The Shi'a Islam Doctrinal Series is an attempt at a comprehensive treatment of Shi'a Islam from an emic or inside perspective from within Shi'a Islam itself, as opposed to the perspective of orientalism, or of comparative religion, or sociology, or some other branch of the humanities with its modern Western perspectives, all of which are philosophical approaches (in the sense that they have philosophical rather than religious underpinnings and bearings) and therefore do not, strictly speaking, deal with the religion itself ...
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The Shi'a Islam Doctrinal Series is an attempt at a comprehensive treatment of Shi'a Islam from an emic or inside perspective from within Shi'a Islam itself, as opposed to the perspective of orientalism, or of comparative religion, or sociology, or some other branch of the humanities with its modern Western perspectives, all of which are philosophical approaches (in the sense that they have philosophical rather than religious underpinnings and bearings) and therefore do not, strictly speaking, deal with the religion itself as it is understood by the clerisy of its practitioners, but do so from a perspective and ideological framework that is alien and indeed antithetical and at times hostile to it. There is a severe dearth of source material which the English-speaking reader can rely on to provide him or her with the proper understanding of Shi'a Islam based on the self-understanding of the religion itself. The Shi'a Islam Doctrinal Series (as well as other series) of the Lion of Najaf Publications hopes to do its part in filling the lacunae that exist, thereby firstly providing Moslems who have emigrated to or have been born outside of the Islamic heartland with reliable material for them to gain a better understanding of their religion; and secondly, to provide non-Moslems who are interested in learning more about Islam, and about Shi'a Islam in particular, with first-hand and dependable resources which are sourced from the heart of Islamic civilization. The outline for the present book, The Supernatural Knowledge and Powers of the Imams, is as follows: Preface; Chapter One: Man and the Human Need to have a Connection with al-ghayb (the world that is beyond the purview of human perception); Chapter Two: The Relation of Immaculacy to Knowledge of al-ghayb; Chapter Three: Knowledge of al-ghayb in the Qoranic Revelations and in the Prophetic Hadith Corpus; Chapter Four: Knowledge of al-ghayb examined from the Perspective of the Philosophy of Mind; Chapter Five: Knowledge of al-ghayb from non-Shi'a Perspectives (these include Showkani, Eben Taymiya, Eben Abi'l-Hadid, Eben Khaldun, and Fakhroddin ar-Razi); Chapter Six: A Survey of the Discussion from the Perspective of the School of the Ahl al-Bayt; Chapter Seven: Summary and Conclusion.
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