Suha Taji-Farouki is a specialist in modern Islamic thought.
Taji-Farouki completed a BA in Classical Arabic and Islamic Studies with Persian at Durham University in 1987. [1] She obtained her PhD in Islamic Studies and Middle Eastern Politics from the University of Exeter in 1993.
She is Lecturer in Modern Islam at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, and a Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. [2]
Taji-Farouki's 1996 work A Fundamental Quest: Hizb al-Tahrir and the Search for the Islamic Caliphate is the "only in-depth academic research ever conducted on the movement". [3] Taji-Farouki was given exclusive access to an extensive range of internal Hizb al-Tahrir material and her work comprehensively documents the emergence, history, ideology, strategy and structure of the movement. Taji-Farouki is the only Western academic to have interviewed Ata Khalil Abu-Rashta, the current leader of Hizb al-Tahrir.
Ismāʿīlism is a branch or sub-sect of Shia Islam. The Ismāʿīlī get their name from their acceptance of Imam Isma'il ibn Jafar as the appointed spiritual successor (imām) to Ja'far al-Sadiq, wherein they differ from the Twelver Shia, who accept Musa al-Kadhim, the younger brother of Isma'il, as the true Imām.
A fakir, faqeer or faqir, derived from faqr is an Islamic term traditionally used for a Sufi Muslim whose contingency and utter dependence upon God is manifest in everything they do and every breath they take. They do not necessarily renounce all relationships and take a vow of poverty, some may be poor and some may even be wealthy, but the adornments of the temporal worldly life are kept in perspective and do not detract from their constant neediness of God. The connotations of poverty associated with the term relate to their spiritual neediness, not necessarily their physical neediness. The faqir seeks to attain the condition of the perfect slave of Allah, who "delivers his trust (existence) back to its Owner." They are said to be "faqir ila Allah" or impoverished in comparison to Allah, which is the most exalted state to attain.
Zaidiyyah, Zaidism, or Zaidi Shi'ism, occasionally known as Fiver Shias, is one of the Shia sects closest in terms of theology to the Ibadi and Mutazila schools. Zaidiyyah emerged in the eighth century from Shi'a Islam. Zaidis are named after Zayd ibn ʻAlī, the grandson of Husayn ibn ʻAlī and the son of the fourth Imam Ali ibn 'Husain. Followers of the Zaydi Islamic jurisprudence are called Zaydi Shia and make up about 25% of Muslims in Yemen, with the greatest majority of Shia Muslims in that country being of the Zaydi school of thought.
Pan-Islamism is a political ideology advocating the unity of Muslims under one Islamic country or state – often a caliphate – or an international organization with Islamic principles. Pan-Islamism differentiates itself from pan-nationalistic ideologies, for example Pan-Arabism, by seeing the ummah as the focus of allegiance and mobilization, excluding ethnicity and race as primary unifying factors. It portrays Islam as being anti-racist and against anything that divides Muslims based on ethnicity.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international pan-Islamist and fundamentalist political organization whose stated aim is the re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate to unite the Muslim community and implement sharia globally.
A caliphate or khilāfah is an Islamic state under the leadership of an Islamic ruler with the title of caliph, a person considered a politico-religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim world (Ummah). Historically, the caliphates were polities based on Islam which developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires. During the medieval period, three major caliphates succeeded each other: the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1517). In the fourth major caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire claimed caliphal authority from 1517 and maintained Sunni Islam as the official religion. Throughout the history of Islam, a few other Muslim states, almost all hereditary monarchies, such as the Abbasid caliphs under protection of the Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo) and the Ayyubid Caliphate, have claimed to be caliphates. The first caliph was Abu Bakr and the last caliph was Abdulmejid II.
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was an Egyptian Quranic thinker, author, academic and one of the leading liberal theologians in Islam. He is famous for his project of a humanistic Quranic hermeneutics, which "challenged mainstream views" on the Quran, sparking "controversy and debate." While not denying that the Quran was of divine origin, Zayd argued that it was a "cultural product" that had to be read in the context of the language and culture of seventh century Arabs, and could be interpreted in more than one way. He also criticized the use of religion to exert political power. In 1995 an Egyptian Sharia court declared him an apostate, this led to threats of death and his fleeing Egypt several weeks later. He later "quietly" returned to Egypt where he died.
