Pub Date : 2021-09-13DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341514
I. Deman
Hans Joas (born 1948) has repeatedly criticized Peter L. Berger (1929–2017) for placing religious experiences in the cognitive realm, where it runs the risk of being “contaminated” by secularization and pluralism. Instead, Joas has proposed to locate religious experiences in the “deeper layers” of the human person, where it is protected against mere cognitive reductionism and against contamination by secularization and pluralism. Despite his critique, Joas follows a similar path of Berger, as he explains the phenomenon of religion from an inductive point of view that originates in the experiential realm. This article demonstrates how Joas’ approach operates on a similar methodology like the one of Berger and ultimately results in similar theoretical conclusions despite their differing theoretical foundations. Moreover, this article illuminates an implicit methodological similarity between Joas and Berger that, on the one hand, differs from one of the taken-for-granted methodologies in the discipline of sociology (of religion), and, on the other hand, strongly influences the disposition of religious institutions in their definition of religion.
{"title":"The Role of Religious Experiences and Religious Institutions: Comparing Peter L. Berger’s and Hans Joas’ Approach to Religion","authors":"I. Deman","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341514","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Hans Joas (born 1948) has repeatedly criticized Peter L. Berger (1929–2017) for placing religious experiences in the cognitive realm, where it runs the risk of being “contaminated” by secularization and pluralism. Instead, Joas has proposed to locate religious experiences in the “deeper layers” of the human person, where it is protected against mere cognitive reductionism and against contamination by secularization and pluralism. Despite his critique, Joas follows a similar path of Berger, as he explains the phenomenon of religion from an inductive point of view that originates in the experiential realm. This article demonstrates how Joas’ approach operates on a similar methodology like the one of Berger and ultimately results in similar theoretical conclusions despite their differing theoretical foundations. Moreover, this article illuminates an implicit methodological similarity between Joas and Berger that, on the one hand, differs from one of the taken-for-granted methodologies in the discipline of sociology (of religion), and, on the other hand, strongly influences the disposition of religious institutions in their definition of religion.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44794019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-09DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341513
Sharday C. Mosurinjohn, Gale A. Watts
This article surveys the range of positions from which religious studies scholars have generally responded to the spiritual turn. We classify these as: the sociology of religion approach, the critical religion approach, and the practical study for spirituality by professional fields like business, education, and healthcare. In light of recent cultural sociological and historical scholarship on the emic folk category “spirituality” we argue that, given their foundational assumptions, each of these approaches is inadequate for achieving an accurate empirical account of the spiritual turn. We argue that for sociology of religion and critical religion to adequately respond to the professional study for spirituality, they must begin to reckon with the minority consensus developed by cultural sociologists about the spiritual turn. The minority consensus holds that the spiritual turn comprises two components: first, a semantic shift from “religion” to “spirituality,” and second, the crystallization and spread of a shared cultural structure. Coming to terms with this approach will require scholars of religion to reconsider both their assumptions about the category “religion” as well as the limits of their discipline.
{"title":"Religious Studies and the Spiritual Turn","authors":"Sharday C. Mosurinjohn, Gale A. Watts","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341513","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article surveys the range of positions from which religious studies scholars have generally responded to the spiritual turn. We classify these as: the sociology of religion approach, the critical religion approach, and the practical study for spirituality by professional fields like business, education, and healthcare. In light of recent cultural sociological and historical scholarship on the emic folk category “spirituality” we argue that, given their foundational assumptions, each of these approaches is inadequate for achieving an accurate empirical account of the spiritual turn. We argue that for sociology of religion and critical religion to adequately respond to the professional study for spirituality, they must begin to reckon with the minority consensus developed by cultural sociologists about the spiritual turn. The minority consensus holds that the spiritual turn comprises two components: first, a semantic shift from “religion” to “spirituality,” and second, the crystallization and spread of a shared cultural structure. Coming to terms with this approach will require scholars of religion to reconsider both their assumptions about the category “religion” as well as the limits of their discipline.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44624939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-17DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341511
Sajjad H. Rizvi
Taking as the starting point, Majid Daneshgar’s Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy, I argue that the political and intellectual contexts for the study of Islam and indeed the Qur’an cannot be ignored whether the study is conducted in the “Western” or the “Muslim” academy. The construction of the categories of religion and scripture arise out of practices of colonialist knowledge; positionality of the author cannot be eliminated from the interrogative gaze. Beginning with that critique, I suggest some possible ways in which we can decolonize the study of the Muslim scripture and its experience for Muslims.
