Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия (Dec 2021)
Apologetic treatises by Ibr?h?m al-‘Ayyah and the samaritan theology of the 18th century
Abstract
The article deals with an unpublished monument of Modern Time Samaritan theology, namely four apologetic treatises of the theologian, historian and poet Ibr?h?m al-?Ayyah ad-Danf? (1715–1788) which are kept in the corpus of the British library. The article is preceded by a brief outline of the history of Arab Samaritan thought. It describes the infl uence of Arab-Muslim and Arab-Jewish cultures on such prominent Samaritan theologians as Munajj? b. ?adaqah, ?adaqah al-?ak?m, al-??r?, ?Ab? Sa??d and others. This infl uence led to the emergence of the “Arab Targum” of the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Samaritan exegetical and philosophical-religious tradition. From the perspective of treatise text analysis, the author reconstructs biography of ad-Danf? and concludes that his religious and philosophic views depend on Medieval Arab and Muslim theology and, in particular, on speculative theology of Islam (Kalam). Besides, the article demonstrates that the scholar keeps Kalam theory of divine attributes, reproduces fatalistic constructions of Ashari’ and Maturidi’ scholars, adopts natural-philosophic concepts of some Mutazili’ thinkers and Arabspeaking peripatetics. Therefore, fi nally, he comes to rationalistic symbolic exegesis of Mutakalims of Classic period (VIII–XIV centuries). At the same time, Ibr?h?m, who stands for strict monotheism of Samaritan religion, strives to deny stereotypes, created by his contemporaries about their coreligionists. He opposes to Mutazili’, Judaic and Christian “heresies”, introduces Samaritan theology as an ally of Muslim traditionalism, a tradition, in his opinion, inspired by God, created by one of His messengers. Separately, the article shows the way that the theologian depends on Judaic traditions and prophetic Sunnah. Thus, al-?Ayyah, in accordance with Hadithes by Muhammad and Midrashes ‘Genesis Rabbah’ and ‘Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer’, postulates imperishability of a human body part which serves to regenerate it during Resurrection of the dead. He also stands for the thesis about oneness of those bodies, which were smoldered to ashes and raised from the dead by God. Besides, the article discusses modern state and chances of Samaritan studies and, especially, of the research into the handwritten legacy of Samaritan theologians of XIII–XVIII centuries.
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