Mohammed Arkoun was an Algerian scholar and thinker. He was considered to have been one of the most influential secular scholars in Islamic studies contributing to contemporary intellectual Islamic reform. In a career of more than 30 years, he had been a critic of the tensions embedded in his field of study, advocating Islamic modernism, secularism, and humanism. During his academic career, he wrote his numerous books mostly in French, and occasionally in English and Arabic.
Muhammad Taqi al-Din bin Ibrahim bin Mustafah bin Ismail bin Yusuf al-Nabhani was an Islamic scholar from Jerusalem who founded the Islamist political party Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Esoteric interpretation of the Quran is the allegorical interpretation of the Quran or the quest for its hidden, inner meanings. The Arabic word taʾwīl was synonymous with conventional interpretation in its earliest use, but it came to mean a process of discerning its most fundamental understandings. Esoteric interpretations do not usually contradict the conventional interpretations; instead, they discuss the inner levels of meaning of the Quran.
William C. Chittick is an American philosopher, writer, translator and interpreter of classical Islamic philosophical and mystical texts. He is best known for his work on Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi, and has written extensively on the school of Ibn 'Arabi, Islamic philosophy, and Islamic cosmology.
Ata Abu Rashta is an Islamic jurist, scholar and writer. He is the global leader of the Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir. He came to prominence in Jordan during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and was a critic of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Nader El-Bizri is a professor of philosophy and civilization studies at the American University of Beirut, where he also serves as associate dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, and as the director of the general education program. El-Bizri specializes in phenomenology, Islamic science and philosophy, and architectural theory. He is the author or editor of several books, including The Phenomenological Quest between Avicenna and Heidegger (2000).
The Shattariyya are members of a Sufi mystical tariqah that originated in Persia in the fifteenth century C.E. and developed, completed and codified in India. Later secondary branches were taken to Hejaz and Indonesia. The word Shattar, which means "lightning-quick", "speed", "rapidity", or "fast-goer" shows a system of spiritual practices that lead to a state of "completion", but the name derives from its founder, Sheikh Sirajuddin Abdullah Shattar.
A worldwide caliphate is the concept of a single Islamic world government, which was supported in particular by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a leader of the Islamic fundamentalist militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. On April 8, 2006, the Daily Times of Pakistan reported that at a rally held in Islamabad the militant organization Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan called for the formation of a worldwide caliphate, which was to begin in Pakistan. In 2014, Baghdadi claimed the successful creation of a worldwide caliphate.
Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain is the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a transnational, pan-Islamist and fundamentalist group that seeks to re-establish "the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate)" as an Islamic "superstate" where Muslim-majority countries are unified and ruled under Islamic Shariah law, and which eventually expands globally to include non-Muslim states such as Britain.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a pan-Islamist and fundamentalist group seeking to re-establish "the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate)" as an Islamic "superstate" where Muslim-majority countries are unified and ruled under Islamic Shariah law, and which eventually expands globally to include non-Muslim states. In Central Asia, the party has expanded since the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s from a small group to "one of the most powerful organizations" operating in Central Asia. The region itself has been called "the primary battleground" for the party. Uzbekistan is "the hub" of Hizb ut-Tahrir's activities in Central Asia, while its "headquarters" is now reportedly in Kyrgyzstan.
Basheer Nafi is a Palestinian-born historian living in the United Kingdom.
'Ala' al-Din al-Kasani, known as Al-Kasani or al-Kashani, was a 12th Century Sunni Muslim Jurist who became an influential figure of the Hanafi school of Sunni jurisprudence, which has remained the most widely practiced law school in the Sunni tradition.
The Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society (MIAS) is a research foundation dedicated to studying the works of Medieval Andalusian philosopher Ibn Arabi. MIAS publishes its own academic journal twice a year, and it has branches in Australia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It's registered as a charitable incorporated organisation in the UK, where one of its two headquarters is found at Oxford, and as a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation in the US, where its other headquarters is found at the Berkeley.
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