{"title":"Reversing the Gaze? Or Decolonizing the Study of the Qurʾan","authors":"Sajjad H. Rizvi","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341511","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Taking as the starting point, Majid Daneshgar’s Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy, I argue that the political and intellectual contexts for the study of Islam and indeed the Qur’an cannot be ignored whether the study is conducted in the “Western” or the “Muslim” academy. The construction of the categories of religion and scripture arise out of practices of colonialist knowledge; positionality of the author cannot be eliminated from the interrogative gaze. Beginning with that critique, I suggest some possible ways in which we can decolonize the study of the Muslim scripture and its experience for Muslims.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48436968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-17DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341512
P. Johnstad
Spiritual experiences with entheogens have usually been studied as a form of mystical experiences. However, entheogen users have also reported less intense experiences that they refer to as spiritual experiences. Using data from the Cannabis and Psychedelics User Survey, this study analyzed the characteristics of such experiences in 319 participants. It found evidence of two types of entheogenic experience that may be called spiritual. The first involved mystical-type characteristics and was predicted in multivariate linear regression models by the spirituality of the participants, operationalized as a spiritual affiliation, motivation, and practice. The second type involved characteristics representing insight, positive feelings, and improved connections to other people and to nature. This type of entheogenic experience was predicted by spiritual motivation, but not by spiritual affiliation or practices. The article discusses the implications of these findings, which may indicate competing conceptualizations of spirituality among the participants in the study.
{"title":"Entheogenic Experience and Spirituality","authors":"P. Johnstad","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341512","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Spiritual experiences with entheogens have usually been studied as a form of mystical experiences. However, entheogen users have also reported less intense experiences that they refer to as spiritual experiences. Using data from the Cannabis and Psychedelics User Survey, this study analyzed the characteristics of such experiences in 319 participants. It found evidence of two types of entheogenic experience that may be called spiritual. The first involved mystical-type characteristics and was predicted in multivariate linear regression models by the spirituality of the participants, operationalized as a spiritual affiliation, motivation, and practice. The second type involved characteristics representing insight, positive feelings, and improved connections to other people and to nature. This type of entheogenic experience was predicted by spiritual motivation, but not by spiritual affiliation or practices. The article discusses the implications of these findings, which may indicate competing conceptualizations of spirituality among the participants in the study.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15700682-12341512","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43112278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-17DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341510
Mohsen Feyzbakhsh
This response to Majid Daneshgar’s book develops his argument about apologetics in the study of the Qur’an in the Muslim Academy in two ways. First, it makes a distinction between two different senses of the term apologetics and then shows how each sense would be relevant to Daneshgar’s argument. Second, it applies the argument to Islamic studies in the Iranian Academy in particular.
