Muslim Qur'anic interpretation today is beset by tensions. Tensions between localising and globalising forces; tensions between hierarchical and egalitarian social ideals; and tensions between the quest for new approaches and the claim for authority raised by defenders of exegetical traditions. It is this complex web of power structures, local as well as global, that this book seeks to elucidate. This book provides a fresh perspective on present-day Qur'anic interpretations by analysing the historical, social and political dimensions in which they take place, the ways in which they are performed and the media through which they are transmitted. Besides discussing the persistence of exegetical traditions and the emergence of new paradigms, it examines the structural conditions in which these processes occur. Languages, nation states, global human rights discourses and intra-Islamic divisions all shape the nature of interpretive endeavours and frequently fuel conflicts over the correct understanding of the Qur'an. This book contains more than twenty detailed case studies of recent Qur'anic interpretations, based on translated texts that cover a variety of languages, regions, media, genres, approaches, authors and target groups. They are integrated into the chapters, bring their arguments to life and stimulate fundamental reflections on the authority of the text and the authority of its interpreters.

New volume in the TNTC revision and replacement programme

The discovery in 1936 of a complete MS, of Matrceta's 'Hymn of 150 Verses', previously known only from fragments in Tibetan and Chinese translations, was an important addition to Sanskrit literature. The Hymn is one of the earliest of Buddhist Sanskrit poems; it was once famous in the Buddhist world and for many centuries held unequalled popularity among Northern Buddhists. It is also the only known survivor of works attributed to Matrceta, an author whose personality is one of the puzzles of Indian literary history. Shackleton Bailey has edited his own English version and notes, the original text, together with Tibetan and Chinese translations. His introduction was the first critical study of the work, first published in 1951.

Originally published in 1976, Leon Hurvitz's monumental translation of the "Lotus Sutra" is the work scholars have preferred for decades. Hailed by critics as an "extraordinary" and "magnificent" achievement, Hurvitz's translation is based on the best known Chinese version of the text and includes passages of the original Sanskrit that were omitted from the Chinese.

Beloved for its mythology and literary artistry, the "Lotus Sutra" is one of the most popular and influential texts of Mahayana Buddhism, asserting that there is only one path to enlightenment, the bodhisattva path, and that all followers without exception can achieve supreme awakening. The text argues that the Buddha cannot be delimited by time and space and that a common intent underlies the diversity of Buddhist teachings. Through parables of the burning house, the wayward son, and other tales that have come to be known throughout East Asia, the sutra skillfully concretizes abstract religious concepts and clarifies bold claims about the Buddhist tradition. Urging devotees to revivify doctrine through recitation and interpretation, the sutra powered an organic process of remaking that not only kept its content alive in the poetry and art of premodern Asia but also introduced new forms of practice and scriptural study into contemporary Buddhism. Stephen F. Teiser's foreword addresses this vital quality of the sutra, discusses its background, and reflects on the enduring relevance of Hurvitz's critical work.

Published as Dalil al-Muslim al-hazin ila muqtada-l-suluk fi'l-qarn al-'ishrin in 1983, this book remains a timely and important read today. Both the resurgence of Islamist politics and the political, social and intellectual upheaval which accompanied the Arab Spring challenge us to re-examine the interaction between the pre-modern Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities. This book does exactly that, raising questions regarding issues about which other Muslim intellectuals and thinkers have been silent. These include - among others - current religious practice vs the Islamic ideal; the many additions to the original revelation; the veracity of the Prophet's biography and his sayings; the development of Sufism; and historical and ideological influences on Islamic thought.

The purpose of this book is to re-examine those basic issues in the study of Midrash which to some extent have been marginalised by trends in scholarship and research. Irving Jacobs asks, for example, whether the early rabbinic exegetes had a concept of peshat, plain meaning, and, if so, what significance they attached to it in their exposition of the biblical text. He enquires if the selection of proemial and proof-texts was a random one, dependent purely upon the art or whim of the preacher, or rather if exegetical traditions linked certain pentateuchal themes with specific sections of the Prophets (and particularly the Hagiographa), which were acknowledged by preachers and audiences alike. As Midrash in its original, pre-literary form, was a living process involving both live preachers and live audiences in the ancient synagogues of the Holy Land, to what extent, he asks, did the latter influence the former in the development of their art and skills?

