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Religions
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Problems in Contemporary Islamic Philosophy of Religion
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Problems in Contemporary Islamic Philosophy of Religion

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Humanities/Philosophies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2025 | Viewed by 10557

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Imran Aijaz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI 48128, USA
Interests: Islamic philosophy; medieval philosophy; philosophy of religion

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue in Religions is dedicated to exploring problems in contemporary Islamic Philosophy of Religion. It is intended to catalogue treatments of select problems in the Philosophy of Religion today, such as arguments for and against the existence of God, religious epistemology, problems of religious diversity and pluralism, etc., with a focus on the Islamic religion. As such, the Special Issue will offer a modest contribution toward broadening the scope of contemporary Philosophy of Religion, which continues to be dominated by discussions about philosophical problems as they relate primarily, or even exclusively, to Christian theism.

The Special Issue will also be characterized by its distinctly philosophical approach to select problems that arise in thinking about Islam, as opposed to exercises in Islamic apologetics, theology, or even ‘analytic theology’ (as all these other approaches operate on the assumption of the truth of the Islamic religion). Given that it is a second-order enterprise, one that does not presuppose the truth or falsity of Islam, Islamic Philosophy of Religion is not bound to parameters set down by Islamic belief and practice. Because of this, efforts by those who philosophize about Islam in such a context may very well yield conclusions that many Muslims would regard as ‘unorthodox’ or ‘incorrect’ convictions about religious matters.

While the Special Issue in Religions is open to those who may wish to defend philosophical positions that are congruent with Islamic belief and practice, it is not limited to such endeavors. Indeed, on the contrary, the Special Issue is particularly intended to provide an opportunity for reflection on and defenses of philosophical positions that might be regarded as controversial, heretical, or even instances of outright ‘disbelief’ in Islam.

Dr. Imran Aijaz
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Islamic philosophy of religion
  • Islam and philosophy
  • philosophical issues in Islam
  • philosophical debates in Islam
  • contemporary philosophical problems in Islam