{"title":"“The Main Parts Are Made in Europe”: Apologetic/Critical Dichotomy and the Untold Story of Qur’anic Studies in the Iranian Academy","authors":"Mohsen Feyzbakhsh","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341510","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341510","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This response to Majid Daneshgar’s book develops his argument about apologetics in the study of the Qur’an in the Muslim Academy in two ways. First, it makes a distinction between two different senses of the term apologetics and then shows how each sense would be relevant to Daneshgar’s argument. Second, it applies the argument to Islamic studies in the Iranian Academy in particular.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41357220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-29DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341509
Sarah Qidwai
This paper addresses three aspects of Majid Daneshgar’s monograph Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy. The first part looks at the complexities around the lack of coherence between the Muslim Academy and so-called “Western” Institutions. Drawing on some examples from my own life, I will address the hesitance to embrace sources from the West as highlighted by Daneshgar. Then, I will present an example from the “Western Academy” that speaks to a broader audience across this divide. The second part of this paper will address the phenomenon of trying to find scientific proofs in the Qur‘an and the issues around those attempts in the field of the history of science and religion. Drawing on my own research, the third part of this reflection will draw on the example of Islam in India to show the complex nature of the so-called Muslim Academy and its ties to colonial encounters.
{"title":"Studying the Qurʾan: Neither Here nor There","authors":"Sarah Qidwai","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341509","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper addresses three aspects of Majid Daneshgar’s monograph Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy. The first part looks at the complexities around the lack of coherence between the Muslim Academy and so-called “Western” Institutions. Drawing on some examples from my own life, I will address the hesitance to embrace sources from the West as highlighted by Daneshgar. Then, I will present an example from the “Western Academy” that speaks to a broader audience across this divide. The second part of this paper will address the phenomenon of trying to find scientific proofs in the Qur‘an and the issues around those attempts in the field of the history of science and religion. Drawing on my own research, the third part of this reflection will draw on the example of Islam in India to show the complex nature of the so-called Muslim Academy and its ties to colonial encounters.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46569529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-29DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341507
A. Hughes
This essay provides an introduction to the following set of papers that deal with some of the methodological and theoretical issues that the study of Islam poses for the academic study of religion. It argues that, while still somewhat problematic, recent years have seen a number of younger scholars—particularly in Europe and the so-called Muslim World—engage in and wrestle with these theoretical issues. The result is that the study of Islam has come a long way since the apologetic aftermath of September 11, 2001.
{"title":"Studying Islam in Western and Non-Western Contexts","authors":"A. Hughes","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341507","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341507","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay provides an introduction to the following set of papers that deal with some of the methodological and theoretical issues that the study of Islam poses for the academic study of religion. It argues that, while still somewhat problematic, recent years have seen a number of younger scholars—particularly in Europe and the so-called Muslim World—engage in and wrestle with these theoretical issues. The result is that the study of Islam has come a long way since the apologetic aftermath of September 11, 2001.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47558280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-29DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341508
Lien Iffah Naf’atu Fina
This essay reconsiders some of Majid Daneshgar’s arguments in his Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy. The first part of the essay discusses what counts as the Muslim academy and how it is represented in this book. I examine his arguments that the Muslim academy does not do Islamic studies but rather an apologetic, descriptive, and normative study of Islam, and that the Muslim academy’s reception of Western Qurʾanic scholarship is dismissive, hostile, poor, selective, and apologetic. Its second part examines his argument that the Muslim academy does not engage in a “critical study” of the Qurʾan and Islam. Through a juxtaposition with my experience teaching at UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta and the development of Islamic higher education in Indonesia, I argue that Daneshgar’s thesis is an over-generalization of what he regards as the Muslim academy, obscuring its plural nature worldwide. I also question whether it is appropriate to talk about the Muslim academy in universal terms. I further argue that to analyze academic study of Islam and the Qurʾan in the Muslim world, one needs to consider the latter’s context and history and its dynamic in relation to secular epistemologies developed in the West.
