The Barāhima’s Dilemma : : Ibn al-Rāwandī’s ›Kitāb al-Zumurrud‹ and the Epistemological Turn in the Debate on Prophecy / / Elizabeth G. Price.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2024 Part 1
• VerfasserIn: Price, Elizabeth G.,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2024]; ©2024
• Year of Publication: 2024
• Language: English
• Series: Islam – Thought, Culture, and Society , 13
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (XII, 448 p.)

When debating the need for prophets, Muslim theologians frequently cited an objection from a group called the Barāhima – either a prophet conveys what is in accordance with reason, so they would be superfluous, or a prophet conveys what is contrary to reason, so they would be rejected. The Barāhima did not recognise prophecy or revelation, because they claimed that reason alone could guide them on the right path. But who were these Barāhima exactly? Were they Brahmans, as their title would suggest? And how did they become associated with this highly incisive objection to prophecy? This book traces the genealogy of the Barāhima and explores their profound impact on the evolution of Islamic theology. It also charts the pivotal role that the Kitāb al-Zumurrud played in disseminating the Barāhima’s critiques and in facilitating an epistemological turn in the wider discourse on prophecy (nubuwwa). When faced with the Barāhima, theologians were not only pressed to explain why rational agents required the input of revelation, but to also identify an epistemic gap that only a prophet could fill. A debate about whether humans required prophets thus evolved into a debate about what humans could and could not know by their own means.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Notes on Sources, Translation, and Transliteration -- Abbreviations and Dates -- Introduction: Who Are the Barāhima? -- Section A The Prehistory of the Barāhima’s Dilemma -- Chapter One: The Brahmans in the Antique and Late Antique Imagination -- Chapter Two: The Brahmans in Translation: A Survey of the Early ʿAbbāsid Histories, Legends, and Pseudepigrapha -- Chapter Three: The Brahmans as Ethnographic Subjects: A Survey of Early ʿAbbāsid Travel and Geographical Literature -- Section B The Maturation of the Barāhima’s Dilemma -- Chapter Four: Situating the Barāhima Among the Prophetological Controversies of the Early ʿAbbāsid Period -- Chapter Five: The Epistemological Role of the Barāhima in the Kitāb al- Zumurrud -- Section C The Repercussions of the Barāhima’s Dilemma -- Chapter Six: The Aftermath of the Kitāb al-Zumurrud -- Chapter Seven: The Contradiction Horn: The Bahshamī Defence of the Rationality of Revelation -- Chapter Eight: The Superfluous Horn: The Bahshamiyya on the Problem of Prophetic Futility -- Conclusion: The Legacy of the Barāhima in Early Islamic Thought -- Appendices -- Bibliography -- List of Tables -- List of Appendices -- Index