The Terror of God: Attar, Job and the Metaphysical Revolt

How can suffering and injustice be reconciled with the idea that God is good, that he loves humans and is merciful to them? Job's question runs through the history of the three monotheistic religions. Time and again, philosophers, theologians, poets, prophets and laypersons have questioned their image of God in the light of a reality full of hardship. Some see suffering as proof of God's existence, others as a demonstration that there can be no God, while others still respond by rebelling against Him.  In this remarkable book Navid Kermani - a distinguished Islamic scholar of Iranian origin - sees this revolt against God as the central motif of one of the great but neglected works of literature: The Book of Suffering by the thirteenth-century Persian poet Faridoddin Attar. Through the prism of Attar's text Kermani tells the story of a religious faith that knows God but is angry with Him: a counter-theology that runs through many religions and connects Judaism, Islam and modernity.  With astonishing range and stylistic brilliance Kermani brings Attar to life as one of us, enabling the great Persian poet to speak directly to us today despite the time that separates us.

Politics & Social Sciences

Kermani, Navid

Philosophy

Polity

In this remarkable book Navid Kermani – a prominent German writer and distinguished Islamic scholar of Iranian origin – sees this revolt against God as the central motif of one of the great but neglected works of world literature: The Book of Suffering, by the thirteenth-century Persian poet Faridoddin Attar.

God is Beautiful: The Aesthetic Experience of the Quran

The melodious recitation of the Quran is a fundamental aesthetic experience for Muslims, and the start of a compelling journey of ideas. In this important new book, the prominent German writer and Islamic scholar Navid Kermani considers the manner in which the Quran has been perceived, apprehended and experienced by its recipients from the time of the Prophet to the present day. Drawing on a wide range of Muslim sources, from historians, theologians and philosophers to mystics and literary scholars, Kermani provides a close reading of the nature of this powerful text. He proceeds to analyze ancient and modern testimonies about the impact of Quranic language from a variety of angles. Although people have always reflected on the reception of texts, images and sounds that they find beautiful or moving, Kermani explains that Islam provides a particularly striking example of the close correlation, grounded in a common origin, between art and religion, revelation and poetry, and religious and aesthetic experience. This major new book will enhance the dialogue between Islam and the West and will appeal to students and scholars of Islam and comparative religion, as well as to a wider readership interested in Islam and the Quran.

Religion & Spirituality

Islam

Pain is inevitable. Almost everyone is living with some kind of pain, whether the cause is physical, emotional, financial, social, or spiritual. A desire to escape it has led thousands of Canadians to seek euthanasia, and countless others into opioid addiction. What can we learn from people around the world for whom pain is a fact of life? How can we help others bear their pain? How might the wisdom of earlier eras help us? What answers does faith offer? On this theme: - Navid Kermani visits farming Madagascar battling drought caused by climate change. - Benjamin Crosby asks why churches haven't spoken out against Canada's euthanasia experiment. - Tom Holland sums up the history of pain in two artworks and three lives. - Lisabeth Button shares correspondence with a friend succumbing to Alzheimer's. - Rick Warren demonstrated how our own suffering can lead to our best ministry. - Wang Yi, an imprisoned Chinese pastor, calls churches to face repression boldly. - Leah Libresco Sargeant profiles nuns providing palliative care. - Eleanor Parker considers an Anglo-Saxon poem, "The Dream of the Rood." - Brewer Eberly tells what he learned from an insufferable patient. - Randall Gauger, who lost his son to cancer, finds lessons in C. S. Lewis. Also in the issue: - A report on the resurgence of bison by Nathan Beacom - Original poetry by Sofia M. Starnes and Julia Nemirovskaya - An excerpt from a new graphic novel, By Water - Reviews of Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, James K. A. Smith's How to Inhabit Time, and Nick Cave's and Seán O'Hagan's Faith, Hope and Carnage. - Readings from Eduardo Galeano, Felicity of Carthage, Anselm of Canterbury, Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther, and J. Heinrich Arnold Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

Plough Quarterly No. 35 – Pain and Passion (Plough Quarterly, 35)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Holland, Tom

