De vroege christenen geloofden dat het hun voornaamste plicht was om elkaar lief te hebben, maar ze stelden zich niet open voor vreemdelingen. Deze gemeenschap voelde zich aangevallen en klitte samen...
But there were ulama who refused to accept the closing of the gates of ijtihad. Throughout Islamic history, at times of great political crisis—especially during a period of foreign encroachment—a refo...
But Enki wants to save Atrahasis,50 the ‘exceedingly wise man’ of the city of Shuruppak.
True insight does not consist of the acquisition of information but comes from mastering our egotism and greed.5
Our version of the same event is also likely to be a reflection upon our own situation and suffering rather than a dispassionate and wholly factual account. We
We are meaning-seeking creatures.
Today we often assume that before undertaking a religious lifestyle, we must prove to our own satisfaction that God or the Absolute exists. This is good scientific practice: first you establish a prin...
The implications for politics were immense. If instead of ruthlessly pursuing his own self-interest to the detriment of others, a ruler would curb his ego and submit to li for a single day, Confucius...
The dispassion of paedeia also informed the doctrine of the Trinity, which these three men, often known as the Cappadocian Fathers,
The Oxford Classical Dictionary firmly states: No word in either Greek or Latin corresponds to the English ‘religion’ or ‘religious.’ 6 The idea of religion as an essentially personal and systematic p...
Rida was one of the first Muslims to advocate the establishment of a fully modernized but fully Islamic state, based on the reformed Shariah. He wanted to establish a college where students could be i...
Remember that we can become twinned with an enemy and come to resemble him. Our hatred may become an alter ego, a part of our identity.
If we are to avoid catastrophe, the Muslim and Western worlds must learn not merely to tolerate but to appreciate one another. A good place to start is with the figure of Muhammad: a complex man, who...
I no longer think that any principle or opinion is worth anything if it makes you unkind or intolerant.
I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there. Without the distraction of constant conversation, the words on the page began...
Far from being the father of jihad, [Prophet] Mohammad was a peacemaker, who risked his life and nearly lost the loyalty of his closest companions because he was determined to effect a reconciliation...
FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH centuries were decisive for all the people of God. It was a particularly crucial period for the Christian West, which had not only succeeded in catching up with the other cultu...
Eventually, with regret, I left the religious life, and, once freed of the burden of failure and inadequacy, I felt my belief in God slip quietly away. He had never really impinged upon my life, thoug...
But his friend and colleague the Egyptian scholar Muhammad Abdu (1849–1905) was a deeper and more measured thinker. He believed that education and not revolution was the answer. Abdu had been devastat...
But during the nineteenth century, Europe was reconfigured into clearly defined states ruled by a central government.