Download Ebook The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought

Download Ebook The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought

The book with that The Tao Of Islam: A Sourcebook On Gender Relationships In Islamic Thought has the some motivations the motivations can be taken for you that strategy such a brand-new service. When you have no idea to plan just what to do, this publication will certainly aid you. It occurs when you depend review it flawlessly and get it incredibly. Are you interested to review it? Allow's take few minutes to manage this publication then take it as reviewing product.

The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought

Download Ebook The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought

Ways to win the difficulties that constantly require you to work hardly? Obtain the ideas, more experiences, more methods, as well as much more knowledge. As well as where is the place to obtain it? Naturally, several locations excel institutions as well as several points are good teacher for you. As well as book, as the window to get open the world turns into one of the option that you have to obtain. What type of publication? Obviously guide that will certainly support pertaining to your necessity.

We understand as well as recognize that often publications will certainly make you feel bored. Yeah, spending sometimes to only read will precisely make it true. Nonetheless, there are some ways to overcome this trouble. You can just invest your time to review in few web pages or for filling up the spare time. So, it will not make you really feel tired to constantly encounter those words. And one vital thing is that this publication provides very intriguing topic to read. So, when reading The Tao Of Islam: A Sourcebook On Gender Relationships In Islamic Thought, we make certain that you will certainly not find bored time.

The The Tao Of Islam: A Sourcebook On Gender Relationships In Islamic Thought as one of the suggested products has actually been written in order to encourage individuals life. It is genuine truth about what to do as well as just what happened. When a person inquires about something, you may not be so hard after getting many impressions as well as lessons from reviewing publications. Among them is this book. The book is suggested one to be practical book sources.

Interested in this publication is must. You could be other people who need the details as well as news concerning the subject that have actually been written in this book. The The Tao Of Islam: A Sourcebook On Gender Relationships In Islamic Thought concern regarding the intriguing subject related to the problem today. When you have actually determined to buy this book, you could see the link right here. It will straight worry you to gain guide as your own. And also the soft data is exactly what you can give to you. Let's obtain the book and also read it currently.

Review

“This is a genuine foundational work in Islamic studies. It is an open door into the very heart of Islamic civilization, while at the same time it suggests the bases of important comparisons and insights for those interested in cognate areas in Western cultures.“It is a fascinating, truly original work in both its guiding perspectives and its comprehensive, clearly presented account of a central dimension of Islam. There is nothing like it, and it deserves a wide audience.” ― James W. Morris, Oberlin College“It clearly, competently, and comprehensively describes the worldview implicit in the medieval Islamic “wisdom” tradition represented by Sufism and Shi’i philosophy, particularly the way that gender concepts are implicit in their cosmology and psychology, and can be related to the Taoist concepts of yin and yang. The author’s critique of feminism and modern reformism on this basis is penetrating.” ― Valerie Hoffman-Ladd, University of Illinois

Read more

About the Author

Sachiko Murata is Professor of Religious Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

Read more

Product details

Paperback: 410 pages

Publisher: SUNY Press (March 23, 1992)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 9780791409145

ISBN-13: 978-0791409145

ASIN: 0791409147

Product Dimensions:

7.5 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.8 out of 5 stars

5 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#118,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

The introduction, first/second chapter and post-script are really sufficient for anyone who wants to really understand the nature and the beauty of femininity (and masculinity) in traditional Islam

