Scholarly Authority and Lay Mobilization: Yusuf al‐Qaradawi's vision of da‘wa, 1976‐1984

The late 1970s and early 1980s were a propitious yet challenging time for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as its elites sought to define the movement's priorities in the face of new opportunities to spread their call (da‘wa). The debate over preaching, while one of strategic assessment, also involved a negotiation of intellectual hierarchy: Should laymen lead Egypt's oldest Islamist organization, or should scholars? In contrast to previous studies that focus on how laymen led the Brotherhood's return to grassroots preaching, this article reintegrates scholars into the story of da‘wa by focusing on the organization's most prominent ‘ālim, Shaykh Yusuf al‐Qaradawi, and his vision of institution‐based preacher education and extra‐institutional activism. Drawing on three books written by Qaradawi on this topic between the mid‐1970s and early 1980s, this article casts lights not only on this Islamist scholar's claim to religious authority as he sought to mold the Brotherhood, but also on the ways in which projects of mass mobilization – whether grassroots preaching or the reform of state‐sponsored educational curricula – have transformed scholarly claims to authority more broadly.     

The A-Cosmic Doctrine of Marcion and Paul's Apocalypticism: Theo-Political Implications

Whereas Paul's apocalypticism can be regarded as a highly political approach to the tirannical “powers of this world”, Marcion, although a disciple of Paul's, cut the thread by preaching an a-cosmic doctrine, in which no trace of the Biblical god can be found. Still, marcion is not anti-Semitic because his aggression is directed towards the god of the Old Testament, no towards the Biblical people of god, Israel.     

Preaching laughter in the thirteenth century: the exempla of Arnold of Liège (d. c.1308) and his Dominican milieu

Historians of medieval laughter have, over the past few decades, imagined the thirteenth century as a period of Christian rapprochement with laughter and humour. Whereas in the twelfth century and before, laughter was largely associated – in art, exegesis, narrative and in preaching – with diabolism and damnation, the consensus is that in the 1200s and beyond Christian culture began deploying and preaching laughter as a positive spiritual expression and strategy. Above all, scholars have identified this shift with the thought and practice of the Dominican Order. This paper enriches this narrative by analysing the neglected exempla collection of the Dominican preacher Arnold of Liège (d. c.1308). Reading Arnold's collection – which harshly forbids laughter – in relief to a number of similar compilations made by Dominicans in the same period, offers an image of how the significance of laughter had become pluralised in mendicant theology by 1300, and of how old ideas of a radically negative laughter persisted in haunting the pulpits and street corners of the thirteenth century.     

PARADIGMS BEHIND (AND BEFORE) THE MODERN CONCEPT OF RELIGION

This essay identifies five paradigms that are basic to understanding the historical emergence and uses of the generic idea of “religion” in the Christian cultures of Europe and America. The spread of this concept has been sufficiently thorough in recent centuries as to make religion appear to be a “social fact,” to use Durkheim's phrase, rather than so many cultural expressions and different social practices. The supremacy of Euro‐American culture—and an academy still saturated with Christian ideas—has enjoined other cultures and forms of religiosity to conform to this idea of religion; for these cultures contentment with the status quo can vie with the anxieties of influence, including “modernization.” The key paradigms discussed are the following: Christianity as the prototype; religion as the opposite of reason; the modern formulation of “world religions”; the cultural necessity of religion; and critical analysis of the Western “construction” of religion. These paradigms demonstrate the limits on theoretical variety in the field, the difficulty in making real changes in set ways of thinking, and productive foci for interdisciplinary methods of study.     

The Preacher’s Agenda: A Dominican versus the Italian Renaissance

Abstract

This article reviews the cultural agenda of the celebrated Dominican preacher Giovanni Dominici (1356–1419) in fifteenth-century Florence. Central issues discussed include Dominici’s educational programme, his cultural propaganda, his interest in the visual arts and his opposition to the study of the classics, as expressed in his public popular preaching. The close examination of his cultural agenda discloses Dominici as the most extreme opponent of humanist studies.     

Les sermons sur saint Antoine et le bon usage de la prédication comme ‘vertu’

Abstract

One of the main reasons for Saint Anthony of Padua’s holy fame and reputation is his activity as a preacher. This article begins with a review of the hagiographical legends referring to preaching as a virtue or gift of divine grace, and the importance of Iulianus of Speyer’s works in spreading the concept of preaching as a virtue is hightlighted. Then follows a discussion of a series of texts written between about 1250 and 1350, which seeks to shed light on the identification of recta et fructuosa praedicatio (right and fruitful preaching activity) with Anthony’s wisdom (sapientia) or knowledge (scientia). It can be seen that this message was expounded over a relatively broad timespan from the 1280s onwards. There is also evidence of an interdisciplinary problem, which seems to involve not only the preachers belonging to the Order of Friars Minor, but also those who were called to preach to them from outside the Order itself. Three possible reasons for the appearance of preaching on the list of virtues are suggested. It may have originated from the attempt to assimilate contemporary preachers with the model of holiness provided by Anthony or from an effort to create a counterbalance to the vices of the tongue that were supposed to plague the preachers’ audiences. It may also be an indicator of a more general debate on praedicatio as a gift of divine grace in opposition to those who believed it was merely the result of a studied technique.     

