Reading Literature as Theology in Islam. An Introduction and Two Case Studies: al-Thaʿālibī and Ḥāfiẓ
Our article serves as an introduction to the larger topic for this special issue of Open Theology titled “Reading Literature as Theology.” We make the case that scholarly efforts to understand the history of Islamic theology have been skewed towards the rationalist discipline of ‘ilm al-kalām, with...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Open Theology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2025-0047 |
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| Summary: | Our article serves as an introduction to the larger topic for this special issue of Open Theology titled “Reading Literature as Theology.” We make the case that scholarly efforts to understand the history of Islamic theology have been skewed towards the rationalist discipline of ‘ilm al-kalām, with insufficient attention to the modes of theological engagements found in fields like literature, where imagination as a hermeneutical tool plays a significant role. We consider some of the causes, both historical and epistemic, for such neglect. Building on the works of scholars of adab and of Islamic poetics and metaphysics, and constructively engaging with the works of Shahab Ahmed and Thomas Bauer, we explore the ways in which literature is fundamentally to be read as theology in Islam – how it has been deployed for the elaboration of theological discourses and how tensions between the prescriptive and the creative are in themselves productive, not prohibitive. The second part of the article offers close readings of al-Thaʿālibī and Ḥāfiẓ. These explorations into authors from the Arabic and Persian world of Islamic letters show us the ways in which a deep engagement with the “literary” can not only co-exist alongside but also facilitate the expression of theological concerns. Scholarship that has found these different modes to be in tension, if not direct opposition, is perhaps suffering from a reductive notion of the theological, ethical, and the pious. What is at stake in our research agenda is not just a better understanding of the literary production of the Islamic world, but a more profound understanding of how Islamic theology was understood, lived, and ultimately expressed in some of the most exquisite works of literature known to mankind. |
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| ISSN: | 2300-6579 |