Prophetology

This article examines medieval Abrahamic theories of prophecy in the light of the new approach to ancient philosophy championed by Pierre Hadot. Hadot contended that ancient philosophy was a way of life, and I argue that it continued to be so in the medieval Jewish and Islamic forms of Peripateticism. The latter contributed to the diversification of philosophical ways of life (advocated by the ancients) by adapting philosophy and Abrahamic prophecy. I also argue that the later European Peripatetics, led by Thomas Aquinas, destabilize their predecessors’ hard-won adaptation of philosophy and religion and contribute to the shaping of modern philosophy as an academic enterprise (along with the associated marginalization of philosophy as a way of life).

The Fatimid jurist and author al-Qadi Abu Hanifa al-Nu'man (d. 363/974) served the Fatimids over the reigns of four imams, achieving his greatest prominence under the Imam al-Mu'izz (d. 365/975). While best known for his contributions to jurisprudence, al-Nu'man was also a poet, a historian and the author of works on esoteric matters. The selection below is from his Asas al-ta'wil (The Foundation of Spiritual Hermeneutics). In common with other Ismaili scholars, al-Nu'man affirmed that the Qur'an and the Prophetic traditions have an exoteric as well as an esoteric dimension. In this work, he brings out the inner, spiritual meanings of the tales of the prophets, as in the ta'wil of the story of Job (Ayyub).

The notion of the days of creation, culminating in the hallowed seventh day, or Sabbath, is found in all three Abrahamic faiths. While some believers held to a literal understanding of these days, others insisted that the doctrine had profound esoteric import.  In the Islamic tradition, those who championed the role of intellect in understanding faith and scripture advocated the use of symbolic interpretation (ta'wil).  The Arabic word ta'wil means to cause something to return to its origin or source.  Among the most ardent advocates of symbolic interpretation were the Ismailis, one of the two major branches of Shi'i Islam.  This article explores how Hakim Nasir-i Khusraw, the famous Persian poet and Ismaili dignitary, understood the days of creation and their relationship to a hierarchy of religion (hudud-i din) who led believers to ultimate salvation.

Unsullied by imperfection, the Hereafter is beyond time and place. However, for those bound by time and place, it is sometimes alluded to in terms of time, sometimes in terms of place, that such folk may grasp it in their language.
Nasir al-Din Tusi, The Beginning and The End

The writings of Fatimid Ismaili intellectuals emphasize the importance of understanding the world and faith by maintaining a proper balance between their exterior, physical, literal and apparent forms (their zahir) and their esoteric, spiritual, symbolic and intellectual realities (their batin). The process of evincing the latter from the former is known as ta'wil, or symbolic interpretation. This article analyzes the concept of ta'wil, focusing on its Ismaili form; introduces the Foundation of Symbolic Interpretation (Asas al-ta'wil) of Qadi al-Nu'man, one of the preeminent authors of works of this genre; analyzes the concept of sacred biography, hierohistory and the spiritual hierarchy (hudud al-din) as elaborated in this text; and then translates a portion of the Foundation of Symbolic Interpretation about the birth of Jesus (Q 3:42-48) as an example of this esoteric approach to sacred history.

Traduction, introduite et annotée, d’Ibn Taymiyya, « Kitāb al-Ṣafadiyya », édition M. R. Sālim, t. I, p. 258, l. 7 - 277, l. 3. Ibn Taymiyya propose dans ces pages une lecture particulièrement critique de l’évolution de la pensée islamique en ses divers développements, qu’ils soient théologiques, philosophiques, mystiques ou, parfois même, jurisprudentiels. Selon lui, ce sont les « idées intellectuelles corrompues et les interprétations déviantes » des théologiens du Kalām qui égarèrent maints penseurs postérieurs, corrompirent leur raison comme leur religion et les amenèrent à « traiter les Envoyés de menteurs »

Traduction, introduite et annotée, d'Ibn Taymiyya, « Kitāb al-Ṣafadiyya », édition  M. R. SĀLIM, t. I, p. 134, l. 17 - 144, l. 2. Critiquant à la fois les idées d’Avicenne dans ses « Ishārāt », namaṭ X,  et l’occasionalisme des théologiens ash‘arites et autres, Ibn Taymiyya développe sa propre explication des miracles prophétiques.

