Body and spirit in early Islamic theology

Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Seminar Series 2017/18

• Speaker: Dr Ayman Shihadeh (SOAS)
• Title: Body and spirit in early Islamic theology

 Tuesday 21 November 2017, 14:00-16:00 in ERI 224. All welcome!

This paper will offer a broad interpretation and classification of anthropological theories in early systematic theology (that is, late-8th and 9th-century kalām), and will then show how one theory became dominant in classical kalām (roughly in the 10th and 11th centuries). The paper will argue that anthropological theories were, first and foremost, dictated by more fundamental theological doctrines, particularly doctrines concerning the nature of God and general ontology, but also took account of scriptural eschatology.