Beyond the Qurʾān. Early Ismaili Ta’wil and the Secrets of by David Hollenberg PDF

By David Hollenberg

ISBN-10: 1611176786

ISBN-13: 9781611176780

ISBN-10: 1611176794

ISBN-13: 9781611176797

The 1st book-length examine of ta'wil, a sort of allegorical scriptural interpretation propagated via Ismaili-Shiite missionaries
Ismailism, one of many 3 significant branches of Shiism, is better identified for ta'wil, an esoteric, allegorizing scriptural exegesis. past the Qur'ān: Early Ismaili Ta'wil and the secrets and techniques of the Prophets is the 1st book-length research of this interpretive style. studying resources composed via tenth-century Ismaili missionaries in gentle of social-science theories of cognition and sectarianism, David Hollenberg argues that the missionaries used ta'wil to instill in acolytes a suite of symbolic styles, varieties, and "logics." This shared symbolic global certain the neighborhood jointly because it created a gulf among group individuals and people outdoors the circulate. Hollenberg therefore situates ta'wil socially, as an interpretive perform that sustained a neighborhood of believers.
An very important point of ta'wil is its unconventional items of interpretation. Ismaili missionaries combined Qur'ānic exegesis with interpretation of Torah, Gospels, Greek philosophy, and emblems similar to the Christian move and Eucharist, in addition to Jewish gala's. formerly students have speculated that this extra-Qur'ānic ta'wil used to be meant to transform Jews and Christians to Ismailism. Hollenberg, departing from this view, argues that such interpretations have been, like Ismaili interpretations of the Qur'ān, meant for an Ismaili viewers, lots of whom switched over to the stream from different branches of Shiism.

Hollenberg argues that via exegesis of those unconventional resources, the missionaries tested that their imam by myself might strip the exterior husk from all demeanour of assets and exhibit the initiates fact in its natural, unmediated shape, an imaginal global to which they on my own had entry. in addition they fulfilled the promise that their imam may train them the secrets and techniques at the back of all religions, an indication that the preliminary degree of the top of days had commenced.
Beyond the Qur'ān contributes to our knowing of early Ismaili doctrine, Fatimid rhetoric, and, extra commonly, using esoteric literatures within the heritage of religion.

David Hollenberg is an assistant professor of Arabic and Islamic experiences on the collage of Oregon. He has authored articles on Ismailism and is the coeditor of The Yemeni Manuscript culture. Hollenberg is the founding father of the Yemen Manuscripts Digitization Initiative, a collective of students and librarians dedicated to protecting the manuscripts of Yemen.