Religio: Revue pro religionistiku 19/2, 2011

See below for the English translation of the table of contents with English summaries.

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Obsah (v původních jazycích) / Table of contents (in original languages)

Studie

David Zbíral, Osobní religiozita, náboženství a členství: Případ Armanna „Pungilupa“ z Ferrary

Daniel Boušek, Předpovědi příchodu proroka Muhammada a hebrejská Bible: Ibn Qutajbovy „Dalá’il al-nubūwa“ („Důkazy proroctví“)

Daniel Křížek, Dhikr v pojetí naqšbandíje haqqáníje: Kontext a struktura rituálu

Rozhledy

Pavel Sládek, Judaistika v českých zemích: Zamyšlení nad českým překladem Úvodu do judaistiky Güntera Stembergera

Materiály

Aleš Chalupa, Velká Matka a Attis na proklínacích tabulkách: Role orientálních božstev v antické magii a náboženství

Zprávy

Jan Váně, „Social Relations in Turbulent Times“: Desátá konference Evropské sociologické asociace

Recenze

Tomáš Bubík, České bádání o náboženství ve 20. století: Možnosti a meze (Zdeněk R. Nešpor)

Helena Pavlincová, Karel Vorovka: Cesta matematika k filosofii (Břetislav Horyna)

Petr Pokorný, A Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas (Zuzana Vítková)

Edward G. Farrugia – Pavel Ambros (eds.), Encyklopedický slovník křesťanského Východu (Pavel Boček)

James B. Given, Inkvizice a středověká společnost: Moc, kázeň a odpor v Languedocu (David Zbíral)

Tomáš Malý – Vladimír Maňas – Zdeněk Orlita, Vnitřní krajina zmizelého města: Náboženská bratrstva barokního Brna (Ondřej Jakubec)

Zdeněk R. Nešpor (ed.), Čeští nekatolíci v 18. století: Mezi pronásledováním a náboženskou tolerancí (Tomáš Malý)

Ugo Dessì, Ethics and Society in Contemporary Shin Buddhism (Lukas Pokorny)

Table of contents (English translation) with English summaries

Articles

David Zbíral, Individual Religiosity, Religion, and Membership: The Case of Armanno “Pungilupo” from Ferrara

Armanno, nicknamed Pungilupo, from Ferrara, Italy, was considered a religiously active person during his life. After his death in 1269, he became venerated as a saint in the cathedral of Ferrara. However, the inquisitors knew that they had received his confession and abjuration in the matter of heresy in 1254 and they had serious suspicions that his heretical contacts had continued even after his abjuration. They gathered a significant body of evidence against him. The canons of Ferrara cathedral reacted and struggled to defend Armanno’s reputation as a holy man. There are several sources on Armanno – among others, detailed notarial testimonies from both parties: on Armanno’s “heretical” statements and practices, on his miracles, on his going to confession and communion. The sources can be read in more than one way. In this paper I attempt to reconstruct Armanno’s individual religiosity (his representations, emotions, and practices) and I confront the results with the concept of religion understood in the Durkheimian way, i.e. as a system of representations and practices where affiliation is understood as membership. I conclude that Armanno’s religiosity was non-doctrinal, practical, indefinite, and anchored in particular situations. Indeed, some of his practices clash with others or with some of his beliefs, and they do not respect the borderlines between religious communities (Cathar vs. Catholic). Armanno’s religiosity was not at all systematic and contrasts deeply with the usual concepts of religion and membership.

Keywords: Armanno Pungilupo; Ferrara; inquisition; inquisitional records; individual religiosity; representations; emotions; practices; concept of religion; concept of membership.

Daniel Boušek, Predictions of the Coming of the Prophet Muhammad and of Islam in the Hebrew Bible: Ibn Qutayba’s “Dalā’il al-Nubuwwa” (“Proofs for Prophethood”)

This study attempts to outline the Biblical citations in Dalā’il al-Nubuwwa by Ibn Qutayba. The discussed and translated citations demonstrate that Ibn Qutayba often changed and Islamized the biblical text. This, however, did not impair the reliability of the citations in the eyes of Dalā’il al-Nubuwwa’s Muslim readers. On the contrary, the Islamization of the biblical passages guaranteed the popularity of Ibn Qutayba’s text and the use of ample quotations from it by later authors. Ibn Qutayba considered even thus Islamized citations to be part of the earlier revelations possessed currently by “the people of the Book”. The people of the Book use these citations and do not deny their verbatim meaning; they only suppose that the Prophet is not explicitly mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible. Yet, according to Ibn Qutayba, it won’t help them, for the mshabbahā in the Syriac Bible means the same as muhammad. Moreover, all testimonies of the Scripture obviously correspond, according to Ibn Qutayba, to the circumstances of the Prophet’s life, his time, his emigration and his law; all this excludes the possibility that these testimonies could point to someone else. Finally, Ibn Qutayba invokes the infallible authority of the Koran: if it claims that Muhammad is mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel, there simply must be such testimonies in these books.

