RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES IN LIQUID MODERNITY: POSTISLAM

Authors

  • MOHAMED BEN MUSTAPHA dr. University Paris VII (France)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47743/asas-2021-2-663

Keywords:

Postislam, Islam, theology, philosophy

Abstract

Postislam has been regarded as a new concept in need of a dire delineation. Basically, a Postislamic  tendency   is  a  paradigm   of  thought   (philosophical,  scientific,  mystical, religious, theological2, etc.) that excessively transcends at least one of the three sources of Islam’s juridical Canons (i.e. Quran, Sunna, Ijma’ or consensus of Scholars). This paper provides  a  definition  for  the  founding  principles  of Postislam.  It  shall  examine  this concept  from a generic point  of view. It will equally suggest  a constellation  of some central problems structuring  an emergent system: Postislam. This tendency is positively inherent „in potentiality” (dunamis), in an Aristotelian sense, according to multiple forms of enunciations and semantic variations throughout  the history of theology as well as the history  of philosophy,  theology, Islamic mystique  and  science. Postislam represents  a potentiality  devoid of a preexisting  concept  within  Islam; it is an  unnamed  historical tenant, disseminated throughout  a complex combination of theological and mystical first faltering steps.

I will examine some of these  instantiations,  expressed  essentially  in Islamic theology (Avicenna’s Metaphysics of Emanation) and mystical tradition  (i.e. Sufism in a general acceptance, and the nodal case of Al-Hallâj, in particular). Then, by isolating the essence of Islam’s theological mystique (the structural  duality between Sharī’a and Haqīqa, Law and Truth), in order to construct a synthetic deconstruction  identified to the concept of Postislam as pure mysticism, or the possibility a of a permanent  theophany,  indefinitely experienced throughout  ecstatic theopathy.  We ought  to, at this step, enunciate  divers axioms  based  on  this   concept.  As  a  sequel,  I  will  discuss  further   philosophical counterpoints and limits to this construction.

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Additional Files

Published

29-12-2021