After a short introduction of Nicholas of Lyra's biographic and intellectual path, I will show how this exegete's reflection on the Apocalypse is placed within a specific groove according to which the pages of the Book of Revelation provide an opportunity for a continuous reading of the history of Christianity. I will therefore focus mainly on the most problematic moment of the work, namely the author's comment on Revelation XX. In fact, it is precisely in this chapter that Nicholas, declaring his lack of access to the prophetic gift, reveals his myopia in the face of any attempt to recompose the events surrounding him from an historical-eschatological perspective. As I will show in Part II, with this strategy, the prophetic word is therefore subjected to a speculative work aimed at subtracting it from the claims of the apocalyptic thought and at relocating it adequately within a social project suited to the needs of the Church of the time.

Christopher Buck, “Illuminator vs. Redeemer: A ’Trajectory’ of Ebionite Christology from Prophet Messianism to Baha’i Theophanology.” Abstracts: American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting 1983 (Dallas). Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1983, p. 86.  

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• CITED BY HANS KUNG:

“Present-day scholars like Christopher Buck also have come to the same conclusion: ‘In the course of time the Ebionites together with the Sabaean Baptists seem to have become established in Arabia. This fertilization invites the hypothesis that the Qur’an reflects Ebionite prophetology’.” –  Hans Küng, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future (New York : Continuum, 1995), p. 106 and 819, n. 177:

“Present-day scholars too have concluded: ‘In the course of time the Ebionites together with the Sabaean Baptists seem to have become established in Arabia. This fertilization invites the hypothesis that the Qur’an reflects Ebionite prophetology’.” – Hans Küng, Islam: Past, Present, and Future. Translated by John Bowden (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), p. 42 and p. 672, n. 58: “C. Buck, report to American Academy of Religion, Abstracts AAR/SBL 1983.”

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ABSTRACT (published in 1983)

The rediscovery of Ebionite Christianity is one of the achievements of recent scholarship. Since World War II, specialists in Christian origins have sought to recover what might be thought of as “lost” forms of Christianity. Of all forms of Jewish Christianity, Ebionism is the most distinct and well known. The researches of Bavarian scholar Schoeps drew the notice of fellow scholars to verifiably Ebionite elements preserved in the Pseudo–Clementine Homilies (“H”) and Recognitions (“R”), until then deemed romances devoid of much historical worth. The late Cardinal Danielou treated Jewish Christianity phenomenologically, defining its various forms collectively as a culture (“a culture of apocalypses”). Made possible by the convergence of manuscript discoveries, Danielou succeeded in presenting Jewish Christianity as the predominant though not exclusive influence in the early Church for a full century after Christ. Jewish Christians were primarily living in Palestine, Transjordan, and Syria, but were doubtless in Rome, Asia Minor, and northern Africa as well. Jewish Christianity, like a lost civilization, appears once to have had a formative (though later ostracized) presence in the early Christian world.

The two Jewish revolts reversed the situation, such that the ethno- (“pagan”) Christians emerged as the prevailing “orthodoxy.” Judged in relation to “triumphant Pauline Christianity,” the early major forms of Jewish Christianity were “completely misunderstood by Western heresiologues” which condemned Millenarism, Encratism, and Ebionism as impoverished doctrine. All of this surprising data so revolutionized concepts of Christian origins that Quispel of Utrecht was led to declare that “the Jewish Christians or Ebionites were the legitimate heirs of primitive Christianity, whereas the New Testament to a large extent reflects the views of Gentile Christianity as defended by St. Paul and his fellows. This is the present state of scholarship.”

What, then, can be said about “the present state of scholarship” which Quispel asserted favoring the primacy of the Ebionites as preservers of the “original” traditions? We can safely say that there was more to Christianity than met the orthodox or heterodox eye. Post-World War II research has, indeed, revolutionized our views of Christian origins. Several important forms of Christianity took root and effloresced in a variety of cultural soils. That history favored one form over the other is not a proof of primacy. Perhaps we can think of a plurality of “apostolic successions” rather than in terms of one only. The fullest picture of early Christianity is perhaps the most impressive: a mosaic, not a monochrome. Historical enquiry can remove the whitewash of orthodoxy, such that orthodoxy itself becomes more human, more alive as the drama with all its actors is replayed before our historical eyes. Perhaps the appreciation and not the suppression of diversity within Christianity will evoke the richest sense of heritage, the broadest sense of commonality, and the greatest impulse against judgementalism ⎯ the fomenter of religious prejudice. The recovery of Ebionite Christianity is part of a long and painstaking process: the total restoration of our Christian past ⎯ a process which might be thought of as the “salvation” of salvation-history.

