Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism

by Jerusha Tanner Lamptey

Overview

How does the Qur'an depict the religious Other? Historically, this question has provoked extensive debate among Islamic scholars about the identity, nature, and status of such religious Others. Today, this debate assumes great importance because of the widening experience of religious plurality, which prompts inquiry into convergences and divergences in belief and practice as well as controversy over the appropriate forms of interaction among different religions. The persistence of religious violence also gives rise to difficult questions about the relationship between the depiction of religious Others, and intolerance and oppression.

Scholars have traditionally accounted for the coexistence of religious similarity and difference by resorting either to models that depict religions as isolated entities or models that arrange religions in a static, evaluative hierarchy. In response to the limitations of this discourse, Jerusha Tanner Lamptey constructs an alternative conceptual and hermeneutical approach that draws insights from the work of Muslim women interpreters of the Qur'an, feminist theology, and semantic analysis. She employs this approach to reevaluate, reinterpret, and reenvision the Qur'anic discourse on religious difference. Through a close reading of the Qur'anic text, she distinguishes between two forms of religious difference: hierarchical and lateral. She goes on to explore the complex relationality that exists among Qur'anic concepts of hierarchical religious difference and to articulate a new, integrated model of religious pluralism.

Using an interdisciplinary approach to confront existing Islamic scholarship, Lamptey's Never Wholly Other offers a new genre of theology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190458010
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/01/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jerusha Tanner Lamptey is a scholar of Islam, theology of religions and comparative theology. She is currently Associate Professor of Islam and Ministry at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She previously taught at Georgetown University, where she also received her Ph.D. in Theological and Religious Studies with a focus on Religious Pluralism in Catholic and Islamic Thought. She has published several articles and book chapters on religious pluralism, ecumenical relations, John Paul II, Vatican II, and African traditional religion.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration, Translation and Gendered Language
Introduction

Part One: Historical and Contemporary Approaches to Religious 'Otherness'
Chapter 1: 'Self' and 'Other' in Historical Islamic Discourse
Chapter 2: Sameness and Difference in Contemporary Islamic Approaches to Religious Diversity

Part Two: Conceptual and Hermeneutical Foundations of Muslima Theology
Chapter 3: Contemporary Muslim Women Interpreters of the Qur'an: Hermeneutical Approach and Conception of Difference
Chapter 4: From Sexual Difference to Religious Difference: Feminist Theological Approaches to Religious Difference
Chapter 5: From Holistic Interpretation to Relational Hermeneutics: Toshihiko Izutsu's Semantic Analysis of the Qur'an

Part Three: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism
Chapter 6: Lateral and Hierarchical Religious Difference in the Qur'an
Chapter 7: Relational Mapping of the Semantic Field of Taqwa: Concepts of Hierarchical Religious Difference
Chapter 8: Never Wholly 'Other': Sameness, Difference and Relationality

Glossary of Arabic Terms
Bibliography
Index
Index of Qur'anic Verses

Editorial Reviews

"Jerusha Tanner Lamptey brilliantly incorporates important ideas from multiple disciplines in an attempt to challenge prevailing views on a critical topic. In responding to the question, 'How does the Qur'an depict the religious Other?,' Lamptey makes the case for nuance and openness. This is a paradigm-challenging book and one that constitutes a significant contribution to the study of Islam and, indeed, religion." —Mohammad Hassan Khalil, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Adjunct Professor of Law, Michigan State University

"How do American Muslim women interpret the Qur'an and construct a theology of religious pluralism? This splendid book is an introduction to both Muslima theology, and to the extraordinary women who have created and shaped it by interpreting the Qur'an for a modern, Western context. Through this book, Jerusha Tanner Lamptey adds her own significant voice to that important conversation." —Amir Hussain, Professor of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University

"Jerusha Tanner Lamptey's book is a timely contribution to the discourse on pluralism and religious diversity. Focusing on the American social context, Lamptey's construction and expression of a Muslima theology of religious pluralism is an immensely worthy and notable engagement with the theology of religions field. By providing a Muslim female approach to the study of diversity and pluralism within a theological framework, Lamptey has succeeded in producing a novel piece that makes a very significant contribution to the scholarly discussion of both Islamic feminism and religious pluralism. This work will be of interest to many scholars in the field as well as lay people, and is a delightful read." —Farid Esack, Professor in the Study of Islam and Head of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Johannesburg

From the Publisher