The Prophet Muḥammad between Lived Religion and Elite Discourse: Rethinking and Decolonizing Christian Assessments of the uswa ḥasana through Comparative Theological Aesthetics

Previous Christian assessments of the Prophet Muḥammad generally fall within two categories. The first asks whether or how he may be considered a post-canonical prophet. In the second, both Christians and Muslims sidestep the inquiry and advocate for the ‘two Words’ analogy (comparing Muḥammad to Ma...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. VerfasserIn: Takács, Axel (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
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Veröffentlicht: Taylor & Francis 2023
In: Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
Jahr: 2023, Band: 34, Heft: 3, Seiten: 245-284
weitere Schlagwörter:B Comparative Theology
B poetry in praise of the Prophet Muḥammad
B Revelation
B Decolonizing
B Qaṣīdat al-Burda
B Madīḥ nabawī
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Zusammenfassung:Previous Christian assessments of the Prophet Muḥammad generally fall within two categories. The first asks whether or how he may be considered a post-canonical prophet. In the second, both Christians and Muslims sidestep the inquiry and advocate for the ‘two Words’ analogy (comparing Muḥammad to Mary and the Qur’an to Jesus the incarnate Word). However, attending to Muslim lived religion in postcolonial and diasporic contexts reveals an alternative, emic account of the meaning of prophecy and revelation in Islam: the embodied, emplaced and enacted experience of Muḥammad through poetry in praise of the Prophet and Prophetic beauty. Theological aesthetics prepares us for decolonizing Christian assessments of the Prophet Muḥammad through Muslim popular piety and vernacular traditions. A decolonial understanding of the experience of the Prophet suggests that his place in the experience of Muslims is unlike the way Christians relate to prophets, generally, and more akin to how Christians relate to Jesus—in both lived religion and elite discourse. While the ‘two Words’ analogy still has an important role to play, Christians would do well to rethink and decolonize their assessments of the Prophet Muḥammad through the lived religion—and elite discourses—of poetry in praise of the Prophet.
ISSN:1469-9311
Enthält:Enthalten in: Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/09596410.2023.2278305