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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10 pages, 214 KiB  
Article
Who Will Be Saved: The Right or the Upright?
by Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour
Religions 2024, 15(9), 1119; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091119 - 16 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1340
Abstract
There is a growing body of literature on the Islamic theology and philosophy of salvation. This literature can be loosely grouped into three main groups: there are those that link the right path of salvation to a specific Muslim group, others that link [...] Read more.
There is a growing body of literature on the Islamic theology and philosophy of salvation. This literature can be loosely grouped into three main groups: there are those that link the right path of salvation to a specific Muslim group, others that link it to believing in the Prophet Muhammad regardless of the theological group that a Muslim may follow, and there are those that link it to the belief in God and doing good. Despite this variety, what largely unites those various interpretations is that they all emphasize the “rightness” of one’s theological path, i.e., asking the question, what is the “right” track to God? However, what received scant attention so far is the question of “uprightness” as opposed to “rightness”, i.e., Is salvation primarily about being “right” (muḥiqq), or rather about being “upright” (ṣādiq/mukhliṣ)? Drawing on Q. 5:116-119, which presents a conflict between “rightness” and “uprightness” embodied in Jesus’ conversation with God regarding the fate of those who did not have the right theology, and taking its cues from Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) who attempted to rejuvenate Islamic theology through spirituality, this article takes “uprightness” as the primary requisite for one to attain salvation and argues that the Quran, despite the emphasis it places on pursuing the “right” path, gives primacy to the “uprightness” of one’s position instead. Uprightness in the article is used in reference to the quality of being honest, responsible, and moral, as opposed to being merely “right” or “correct” theologically. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Problems in Contemporary Islamic Philosophy of Religion)
16 pages, 264 KiB  
Article
Islamic Theism and the Multiverse
by Enis Doko
Religions 2024, 15(7), 861; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070861 - 17 Jul 2024
Viewed by 3037
Abstract
In this paper, we argue that under certain assumptions, Islamic theism moves in the direction of a multiverse. We present several arguments in two major categories. The first is based on the divine attribute of everlastingness: if God’s everlasting attributes are expressed in [...] Read more.
In this paper, we argue that under certain assumptions, Islamic theism moves in the direction of a multiverse. We present several arguments in two major categories. The first is based on the divine attribute of everlastingness: if God’s everlasting attributes are expressed in the creation and the universe has a finite past, then God created a multiverse. The second category involves perfect being theology: if some of God’s attributes express themselves in the creation, and God has every compossible perfection, then we should expect God to create a multiverse. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Problems in Contemporary Islamic Philosophy of Religion)
18 pages, 293 KiB  
Article
Islamic Insights on Religious Disagreement: A New Proposal
by Jamie B. Turner
Religions 2024, 15(5), 574; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050574 - 1 May 2024
Viewed by 1621
Abstract
In this article, I consider how the epistemic problem of religious disagreement has been viewed within the Islamic tradition. Specifically, I consider two religious epistemological trends within the tradition: Islamic Rationalism and Islamic Traditionalism. In examining the approaches of both trends toward addressing [...] Read more.
In this article, I consider how the epistemic problem of religious disagreement has been viewed within the Islamic tradition. Specifically, I consider two religious epistemological trends within the tradition: Islamic Rationalism and Islamic Traditionalism. In examining the approaches of both trends toward addressing the epistemic problem, I suggest that neither is wholly adequate. Nonetheless, I argue that both approaches offer insights that might be relevant to building a more adequate response. So, I attempt to combine insights from both by drawing a distinction between inferential and noninferential reflective responsibility. Given this distinction, I argue that it may be possible for a theist to remain steadfast in upholding their tradition-specific theistic belief, without having to hold that belief by way of inference; but nevertheless, having to be sufficiently reflectively responsible in forming their theistic belief noninferentially. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Problems in Contemporary Islamic Philosophy of Religion)
10 pages, 208 KiB  
Article
Intellectual Humility and the Argument from Evil: A Reply to Zain Ali
by John Bishop and Ken Perszyk
Religions 2024, 15(5), 522; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050522 - 23 Apr 2024
Viewed by 881
Abstract
This is a response to Zain Ali’s critique in this journal of our presentation of a ‘right relationship’ normatively relativised ‘logical’ Argument from Evil. Our argument aims to show that the existence of horrendous evils (as defined by Marilyn Adams) is incompatible with [...] Read more.
This is a response to Zain Ali’s critique in this journal of our presentation of a ‘right relationship’ normatively relativised ‘logical’ Argument from Evil. Our argument aims to show that the existence of horrendous evils (as defined by Marilyn Adams) is incompatible with the existence of the personal omniGod (a person or personal being who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good), given certain reasonable judgments about what a personal God’s perfect goodness would imply about the way God relates to those caught up in horrendous evils. We reply to Ali’s main criticism that our assumptions about divine goodness are unjustified, and show a lack of intellectual humility. We defend the claim that, if God is a person, then God’s goodness is moral goodness according to our best human theory of what that implies. We accept that God’s situation as creator and sustainer of all that exists may justify ‘divine exceptionalism’: God’s personal moral goodness may be consistent with ways of relating to others that would fall far short of perfection in human-to-human relationships. But in that case, we argue, intellectual humility may be better served by accepting that God is so exceptional that God should not be understood as a person at all, which is the prevailing Muslim view, as Ali himself acknowledges. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Problems in Contemporary Islamic Philosophy of Religion)
16 pages, 247 KiB  
Article
The Problem of Evil, God’s Personhood, and the Reflective Muslim
by Zain Ali
Religions 2024, 15(2), 225; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020225 - 16 Feb 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1585
Abstract
Is it correct to think of God as a perfectly good personal agent? Not so, argue John Bishop and Ken Perszyk. Bishop and Perszyk, in their most recent work, God, Purpose, and Reality: A Euteleological Understanding of Theism (2023), outline a series of [...] Read more.
Is it correct to think of God as a perfectly good personal agent? Not so, argue John Bishop and Ken Perszyk. Bishop and Perszyk, in their most recent work, God, Purpose, and Reality: A Euteleological Understanding of Theism (2023), outline a series of challenges that bring into question this concept of God—i.e., as a perfectly good personal agent, who is unique, unsurpassably great, all-powerful, and all-knowing. I aim to critically evaluate one of these challenges, namely the Normatively Relativised Logical Argument from Evil (NRLAFE). The NRLAFE has God’s perfect goodness as its target. Bishop and Perszyk argue that people who are committed to certain values about what constitutes right relationship amongst persons, might reasonably judge God as lacking perfect goodness. They also contend that the relevant values will likely be endorsed by theists. My aim in this paper is twofold: first, I aim to assess the Bishop-Perszyk argument from evil, in light of the tradition of Islamic Theism. The tradition of Islamic Theism is as broad as it is deep, and within the tradition there are a variety of ways in which God has been conceptualised. This includes debates as to whether we can view God as a personal agent. Second, I contend that we have available to us, from within and beyond the tradition of Islamic Theism, a set of resources that: (a) permit us to understand God as being a personal agent; and (b) allow us to resist the NRLAFE while endorsing the value commitments that Bishop and Perszyk have in mind. The perspective I bring to this paper is that of a reflective Muslim—i.e., a person of the Islamic faith who acknowledges that people of other religious and non-religious persuasions are as educated and concerned with seeking truth and avoiding error as they themselves are. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Problems in Contemporary Islamic Philosophy of Religion)
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