Piety And Patienthood In Medieval Islam

How did pious medieval Muslims experience health and disease? Rooted in the prophet’s experiences with medicine and healing, Muslim pietistic literature developed cosmologies in which physical suffering and medical interventions interacted with religious obligations and spiritual health. This book traces the development of prophetic medical literature and religious writings around health and disease to give a new perspective on how patienthood was conditioned by the intersection of medicine and Islam. The author investigates the early and foundational writings on prophetic medicine and related pietistic writings on health and disease produced during the Islamic Classical Age. Looking at attitudes from and towards clerics, physicians and patients, sickness and health are gradually revealed as a social, gendered, religious, and cultural experience. Patients are shown to experience certain sensoria that are conditioned not only by medical knowledge, but also by religious and pietistic attitudes. This is a fascinating insight into the development of Muslim pieties and the traditions of medical practice. It will be of great interest to scholars interested in Islamic Studies, history of religion, history of medicine, science and religion and the history of embodied religious practice, particularly in matters of health and medicine.

The Ayyubid and Mamluk periods were two of the most intellectually vibrant in Islamic history. Megan H. Reid's book, which traverses three centuries from 1170 to 1500, recovers the stories of medieval men and women who were renowned not only for their intellectual prowess but also for their devotional piety. Through these stories, the book examines trends in voluntary religious practice that have been largely overlooked in modern scholarship. This type of piety was distinguished by the pursuit of God's favor through additional rituals, which emphasized the body as an instrument of worship, and through the rejection of worldly pleasures, and even society itself. Using an array of sources including manuals of law, fatwa collections, chronicles, and obituaries, the book shows what it meant to be a good Muslim in the medieval period and how Islamic law helped to define holy behavior. In its concentration on personal piety, ritual, and ethics the book offers an intimate perspective on medieval Islamic society.

Explores aspects of the private lives and interpersonal ties, between the personal and communal domains of early Sufis.

In 1768, Aḥmad al-Damanhūrī became the rector (shaykh) of al-Azhar, which was one of the most authoritative and respected positions in the Ottoman Empire. He occupied this position until his death. Despite being a prolific author, whose writings are largely extant, al-Damanhūrī remains almost unknown, and much of his work awaits study and analysis. This book aims to shed light on al-Damanhūrī’s diverse intellectual background, and that of and his contemporaries, building on and continuing the scholarship on the academic thought of the late Ottoman Empire. The book specifically investigates the intersection of medical and religious knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Egypt. It takes as its focus a manuscript on anatomy by al-Damanhūrī (d. 1778), entitled "The Clear Statement on the Science of Anatomy (al-qawl al-ṣarīḥ fī ʿilm al-tashrīḥ),". The book includes an edited translation of The Clear Statement, which is a well-known but unstudied and unpublished manuscript. It also provides a summary translation and analysis of al-Damanhūrī’s own intellectual autobiography. As such, the book provides an important window into a period that remains deeply understudied and a topic that continues to cause debates and controversies. This study, therefore, will be of keen interest to scholars working on the "post-Classical" Islamic world, as well as historians of religion, science, and medicine looking beyond Europe in the Early Modern period.

This book showcases multidisciplinary research at the intersection of the Islamic tradition and biomedicine. Within this broad area of scholarship, this book considers how Islamic theological constructs align with the science and practice of medicine, and in so doing offer resources for bridging the challenges of competing ontological visions, varied epistemic frameworks, and different theologies of life and living among the bodies of knowledge. By bringing together theologians, medical practitioners and intellectual historians, the book spurs deeper conversations at the intersection of these fields and provides fundamental resources for further dedicated research.

This intimate portrayal of the devotional life in early medieval Islamic society demonstrates how Islamic law defined holy behavior.

The Routledge Companion to the Qur’an offers an impressive and comprehensive overview of the formative scripture of Islam. Including a wide number of scholarly approaches to the Qur’an by both established authorities and emergent voices, the 40 chapters in this volume represent the latest word on the academic understanding of the Muslim scripture. The Qur’an is spoken of in scholarship across disciplines; it is the beating heart of a living community of believers; it is a work of beauty and a basis for art and culture; it is a profoundly significant historical artifact; and it is a mysterious survivor from the Late Ancient Arabic-speaking world. This Handbook accompanies the reader into the many worlds that the Qur’an lives in, from its ancient settings, to its internal drama, and through the 1,400 years of discussion and debate about its meaning. Bringing diverse approaches to the Qur’an together in one volume The Routledge Companion to the Qur’an represents the vibrancy of the field of Qur’anic Studies today. This Handbook is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and Islamic studies. It will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as area studies, sociology, anthropology, and history.

This text outlines for the first time a structured articulation of an emerging Islamic orientation to psychotherapy, a framework presented and known as Traditional Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy (TIIP). TIIP is an integrative model of mental health care that is grounded in the core principles of Islam while drawing upon empirical truths in psychology. The book introduces the basic foundations of TIIP, then delves into the writings of early Islamic scholars to provide a richer understanding of the Islamic intellectual heritage as it pertains to human psychology and mental health. Beyond theory, the book provides readers with practical interventional skills illustrated with case studies as well as techniques drawn inherently from the Islamic tradition. A methodology of case formulation is provided that allows for effective treatment planning and translation into therapeutic application. Throughout its chapters, the book situates TIIP within an Islamic epistemological and ontological framework, providing a discussion of the nature and composition of the human psyche, its drives, health, pathology, mechanisms of psychological change, and principles of healing. Mental health practitioners who treat Muslim patients, Muslim clinicians, students of the behavioral sciences and related disciplines, and anyone with an interest in spiritually oriented psychotherapies will greatly benefit from this illustrative and practical text.