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.
Josef van Ess, Emeritus Professor of Islamic Studies and Semitic Languages, University of Tübingen, Germany, has published widely on the History of the Islamic World; Islamic theology and philosophy, especially with respect to the formative period (8th-10th centuries) and the age of the Mongol conquests (13th-14th centuries); and Islamic mysticism. His most famous work is Theologie und Gesellschaft in 6 volumes (de Gruyter 1991-97), the first four volumes of which are now being published in English by Brill.
Gwendolin Goldbloom (1969) has produced English translations of several books and a number of articles in the field of Islamic Studies, most of them originally published in German.
Contents
Preface xii
part c : The Unification of Islamic Thought and the Flowering of Theology (continued)
4 Muʿtazilites during and after the miḥna 3
4.1 Basra until the Middle of the Third Century 3
4.2 Baghdad Muʿtazilites 63
5 Theologians on the Periphery of the Muʿtazila 139
5.1 ‘Murjiʾites’ 140
5.2 Najjār and His Circle 167
5.3 Ibāḍite Theologians 195
6 The Argument over the Quran 203
6.1 Ibn Kullāb 204
6.2 Muḥāsibī 221
6.3 Karābīsī and the Problem of the lafẓ al-Qurʾān 238
7 The Expansion of the Muʿtazila during the Third Century 258
7.1 Iraq and the Jazira 259
7.2 The Arabian Peninsula 261
7.3 Syria 264
7.4 Armenia 268
7.5 Iran 271
7.6 India 290
7.7 The Maghrib 291
7.8 Summary 311
8 The Crisis 312
8.1 Baghdad Mysticism Goes its Own Way. Junayd and His Contemporaries 313
8.2 The Self-Destruction of the Dialectical Method 325
Part D: Summary of the History of the Subject Matter
Introduction. The Topics of Theology 395
1 The Image of God 407
1.1 God as the One 407
1.2 Anthropomorphism 416
1.3 Names and Attributes 476
2 The Image of the Human 535
2.1 Acting 538
2.2 Body and Spirit 572
3 Eschatology 605
3.1 The Earthly and the Heavenly Paradise 613
3.2 The Extent of the Reality of the Otherworld 619
4 Faith 627
4.1 Sin and Penitence 645
4.2 The Prophet 658
4.3 Epistemology 716
5 Theology and Society 673
5.1 Political Theory 771
5.2 The Organisation of Teaching and Studying 798
5.3 Environment and Intellectual Structure 814
All interested in Middle Eastern history and history of religion.