عنوان

Sources of selfhood and technologies of ethical formation in early Muslim thought: The case of al-Hārith B. Asad al-Muhāsibī (d. 143/857)

Number

TL48221

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Sources of selfhood and technologies of ethical formation in early Muslim thought: The case of al-Hārith B. Asad al-Muhāsibī (d. 143/857)

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Faraz M. Sheikh

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Jaques, Robert Kevin; Miller, Richard Brian

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Indiana University

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

424

Text of Note

Committee members: Stalnaker, Aaron; Walbridge, John

Text of Note

Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-73654-0

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Discipline of degree

Religious Studies

Body granting the degree

Indiana University

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

This is a study in comparative religious ethics that uncovers and examines an early Muslim account of the nature of religious subjectivity and technologies of ethical formation. It critically reconstructs and analyzes how the influential early Muslim moral pedagogue, theologian and ascetic, al-Hārith b. Asad al-Muhāsibī (d. 143/857), elaborates the ideal religious subject and its proper religious and moral formation. Each chapter of the dissertation interrogates one particular discursive layer of al-Muhāsibī's teachings in his major work, al-Ri'āya li-huqūq Allāh, with a view to examining the nature and formation of the religious subject as it is formed and transformed through its engagement in that particular discourse. The dissertation thus examines the Muhāsibian religious subject through four discursive windows, so to speak: i) theological discourses about God's predetermination and His reward and punishment, ii) practices of mutual counseling (nasīha ) and admonition (wa'z), ideal responses to the praise and reproach of others and discourses peculiar to an inter-subjective context more broadly iii) legal-theological discourses, particularly what I call the categories of act analysis or ahkām discourse and iv) discourses about religious and moral vices that threaten and invalidate proper subjection to God. Throughout, the study interrogates al-Muhāsibī's teachings using insights drawn from the study of ethical formation in other religious and philosophical contexts. In conclusion, this study discusses how attention to Muhāsibian religious subjectivity might enrich and complicate contemporary discussions of religious tolerance and religious pluralism in the American academy. This study builds on, and also pushes at, the boundaries of current interpretations of mystical, theological and legal discourses in the academic study of Islam as well as Muslim ethics. As well, it generates important questions and insights that speak to ethical issues, such as moral subjectivity, ethical formation and religious tolerance, which are of growing interest to comparative religious ethicists.

Religion; Ethics; Comparative

Subject Term

Philosophy, religion and theology;Comparative religious ethics;Islam;Religious pluralism;Religious subjectivity;Self formation;al-Muhasibi, asad

Alowfi, Ahmed S.

Jaques, Robert Kevin; Miller, Richard Brian

Subdivision

Religious Studies

Indiana University

Call Number

1682496953; 3702376

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y