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The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought
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Review
“This is a genuine foundational work in Islamic studies. It is an open door into the very heart of Islamic civilization, while at the same time it suggests the bases of important comparisons and insights for those interested in cognate areas in Western cultures.“It is a fascinating, truly original work in both its guiding perspectives and its comprehensive, clearly presented account of a central dimension of Islam. There is nothing like it, and it deserves a wide audience.†― James W. Morris, Oberlin College“It clearly, competently, and comprehensively describes the worldview implicit in the medieval Islamic “wisdom†tradition represented by Sufism and Shi’i philosophy, particularly the way that gender concepts are implicit in their cosmology and psychology, and can be related to the Taoist concepts of yin and yang. The author’s critique of feminism and modern reformism on this basis is penetrating.†― Valerie Hoffman-Ladd, University of Illinois
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About the Author
Sachiko Murata is Professor of Religious Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.
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Product details
Paperback: 410 pages
Publisher: SUNY Press (March 23, 1992)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780791409145
ISBN-13: 978-0791409145
ASIN: 0791409147
Product Dimensions:
7.5 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.8 out of 5 stars
5 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#118,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The introduction, first/second chapter and post-script are really sufficient for anyone who wants to really understand the nature and the beauty of femininity (and masculinity) in traditional Islam
In "The Tao of Islam" Sachiko Murata uses the lens of gender ideas in Islam to explore in a comparative religious framework the idea of a spirtual cosmology based on feminine and masculine principles. Although she is aware of the contemporary issues of women's legal status in Islam, she feels that such issues are not as fundamental as understanding the true role of gender within the cosmos. Those seeking arguments about whether the legal provisions of the Sharia (Islamic law) are or are not culpably sexist and what should be done about them if they are will not find much meat for their arguments in this book. Murata writes relatively clearly, and the writers she cites are often fascinating and insightful. They are, however, frequently prolix and I must say I found the book somewhat repetitive at times. (For this reason I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5.)Professor Murata presents in this book a philosophy well-known to Platonism and which was also once familiar in the Christian West, but which is in danger of vanishing. In this philosophy, God, the cosmos (or the macrocosm), and the human self (microcosm) are the three great realities with the latter two stemming from and returning to God. The cosmos around us, and especially the human being in a superlative way, manifest as a kind of shadow the attributes of God. The highest purpose of studying the cosmos and the human self is thus to learn to recognize these manifestations of God's nature. Islamic writers in the Sufi Islamic tradition correlated these attributes into two fundamental families, that of majesty, awe, punishment, masculine, etc., and that of beauty, intimacy, mercy, feminine, etc. God is beautiful as well as majestic, intimate as well as awe-inspiring, merciful as well as punishing. Jalal (majesty) and jamal (beauty) are analogous to yang and yin of Chinese writings, while God matches the eternal Tao ("Way").To manifest both His yang/jamal and His yin/jalal attributes visibly, God creates within the cosmos and human nature paired relations of yang-yin, jalal-jamal: heaven and earth, intellect and soul (both universal and in each person), spirit and nature, men and women. The productivity and fertility of these pairs is the sign of God's own abundance overflowing from His majesty and beauty. Things in the cosmos manifest these relations naturally, but human beings, having freedom, frequently damage these relation, with the yin elements rebelling against the yang and the yang elements forgetting their yin relation to God and tyrannizing over the yin.As the creator and governor of all, God is primarily experienced by His creation naturally as powerful, active, and bright, i.e. jalal or yang. As a result God cannot normally be experienced by His creation but as a He, that is to say as manifesting yang/jalal attributes. Yet Sufi writers also recognize that God's Essence, apart from its relation with the cosmos, is like the true Tao mysterious, dark, and hidden from the sight and is thus in an absolute sense feminine. Yet such an understanding of God's yin/jamal nature must always be an esoteric understanding, compared to the exoteric understanding of God as yang/jalal.Murata points out that the real enemy of this view of gender is not so much feminism (although feminism is certainly hostile to it), but the purely materialist vision of natural science. Materialism inquire only into mechanism, sees the cosmos and humanity as purposeless, and rejects the correlative thinking that sees the world around and inside us as keys to knowing God. Science has given us so much new knowledge about creation, yet we have not yet made sense of it as God's creation, demonstrating His attributes.As Murata acknowledges, Islam's gendered cosmology is only one, albeit strikingly clear and articulate, contribution in the long tradition of spiritual cosmology. Murata compares Islamic cosmology to the Tao but her treatment of "Taoism" is the weakest part of the book. Her main source for "Taoism" is a superficial reading of the Yijing (I ching), but the Yijing is quite as much Confucian as it is Taoist, if not more (see the twelfth-century Neo-Confucian anthology "Reflections on Things at Hand" translated by Hok-lam Chan). Murata adheres closely to the ABC rule for modern spiritual writers ("anything but Christianity"), but the Christian readers will find in this book thought-provoking parallels to the several pairs of creation (light-dark, dry-wet, man-woman etc.) in Genesis 1, the feminine Wisdom as God's instrument in creation in Proverbs 8, the divine-human marriage language in Psalm 45 and Ephesians 5, and the structuring duality of works (jalal/yang) and grace (jamal/yin), Law and Gospel, Moses and Christ in St. Paul's epistles and St. John's gospel. Those involved in the debates over gender and sexuality now wracking parts of the Christian church will find Murata's book a powerful reminder that gender is not something under human control that we can remake as we wish--instead human gender is only one reflection of the fundamentally gendered fabric of the cosmos, itself made by God.
Murata has accomplished a formidable feat by pooling together sources from both the sunni and shiah perspectives in order to present an overview of the Islamic perception of gender. By doing so she has done more justice to the multi-faceted Islamic tradition than most scholarly works that deal with the subject at hand. Her sunni sources are largely drawn from the sufic or mystical sunni-Islamic dimension, which in many respects stands parallel to shiaism, not because of a "borrowing" of one from the other as a historicist approach is forced to presume by its very premises, but rather because both sufism and shiahism tap into the same Prophetic Reality. Considering that sufism is the interior spiritual sap that gives life to the exterior bark of sunni-Islam, and that shiasm is an exteriorized Islamic spiritualism, the link between these two worldviews -- the sufic and shiite -- becomes clear. Hence Murata's employment of both sources.As Murata shows, Islamic cosmology perceives sexual differentiation of the genders as a cosmic polarity compirising of a yin/yang interplay of opppostes. The Divine "faces" are both feminine and masculine.Murata's work is already begining to exert its weight in Islamic studies departement's across Europe and North America. The book is sure to go a long way in reshaping the dominant views of Islam as an inherently mysogynistic religion.
This is a dense and challenging read, not for beginners, but it's a nice perspective shift and well worth reading.
Author has extensively studied the esoteric aspect of Islam and Mysticism. Must read for everyone who wants to understand essence of Islam.
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