Tawātur in Islamic Thought - (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Scripture and Theology) by Suheil I Laher (Hardcover)

About the Book

Traces the development of tawātur theories and explores their role in defining Islamic orthodoxy.

Book Synopsis

Tawātur is the concept that information yields certainty if acquired through a sufficient number of independent channels. Tawātur in Islamic Thought is an attempt to unravel the twisted historical threads of the conception and usage of tawātur across diverse Islamic disciplines, in light of both Western academia and debates within Muslim scholarship.

In the process, numerous salient questions in Islamic thought are tackled, such as epistemic certitude, scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ), and the rationalism-traditionalism relationship. The study culminates in the question of the extent to which tawātur was used by Muslim scholars to define the boundaries of Islam and of orthodoxy.

Tawātur in Islamic Thought shows that the majority voices in Muslim scholarship, across sectarian boundaries, reached a steady-state conception of a two-tiered orthodoxy, corresponding to two tiers of tawātur--an outer tier that includes all who affirm a definitive kernel of Islam and an inner tier that is more exclusive.

Review Quotes

Suppose a large group of people, incapable of collusion, corroborate one another's report of an event they all witnessed first hand. Should I take this corroborated reporting to establish with certainty the content of the reported event? With unusual patience and eloquent presentation, Laher delineates a thousand years of debate on the implications of this inquiry. This book is an accomplishment and will be a rewarding read.--Ahmad Atif Ahmad, UC Santa Barbara