‘The Island Blazed’: A Blinding Light and Tiepolo's Hound

This essay is primarily a study of Derek Walcott's Tiepolo's Hound as an affirmation of Caribbean, tropical, blinding light through an engagement with the life and work of Camille Pissarro. Conceived as such, the poem, I argue, proposes an “adamic” vision and imagination attuned with “Time” rather than “History” (the concepts are Walcott's), as well as an intensification of sensory-perception beyond vision. In order to better appreciate the historical and contextual relevance of Tiepolo's Hound, the essay provides first a general introduction to: (1) a nuanced understanding of light and its “otherness” emerging from modern physics; (2) some of the ways in which western capitalism and Cartesian perspectivism, as a hegemonic aesthetic and philosophical tradition in the West, have attempted to capture and control light and its “otherness;” and (3) the blinding quality of light in the tropical context, which repositions light as a force against any and all exploitative capitalist desires.     

18th‐Century pacific voyages of discovery, “big science”, and the shaping of an European scientific and technological culture

Abstract

The European exploration of the Pacific Ocean in the latter half of the eighteenth century is usually presented as part of the Enlightenment's quest for pure knowledge, knowledge which was shared freely in the “Republic of Letters”. In this essay, however, these expeditions are set against the background of a ferocious struggle between western European states to dominate the world, bringing together national political, commercial, military, and learned institutions, showing them to be more akin to today's “big science” than to an activity of free‐minded, autonomous, gentlemen. The holistic approach developed to apprehend “big science” in today's world is thus used to reexamine scientific cooperation as well as the circulation of men, objects, texts (including maps) and ideas in the politico‐economic context of early modern Britain, France and Holland, the relationship between this “big science” and eighteenth‐century, western European society, and how these shaped European scientific culture and identity. The paper ends with some reflections on the contrast between “big scientific” activity in the two periods.     

THE LAST EUROPEAN: A PLEA FOR A RE‐POLITICIZED BENJAMIN

This review of Alexander Gelley's captivating book follows its attempt to respond to Benjamin's plea to “expound the nineteenth century” and liberate us “from the stupendous forces of history,” using aisthesis, “a weak messianic force,” and “dream visions.” Taking the cue from Gelley's reference to Benjamin's rebellion against “a secret agreement between past generations and the present one” (156), this review attempts to open up the context and to wonder about “the secret agreement” between recent Benjamin scholarship and its own sense of the past. The review pleads with future Benjaminians to start asking questions relating to the twentieth century, and attempts to consider the relevance of Benjaminia for current political analysis and recent trends in critical studies.     

“Mad” Elves and “Elusive Beauty”: Some Celtic Strands of Tolkien's Mythology [1]

Contrary to Tolkien's refutation of “Celtic things” as a source for his own mythology, this article attempts to show how his work has been inspired by Celtic folklore and myth. The article is not just a source study. It concentrates on one main example from Tolkien's early literary writings that betrays a Celtic influence. At the same time it discusses Tolkien's complex attitude towards “things Celtic” within the context of his strong sense of English identity. Finally, it seeks to explain Tolkien's derogatory comments on Celtic material as a result of popular ideas of “Celticity.”     

European Transfigurations—Eurafrica and Eurasia: Coudenhove and Trubetzkoy Revisited

The Eurasianist movement launched a theory according to which Russia does not belong to Europe but forms, together with its Asian colonies, a separate continent named “Eurasia” whose Eastern border is the Pacific Ocean. Similarily, in the early 1920s, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the Pan-European movement, developed, the idea of “Eurafrica.” I compare the writings of Coudenhove and those of Nicolas S. Trubetzkoy and show how the idea of Europe was used as an anti-essentialist model of a cultural community. Though both “Eurasia” and “Eurafrica” may be understood to express cultural and economic imperialism, the sophistication with which both concepts are brought forward makes their interpretation as simple derivatives of chauvinism impossible. Both Trubetzkoy and Coudenhove refuse national “egocentricity” which “destroys every form of cultural communication between human beings.” Above that, Trubetzkoy and Coudenhove agree that cultural apogees have often come about through fusion. I discuss the idea of “convergence” in the context of Bergson's and Deleuze's biophilosophies.     

