The Vision of Islam

Abstract

The Vision of Islam forms part of a series, entitled Visions of Reality, designed to focus on religions as worldviews. According to the statement of the editorial board on the flyleaf, each religion studied in the series will be presented in the context of its own inner dynamic or ethos using a methodology appropriate to itself. Murata and Chittick have succeeded admirably in living up to this commiunent by allowing Islam to speak through abundant quotations from the Qur'an and the hadith. The outgrowth of an introductory course on Islam taught by the authors at the State University of New York at Stony Brook for more than a decade, Vision is organized in an innovative manner. After a brief introduction to the Qur'an, its translations, and the life of the Prophet, the authors recount the "hadith of Gabriel" transmitted by both al-Buk:haf1 and Muslim on the authority of 'Umar ibn al-Kha.t.tab. According to this repon, the Prophet was questioned by an unknown stranger about the significance of submission (islam), faith (iman), and doing what is beautiful (Ihsan ). After explaining these concepts, the Prophet then identified this mysterious individual as the angel Gabriel, the being through whom God revealed the Qur'an. The remainder of the book is structured around these three elements or dimensions, as the authors term them. Dealing first with the several senses of submission, acceptance, or commitment, Part I describes the essential practices of Islam: the five pillars. An often misunderstood sixth pillar, jihad or struggle, is also discussed cogently. The authors then explain the historical articulation of these practices in the formation of the Sunni and Shi'i schools (madhahib), the Shari'ah, and Islamic jurisprudence. Here and elsewhere, variations among the schools are noted. Part II, dealing with imiin, accounts for more than two-thirds of the book, an indication of the relative weight the authors give this dimension. The three fundamental principles of faith-divine unity, prophecy, and eschatology-are the major topics of this section. The nature of God's absolute unity and transcendence is explored through a discussion of His signs, attributes, and acts (as manifested in creation), and Islamic angelology. Here, the text is infused with the metaphysics of illuminationist philosophy. Notions such as good and evil, human free will and determinism, are linked convincingly with the concepts of divine unity and the hierarchy of creation. This argument, in tum, leads logically to an account of the role of prophecy and humanity's acceptance of ...