An Introduction to Islamic Theology

Hardcover

This hard-cover edition—a comprehensive work with a foreword, an introduction, the original Arabic text along with its English translation, annotations, appendices and an index—is a project of the Zaytuna Department of Publications.

In an age of unprecedented challenges, the demanding task before Muslim theologians today is not merely to reproduce the debates of the past but to formulate a genuine contemporary scholastic theology, or kalam, that engages the questions, concerns, and misgivings of modernity.

This concise yet thorough manual on Maturidi theology authored by Imam Nur al-Din al-Sabuni (d. 580/1184), a prominent Muslim theologian from Bukhara, provides a foundation upon which modern Muslim discourse can be built. The text explains the central tenets of the Islamic creed and refutes erroneous positions of alternative theologies. The discussions are uncomplicated and unencumbered by technical terminology, and the positions of orthodoxy are presented with rational and scriptural evidence.

Comprehensive notes by translator Faraz A. Khan accompany the text and, with the translation, provide a rare rendering into the English language of the extraordinary richness and enduring relevance of the kalam commentary tradition. Finally, a valuable appendix on the kalam cosmological argument discusses related issues in contemporary philosophy.