Islamic Studies

Back Matter

2026-06-30T16:36:40+05:00

Muhammad Yaseen Gada. Islam and Environmental Ethics.

2026-02-12T14:50:23+05:00

Front Matter

2026-06-30T16:21:30+05:00

A Manual for Living Together

2026-04-23T10:49:14+05:00

This paper is a systematic discussion of Ādāb al-Mu'āsharat (Ethics of Socialization) written in 1912 by one of the foremost Sufi scholars of twentieth-century South Asian Islam, Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawī. In this text, Thanawī prescribes an etiquette for socialization. This prescription is argued as a dimension of Islamic faith, one that was unfortunately forgotten alike by preachers, jurists and Sufis. The discussion in this essay will provide an overview of the text, the case made by the author for etiquette for socialization, and a selection from the 120 ādāb-rules the author offers for concrete, practical human interpersonal interaction. Highlighting hermeneutical challenges to Thānawī's approach, the final section will situate this text within the study of Islamic and Religious ethics and discuss its relevance and significance.

Prophetic Conceptions and Literary Competition in Late Mughal India

2026-03-07T16:06:27+05:00

This article examines Silk al-Durar, an eighteenth-century Arabic sīrah authored by Muḥammad Ṣiddīq Lāhōrī (d. 1779), and situates it within shifting prophetic conceptions in late Mughal India. Focusing on the post-Akbarid period, the study explores how political and intellectual transformations reshaped sīrah writing among South Asian Muslim scholars. Composed in ḥurūf al-muhmalah, Silk al-Durar represents a rare formal experiment and a deliberate engagement with earlier Mughal models. The article frames the work as a literary response (naẓīrah) to Abū 'l-Fayḍ Fayḍī’s Mawārid al-Kalim, interpreting this relationship not as a polemic rebuttal, but as a literary emulation aimed at asserting textual and intellectual superiority. Through a comparative codicological and textual analysis of two manuscripts, including a previously unidentified copy preserved in the Süleymaniye Manuscript Library in Istanbul, this study challenges the assumption that eighteenth-century sīrah writing was merely derivative. It argues instead that prophetic conception operated as a locus of literary authority and intellectual contestation within the scholarly milieu of the South Asian 'ulamā'.

Prophet Muḥammad in the Sufi Tradition of the Fifteenth-Century Turkish-Islamic World

2026-06-24T15:27:12+05:00

This study examines the historical and ontological dimensions of Prophet Muḥammad (peace be on him) within the fifteenth-century Turkish Sufi tradition, considering different regions and Sufi orders. In Islamic scholarship, the Prophet occupies a central position as both the messenger who conveys divine revelation and the exemplary figure who brings about transformation at both the individual and social levels. Sufi literature deepens this understanding through the Nūr-i Muḥammadī (the Muhammadan Light), which regards the Prophet as the ontological source of creation and thus situates him as a cosmic and metaphysical reality. The present research focuses on the regions of Khorasan, Azerbaijan, and Anatolia, selecting three prominent Sufi figures as case studies representing these intellectual and geographical spheres: Sayyid Yaḥyā al-Shirvānī (d. 1466), Ashraf-Ughlī (Eshrefoghlu) Rūmī (d. 1469), and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 1492). Representing different Sufi orders and distinct Turkish-Islamic regions, the works of these figures are comparatively analysed to reveal how the Prophet’s historical personality and ontological status were conceptualized. In doing so, the study offers, for the first time in the literature, a comparative perspective on the Prophet’s portrayal in these Sufi traditions and provides significant insights into the conception of the Prophet among fifteenth-century Turkish-Muslim societies.

The Concept of Injustice in Modern Arabic-Islamic Thought

2026-05-06T10:38:45+05:00

This article studies how a contemporary Islamic ethics of injustice evolved in recent decades emphasizing three Islamic viewpoints on injustice (traditional homiletic theology, social-ethical, and political-civilizational discourses). This theological-ethical discourse, which extensively uses the texts of the Qur'an and the hadith, advances a set of norms for what defines just individuals, societies, and states. Furthermore, this discourse is pertinent to the politics of the Middle East insofar as various groups used this theology to oppose state policies in the region. This article argues that Modern Islamic ethics of injustice holds the unjust accountable while also promising the victims of injustice delayed justice and reward.

Decolonizing the Qur’ānic Other

2026-05-26T13:07:04+05:00

This article examines the figure of al-Sāmirī in the Qur’ānic narrative of the Golden Calf by foregrounding the epistemic authority of classical tafsīr. In verses 20:85–97, the Qur’ān exonerates Prophet Aaron and identifies al-Sāmirī as the agent of deviation. This narrative shift has often been read in Western scholarship through the category of the “Samaritan error”. This article challenges that reading by arguing that the Sāmirī narrative operates within the Qur’ān’s own theological logic, especially its concern with prophetic infallibility and moral accountability. Through an examination of classical exegetical traditions, the article shows that the diversity of explanations regarding al-Sāmirī’s origins reflects hermeneutical flexibility. Classical tafsīr, therefore, should be approached as a tradition of knowledge with its own epistemic autonomy, not merely as historical material for confirming Western literary genealogies. While the name al-Sāmirī bears intertextual resonances with Israelite memory, Jewish-Samaritan polemic, and Late Antique religious debates, classical Muslim interpreters did not systematically turn this figure into a political weapon against living Samaritan communities. Ultimately, al-Sāmirī emerges as a theological figure through whom classical tafsīr negotiates prophetic authority, moral boundaries, and the legitimacy of Qur’ānic interpretation within Islamic intellectual history.