Die Darstellung der Begegnungen der ostsyrischen Christen ("Nestorianer") im ehemaligen Perserreich mit dem fruhen Islam ist fur die heutige Auseinandersetzung von Christentum und Islam von groesster Relevanz. Sowohl die Theologie und Gelehrsamkeit der Nestorianer werden in diesem Buch behandelt, als auch ihre erfolgreiche Mission unter den benachbarten arabischen Stammen. Weiter wird die Entwicklung der ostsyrischen Kirche nach dem Siegeszug der Araber herausgearbeitet. Nachdem diese Bagdad im Jahre 762 zu ihrer Hauptstadt gemacht hatten, nahmen die Kontakte zu, weil die Nestorianer hier die christliche Mehrheit bildeten. Die Rekonstruktion dieser Wechselwirkungen zwischen den gelehrten Nestorianern und den neuen arabischen Herrschern, des Sinns und Zwecks ihrer Religionsgesprache und der Rolle der christlichen Araber koennte gerade heute hilfreich sein, die eigene Tradition und die der Nachbarn in einer neuen Perspektive zu sehen.

The Upanisads is the Hindu equivalent of the Christian New Testament. It is a collection of spritual treatises written in Sanskirt between 800 and 400 BCE. Typically an Upanisad recounts one or more sessions of teaching, often setting each within the story of how it came to be taught. These 13 texts, the principal Upanisads, are devoted to understanding the inner meaning of the religion: they explicate its crucial doctrines - rebirth, the law of karma, the means of conquering death and of achieving detachment, equilibrium and spiritual bliss. They emphasise the perennial search for true knowledge. This translation and selection offers a full and comprehensive text.

This popular introduction by a well-known Islamic scholar has been updated and expanded, offering a balanced portrayal of the Qur an and its place in historic and contemporary Muslim society. * Features new sections on the Qur an and its relationship to democracy, science, human rights, and the role of women * Contains expanded sections on the Qur an in the life cycle of Muslims, and in Islamic ethics and law * Incorporates additional images and student features, including a glossary. * Supported by an accompanying website (available on publication) hosting a range of additional material, including student resources, links to important websites, news stories, and more * This title is also available as an eTextbook on the CourseSmart platform, as a Wiley Desktop Edition, or via your preferred eTextbook vendor; eTextbooks offer convenience, enhanced electronic functionality, and flexible pricing options learn more at www.wiley.com/college/wileyflex

This is the first major commentary in English on Pesher Habakkuk for forty years. It elucidates the nature of 1QpHab as the earliest commentary on the prophecy of Habakkuk by a detailed study of the biblical quotation and sectarian interpretation. This commentary provides a new edition of the scroll, including new readings, and detailed palaeographical, philological, exegetical and historical notes and discussion. It shows that the pesherist imitates the allusive style of the oracles of Habakkuk and also draws on lexemes, phrases, and themes from other biblical texts and Jewish sources. It shows that the pesherist identified the Kittim with the Romans who conquered Judaea in 63 BCE, and suggests that the scroll refers to several righteous and wicked figures, including the last Hasmonean high priests.

The "Platform Sutra" comprises a wide range of important Chan/Zen Buddhist teachings. Purported to contain the autobiography and sermons of Huineng (638--713), the legendary Sixth Patriarch of Chan, the sutra has been popular among monastics and the educated elite for centuries. The first study of its kind in English, this volume offers essays that introduce the history and ideas of the sutra to a general audience and interpret its practices. Leading specialists on Buddhism discuss the text's historical background and its vaunted legacy in Chinese culture.

Incorporating recent scholarship and theory, chapters include an overview of Chinese Buddhism, the crucial role of the "Platform Sutra "in the Chan tradition, and the dynamics of Huineng's biography. They probe the sutra's key philosophical arguments, its paradoxical teachings about transmission, and its position on ordination and other institutions. The book includes a character glossary and extensive bibliography, with helpful references for students, general readers, and specialists throughout. The editors and contributors are among the most respected scholars in the study of Buddhism, and they assess the place of the "Platform Sutra" in the broader context of Chinese thought, opening the text to all readers interested in Asian culture, literature, spirituality, and religion.

This is a comprehensive study of the Derveni Papyrus. The papyrus, found in 1962 near Thessaloniki, is not only one of the oldest surviving Greek papyri but is also considered by scholars as a document of primary importance for a better understanding of the religious and philosophical developments in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Gabor Betegh aims to reconstruct and systematically analyse the different strata of the text and their interrelation by exploring the archaeological context; the interpretation of rituals in the first columns of the text; the Orphic poem commented on by the author of the papyrus; and the cosmological and theological doctrines which emerge from the Derveni author's exegesis of the poem. Betegh discusses the place of the text in the context of late Presocratic philosophy and offers an important preliminary edition of the text of the papyrus with critical apparatus and English translation.

Zen Buddhism is often said to be a practice of "mind-to-mind transmission" without reliance on texts -- in fact, some great teachers forbid their students to read or write. But Buddhism has also inspired some of the greatest philosophical writings of any religion, and two such works lie at the center of Zen: The Heart Sutra, which monks recite all over the world, and The Diamond Sutra, said to contain answers to all questions of delusion and dualism. This is the Buddhist teaching on the "perfection of wisdom" and cuts through all obstacles on the path of practice.