The Assyrian Evidence: A Reply to Salibi's Questions Regarding Assyrian Sources for their Campaigns in Palestine and the Existence of a Bît Ḫumria in Palestine in the Iron II

Abstract

In this paper the famous saying in Jer 31,29–30 is discussed taking the images of sour fruit and numb teeth as parts of metaphorical language. The two images should be classified as parts of two different root-metaphors: “sour fruit” falls under the tree “you are what you eat”. “Numb teeth” stand in the field of “demolition and ruination”. Their unexpected merger together with the aspect of time—as referred to by the nouns “fathers” and “(grand) children”—suggests that two concepts are communicated: (1) the idea of postponed retribution, and (2) tragic fatalism, The abrogation of the saying should be interpreted as an indication that “in the days to come” people can no longer blame others for their wrongdoings. Within the historical context of exile and return, the abrogation of the saying should not be interpreted as a sign of the rise of individualism, but as a feature of a symbol system that stresses personal responsibility as part of Israel's identity within the immense Persian Empire.     

Sermons,Preaching, and Liturgy: Practices,Research Methods,and the Case of Giordano da Pisa

This article analyses the relationship between sermons, preaching, and liturgy within the Order of the Friars Preachers in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Italy. It provides an account of a specific method for the study of the medieval ‘modern sermon’ by investigating the reportationes of the sermons given by Giordano da Pisa, a Dominican friar who preached in Florence and Pisa between 1302 and 1309. The investigation using this method shows that the sermons’ subjects and arguments, often considered by historians to be a direct consequence and reflection of Florence’s social and economic reality, had in fact also much to do with the evangelical story or epistolary passage assigned to the specific date of the liturgical calendar: there are thus two principal influences rather than just one. This approach to Giordano’s sermons provides a new perspective on his work as a preacher by being more attentive to the internal construction mechanisms of sermon discourse.     

Is obsidian sourcing about geochemistry or archaeology? A reply to Speakman and Shackley

The response from Speakman and Shackley to my paper highlights a number of important issues currently facing archaeological sourcing research. Many of these issues, however, have little to do with HHpXRF itself and more to do with an artificial crisis triggered by specialists' concerns about a hitherto restricted technique becoming available to a wider community. Despite their mantra of “validity and reliability,” Speakman and Shackley erroneously equate these two concepts with the accuracy of an instrument's measurements. Additionally, they mischaracterise a self-contained test, conducted with specific parameters (i.e., “off-the-shelf” operation), as an endeavour to facilitate or endorse poor-quality data. Paradoxically, their disparagement of experimental internal consistency as “silliness” is incongruous with their own data. Furthermore, a discussion focused on handheld instruments is obfuscated by their inclusion of desktop instruments that are “portable” only in the sense of luggable to an electrical outlet in a laboratory context. Most troubling is that they envision themselves as the arbiters of science vs. “playing scientist.” Contrary to their claims, HHpXRF proliferation will improve reproducibility and archaeological results.     

The supreme court of Israel: Formative years, 1948–1955

In seeking to establish a paradigm of a literary “New Jew” for the early twentieth century, we must view the cultural developments of the time on the background of European modernist culture. During this period the European “New Jew” underwent many incarnations, including Max Nordau's muscular hero, Buber's “Renaissance” Jew, Berdyczewski's Nietzschean “new man,” Herzl's “authentic Jew,” and the Hebrew literary talush (rootless person). All the divergent ideas of Jewish renewal propounded in Europe were united in Shaul Tchernichovsky's poetry, either through deliberate reference or as a result of the tenor of the time. This article examines Tchernichovsky's implicit conception of the “New Jew” through two poems: “Lenokhah pesel Apollo” (Before a statue of Apollo, 1899) and “Ani – li misheli ein klum” (I have nothing of my own, 1937).     

IN THE FOLDS OF TIME: RASHĪD AL‐DĪN ON THEORIES OF HISTORICITY

By focusing on Rashīd al‐Dīn's (d. 718/1318) historiographical oeuvre and here in particular his “History of the World,” this article challenges the usual approach to his Jāmi? al‐tawārīkh (Compendium of Chronicles) and argues that his was a deeply pluralistic enterprise in a world with many centers, tremendous demographic change, high social mobility, and constantly shifting truth‐claims in an ever expanding cosmos, to which Rashīd al‐Dīn's method, language, and the shape of his history were perfectly adaptable. This article introduces the notion of “parallel pasts” to account for Rashīd al‐Dīn's method. By placing the Jāmi? al‐tawārīkh and its author in their historical and intellectual context, this article also argues that this method is not restricted to Rashīd al‐Dīn's historiography: His historiographical work ought to be seen as part of his larger theological and philosophical oeuvre into which the author placed it consciously and explicitly, an oeuvre that is, like Rashīd al‐Dīn's historiography, pluralist at heart, and that could be as easily classified as “theology” or “philosophy” as “historiography.”