front cover of Religious Knowledge, Authority, and Charisma
Religious Knowledge, Authority, and Charisma
Islamic and Jewish Perspectives
Daphna Ephrat
University of Utah Press, 2014
Utah Series in Middle East Studies

The issue of religious authority has long fascinated and ignited scholars across a range of disciplines: history, anthropology, the sociology of religion, and political science. Religious Knowledge, Authority, and Charisma juxtaposes religious leadership in premodern and modern Islam with examples from the Judaic tradition. By illustrating various iterations of authority in numerous historical and cultural contexts, this volume offers fresh insights into the nature of institutions of learning and other systems of establishing and disseminating authority, the mechanisms for cultivating committed adherents, and the processes by which religious leadership is polarized and fragmented.
 
Contributors tease out the sources and types of authority that emerged out of the Sunni and Shi'i milieu and the evolution of Muslim elites who served as formulators and disseminators of knowledge and practice. Comparative insights are provided by the examination of ideological and historical developments among Jewish sages who inculcated similar modes of authority from within their traditions. The rigorous exploration of the dynamic interface of knowledge and power in Islam and Judaism serves to highlight a number of present tensions common to both religions. By intertwining a historical span that traces trajectories of continuity and change, integrative discussion of cross-sectional themes, and comparative perspectives, this volume makes a distinct contribution.
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
Spiritual Wayfarers, Leaders in Piety
Sufis and the Dissemination of Islam in Medieval Palestine
Daphna Ephrat
Harvard University Press, 2008

This book represents the first continuous history of Sufism in Palestine. Covering the period between the rise of Islam and the spread of Ottoman rule and drawing on vast biographical material and complementary evidence, the book describes the social trajectory that Sufism followed. The narrative centers on the process by which ascetics, mystics, and holy figures living in medieval Palestine and collectively labeled “Sufis,” disseminated their traditions, formed communities, and helped shape an Islamic society and space. The work makes an original contribution to the study of the diffusion of Islam’s religious traditions and the formation of communities of believers in medieval Palestine, as well as the Islamization of Palestinian landscape and the spread of popular religiosity in this area.

The study of the area-specific is placed within the broader context of the history of Sufism, and the book is laced with observations about the historical-social dimensions of Islamic mysticism in general. Central to its subject matters are the diffusion of Sufi traditions, the extension of the social horizons of Sufism, and the emergence of institutions and public spaces around the Sufi friend of God. As such, the book is of interest to historians in the fields of Sufism, Islam, and the Near East.

[more]

front cover of Sufi Masters and the Creation of Saintly Spheres in Medieval Syria
Sufi Masters and the Creation of Saintly Spheres in Medieval Syria
Daphna Ephrat
Arc Humanities Press, 2021
This book explores the creation of saintly spheres surrounding Sufi masters who functioned as embodiments of Islamic sainthood and imprinted their tangible mark on the land. Situated in the Syrian milieu of the counter-crusader period that was marked by intense religious excitement and re-sanctification of the landscape, the study centres on the role of Sufi saints as revivers of the prophetic legacy and as patrons of fellow believers, and their association with the glorious history of ancient Syrian cities and the expanding sacred landscape. Based upon a variety of literary sources, including hitherto unexplored saintly vitas, the investigation aims to contribute to an understanding of the process through which the religious and charismatic leadership of the venerated shaykhs was sustained and diffused, and their holiness emplaced and commemorated.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter