Venue: Drift 21 (Sweelinckzaal), Utrecht

Programme available for download here.

PANEL 1: Eschatology and boundary-crossing in zuhd and in early Sufism 

9.30 – 9.50 Yunus Yaldiz (Utrecht University). Aspects of boundary-crossing: al-zuhd fī l-dunyā, tawakkul and warfare in early renunciant Hadith literature 

9.50 – 10.10 Michael Ebstein (Hebrew University Jerusalem). Mystical Ascensions and the Hereafter in the Here and Now: Some Notes on Eschatology in the Traditions Attributed to Dhū l-Nūn al-Mirī

10.10 – 10.30 Ahmet Karamustafa (University of Maryland). Eschatology in Early Sufi Thought

PANEL 2: Eschatology in Sufi tafsīr 

11.30 – 11.50 Pieter Coppens (Utrecht University). Moses and the Beatific Vision in mediaeval Islamic mystical exegesis

11.50 – 12.10 Pierre Lory (EPHE Paris). The Greater Resurrection according to Kāshānī’s commentaries of the Quran 

12.10 – 12.30 Jamal Elias (UPenn). Commentary as Method vs Genre: An Analysis of Ismail Haqqi Bursawi’s commentaries on the Quran and the Masnawī-yi manawī

PANEL 3: Eschatology in the Ishraqi tradition 

14.30 – 14.50 Eric van Lit (Utrecht University). Continuity and change in the commentaries on Suhrawardī (d. 1191): the notion of the World of Imagination (ālam al-mithāl)

14.50 – 15.10 Nicolai Sinai (Oxford University). Al-Suhrawardī and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī on the World of Image

15.10 – 15.30 Sajjad Rizvi (University of Exeter). Personal Identity in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mullā Sadrā on Resurrection and the Human in the Afterlife

 

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INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM 

LOCATING HELL IN ISLAMIC TRADITIONS

University of Utrecht, 28-29 April 2012

PROGRAMME DOWNLOADABLE HERE

On 28-29 April, 2012, a 2-day colloquium dedicated to the Islamic hell was convened and hosted by Prof. Lange and the HHIT team.

Links to video recordings of a number of the presentations are embedded in the programme below. Regrettably, due to a technical malfunction during the colloquium, not all presentations were recorded. N.B. These presentations are provisional only, working drafts of the papers to be published in a forthcoming edited book from Brill.

Programme: Day 1 (Saturday, 28 April, 2012)

9.00 – 9.20 REGISTRATION

9.20 – 9.30 WELCOME: Profs. Marcel Sarot & Christian Lange (http://vimeo.com/45033070 )  

Panel 1 (9:30-11am): Early modern and modern repercussions

Chair: Nico Landman

9.30 – 9.50 Patrick Franke (Bamberg University): Are the parents of the Prophet in hell? A debate of early modern Islam (http://vimeo.com/45431346)

9.50 – 10.10 Remke Kruk (Leiden University): The presentation of hell in modern pious tracts and pamphlets 10.10 – 10.30 Richard van Leeuwen (University of Amsterdam): Fictional discourse and religious controversy: Jamīl Sidqī al-Zahāwī’s Thawra fī al-jaḥīm

10.30 – 11.00 Q&A

11.00 – 11.30 COFFEE BREAK  

 

Panel 2 (11:30am-1pm): Hell in the Qurʾān Chair: Roberto Tottoli

11.30 – 11.50 Tommaso Tesei (University of Rome “Sapienza”-INALCO): The Qur’anic netherworld in light of some eschatological and cosmological concepts from Late Antiquity

11.50 – 12.10 Simon O’Meara (Utrecht University): The infernalization of the jinn

12.10 – 12.30 Christian Lange (Utrecht University): Revisiting hell’s angels in the Qurʾān

12.30 – 13.00 Q&A

13.00 – 14.30 LUNCH at conference venue  

 

Panel 3 (2:30-4pm): The growth of the Muslim Hell Chair: Remke Kruk

14.30 – 14.50 Christopher Melchert (Oxford University): Hell in early Islamic renunciant literature