As Red Pine explains: "The Diamond Sutra may look like a book, but it's really the body of the Buddha. It's also your body, my body, all possible bodies. But it's a body with nothing inside and nothing outside. It doesn't exist in space or time. Nor is it a construct of the mind. It's no mind. And yet because it's no mind, it has room for compassion. This book is the offering of no mind, born of compassion for all suffering beings. Of all the sutras that teach this teaching, this is the diamond."

From the early years of the Common Era to 1700, Indian intellectuals explored with unparalleled subtlety the place of emotion in art. Their investigations led to the deconstruction of art's formal structures and broader inquiries into the pleasure of tragic tales. Rasa, or taste, was the word they chose to describe art's aesthetics, and their passionate effort to pin down these phenomena became its own remarkable act of creation. This book is the first in any language to follow the evolution of rasa from its origins in dramaturgical thought-a concept for the stage-to its flourishing in literary thought-a concept for the page. A Rasa Reader incorporates primary texts by every significant thinker on classical Indian aesthetics, many never translated before. The arrangement of the selections captures the intellectual dynamism that has powered this debate for centuries. Headnotes explain the meaning and significance of each text, a comprehensive introduction summarizes major threads in intellectual-historical terms, and critical endnotes and an extensive bibliography add further depth to the selections. The Sanskrit theory of emotion in art is one of the most sophisticated in the ancient world, a precursor of the work being done today by critics and philosophers of aesthetics. A Rasa Reader's conceptual detail, historical precision, and clarity will appeal to any scholar interested in a full portrait of global intellectual development. A Rasa Reader is the inaugural book in the Historical Sourcebooks in Classical Indian Thought series, edited by Sheldon Pollock. These text-based books guide readers through the most important forms of classical Indian thought, from epistemology, rhetoric, and hermeneutics to astral science, yoga, and medicine. Each volume provides fresh translations of key works, headnotes to contextualize selections, a comprehensive analysis of major lines of development within the discipline, and exegetical and text-critical endnotes, as well as a bibliography. Designed for comparativists and interested general readers, Historical Sourcebooks is also a great resource for advanced scholars seeking authoritative commentary on challenging works.

The spiritual text that forms the basis of Mormonism?in the last edition edited by its founder, Joseph Smith, Jr.
"THE BOOK OF MORMON" is one of the most influential? as well as controversial?religious documents in American history, and is regarded as sacred scripture by followers around the world, including members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the fourth-largest religious body in the United States. According to Mormon belief, "The Book of Mormon" was inscribed on golden plates by ancient prophets. I t contains stories of ancient peoples migrating from the Near East to the Americas, and also explains that Jesus Christ appeared to the New World after his resurrection. The golden plates were discovered in upstate New York and translated by Joseph Smith, Jr., under the guidance of an angel, Moroni. From this divine revelation, Smith founded the Mormon sect, which is now comprised of more than 12.5 million members worldwide.

Every work on Jewish thought and law since the twelfth century bears the imprint of Maimonides. A. N. Whitehead's famous dictum that the entire European philosophical tradition 'consists of a series of footnotes to Plato' could equally characterize Maimonides' place in the Jewish tradition. The critical studies in this volume explore how Orthodox rabbis of different orientations-Shlomo Aviner, Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (Netziv), Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, Joseph Kafih, Abraham Isaac Kook, Aaron Kotler, Joseph Soloveitchik, and Elhanan Wasserman-have read and provided footnotes to Maimonides in the long twentieth century. How well did they really understand Maimonides? And where do their arguments fit in the mainstream debates about him and his works? Each of the seven core chapters examines a particular approach. Some rabbis have tried to liberate themselves from the influence of his ideas. Others have sought to build on those ideas or expand them in ways which Maimonides himself did not pursue, and which he may well not have agreed with. Still others advance patently non-Maimonidean positions, while attributing them to none other than Maimonides. Above all, the essays published here demonstrate that his legacy remains vibrantly alive today.

A compelling book that casts the Qur'anic encounter with Jews in an entirely new light In this panoramic and multifaceted book, Meir Bar-Asher examines how Jews and Judaism are depicted in the Qur'an and later Islamic literature, providing needed context to those passages critical of Jews that are most often invoked to divide Muslims and Jews or to promote Islamophobia. He traces the Qur'anic origins of the protection of Jews and other minorities living under the rule of Islam, and shows how attitudes toward Jews in Shi'i Islam are substantially different from those in Sunni Islam. Bar-Asher sheds light on the extraordinary contribution of Jewish tradition to the Muslim exegesis of the Qur'an, and draws important parallels between Jewish religious law, or halakha, and shari'a law. An illuminating work on a topic of vital relevance today, Jews and the Qur'an offers a nuanced understanding of Islam's engagement with Judaism in the time of Muhammad and his followers, and serves as a needed corrective to common misperceptions about Islam.