The central idea within Islamic political theology is that sovereignty, or the authority of final judgment, in nature as well as law, belongs to God. At its heart lies God’s revealed command rather than a logically derived corollary of God’s nature or analogy with God’s governance. The Qur’...
Representing the second largest Shīʿī Muslim community after the Ithnāʿasharīs, or Twelver Shīʿīs, the Ismāʿīlīs have had a complex history dating back to the formative period of Islam. In medieval times, the Ismāʿīlīs established states of their own, the Fāṭimid caliphate and the Nizārī Is...
In the contemporary world, Christians and Muslims make up the world’s two largest religious communities, together comprising somewhere between a third and half of the world’s population. The relationship between them is, therefore, important. This article outlines Christian thinking about I...
The Islamic mystical doctrine of the perfect human (al-insān al-kāmil) – whose bodily existence is deemed to mark the culmination of the cosmic process of divine self-disclosure – has had a lasting impact on Sufi thought and practice from the late medieval period onwards. It has also filter...