Do Christians and Muslims Believe in the Same God? Reflections on Miroslav Volf's Allah: A Christian Response

Miroslav Volf's Allah: A Christian Response is an important book that advances Christian–Muslim dialogue. This article outlines Volf's thesis, critically evaluates some key claims made in the book, and examines some of the methodological presuppositions in Volf's project. It also seeks to situate Volf's claim about the “same God” within a Christian typology of “revelation” so that the significance of his claims might be better understood.     

The ʿUlamāʾ, Fatāwā and Challenges to Democracy in Contemporary Indonesia

This article examines the fatāwā issued by the Council of Indonesian ?ulamā? (Majelis Ulama Indonesia; MUI) regarding democracy, pluralism and religious minorities and explores their socio-historical contexts. The MUI emerges as having an ambiguous attitude towards democracy. The 1998 reform in Indonesia offered a backdrop that encouraged the MUI to be more independent from the state. This enabled the MUI to produce Islamic religious discourses that intersect with democracy, civil society, law enforcement, human rights, public security and elections. The MUI has accepted several principles that are prerequisites for a democratic society and state, such as equality before the law, good governance, protection of human rights, maintenance of public peace and security, and participation in fair elections. However, the Council is very conservative when comes to safeguarding Islamic faith and theology. It rejects pluralism, religious freedom and Muslim minorities such as the Ahmadiyya. The MUI's strict interpretation of Islam and support for Islamist ideology and conservatism prevent it from accepting democracy fully.     

Gift narration: dynamic themes of reciprocity,debt, and social relations in Theravāda Buddhist Myanmar

ABSTRACT

Scholarly studies of Buddhist gift-giving have explored the many ways in which gifts are or are not reciprocal. This topic is revisited in this article by the author drawing greater attention to the practice of narration. Instead of understanding Buddhist words about dāna as representing religious doctrines or the experience of its social practice, the author considers how Buddhists narrate dāna as a means of maintaining relationships with self and others. Examining narratives of one monastic gift-recipient, meanings of dāna and moral principles of gift-giving are shown to vary alongside shifting relations between givers and receivers. This case suggests that themes of reciprocity are most salient when narrators grapple with interpersonal threats. Offering possible interpretations of this correlation, the author argues how reciprocal forces could be external social conditions to which narratives respond as well as created ex nihilo through the practice of narration as a strategy of ordering interpersonal conflicts potentially unrelated to reciprocity.     

Bad gifts,community standards,and the disciplining of Theravāda monks

ABSTRACT

The act of giving is among the most fundamental acts within the Buddhist world, particularly in the Theravāda communities of Southeast Asia. In many of these communities, lay followers give food and other dāna (merit-making gifts), providing monastics with the ‘requisites’ that they need to survive. Yet there is relatively little discussion within Buddhist or scholarly communities about what should be given, with formulaic lists representing the majority of discussions about these gifts. However, sometimes, the gifts given to monastics are not always appropriate, even bad. What to do in those cases is not always clear. In this article, I explore the ways in which monks in Thailand and Southwest China think about gifts that are not good. What becomes clear is that, despite the prevailing view that discipline is a universal process based on the vinaya (disciplinary code of Buddhism), monks have different views about what constitutes a ‘bad gift’ and what to do about it. I argue that paying attention to bad gifts allows us to see that lay communities have significant voice—although this is often implicit rather than explicit—about what constitutes ‘proper’ monastic behavior.     

An Examination of the Relationship Between the Five Stages of the Yogacara Path to Enlightenment (唯識五位) and the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (十牛圖)

This study proposed to compare and analyze the five stages of cultivating the Yogâcāra path (唯識五位) and the spiritual journey in the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (十牛圖). To achieve this, the study investigated the core concepts and practice methods of the two approaches and analyzed their relations from the literatures reviewed. The results showed that the end goal of the two approaches is the same, the attainment of Buddhahood, with the two having common characteristics including the practice of being aware of the impermanent and no-self (無常·無我), and the fulfilling benefit of sentient beings. The results suggest that our Buddhist practice system needs to sincerely consider the realistic ways by which one can help people in agony in contemporary society, not by emphasizing on the enlightenment through a specific practice way for all people, but by tailored practice methods based on each one’s faculties in understanding Buddhism.     

The Prophet’s Letter to al-ʿAlāʾ b. Al-Ḥaḍramī: An Assessment of Its Authenticity in Light of the Covenants and the Correspondence with the People of Yemen

The letter to al-?Alā? b. al-?a?ramī embodies a number of parallels to the covenants and to the Prophet Mu?ammad's correspondence with the people of Yemen. This study examines the different versions of the letter that have come down to us from the Musnad of al-?ārith b. Abī Usāma and from a recension from al-?abarānī's Al-mu?jam al-kabīr to reconstruct a critical edition. Having translated the critical edition and analysed its contents, the study then concludes that the letter is in all likelihood authentic and that it is, generally speaking, textually accurate. The implication of this is that the letter and the covenants represent mutual attestations of one another and that the religion of Islam was well-established, having attained a great level of maturity in the Prophet's lifetime.