Ibn Qutayba’s Dalā’il al-Nubuwwa, along with the works of other Muslim authors who rendered to readers signs of Muhammad’s prophetical office, show, that Islamic interpretation of the Scripture was simplistic and undeveloped both compared with Christian typological and allegorical exegesis of the Bible and Muslim exegesis of the Koran. However, we have to take into account the fact that this exegesis never became an independent literary genre and did not even play any important role in medieval Islamic theology.

Keywords: Ibn Qutayba; polemics; Muhammad; Islam; Hebrew Bible.

Daniel Křížek, Dhikr by Naqshbandiyya Haqqaniyya: Context and Structure of the Ritual

The Islamic mysticism or Sufism is a very diverse spiritual phenomenon. Dozens of orders (tariqas) and their branches exist in its not easily definable framework. In spite of certain common foundations and tendencies, tariqas often differ significantly in interpretations of theological, philosophical and other concepts, in approaches to institutional aspects, in religious practice, in theoretical and practical aspects of related rituals, and so on. Such diversity encourages one to try to describe and analyze various manifestations of Sufism in appropriate specific contexts. This article represents just such a contribution. It deals with dhikr, a kind of prayer or meditation, in the context of both theory and practice of the contemporary successful tariqa Naqshbandiyya Haqqaniyya. The article consists of three main parts. The first offers a brief introduction to dhikr as a traditional Sufi ritual; essential characteristics and some typologies are presented here. The second deals with dhikr in the general context of Naqshbandi tradition and in the particular context of one of the contemporary Naqshbandi branches, Haqqaniyya. Here the main features, principles and meanings of Haqqani individual and congregational dhikr are presented. Finally, the specific structure of Haqqani congregational dhikr is described in detail with various elements of its silent and vocal parts.

Keywords: Islamic mysticism; Sufism; dhikr; Naqshbandiyya Haqqaniyya; ritual.

Commentaries and Discussions

Pavel Sládek, Jewish Studies in the Bohemian Lands: A Review of the Czech Translation of Günter Stemberger, Einführung in die Judaistik

The publication of the Czech translation of Günter Stemberger’s Einführung in die Judaistik (Úvod do judaistiky, trans. Štěpán Zbytovský, Prague: Vyšehrad 2010) is an apt occasion for reflection about the situation of the discipline in the Bohemian Lands and how its progress may be enhanced through carefully chosen translations of authoritative secondary texts. Stemberger’s book, despite its promising title, has very little to say about the contemporary state of the discipline. The bulk of the volume consists of a survey of Jewish history from the Post-Exilic Era to the Middle Ages (125 out of 232 pages) while very little space (23 pages) is dedicated to the definition of the discipline and its history. Unfortunately, the book misses its point not only in the apparent contradiction between its goal and content but also in that the text itself does not meet contemporary standards of academic writing (no footnotes, no references, incomplete and arbitrary bibliography). The reviewer argues that translations of such works not only do not help but even obstruct the advancement of Jewish Studies in small national languages. Translated texts automatically enter the local “canon” irrespective of their quality while the limits of the publishing market do not allow for the publication of a better title, as such a title would be viewed by the publisher as a mere duplicate of the first.

Keywords: Jewish Studies in Czech Republic; Günter Stemberger, Einführung in die Judaistik; translations.

Materials

Aleš Chalupa, Great Mother and Attis on Curse Tablets: The Role of Oriental Deities in Ancient Magic and Religion

This article provides a translation and preliminary evaluation of selected curses written on lead tablets discovered in the joint temple of the Great Mother and Isis in the German town of Mainz. They belong in the category of prayers for justice and the most remarkable features or information we can obtain from them are especially the facts that: (1) they invoke, quite unexpectedly, the Great Mother and Attis, whose presence on curse tablets had been previously either only very rarely attested (in case of Attis) or completely unknown (in case of the Great Mother); (2) the relatively early dating of these tablets (75-125 CE), together with the use of very deferential epithets in addressing Attis and allusions to mysteric components, might lead to a reconsideration of the traditional opinion that the deification of Attis should be placed in the reign of the Antonine dynasty or even later; (3) they use colorful persuasive analogies and proleptic expressions probably attesting a very good knowledge of the Attis myth and rituals taking place during the March festival of this god in Rome or in Ostia and thus making the traditional demarcation between magic and religion problematic.

Keywords: curse tablets; prayers for justice; magic; Great Mother; Attis; Isis.

News

Jan Váně, „Social Relations in Turbulent Times“: The 10^th Conference of the European Sociological Association

Reviews