Timeline for What is fundamentally unique about Islam?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
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| Jul 18, 2012 at 19:32 | comment | added | mozahsuf | Well it's relevant depending on the degree to which you hold particular presuppositions on religion or the claims of religions. Maybe if you can elaborate on the reasons behind your question, I can better explain the relevance of my response to your question. | |
| Jul 18, 2012 at 19:19 | comment | added | Flimzy | That's interesting, I guess... I'm still not quite sure I agree with it. But at any rate, I don't really see how it's relevant here. | |
| Jul 18, 2012 at 18:06 | comment | added | mozahsuf | In general what you'll find is that our attitudes/assumptions toward "religion" are grounded in a separate body of thought that has its own historical evolution and indebtedness. | |
| Jul 18, 2012 at 18:05 | comment | added | mozahsuf | That's why, as I alluded to above, there is a presentist, or even secular, bias when it comes to "defining" what religion is or isn't. So again the issue here is that “religion” is not an identifiable thing shared by all across time and space. You can find more on this issue in works on intellectual history. For example, check out anthropologist Talal Asad's books on secularism and religion, or any critical work on the emergency of "modernity" in the "Enlightenment" and post-Enlightenment era. | |
| Jul 18, 2012 at 17:55 | comment | added | mozahsuf | That's why, as I alluded to above, there is a presentist, or even secular, bias when it comes to "defining" what religion is or isn't. So again the issue here is that “religion” is not an identifiable thing shared by all across time and space. | |
| Jul 18, 2012 at 17:55 | comment | added | mozahsuf | The following is insight from a teacher of mine: “Religion” as an abstract category, an x which can equal Islam, Judaism and so on, is not an identifiable thing that performs the same kind of function across time and space. “Religion,” as we understand it today, is a modern Western conceptual category that traces its genesis to the efforts of Enlightenment thinkers to define Christianity. | |
| Jul 18, 2012 at 17:46 | comment | added | mozahsuf | What I mean is that the way we understand "religion," whether that be Islam, Judaism and so on, at least in the global north, is completely different than the way adherents of those religious traditions understood religion in their day. I am not claiming that ancient religious sources do not refer something we may call "religion" in the present day, but I am saying what is intimated by and included in the term/concept "religion" has changed over time, especially, again, in the global north. I will elaborate in a new comment since there is apparently a limit to what I can write per comment. | |
| Jul 18, 2012 at 2:47 | comment | added | Flimzy |
Prior to probably the 17-18th centuries, there wsa no way to conceptually isolate what we now categorize as "religion" or the "religious." -- I challenge this. Can you provide some sources? Many ancient religious texts talk about religions, good religions versus bad religions, etc. Perhaps your claim is valid, but it needs greater clarification; as it's worded, the only way thing I can imagine it to mean, is clearly wrong based on what I know of Jewish and Christian scriptures making references to religion.
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| Jul 18, 2012 at 0:05 | history | answered | mozahsuf | CC BY-SA 3.0 |