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Embracing Relational Hybridity and Theological Tensions: Muslima Theology, Religious Diversity, and Fate
Abstract
Embracing Relational Hybridity and Theological Tensions: Muslima Theology, Religious Diversity, and Fate Emerging in response to a theological and practical gridlock in contemporary Islamic writings on religious diversity, Muslima theology of religious pluralism draws insights from three distinct approaches: contemporary Muslim women's reinterpretation of the Qur'an, Jeannine Hill Fletcher's Christian feminist approach to religious pluralism, and Toshihiko Izutsu's semantic analysis of the Qur'an. Focusing primarily on the Qur'anic text as a unified whole, Muslima theology of religious pluralism seeks to 'map' relational hybridity in religious identity. As such, it raises important questions about common exclusivist, inclusivist and pluralist approaches to worldly religious diversity and the fate of various religious groups, approaches that do not provide a holistic vision of religious diversity and do not integrate and embrace complexities and ambiguities. If religious groups in this world are not isolated, discretely bounded or static entities, what are the implications in relation to fate? In order to answer this question, this paper begins with a brief overview of the theoretical and methodological foundations of Muslima theology and its critique of contemporary Islamic approaches. Stressing the intimate relationship between notions of fate and worldly (inter)actions, this paper then argues that a vital first step in discussions of the fate of religious others ought to be comprehensive 'mapping' of the Qur'anic Weltanschauung on religious diversity. Through specific examples, such mapping reveals an interlocking 'web' of complex and dynamic relationships. This challenges prevalent static conceptions of religious diversity premised upon homogenizing sameness or incommensurable difference, as well as the resultant reductive or mechanical ascription of particular fates. It is then noted that similar complexity is observable in prominent theological tensions - such as those that exist between Divine guidance and Divine freedom, justice and mercy, and faith and works. This paper concludes by arguing that both relational hybridity and theological tensions are simultaneously irreducible and practically and theologically productive.
Discipline
Religious Studies/Theology
Geographic Area
Islamic World
Sub Area
Islamic Thought