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NOTES

This is the author's research paper for his first graduate course, "Problems in Ebionism," a directed study at Western Washington State College (now Western Washington University), under William K.B. Stoever (now Professor Emeritus), chair of Liberal Studies. The paper was awarded an A on its completion in June 1982. Dr. Stoever is named on the last page of the paper. The paper itself was word-processed by Carol Lenhard.

The “Abstract” (supra) was published in 1983. Although the paper itself is unpublished, it may be considered to be the equivalent of a peer-reviewed paper insofar as the paper was critically reviewed by Dr. Stoever. Of interest is the striking phenomenological resonance between the Ebionite Christian doctrine of the "True Prophet" with the Bahá’í doctrine of the “Manifestation of God.”

Excerpt from an early Jewish-Christian work, The Homilies of Clement:

Salvation of Jews and Christians
"For on this account Jesus is concealed from the Jews, who have taken Moses as their teacher, and Moses is hidden from those who have believed in Jesus. For, there being one teaching by both, God accepts him who has believed either of these" (H 8:6). "For even the Hebrews who believe Moses, and do not observe the things spoken by him, are not saved, unless they observe the things that are spoken to them... Neither is there salvation in believing in teachers and calling them lords" (H 8:5).

"Neither, therefore, are the Hebrews condemned by account of their ignorance of Jesus, by reason of Him who has concealed Him, if, doing the things commanded by Moses they do not hate Him (Jesus) whom they do know. Neither are those from among the Gentiles condemned, who do not know Moses, provided that these also, doing the things spoken by Jesus, do not hate Him (Moses) whom they do not know" (H 8: 7) .

"And some will not be profited by calling the teachers lords, but not doing the works of servants... Moreover, if anyone has been thought worthy to recognize both as preaching one doctrine, that man has been counted rich in God, understanding the old things as new in time, and the new things as old" (H 8:7).

Against the widespread understanding that Salafism in Pashtun religious circles owes its establishment to the close interaction with Arab representatives of that current since the resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1990, a theologically quite radical form had indigenously emerged already in the late 1940s. This current, originating in the small town of Panjpir in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, stands out by a rigid Salafī epistemology. In the present article, the emergence of this scholarly orientation, as well as its peculiar position on the humanity of the Prophet, is historically traced from the South Asian Tariqah-yi Muhammadiyyah in the early nineteenth century, via the missionary activities of a group of Deobandī scholars in the early twentieth. As demonstrated, these developments are inseparably linked to the specific socioeconomic , political and cultural setting of the mountainous borderland between today's nation-states of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Finally, it is shown how the distinct view on the Prophet's nature consistently feeds into the empowerment of sociopolitical action, ultimately sustaining the emergence and activities of organizations like the Jama'at-i Isha'at al-Tawhid va l-Sunna in Panjpir, or the short-lived Islamic Emirate of Kunar in northeastern Afghanistan in the early 1990s.

The two great thinkers of Western Asia/Anatolia and South Asia, Said Nursi (CE 1877-1960) and Muhammad Iqbal (CE1877-1938) revisited the role and function of prophethood in the last century. In fact, it was in the agenda of the reform movement of their predecessors Muhammad Abduh (CE 1849-1905) and Rashid Ridda (CE 1838-1897). In a rapid world of change and emergence of modernity, ideologies of secularism, materialist thought and the essential nature and role of religion in society were in question. According to Islamic tradition, at the heart of any ‘change’ lies a great leader or champion of change – prophets of God. Therefore, after the Qur’an and God’s Oneness (tawhid) prophethood (nubuwwa) was sought to be re-affirmed by Muslim theologians as ‘agents of change’ or ‘role models’ that would be the ‘agency’ for change or the ‘pillar’ of continuity in society. To this effect the various aspects of prophethood and the Prophet Muhammad became important in the 21st century, in particular, the prophetology of Nursi and Iqbal. For this reason a comparative study of their views of prophethood, due to their subjective relatedness - as an important concept at the heart of theological reform in the 20th century, as well as the primacy each gave in their respective works, addresses, sermons, articles and personal letters, is significant.

Nel XIII secolo la profetologia di lingua latina conobbe una grande fioritura. Il problema della conoscenza profetica fu posto al centro del dibattito teologico e filosofico: cosa succede nella mente del profeta quando accoglie i contenuti del messaggio profetico? Qual è il rapporto tra profezia e conoscenza ordinaria? Da Guglielmo d'Auxerre a Tommaso d'Aquino (e oltre), si sviluppò lungo tutto il secolo un vivace dibattito, di cui il presente volume tenta di fornire un'analisi complessiva.