{"title":"Studying the Qurʾan in the Context of Indonesian Islamic Higher Education","authors":"Lien Iffah Naf’atu Fina","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341508","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341508","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay reconsiders some of Majid Daneshgar’s arguments in his Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy. The first part of the essay discusses what counts as the Muslim academy and how it is represented in this book. I examine his arguments that the Muslim academy does not do Islamic studies but rather an apologetic, descriptive, and normative study of Islam, and that the Muslim academy’s reception of Western Qurʾanic scholarship is dismissive, hostile, poor, selective, and apologetic. Its second part examines his argument that the Muslim academy does not engage in a “critical study” of the Qurʾan and Islam. Through a juxtaposition with my experience teaching at UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta and the development of Islamic higher education in Indonesia, I argue that Daneshgar’s thesis is an over-generalization of what he regards as the Muslim academy, obscuring its plural nature worldwide. I also question whether it is appropriate to talk about the Muslim academy in universal terms. I further argue that to analyze academic study of Islam and the Qurʾan in the Muslim world, one needs to consider the latter’s context and history and its dynamic in relation to secular epistemologies developed in the West.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46999927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-29DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341506
M. Daneshgar
Writing Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy emerged out of my personal and academic concerns, which have not been relieved since its publication. Now, my trepidations have become more serious and I am becoming more disappointed about the future of religious and Islamic studies. Such concerns have not disappeared, and all we can do is remind the next generation that their field of study as well as their worldview was shaped in accordance with the proclivity of seniors, superiors, job-givers and policy-makers. The current symposium dedicated to my book, to which this is a response, includes essays by well-versed scholars with Muslim backgrounds. They all draw my attention to the diversity, complexity and importance of the notions we use regularly in the study of Islam. Each of the essays suggests how the discourse on method and theory in the study of Islam has changed within the last decade.
{"title":"I Want to Become an Orientalist Not a Colonizer or a “De-Colonizer”","authors":"M. Daneshgar","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341506","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Writing Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy emerged out of my personal and academic concerns, which have not been relieved since its publication. Now, my trepidations have become more serious and I am becoming more disappointed about the future of religious and Islamic studies. Such concerns have not disappeared, and all we can do is remind the next generation that their field of study as well as their worldview was shaped in accordance with the proclivity of seniors, superiors, job-givers and policy-makers. The current symposium dedicated to my book, to which this is a response, includes essays by well-versed scholars with Muslim backgrounds. They all draw my attention to the diversity, complexity and importance of the notions we use regularly in the study of Islam. Each of the essays suggests how the discourse on method and theory in the study of Islam has changed within the last decade.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43715621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-10DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341505
C. Kleine, M. Wohlrab-Sahr
In view of the questionability of the concept “religion” as an analytical category for the investigation of pre-modern, non-Western cultures, how can one still pursue the history of religion or historical sociology of religion? Roughly speaking, scholars of religion can be placed between two poles with regard to this question: (1) those who reject the cross-cultural use of “religion” as a comparative concept and (2) those who believe they cannot do without it. We propose an approach that acknowledges the cultural dependence and historicity of concepts such as “religion” and the “secular,” while still conducting historical research on pre-colonial non-Western societies relevant to the study of both. Our approach aims to investigate the emergence of social and epistemic structures in various cultures—forms of differentiation and distinction—that have enabled the reorganisation of socio-cultural formations into religions and thus facilitated the formation of “multiple secularities” in global modernity.
{"title":"Comparative Secularities: Tracing Social and Epistemic Structures beyond the Modern West","authors":"C. Kleine, M. Wohlrab-Sahr","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341505","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In view of the questionability of the concept “religion” as an analytical category for the investigation of pre-modern, non-Western cultures, how can one still pursue the history of religion or historical sociology of religion? Roughly speaking, scholars of religion can be placed between two poles with regard to this question: (1) those who reject the cross-cultural use of “religion” as a comparative concept and (2) those who believe they cannot do without it. We propose an approach that acknowledges the cultural dependence and historicity of concepts such as “religion” and the “secular,” while still conducting historical research on pre-colonial non-Western societies relevant to the study of both. Our approach aims to investigate the emergence of social and epistemic structures in various cultures—forms of differentiation and distinction—that have enabled the reorganisation of socio-cultural formations into religions and thus facilitated the formation of “multiple secularities” in global modernity.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15700682-12341505","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41725482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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