The Archetypal Sunni Scholar
Subtitle: Law, Theology, and Mysticism in the Synthesis of al-Bajuri
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: Oct 01, 2014
Language: eng
Format: hardcover
Number of pages: 220
ISBN-13: 9781438453712
Description: This is a rare study of a late premodern Islamic thinker, Ibrahim al- Bājūrī, a nineteenth-century scholar and rector of Cairo's al-Azhar University. Aaron Spevack explores al- Bājūrī's legal, theological, and mystical thought, highlighting its originality and vibrancy in relation to the millennium of scholarship that preceded and informed it, and also detailing its continuing legacy. The book makes a case for the normativity of the Gabrielian Paradigm, the study of law, rational theology, and Sufism, in the person of al- Bājūrī. Soon after his death in 1860, this typical pattern of scholarship would face significant challenges from modernists, reformers, and fundamentalists. Spevack challenges beliefs that rational theology, syllogistic logic, and Sufism were not part of the predominant conception of orthodox scholarship and shows this scholarly archetype has not disappeared as an ideal. In addition, the book contests prevailing beliefs in academic and Muslim circles about intellectual decline from the thirteenth through nineteenth centuries.
Notes: Source title: The Archetypal Sunni Scholar: Law, Theology, and Mysticism in the Synthesis of al-Bajuri