Crosby, Benjamin

Warren,Rick

Parker, Eleanor

Gauger, Randall

Button, Lisabeth

Eberly, Brewer

Diseases & Physical Ailments

Plough Publishing House

From Jordan to Germany, the influx of refugees is straining goodwill to the breaking point. This issue of Plough Quarterly focuses on the second half of Jesus’ Great Commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. We found love of neighbor demonstrated by Christians and Muslims in ISIS-controlled Syria, and by volunteers who continue to welcome refugees despite growing public hostility. Here in election-year America, how do we as citizens live out love of neighbor in relation to immigrants? To the unborn threatened by abortion, and to their mothers? To prisoners, especially those held in solitary confinement for unconscionable terms and those on death row? To the victims of crime, and to the law enforcement officers charged with keeping the peace? To our youth, who are the ones most gravely harmed by our culture’s gender confusion? On all these fronts and many others, love of neighbor makes claims on us. But shouldn’t it start within the fellowship of believers, the church? When this happens, we can bear one another’s burdens – for example, those of the soldier returning from war, or the coworker battling an addiction. Perspectives from Navid Kermani, Neil Shigley, Denise Uwimana, Gerhard Lohfink, Michael Yandell, Teresa of Ávila, C.S. Lewis, John Stott, Matthew Loftus, Nathaniel Peters, Eberhard Arnold, Richard J. Foster, and Annemarie Wächter are sure to stimulate reflection and discussion. Then there’s new poetry by Laurie Klein, book reviews, a children’s story by Laura E. Richards, and world-class art by Dean Mitchell, Aristarkh Lentulov, Alex Vogel, Michael D. Fay, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Marc Chagall, Vasilij Ivanovic Surikov, and Sekino Jun’ichirō. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

Plough Quarterly No. 8: Who Is My Neighbor (Plough Quarterly, 8)

Klein, Laurie

FOSTER, Richard J.

Stott, John

Lohfink, Gerhard

Arnold, Eberhard

Uwimana, Denise

Lewis. C.S.

Shigley, Neil

Yandell, Michael

Loftus, Matthew

Between Quran and Kafka: West-Eastern Affinities

What connects Shiite passion plays with Brecht's drama? Which of Goethe's poems were inspired by the Quran? How can Ibn Arabi's theology of sighs explain the plays of Heinrich von Kleist? And why did the Persian author Sadeq Hedayat identify with the Prague Jew Franz Kafka? 'One who knows himself and others will here too understand: Orient and Occident are no longer separable': in this new book, the critically acclaimed author and scholar Navid Kermani takes Goethe at his word. He reads the Quran as a poetic text, opens Eastern literature to Western readers, unveils the mystical dimension in the works of Goethe and Kleist, and deciphers the political implications of theatre, from Shakespeare to Lessing to Brecht. Drawing striking comparisons between diverse literary traditions and cultures, Kermani argues for a literary cosmopolitanism that is opposed to all those who would play religions and cultures against one another, isolating them from one another by force. Between Quran and Kafka concludes with Kermani's speech on receiving Germany's highest literary prize, an impassioned plea for greater fraternity in the face of the tyranny and terrorism of Islamic State. Kermani's personal assimilation of the classics gives his work that topical urgency that distinguishes universal literature when it speaks to our most intimate feelings. For, of course, love too lies 'between Quran and Kafka'.

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Polity Press

State of Emergency: Travels in a Troubled World

This book ventures into the world beyond Lampedusa: the crisis belt that stretches from Kashmir across Pakistan and Afghanistan to the Arab world and beyond, to the borders and coasts of Europe. Celebrated author Navid Kermani reports from a region which is our immediate neighbour, despite all too often being depicted as remote and distant from our daily concerns. Kermani has visited the places where no CNN transmitter truck is parked and yet smouldering fires threaten world peace. In his widely praised, wonderfully agile and careful prose, he reports on NATO's war in Afghanistan and the underside of globalization in India, on the civil war in Syria and the struggle of Shiites and Kurds against the 'Islamic State' in Iraq. He was the only Western reporter present at the suppression of the mass protests in Tehran, travelled with Sufis through Pakistan, talked with Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf, and observed the disastrous Mediterranean refugee route in Lampedusa. Kermani's gripping reports allow us to understand a world in turmoil, to share the suspense and the suffering of the people in it. As if by magic, he brings individual lives and situations to life so vividly that complex and seemingly distant problems of world politics suddenly appear crystal clear. Our world too lies beyond Lampedusa.

Travel

Middle East

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Books by Kermani, Navid