Mittwoch, 24. Juni 2026 | 18.30 Uhr
Villa Köstlin (Rümelinstraße 27)
Abstract:
In recent decades, the academic discipline of religious studies has faced significant self-criticism as scholars increasingly recognize the extent to which distinctively Western historical experiences of religion, largely formed in and after the Enlightenment, have problematically shaped the discipline. Long before this debate, and indeed long before the Enlightenment, Muslim scholars thought deeply about the meaning of religion itself, and some prominent figures even engaged in a form of comparative religion, rooted in a shared understanding not only of their religion, but of religion itself as a universal category, as articulated in the Qur’an and the broader Islamic tradition. In this lecture, I examine some aspects of what I would tentatively call an Islamic “theory of religion” and the potential that a study of the Muslim understanding of religion as a universal but variegated category holds for broadening the concept of religion in religious studies discourse: challenging or nuancing some of the structural binaries found in Western religious studies, such as sacred/secular, faith/practice, natural/supernatural; de-centering or redefining some of the key structural elements in its conception of religion, including myth, ritual, and symbol; and helping to move the discipline toward a more inclusive understanding of the human religious experience.
Professorin Maria Massi Dakake ist Associate Professor für Religionswissenschaft an der George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, und aktuell als New Horizons Fellow am Zentrum für Islamische Theologie in Tübingen zu Gast.
Ihre Forschungsschwerpunkte islamische Geistesgeschichte, Koranwissenschaften und vergleichende Theologie spiegeln sich in ihrem aktuellen Forschungsprojekt Islamic Contributions to the Theory and Comparative Study of Religion wider.