In "The Tao of Islam" Sachiko Murata uses the lens of gender ideas in Islam to explore in a comparative religious framework the idea of a spirtual cosmology based on feminine and masculine principles. Although she is aware of the contemporary issues of women's legal status in Islam, she feels that such issues are not as fundamental as understanding the true role of gender within the cosmos. Those seeking arguments about whether the legal provisions of the Sharia (Islamic law) are or are not culpably sexist and what should be done about them if they are will not find much meat for their arguments in this book. Murata writes relatively clearly, and the writers she cites are often fascinating and insightful. They are, however, frequently prolix and I must say I found the book somewhat repetitive at times. (For this reason I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5.)Professor Murata presents in this book a philosophy well-known to Platonism and which was also once familiar in the Christian West, but which is in danger of vanishing. In this philosophy, God, the cosmos (or the macrocosm), and the human self (microcosm) are the three great realities with the latter two stemming from and returning to God. The cosmos around us, and especially the human being in a superlative way, manifest as a kind of shadow the attributes of God. The highest purpose of studying the cosmos and the human self is thus to learn to recognize these manifestations of God's nature. Islamic writers in the Sufi Islamic tradition correlated these attributes into two fundamental families, that of majesty, awe, punishment, masculine, etc., and that of beauty, intimacy, mercy, feminine, etc. God is beautiful as well as majestic, intimate as well as awe-inspiring, merciful as well as punishing. Jalal (majesty) and jamal (beauty) are analogous to yang and yin of Chinese writings, while God matches the eternal Tao ("Way").To manifest both His yang/jamal and His yin/jalal attributes visibly, God creates within the cosmos and human nature paired relations of yang-yin, jalal-jamal: heaven and earth, intellect and soul (both universal and in each person), spirit and nature, men and women. The productivity and fertility of these pairs is the sign of God's own abundance overflowing from His majesty and beauty. Things in the cosmos manifest these relations naturally, but human beings, having freedom, frequently damage these relation, with the yin elements rebelling against the yang and the yang elements forgetting their yin relation to God and tyrannizing over the yin.As the creator and governor of all, God is primarily experienced by His creation naturally as powerful, active, and bright, i.e. jalal or yang. As a result God cannot normally be experienced by His creation but as a He, that is to say as manifesting yang/jalal attributes. Yet Sufi writers also recognize that God's Essence, apart from its relation with the cosmos, is like the true Tao mysterious, dark, and hidden from the sight and is thus in an absolute sense feminine. Yet such an understanding of God's yin/jamal nature must always be an esoteric understanding, compared to the exoteric understanding of God as yang/jalal.Murata points out that the real enemy of this view of gender is not so much feminism (although feminism is certainly hostile to it), but the purely materialist vision of natural science. Materialism inquire only into mechanism, sees the cosmos and humanity as purposeless, and rejects the correlative thinking that sees the world around and inside us as keys to knowing God. Science has given us so much new knowledge about creation, yet we have not yet made sense of it as God's creation, demonstrating His attributes.As Murata acknowledges, Islam's gendered cosmology is only one, albeit strikingly clear and articulate, contribution in the long tradition of spiritual cosmology. Murata compares Islamic cosmology to the Tao but her treatment of "Taoism" is the weakest part of the book. Her main source for "Taoism" is a superficial reading of the Yijing (I ching), but the Yijing is quite as much Confucian as it is Taoist, if not more (see the twelfth-century Neo-Confucian anthology "Reflections on Things at Hand" translated by Hok-lam Chan). Murata adheres closely to the ABC rule for modern spiritual writers ("anything but Christianity"), but the Christian readers will find in this book thought-provoking parallels to the several pairs of creation (light-dark, dry-wet, man-woman etc.) in Genesis 1, the feminine Wisdom as God's instrument in creation in Proverbs 8, the divine-human marriage language in Psalm 45 and Ephesians 5, and the structuring duality of works (jalal/yang) and grace (jamal/yin), Law and Gospel, Moses and Christ in St. Paul's epistles and St. John's gospel. Those involved in the debates over gender and sexuality now wracking parts of the Christian church will find Murata's book a powerful reminder that gender is not something under human control that we can remake as we wish--instead human gender is only one reflection of the fundamentally gendered fabric of the cosmos, itself made by God.

Murata has accomplished a formidable feat by pooling together sources from both the sunni and shiah perspectives in order to present an overview of the Islamic perception of gender. By doing so she has done more justice to the multi-faceted Islamic tradition than most scholarly works that deal with the subject at hand. Her sunni sources are largely drawn from the sufic or mystical sunni-Islamic dimension, which in many respects stands parallel to shiaism, not because of a "borrowing" of one from the other as a historicist approach is forced to presume by its very premises, but rather because both sufism and shiahism tap into the same Prophetic Reality. Considering that sufism is the interior spiritual sap that gives life to the exterior bark of sunni-Islam, and that shiasm is an exteriorized Islamic spiritualism, the link between these two worldviews -- the sufic and shiite -- becomes clear. Hence Murata's employment of both sources.As Murata shows, Islamic cosmology perceives sexual differentiation of the genders as a cosmic polarity compirising of a yin/yang interplay of opppostes. The Divine "faces" are both feminine and masculine.Murata's work is already begining to exert its weight in Islamic studies departement's across Europe and North America. The book is sure to go a long way in reshaping the dominant views of Islam as an inherently mysogynistic religion.

This is a dense and challenging read, not for beginners, but it's a nice perspective shift and well worth reading.

Author has extensively studied the esoteric aspect of Islam and Mysticism. Must read for everyone who wants to understand essence of Islam.

The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought PDF
The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought EPub
The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought Doc
The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought iBooks
The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought rtf
The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought Mobipocket
The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought Kindle

The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought PDF

The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought PDF

The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought PDF

The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought PDF