Prophetology

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.

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.

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.