Book “Speaking for Islam, Religious Authorities in Muslim Societies”

This book, which is edited by Gudrun Krämer and Sabine Schmidtke, is concerned with religious authorities, men and women claiming, projecting and exerting religious authority within a given context.

Who speaks for Islam? To whom do Muslims turn when they look for guidance? To what extent do individual scholars and preachers exert religious authority, and how can it be assessed? The upsurge of Islamism has lent new urgency to these questions, but they have deeper roots and a much longer history, and they certainly should not be considered in the light of present concerns only.
The present volume – grown out of an international symposium at the Free University, Berlin in 2002 – is not so much concerned with religious authority, but with religious authorities, men and women claiming, projecting and exerting religious authority within a given context. It addresses issues such as the relationship of knowledge, conduct and charisma, the social functions of the schools of law and theology, and the efforts on the part of governments and rulers to organize religious scholars and to implement state-centred hierarchies.

The present volume – grown out of an international symposium at the Free University, Berlin in 2002 – is concerned with religious authorities, men and women claiming, projecting and exerting religious authority within a given context. The volume focuses on Middle Eastern Muslim majority societies in the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, and the papers collected therein highlight the scope and variety of religious authorities in present and past Muslim societies.

Table of Contents
Introduction: Religious Authority And Religious Authorities In Muslim Societies. A Critical Overview

This Day Have I Perfected Your Religion For You : A. Ẓāihīrī Conception Of Religious Authority

The Epistemology Of Excellence: Sunni-Shi’I Dialectics On Legitimate Leadership

The Relationship Between Chief Qāḍī And Chief Dā’Ī Under The Fatimids

Forms And Functions Of ‘Licences To Transmit’ (Ijāzas) In 18th-Century-Iran: ‘Abd Allāh Al-Mūsawī Al-Jazā’Irī Al-Tustarī’s (1112–73/1701–59) Ijāza Kabīra

Asserting Religious Authority In Late 19th/Early 20th Century Morocco: Muhammad B. Ja’Far Al-Kattānī(D. 1927) And His Kitāb Salwat Al-Anfās

Consensus And Religious Authority In Modern Islam: The Discourses Of The ‘Ulamā’

Drawing Boundaries: Yūsuf Al-Qaraḍāwī On Apostasy

A Doctrine In The Making? Velāyat-E Faqīh In Post-Revolutionary Iran

Religious Authority In Transnational Sufi Networks: Shaykh Nāzim Al-Qubrusī Al-Haqqānī Al-Naqshbandī

The Modern Dede: Changing Parameters For Religious Authority In Contemporary Turkish Alevism

Index

Social, Economic And Political Studies Of The Middle East And Asia