Acknowledgments
This book is the final outcome of a doctoral research project conducted between the years 2012–2017 in Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS). The doctoral research project was funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal and State Governments (DFG) and by Freie Universität Berlin. In my dissertation, I have significantly extended and reworked parts of my MA thesis entitled “Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Hermeneutical Approach to God’s Attributes and the Anthropomorphic Expressions in the Quran and the Hadith Literature” (2012) which has been carried out in Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel. Both the thesis and the dissertation were written as part of a project funded by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development: “Patterns of Argumentation and Rhetorical Devices in the Legal and Theological Works of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya” (GIF 1079–111.4/2009), in which I was privileged to take part as a graduate student and research assistant between 2011 and 2015.
With the completion of this book, I would like to express my gratitude to the Principle Investigators of the GIF projects who were also my supervisors. I thank my first supervisor, Dr. Livnat Holtzman, chair of the Arabic Department in Bar-Ilan University, for her professional and devoted guidance and for sharing her erudite knowledge with me. I thank her for enabling me to take part in her impressive research enterprise and for inspiring me to further advance in the road of academic research. By the same token, I offer my sincerest gratitude to my second supervisor, Prof. Dr. Birgit Krawietz, from the Institute of Islamic Studies in Freie Universität Berlin, for her invaluable, adept professional advice and kind support and encouragement.
This is also a wonderful opportunity to thank my colleagues and friends at BGSMCS, a splendid group which outgrew the strictly professional framework and became a source of mental strength as well as cerebral interaction.
Last but far from least, I wish to thank my family. I am indebted to my parents, Carmela and Mordechai, who long nurtured my instinct of curiosity, for their trust and constant, unconditional support. I am also thankful to my dear sister Shani, for her interest, understanding and support, without which these lines could have never been written.