With respect to biblical scholarship, ‘humanism’ well sums up the innovative focus among Renaissance scholars on the human as opposed to the divine side of biblical texts. In Jewish tradition, no writer exemplifies this novel focus - and the audacious results it could yield - more than Isaac Abarbanel. who composed most of his vast literary corpus in Renaissance Italy after Spanish Jewry’s 1492 expulsion. This article studies a startling manifestation of Abarbanel’s exegetical humanism that appears in his commentary on the book of Jeremiah, written in Venice in 1504: the claim that many of Jeremiah’s oral and written expressions suffered from a diversity of imperfections. This account includes the remarkable historicizing explanation that prophetic expression is traceable to aspects of the prophet’s biography and historical setting.

The article traces elements of continuity in Abarbanel’s presentation with medieval (especially Maimonidean) teachings on the human side of prophecy as they stand at the nexus of Greco-Arabic philosophic poetics, psychology, and prophetology. At the same time, it identifies dimensions of that presentation consonant with ideas and habits of mind attested by Renaissance humanists. In short, this case study shows how Abarbanel’s approach to Jeremiah reflects an unusual confluence of intellectual traditions born of his status as a transitional figure from medieval to early modem times. More broadly, it opens a window on shifts in scriptural commentary that lead some modem scholars to regard Renaissance humanism as the beginning of developments that lie at the heart of modern biblical scholarship.

تجربۀ وحی از پیچیده‌ترین و مرموزترین حوادثی است که بشر با آن مواجه شده است. شرح و توصیف این واقعه قرنها محل گفت و گو بوده و هنوز هم علاوه بر جامعۀ دینداران، سخن گفتن راجع به آن برای همۀ جذاب است. خود متون مقدس، اولین منابعی هستند که ما را از چگونگی نخستین لحظه‌های وحی آگاه می‌سازند. در این میان، به نظر می‌رسد کتاب اول سموئیل یکی از ناب‌ترین این لحظه‌ها را در خود دارد. سادگی، صداقت و خلوص کودکانۀ سموئیل، هنگامی که خداوند او را مخاطب قرار می‌دهد به قدری طبیعی منعکس شده که بازخوانی آن هنوز هم پس از قرنها بی نهایت بار لذت‌بخش است. سموئیل نه چون ابراهیم و موسی است که در بزرگ‌سالی با تجربۀ وحی به انجام رسالت مأمور شدند، و نه چون اشعیا که تا سالهای سال مجذوب عرش و کرسی خداوند در لحظه مکاشفه گردید «معبد از دامن‌های او پر بود» (6: 1)، بلکه رفتاری معصومانه‌ توأم با ناآگاهی دارد. مقالۀ حاضر به بهانۀ بازخوانی این تجربه، به اختصار برخی دیگر از ابعاد این شخصیت را مورد بررسی قرار داده است.

The two great thinkers of Western Asia/Anatolia and South Asia, Said Nursi (CE 1877-1960) and Muhammad Iqbal (CE1877-1938) revisited the role and function of prophethood in the last century. In fact, it was in the agenda of the reform movement of their predecessors Muhammad Abduh (CE 1849-1905) and Rashid Ridda (CE 1838-1897). In a rapid world of change and emergence of modernity, ideologies of secularism, materialist thought and the essential nature and role of religion in society were in question. According to Islamic tradition, at the heart of any ‘change’ lies a great leader or champion of change – prophets of God. Therefore, after the Qur’an and God’s Oneness (tawhid) prophethood (nubuwwa) was sought to be re-affirmed by Muslim theologians as ‘agents of change’ or ‘role models’ that would be the ‘agency’ for change or the ‘pillar’ of continuity in society. To this effect the various aspects of prophethood and the Prophet Muhammad became important in the 21st century, in particular, the prophetology of Nursi and Iqbal. For this reason a comparative study of their views of prophethood, due to their subjective relatedness - as an important concept at the heart of theological reform in the 20th century, as well as the primacy each gave in their respective works, addresses, sermons, articles and personal letters, is significant.

The aim of the essay is to give an overall picture of Jesus in the Qur’ān, throughout the Qur’ānic accounts: his prophetic role during the mission God gave him on earth and at the End of Times, amongst the stories of the other prophets. Specifically, the narrative of Jesus has been “rebuilt”, by starting from brief verses distributed in different Qur’ānic contexts, in order to give an exhaustive account of him and other characters connected to him. Furthermore, stress has been placed on the philological and linguistic aspects, by focusing the analysis on the Arabic version of the Qur’ān, with the intention of examining attributes and keywords related to Jesus, so as to attempt to present his personal profile and his involvement as a divine envoy.

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