525
9789004425347
The Nuṣayrī-ʻAlawīs : an introduction to the religion, history, and identity of the leading minority in Syria /
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Friedman offers new and updated research on the Nusayrī-'Alawī sect, today a leading group in Syria, covering a variety of aspects and focusing on the Middle Ages. A century after Dussaud's Histoire et religion des Nosairîs (1900), he reviews the history and religion of the sect in the light of old documents used by orientalists in the nineteenth century, documents that became available in the twentieth century, and later sources of the Nuṣayrī-'Alawī sect published most recently in Lebanon. Also studied in depth for the first time is the question of the identity of the sect through the 'Alawī-Sunnī-Shī'ī triangle.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [311]-315) and index. :
9789047441274 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies /
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This collection of original, new studies about Mainland China and Taiwan focuses on religious changes, and especially the role of the state and market in affecting religious developments in these societies. Information was gathered by participant observation and interviews primarily, and the analysis of documents secondarily. The topics covered are: the growing interest in the study of religion, the methods used by Christians to be able to coexist with a communist government, revival techniques being used by Buddhist monks, the strategies of Daoist priests and sect leaders to attract followers, the significance of mass-circulating morality books, and the ongoing debate about the significance and nature of Confucianism. The book will interest social scientists, religious specialists, journalists, and others who want to understand the changing nature of Chinese societies, and those interested in religious change in modernizing societies.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047408192
9789004145979
Religion, ethnicity and transnational migration between West Africa and Europe /
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Religion, Ethnicity and Transnational Migration between West Africa and Europe focuses on the West African migrants' presence in Europe and the way they negotiate religion and ethnicity in a new context. Special attention is given to the diversity of religious background of the migrants and to exploration of interreligious (especially Christian-Muslim) relations. These dimensions of transnational migration have not been widely researched, yet. After introducing the new African religious diaspora, the situation of the Senegalese, Ghanaian and Fulbe migrants - both Christian and Muslim - in France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland is analysed. The impact the migrants make on their communities of origin in Africa is also taken into account. Contributors are: Afe Adogame, Martha Frederiks, Stanisław Grodź, Tilmann Heil, Monika Salzbrunn, José C.M. van Santen, Miriam Schader, Etienne Smith and Gina Gertrud Smith.
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Papers originally presented at a workshop held at John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin in June 2011. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004271562
Hirminūtīk-i Ṣūfiyānah : Dar tafsīr-i Kashf al-asrār-i Maybudī /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī (fl. early 6th/12th century) was a Persian scholar and mystic who is best known for his voluminous commentary on the Qurʾān, the Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al-abrār . The commentary breaks down into 465 'sessions' ( majlis , here: 'lectures') around a number of verses and their explanation. Each session divides into three 'rounds' ( nawba ): 1. the Arabic text and its Persian translation, 2. a standard commentary, and 3. a mystical appreciation of the deeper levels of the text. While the first two rounds are equally in Arabic and Persian, round three is usually mostly in Persian, indicating that Maybudī wanted to ensure that his words were comprehensible to interested non-academics, notably to mystics. Annabel Keeler's Sufi Hermeneutics: The Qur'an Commentary of Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī , offered in Persian translation here, analyses Maybudī's work from three angles: mystical hermeneutics, Maybudī's borrowings from the mystic ʿAbdallāh Anṣārī (d. 481/1088), and his mystical interpretation of the Qurʾān on prophets.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406681
9786002031129
Religion and Education among Latinos in New York City /
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This volume explores the role of religion in the educational achievement of Hispanics. In particular, it assesses the influence of religion on parental involvement in children's educational experiences. The book compares Catholic and Protestant parents' opinions and practices against the backdrop of socio-economic factors, such as levels of income and schooling. In its examination of the relationships between family, church and school, the study explores how religion and other cultural traits such as family structure, language, and ethnic identity, interact and yield particular educational outcomes. The study shows that religion can make a positive difference in the education of Latinos. Religion is a resource that parents can tap into for the benefit of their children. Teachers, school administrators, policy makers and religious leaders will find this study useful as they strive to understand and change Latinos' educational status.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047407942
9789004144934