Great Books and Thinkers of Islamic Civilization
This new series, open to everyone, calls attention to the rich diversity of the Islamic tradition by showcasing great books, thinkers, and ideas from all over the world and all fields of endeavor, from all periods of Islamic history and all realms and persuasions of thought.
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Lower social room, Noor Cultural Centre
Admission: $5 per session
With Dr. Timothy Gianotti
SESSION 1 Wednesday January 13, 2010
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
SESSION 2 Friday February 12, 2010
Abu Nasr al-Farabi
SESSION 3 Friday March 19, 2010
The Mu’tazilah
This session is a philosophical, theological, historical, and political consideration of the Mu’tazilah, a rationalist theological movement of the 8th & 9th centuries, CE. Attention will be given to the great theological debates prior to the rise of the Mu’tazilah, the main features of Mu’tazili thought, the brief ‘Abbasid-Mu’tazili alliance, and the eventual triumph of non-Mu’tazili theologies in the classical or formative period of Islamic intellectual history.
About Dr. Timothy Gianotti
Having finished his one-year term as the Noor Chair of Islamic Studiesat York University and Noor Cultural Centre, Timothy J. Gianotti currently serves as the Noor Fellow in Islamic Studies at York University. Holding a B.A. (1988) from the University of Notre Dame (Great Books, Classics), his M.A. (1990) from the University of Toronto (Islamic Intellectual History, Arabic language & literature), and his Ph.D. (1998) also from the University of Toronto (classical Islamic Philosophy & Theology), his undergraduate and graduate studies included several periods of residence in the West Bank and Jordan, where he studied literary Arabic, Islamic History, various topics in Christian and Jewish thought, and the traditional Islamic religious sciences. Now, in addition to introductory courses in Islamic religious history, theology, and mysticism, he teaches upper level undergraduate and graduate seminars that deal specifically with Islamic spirituality, Islamic theology, Islamic political thought, medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy, and the language and imagery of war within the Abrahamic religious traditions. He is the author of Al-Ghazali’s Unspeakable Doctrine of the Soul (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001), a study of controversies surrounding the soul and the Afterlife in medieval Islam, and he is currently working on two new book projects: an introductory (trade/educational) text titled, In the Light of a Sacred Tree: Illuminations of Islamic Belief, Practice and History, and a second scholarly book titled, Walking the Way of the Afterlife: al-Ghazali on the Jurisprudence of the Heart (fiqh al-qalb).
With Dr. Sayeh Meisami
SESSION 4 Wednesday May 11, 2011
Mulla Sadra
Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi (Mulla Sadra) is perhaps the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years. The author of over forty works, he was the culminating figure of the major revival of philosophy in Iran in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Devoting himself almost exclusively to metaphysics, he constructed a critical philosophy which brought together Peripatetic, Illuminationist and gnostic philosophy along with Shi’ite theology within the compass of what he termed a ‘metaphilosophy’, the source of which lay in the Islamic revelation and the mystical experience of reality as existence.
His major philosophical work is the Asfar (The Four Journeys). (From: http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H027.htm)
About Dr. Sayeh Meisami
Dr. Sayeh Meisami is a research associate at the Department and Centre for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto, where she is leading the Islamic Philosophy Reading Group. Before immigrating to Canada in 2010, she was assistant professor at the Philosophy Department of Islamic Azad University in Tehran, where she taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses on metaphysics, epistemology, and transcendental philosophy. She received her PhD from Tehran University in 2005, where she had also done an MA in philosophy and an MA in English literature. She is the English editor of The Journal of Philosophy at Tehran University and has so far published a number of translations, including Saint Augustine’s Confessions, A Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, and Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy, the las of which was nominated for the Islamic Republic Book of the Year’s Award in 2006. Meaning and Truth in the Philosophy of W.V Quine is her last published book in Iran, and attracted positive attention in academia. Her current research interest, which she has been pursuing over the past few years, is the philosophy of Mulla Sadra. She is writing a book on the basics of his philosophy, which includes ontology, epistimology, cosmology, eschatology, and theology.