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Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Afsaruddin, Asma |
| Copyright Year | 2013 |
| Abstract | Asma Afsaruddin's Striving in the Path of God is a major accomplishment in the study of non-legal jihād literature. Afsaruddin's main thesis is “that the conceptualizations of jihād as primarily armed combat and of shahāda as primarily military martyrdom are relatively late and contested ones, and deviate considerably from the Qur'anic significations of these terms” (5). To illustrate this thesis, Afsaruddin gathers and carefully interprets an impressive array of evidence—from Quran, to tafsīr works, ḥadīth, and treatises on jihād. The material surveyed is wide-ranging in genre, theological orientation and temporal scope, from the pre-modern to the present. Chapter 1 begins with an introduction to Quranic verses that contain the root jhd and its related terms qitāl (fighting) and ṣabr (patience). It then briefly outlines the biographies of the pre-modern exegetes whom Afsaruddin reads to interpret these verses. These exegetes are diverse not only in religious orientation, but also in geographical location—Afsaruddin examines well-known tafsīr works produced, for instance, by al-Ṭabarī (d. 923) and al-Zamaksharī (d. 1144), but also by lesser-known exegetes such as the Ibadi exegete alHuwwārī (d. 903) and the Andalusian al-Qurṭubī (d. 1273). Afsaruddin examines how these exegetes interpret Quranic verses that accord a mostly non-combative meaning to jihād (verses 22:78, 29:69, 25:52, and 3:200). Her method allows her to, importantly, pinpoint when and by whom differing notions of these terms entered the interpretive canon. So, for instance, we learn that al-Ṭabari's tafsīr accords a new meaning to a phrase in 22:78 vis-a-vis earlier exegetes (22–23), and we come to understand how groups of exegetes also differed on the interpretation of the same verse (3:200, pp. 26–27). The specificity with which Afsaruddin is able to chart these interpretive shifts powerfully illustrates how a single verse can be interpreted in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways from its seemingly original meaning. Chapter 2 examines the multiplicity of interpretations exegetes have given for a specific aspect of jihād, qitāl (fighting), as found in a selection of the fifty-four Quranic verses in which this term exists. It is also in this chapter that Afsaruddin first discusses the concept of naskh, or abrogation, as a hermeneutic tool allowing exegetes to privilege a singular interpretation of a particular verse over others. Throughout this book Afsaruddin traces how interpretations are tethered to certain historical contexts—a point amply demonstrated by her fine discussion of al-Qurṭubī (41–43), for instance. Chapter 3 discusses how certain exegetes interpret verses related to the ethics |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.pdcnet.org/C1257D5D004C26EA/file/1EC783AA24BCEB61C1257FAE007435A7/$FILE/jrv_2016_0004_0001_0106_0108.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
