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HDS 3617

The Islamic Ritual on Purity and Impurity: Belief, Humanity, Genders, and Procreation

Baber Johansen

Description

In Islam, cult obligations are part of a legal normative order that tries to come to terms with the cosmic dimension of the cult. It links universal cosmic factors, such as time, to legal norms that regulate the cult, in particular prayer and fasting. But, as in Christianity and Judaism, time in Islam is no longer the self-regulating cyclical time it was in Greek antiquity, it is rather linear time directed toward the final Day of Judgment. Time receives its direction from God. It cannot, therefore, be the independent cause of legal rules, a status that can only be attributed to God. The authors whose books we will read stem mostly from eleventh- and twelfth century Transoxania and we will compare them to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century authors from Egypt and Syria. Their texts will show the difficulties that the Muslim jurists faced in reconciling time as "a way to the norm" (\sabab al-hukm/) with Gods normative speech (\khitab/) as the two factors that determine legal norms. These texts illustrate the degree of sophistication and dissent that goes into the construction of a theory of cultic obligation linked to external causes. If we have no (or not enough) Arabic speakers in the course, I will translate into English and circulate, a week before the seminar, texts from a literary genre called the "sources of the law" (\usul al-fiqh/) so that students can prepare for the discussion.

Enrollment Limited: No
Open to BTI Students: Yes

Scheduling

Half Course
Not Offered 2009-10
Course times to be announced.
Location to be announced.

Relationship to Program Requirements

Program Requirement	Area / Category / Art / Designation
MTS Area(s) of Focus	Islamic Studies Philosophy of Religion
MDiv Distribution Category/ies	Islam
MDiv Art(s) of Ministry	none
ThM, pre-2007 MTS, and pre-2005 MDiv Area	Area 3
Language Course Designation(s)	n/a