Provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the latest scholarship on the development of Islamic Theology

Offers a variegated picture of the current state of the field and suggests new directions for future research

Features compelling case studies focusing on specific theological issues that have developed through the dilemmatic interactions between the different theological schools and thinkers

Discusses the impact of poltical and social developments on the theology

Within the field of Islamic Studies, scientific research of Muslim theology is a comparatively young discipline. Much progress has been achieved over the past decades with respect both to discoveries of new materials and to scholarly approaches to the field. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the current state of the field. It provides a variegated picture of the state of the art and at the same time suggests new directions for future research.

Part One covers the various strands of Islamic theology during the formative and early middle periods, rational as well as scripturalist. To demonstrate the continuous interaction among the various theological strands and its repercussions (during the formative and early middle period and beyond), Part Two offers a number of case studies. These focus on specific theological issues that have developed through the dilemmatic and often polemical interactions between the different theological schools and thinkers. Part Three covers Islamic theology during the later middle and early modern periods. One of the characteristics of this period is the growing amalgamation of theology with philosophy (Peripatetic and Illuminationist) and mysticism. Part Four addresses the impact of political and social developments on theology through a number of case studies: the famous mi?na instituted by al-Ma'mun (r. 189/813-218/833) as well as the mihna to which Ibn 'Aqil (d. 769/1367) was subjected; the religious policy of the Almohads; as well as the shifting interpretations throughout history (particularly during Mamluk and Ottoman times) of the relation between Ash'arism and Maturidism that were often motivated by political motives. Part Five considers Islamic theological thought from the end of the early modern and during the modern period.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Sabine Schmidkte
Part I: Islamic Theolog(ies) during the formative and the Early Middle Period
1:Origins of Kalām, Alexander Treiger
2:The Early Qadariyya, Steven Judd
3:Jahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 128/745-46) and the "Jahmiyya" and .Dirār b. Amr (d. 200/815), Cornelia Schöck
4:Early Shī"ī Theology, Mohammed-Ali Amir-Moezzi
5:Excursus I: Christian Theological Thought during the First "Abbāsid Century, Sidney Griffith
6:Excursus II: Ungodly Cosmologies, Patricia Crone
7:The Mu"tazilite movement (I): Origins, Racha el-Omari
8:The Mu"tazilite movement (II): The Early Phase, David Bennett
9:The Mu"tazilite movement (III): The Scholastic Phase, Sabine Schmidtke
10:The Shī"ī Reception of Mu"tazilism (I): Zaydīs, Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke
11:The Shī"ī Reception of Mu"tazilism (II): Twelver Shī"ites, Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke
12:The Predecessors of Ash;"arism: Ibn Kullāb, al-Muḥāsibī, and al-Qalānisī, Harith Bin Ramli
13:Ash"arism in the East and the West, Jan Thiele
14:Ibāḍiyya, Wilferd Madelung
15:Karrāmiyya, Aron Zysow
16:Scripturalist and Traditionalist Theology, Binyamin Abrahamov
17:Ḥanafī Theological Tradition and Māturidism, Ulrich Rudolph
18:Philosophical Theology, Peter Adamson
19:Ismā"īlī Theology, Daniel de Smet
20:Sufi Theological Thought, Martin Nguyen
Part II: Intellectual Interactions of Islamic theology(ies)-Four Case Studies
21:Occasionalism, Ulrich Rudolph
22:Abū Hāshim al-Jubbā"ī's (d. 321/933) Theory of the States (aḥwāl) and its Adaptation among Ash"arite Theologians, Jan Thiele
23:Theories of Ethical Value in Kalām: A New Interpretation, Ayman Shihadeh
24:Theology and Logic, Khaled el-Rouayheb
Part III: Islamic Theology(ies) During the Later Middle and Early Modern Period
25:Theology versus Philosophy: al-Ghazālī's Tahāfut al-falāsifa and Ibn al-Malāḥimī's Tuḥfat al-mutakallimīn fi l-radd "alā l-falāsifa, Frank Griffel
26:Twelver Shī"ite Theology, Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke
27:Zaydī Theology in Yemen, Hassan Ansari, Sabine Schmidtke, and Jan Thiele
28:Handbooks in the Tradition of Later Eastern Ash"arism, Heidrun Eichner
29:Later Ash"arism in the Islamic West, Delfina Serrano
30:Egypt and the later Ash"arite School, Aaron Spevack
31:Excursus III: The Coptic and Syriac Receptions of neo-Ash"arite Theology, Gregor Schwarb
32:Theology in the Ottoman Lands, M. Sait Ozervarli
33:Theology in Central Asia, Nathan Spannaus
34:Theology in the Indian Subcontinent, Asad Q. Ahmed and Reza Pourjavady
35:Ḥanbalī Theology, Jon Hoover
Part IV: Political and Social History and its Impact on Theology: Four Case Studies
36:al-Ma"mūn (r. 189/813-218/833) and the Miḥna, Nimrod Hurvitz
37:The Miḥna of Ibn "Aqīl (d. 513/1119) and the Fitnat Ibn al-Qushayrī, Livnat Holtzman
38:The Religious Policy of the Almohads, Maribel Fierro
39:Interpretations of Ash"arism and Māturīdism among Mamluks and Ottomans, Lutz Berger
Part V: Islamic Theological Thought from the end of the Early Modern Period through the Modern Period
40:Main Trends of Islamic Theological Thought from the late 19th Century to Present Times, Rotraud Wielandt
41:Striving for a New Exegesis of the Qur"ān, Johanna Pink

Edited by Sabine Schmidtke, Professor of Islamic Intellectual History, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

Sabine Schmidtke (D.Phil. University of Oxford) is Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. She has published extensively on Islamic and Jewish intellectual history.

Contributors:

Sabine Schmidkte
Alexander Treiger
Steven Judd
Cornelia Schöck
Mohammed-Ali Amir-Moezzi
Sidney Griffith
Patricia Crone
Racha el-Omari
David Bennett
Sabine Schmidtke
Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke
Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke
Harith Bin Ramli
Jan Thiele
Wilferd Madelung
Aron Zysow
Binyamin Abrahamov
Ulrich Rudolph
Peter Adamson
Daniel de Smet
Martin Nguyen
Ulrich Rudolph
Jan Thiele
Ayman Shihadeh
Khaled el-Rouayheb
Frank Griffel
Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke
Hassan Ansari, Sabine Schmidtke, and Jan Thiele
Heidrun Eichner
Delfina Serrano
Aaron Spevack
Gregor Schwarb
M. Sait Ozervarli
Nathan Spannaus
Asad Q. Ahmed and Reza Pourjavady
Jon Hoover
Nimrod Hurvitz
Livnat Holtzman
Maribel Fierro
Lutz Berger
Rotraud Wielandt
Johanna Pink