14.50 – 15.10 Wim Raven (Marburg University): Hell in the Muslim popular imagination: the anonymous Kitāb al-ʿAzama

15.10 – 15.30 Frederick Colby (University of Oregon): Hell in the Bakrī miʿrāj narratives, 13th to 15th centuries CE

15.30 – 16.00 Q&A

16.00 – 16.30 COFFEE BREAK

17.45 – 19.00 BOAT TOUR 19.00 DINNER for speakers and invited guests at restaurant “Aal”  

Day 2 (Sunday, 29 April, 2012)

Panel 4 (9:30-11am): Hell and Islamic theological diversity 1 Chair: Christian Lange

9.30 – 9.50 Feras Hamza (American University in Dubai): Temporary Hellfire and the formation of early Sunnism  (http://vimeo.com/45033579)

9.50 – 10.10 Mohammad Khalil (Michigan State University): What is the Purpose and Duration of the Qurʾānic Hell? Revisiting Ibn Taymiyya’s Case for Universalism (http://vimeo.com/45033578)

10.10 – 10.30 Jon Hoover (University of Nottingham): God’s wise purpose in everlasting chastisement: Ibn al-Wazīr’s (d. 840/1436) critique of Ibn Taymiyya on the duration of hell-fire                                                                                               (http://vimeo.com/45033581)

10.30 – 11.00 Q&A 11.00 – 11.30 COFFEE BREAK  

 

Panel 5 (11:30am-1pm): Hell and Islamic theological diversity 2 Chair: Simon O’Meara

11.30 – 11.50 Daniel de Smet (CNRS-Paris): Ismaʿili-Shiʿi visions on hell: from the ‘spiritual’ torment of the Fāṭimids to the Ṭayyibī Rock of Sijjīn (http://vimeo.com/45033848)

11.50 – 12.10 Roberto Tottoli (Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”): The Morisco hell: significance and relevance of the Aljamiado traditions and literature for the Muslim eschatology (http://vimeo.com/45033847)

12.10 – 12.30 Christiane Gruber (University of Michigan): The visual rhetoric of hell in Safavid illustrated texts, ca. 1550-1600 (http://vimeo.com/45033846)

12.30 – 13.00 Q&A 13.00 – 13.20 CONCLUDING REMARKS                                (http://vimeo.com/45034049)  

 

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INAUGURAL LECTURE

THE DISCOVERY OF PARADISE IN ISLAM

University of Utrecht, 16 April 2012

On 16 April, 2012, Professor Christian Lange (professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies) gave his inaugural lecture on paradise in the Islamic tradition, based on a close reading and analysis of how paradise is imagined in the Qur’an. He pursued a dominant theme of the Qur’an in detail, namely, the spatio-temporal and existential nearness of paradise to this world

(http://www.uu.nl/faculty/humanities/EN/Current/agenda/Pages/20120416-oratie-christian-lange.aspx).

A video recording of the lecture can be viewed at http://vimeo.com/40523733

 

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The “HHIT Occasional Lecture Series” (2012-15) hosted the following speakers:

– Tommaso Tesei (Rome “La Sapienza”-Paris/INALCO)

– Yaacov Lev (Bar Ilan University, Israel)

– Anne-Sylvie Boisliveau (University of Groningen, NL)

– Thomas Milo (independent scholar, Amsterdam, NL)

– Livnat Holtsman (Bar-Ilan University, Israel)

– Siep Stuurman (Utrecht University)

– Raymond Farrin (American University of Kuwait)

– Jan-Jaap de Ruiter (Tilburg University, NL)

– Markus Dressler (University of Bayreuth, Germany)

– Johanna Pink (Freiburg University, Germany)

– Islam Dayeh (Free University Berlin, Germany)

– Giovanni Schallenbergh (University of Leuven, Belgium)

– Ammeke Katemann (University of Amsterdam, NL)

– Kevin Reinhart (Dartmouth College, USA)