Drs Omar Alí-de-Unzaga, Stephen Burge and Nuha al-Sha‘ar of the Qur’anic Studies Unit presented a panel entitled Citations of the Qur’anin Islamic Literature at the Inaugural Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS)in Edinburgh.
The Institute of Ismaili Studies hosted a bi-lingual French/English conference on ‘Science and Philosophy in Classical Islamic Civilization’ from 3-5 December 2010.
Four short talks explored themes integral to the Institute’s work: heritage, knowledge, people and the future. The talks were followed by a lively discussion with the audience on the role and relevance of an academic Institute devoted to Ismaili and Shi‘i studies in the modern world.
This article was specially written for The Institute of Ismaili Studies website. Epistemological reflections on foundational scientific principles become pivotal in the reformative development of specific branches of the sciences. The methodological adjustments that accompany such critical circumstances in the unfolding of scientific knowledge necessitate a reclassification of established concepts by way of accommodating novel theoretical hypotheses or emergent conceptual constructs.
The earliest Ismaili thinkers were, like nearly all Muslim theologians and philosophers, confronted unavoidably with the problem of explaining how God created the universe. Apparently less concerned with public opinion and possible censure, they wrote freely although unorthodoxly on the subject. Most often they followed the dictates of their own Neoplatonist logic rather than tradition and the literal interpretation of Qur'anic scriptures.