Introducing the Qur’ān, Part II: Ambiguity and Esoteric Themes
We begin to explore the esoteric side of the Qur'ān, examining several case-studies in terms of ambiguity and esoteric themes. It turns out that every letter of the Qur'ān is an esoteric text.
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1:10:43
Introducing the Qur’ān, Part I: Revelation, Text, and History
We cover some basic territory in introducing the Qur'ān, the holiest text of Islām. We introduce the text, discuss the traditional story of the Qur'ān's revelation, the modern text-critical enterprise of Qur'anic studies, and try to pin down the elusive character of this book-that-is-not-a-book.
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57:03
Fred Donner on the History of Early Islām
We discuss what little we know and how much we don't know about the nature of the early ‘Believers' movement’, the nature and origins of the Qur'ān, the curious case of the so-called Constitution of Medinah, and what went on during the earliest decades of the Arab conquests. Fred Donner is our guide into unknown territory.
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53:35
Matthew Melvin-Koushki on Islam, ‘the West’, and Western Esotericism
We welcome Matthew Melvin-Koushki back to the show to discuss how we might improve our historical picture of western esotericism by including the vast majority of the surviving historical dossier of western esotericism. There's only one problem: in order to do this, we need to embrace the Islamicate world as a major part of the west.
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1:04:29
Introducing Islām
With Episode 200 the SHWEP has reached a milestone of sorts. We are in the seventh century, and the world-order suddenly changes irrevocably as a new political force arises from Arabia: the Believers. We discuss three main respects in which the history of Islam is the history of western esotericism.
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