T his chapter elaborates on the role of the maqāṣid al-sharī'a [the higher objectives of Islamic law] in the Islamic reform discussions and movements in modern Turkey. Considering the sustained importance and the pivotal role of the discourse in other Muslim contexts analyzed in this book, I will argue that the Turkish literature on the maqāṣid al-sharī'a appears relatively recent, abstract, academic, and, more significantly, antireformist. This stands in stark contrast to the conventional employment of the maqāṣid al-sharī'a in the service of reform. In the last hundred years or so, the maqāṣid al-sharī'a discourse, however differently understood and conceptualized, was more frequently voiced by a number of different actors as a venue for change rather than what we term "modern reformist projects." Unlike the accepted traditional concepts of "renewal" and "revival" [tajdīd and iṣlāḥ], reformist projects were viewed as proposals disconnected from and directly attacking the rich traditional legal heritage. In the same vein, a distinguishing feature of one of the most prevalent approaches to the maqāṣid discourse in Turkey today is its self-depiction as the authentic conservative voice of the tradition against reformist proposals, and its deep critique of the idea of "reform," understood literally as reshaping religion by declaring the classical Islamic legal heritage as redundant if not an obstacle for meaningful reform. Understanding the specific, local

This article reevaluates Rūmī’s approach to divine union in the light of the larger institutional and normative context that orchestrates it. Via key terms “spiritual companionship” [ṣuḥba] and normative Sufi “conduct” [adab], I situate Rūmī within the Khurasanian Sufi milieu wherein divine union was perceived as a communicative and communal process whereby the existentiating divine mercy overflows to, and reflects from, embodied companions. Not only Rūmī’s, but also Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār’s approach to divine union can be better appreciated in this normative Sufi setting where the perfection of human soul, body, speech, and agency coincide with an apophatic communion of companions.

What cannot be said about God, and how can we speak about God by negating what we say? Traveling across prominent negators, denialists, ineffectualists, paradoxographers, naysayers, ignorance-pretenders, unknowers, I-don’t-knowers, and taciturns, Unsaying God explores the negative theological movements that flourished in the first seven centuries of Islam. It shows that there were multiple and often competing strategies for self-negating speech in the vast field of theology. By focusing on Arabic and Persian textual sources, the book defines four distinct yet interconnected paths of negative speech formations on the nature of God that circulated in medieval Islamic world. Expanding its scope to Jewish intellectuals, Unsaying God also demonstrates that religious boundaries were easily transgressed as scholars from diverse sectarian or religious backgrounds could adopt similar paths of negative speech on God. This is the first book-length study of negative theology in Islam. As an introductory work, it aims to encompass vast fields of scholarship and diverse intellectual schools and figures, in order to tell the story of negative theology and apophaticism and to become a stepping-stone for further research in the field. It is an encompassing book, accessible to a wide audience while addressing the advanced reader of religion who wants to learn about the diverse ways in which God has been unsaid for centuries.

senator, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, minister of Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, gave a conciliatory speech in Hampton Park in April 2015 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. Pinckney spoke of Denmark Vesey as a patriot and lamented the deaths of soldiers on both sides of the war to end slavery. Two months later he was among the nine people murdered by a white supremacist at Emmanuel Church. As the author concludes, "the enduring question of what the Bible implies in the context of American white supremacy continues as a matter of life and death in Charleston and cities across [America]" (p. 127). Careful study of historical sources such as that undertaken in this book continue to inform that important interpretative challenge.

No abstract