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Richard
M. Frank, edited by Dimitri Gutas.
Philosophy,
Theology and Mysticism in Medieval Islam: Texts and Studies on the
Development and History of Kalam, Volume I.
Ashgate,
2005.
Variorum
Collected Studies Series.
224 x
150 mm.
404pp.
Publisher's
recommended price
Hardback
ISBN 0860789772, $119.95/£62.50
The first volume of the
collected major articles of Richard M. Frank, pioneering student of
Islamic theology (kalam), contains fifteen essays. It includes his
early studies, classic but inaccessible for many in their original
publication, on the text and terminology of Graeco-Arabic translations (De anima, Themistius on the
Metaphysics, Plotinus in Syriac, 'anniya)
and the terminology of early kalam. Other articles deal with Islamic
theology and its early development, especially in its relation to
philosophy (in particular the kalam of Jahm ibn Safwan and al-Ghazali),
and the text and translation of two short dogmatic works by the mystic
al-Qushayri.
The
collection is prefaced by a fascinating autobiographical memoir which
traces the intellectual development of the author and the reasoning
that led him, from study to study, to his discovery of the way of
thinking of the theologians and to an understanding of the essential
core of Islamic theology.
Contents
Foreword; Autobiographical note; Some fragments of Ishaq's translation
of the De anima; Some textual
notes on the Oriental versions of Themistius' paraphrase of Book I of
the Metaphysics; The origin
of the Arabic philosophical term 'anniya;
The use of the Enneads by
John of Scythopolis; Remarks on the early development of the kalam;
Reason and revealed law, a sample of parallels and divergences in kalam
and falsafa; Currents and counter currents [in the Mu'tazila, Ash'arites and
al-Ghazali]; The neoplatonism of Jahm ibn Safwan; Al-Ghazali on taqlid:
scholars, theologians, and philosophers; Al-Ghazali's use of Avicenna's
philosophy; Meanings are spoken of in many ways: the earlier Arab
grammarians; 'Lam yazal' as a formal term in Muslim theological
discourse; Two short dogmatic works of abu l-Qasim al-Qushayri, part 1:
Luma' al-i'tiqad;
part 2: al-Fusul fi l-usul;
Index.
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