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In this article we study the different recensions of the Ṣiffīn Arbitration Agreement and classify them into six different versions. Despite the differences in length and language among them, we note that these can be traced to a source document. We then highlight the key features and terminology found in the different versions of the Ṣiffīn Arbitration Agreement and observe the striking parallels that they share with the covenants attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad. We argue that the key political actors who composed the Ṣiffīn Arbitration Agreement were in all likelihood part of the same governing and administrative body that had a hand in drafting the Covenants. The startling similarities between the Ṣiffīn Arbitration Agreement and the Covenants therefore set the foundations for a comparative method that will help us better understand statecraft in the study of early Islam's political documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates of Madhism , the Islamic reformist movement, base their arguments on incorrectly interpreted Qur'anic verses. In Sudan, the movement came about in the late 19th century, when Muhammad Ahmed Ibn Abdullah claimed to be the Mahdi. However, his religious leadership gradually changed into the traditional Muslim monarchy that ended with his death. Although his leadership was of historical significance, his political strategies were unsuitable for the late 19th-century realities. Neo-Madhists of the 20th century should learn from this particular lesson taught by history.

There has, in recent years, been much renewed interest in the covenants that the Prophet Muhammad issued to the non-Muslim communities of his time. This paper argues that the covenants in the hands of non-Muslims possess a great deal of parallels to the compacts that exist in the Muslim sources. When examined through a valuational lens, we find that the textual parallelisms between political documents ascribed to the Prophet and the Rightly-Guided Caliphs share a common historical memory pointing to good governance and peaceful co-existence as the foundational principles of early Islamic polity. We therefore conclude by making the case that the original treaties of the Prophet would have reflected the Qur'ān's eternal values of justice in how Muslims ought to govern state affairs and in their tolerance of the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses on Abu al-Hasan al-Ash`ari's legacy and how to reconstruct it in order to provide an Islamic response to the contemporary philosophical challenges. It should be noted that these challenges are based on a type of metaphysics and axiology which completely opposed to the Islamic ones. Undoubtedly, the method of reconstruction will be based upon both rational stand and systematic procedures in its approach to the legacy of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash`ari. By doing so, we will be able to come up with a re-reading of that legacy which is consistent and meaningful in its answers to the contemporary philosophical challenges. Obviously Kalam is the discipline within Islamic sciences that furnishes us with the Islamic worldview and its valuational system. It is because the basis of the disagreement between Islam and the contemporary philosophical trends is, essentially, about these two issues. Evidently, it will not include rational or scientific issues but rather will be confined to metaphysical and axiological problems. However, these disagreements are both old and new but their sources are the same fundamental convictions that differentiate Islam from other doctrines. Clearly, then, for the re-reading method the more it opens new horizons for understanding the contemporary philosophical challenges the better it will assist us to reconstruct meaningful alternatives to the contemporary metaphysical and valuational systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the creation of a technical language within an existing natural language reveals to us both the internal and external dynamics of this complex phenomenon. The history of Arabic lexical definitions of different disciplines in the historical Islamic civilization provides us with a wealth of information on how these processes take place at each level of development. In this article while we will be highlighting on the history of Arabic intellectual lexical definitions we will focus on the development of the disciplines that constitute the Arabic philosophical technical languages i.e. Kalām and falsafah. In each discipline we closely followed the three conventional phases of development i.e. emergence, progression and stability. It should be remarked that though there are distinctive features of each phase, yet there are equally overlaps among these phases. This study brought to our attention the significant place of al-TaÊ¿rifat of al-Jurjānī as the most sophisticated dictionary of sciences in the historical Islamic civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author of numerous books in Islamic Studies, Hasan al-Turabi is considered an eminent and influential figure in international Islamic movements as well as a controversial thinker. Among his most prominent and most recent works is his Qur'ānic exegesis entitled "al-Tafsīr al-Tawḥīdī". This study discusses al-Turabi's fundamental postulates in his exegesis. Applying analytic and inductive methodologies, the research concludes that although al-Tafsīr al-Tawḥīdī focuses on Islamic renewal and the establishment of an Islamic State, al-Turabi took this opportunity to express his general beliefs, which subsequently served as the foundation of his exegesis. The study also reveals that al-Tafsīr al-Tawḥīdī can be classified among the modernist exegetical trends in tafsīr as it claims that the Qur'ān is open to personal interpretation and advances the argument on the historicity of both the Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW) and the tradition of tafsīr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malek Bennabi's The Qur'ānic Phenomenon provides an excellent analysis of Qur'ānic revelation through the application of the phenomenology. A closer analysis of the work shows that Bennabi's major contribution is to be found in his narrative strategies and comparative style as evidenced, among others, in chapters 13 and 14 of the Qur'ānic Phenomenon. Here Bennabi provides a balanced picture of the story of Joseph in the Torah and the Qur'ān. Bennabi's textual strategy, narrative and meta-narrative brings out the uniqueness of the Qur'ānic account of Joseph. The reconstruction of the story of Joseph opened a new type of discourse in understanding the relationship between religion and modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]