Dr Samer Akkach is Associate Professor of Architecture and Founding Director of the Centre for Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He was born and educated in Damascus before moving to Australia to complete his PhD at Sydney University. As an intellectual historian, Samer has devoted over twenty years to the study of Ibn ‘Arabi’s mystical thought and intellectual legacy, and especially to their later revival by ‘Abd al-Ghana al-Nabulusi (d. 1731). His Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: an Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas (SUNY 2005), traces the influence of Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought on the spatial sensibility of premodern Muslim architects; while his ‘Abd al-Ghan al-Nabulusi: Islam and the Enlightenment (Oneworld 2007), and Letters of a Sufi Scholar: The Correspondence of ‘Abd al-Ghana al-Nabulusi (Brill 2010), examine the intellectual contributions of an influential and prolific Sufi master who considered Ibn ‘Arabi to be his spiritual master and source of inspiration.
Lecture tag: Theology
Mystical Traditions in Comparative Perspective: Session Five – The Jewish Roots of Christian Mysticism
Mysticism is a term that has fallen out of use in recent years, partly due to the critique of essentialism in the history of religions, partly due to the recognition that mysticism is particular to tradition and culture and partly due to the orientation to understand religion in terms of a politics of culture that sees religion purely in constructivist terms. The abstraction ‘mysticism’ is a problematic category that has been developed from Christian mystical theology (in contrast to dogmatic or natural theology). Viewing other religions through the lens of ‘mysticism’, particularly the religions of India and China, has tended to give a distorted picture to the West, underlined by Radhakrishnan’s claim, among others, that the east is ‘spiritual’ while the west is ‘material’. Of course, the historical reality of religious traditions is much more complex than this. Nevertheless, religious traditions are interested in, and develop, keen senses of inwardness that lay stress upon a direct understanding or experience of transcendence. While acknowledging the problematic nature of the category ‘mysticism,’ this series of seminars intends to explore the mystical traditions of specific religions in dialogue with Hinduism. The series is seen as an exercise in comparative theology. Short lectures on the mystical traditions would be followed by a response from a Hindu perspective and general discussion.
Mystical Traditions in Comparative Perspective: Session Three – Christian mystical traditions 1 ‚ The Relevance of Christian Mysticism
Mysticism is a term that has fallen out of use in recent years, partly due to the critique of essentialism in the history of religions, partly due to the recognition that mysticism is particular to tradition and culture and partly due to the orientation to understand religion in terms of a politics of culture that sees religion purely in constructivist terms. The abstraction ‘mysticism’ is a problematic category that has been developed from Christian mystical theology (in contrast to dogmatic or natural theology). Viewing other religions through the lens of ‘mysticism’, particularly the religions of India and China, has tended to give a distorted picture to the West, underlined by Radhakrishnan’s claim, among others, that the east is ‘spiritual’ while the west is ‘material’. Of course, the historical reality of religious traditions is much more complex than this. Nevertheless, religious traditions are interested in, and develop, keen senses of inwardness that lay stress upon a direct understanding or experience of transcendence. While acknowledging the problematic nature of the category ‘mysticism,’ this series of seminars intends to explore the mystical traditions of specific religions in dialogue with Hinduism. The series is seen as an exercise in comparative theology. Short lectures on the mystical traditions would be followed by a response from a Hindu perspective and general discussion.
Mystical Traditions in Comparative Perspective: Session Four – Christian mystical traditions 2 ‚ Understanding Apophaticism
Mysticism is a term that has fallen out of use in recent years, partly due to the critique of essentialism in the history of religions, partly due to the recognition that mysticism is particular to tradition and culture and partly due to the orientation to understand religion in terms of a politics of culture that sees religion purely in constructivist terms. The abstraction ‘mysticism’ is a problematic category that has been developed from Christian mystical theology (in contrast to dogmatic or natural theology). Viewing other religions through the lens of ‘mysticism’, particularly the religions of India and China, has tended to give a distorted picture to the West, underlined by Radhakrishnan’s claim, among others, that the east is ‘spiritual’ while the west is ‘material’. Of course, the historical reality of religious traditions is much more complex than this. Nevertheless, religious traditions are interested in, and develop, keen senses of inwardness that lay stress upon a direct understanding or experience of transcendence. While acknowledging the problematic nature of the category ‘mysticism,’ this series of seminars intends to explore the mystical traditions of specific religions in dialogue with Hinduism. The series is seen as an exercise in comparative theology. Short lectures on the mystical traditions would be followed by a response from a Hindu perspective and general discussion.
Hindu Theology: Session Two – The Vedanta commentarial tradition 1
The course will present an account of the Vedānta commentarial tradition and discuss detailed readings of key texts. We will begin with Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Brahma-sūtra 1.1.1 and his advaita interpretation.
Reading: Śaṅkara Brahma-sūtra bhāṣya translated by Swami Gambhirananda (Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1983).
Mystical Traditions in Comparative Perspective: Session Two – Buddhist Meditation
Mysticism is a term that has fallen out of use in recent years, partly due to the critique of essentialism in the history of religions, partly due to the recognition that mysticism is particular to tradition and culture and partly due to the orientation to understand religion in terms of a politics of culture that sees religion purely in constructivist terms. The abstraction “mysticism” is a problematic category that has been developed from Christian mystical theology (in contrast to dogmatic or natural theology). Viewing other religions through the lens of “mysticism”, particularly the religions of India and China, has tended to give a distorted picture to the West, underlined by Radhakrishnan’s claim, among others, that the east is “spiritual” while the west is “material”. Of course, the historical reality of religious traditions is much more complex than this. Nevertheless, religious traditions are interested in, and develop, keen senses of inwardness that lay stress upon a direct understanding or experience of transcendence. While acknowledging the problematic nature of the category “mysticism” this series of seminars intends to explore the mystical traditions of specific religions in dialogue with Hinduism. The series is seen as an exercise in comparative theology. Short lectures on the mystical traditions would be followed by a response from a Hindu perspective and general discussion.
Three Worlds of the Heart: Theological and Literary Dimensions of the Bhakti Sutra
Perhaps the shortest of the well-known sutra texts among Hindu traditions is The Bhakti Sutra of Narada, consisting only of 84 aphorisms. This work, however, possesses the most expressive and least cryptic aphorisms, as compared to other sutra texts, while providing the seeds for a remarkably comprehensive bhakti theology. Graham Schweig, while preparing his new translation of the work for publication with Columbia University Press, will present his findings on the ways in which the literary and theological aspects of this text work together synergistically to express some of the deepest dimensions of bhakti. He will also make some intertextual connections and resonances by drawing from the Bhagavad-gita, Bhagavata Purana, and the Yoga Sutra, in order to illuminate dramatic theological moments of the Bhakti Sutra. And further, he will offer some closing reflections on why no traditional commentaries were ever written for this work.
Hindu Theology: Session Three – The Vedanta commentarial tradition 2
We will continue our inquiry into the Vedānta with an examination of Rāmānuja’s commentary on the same text. We will begin to understand the nature of the commentarial tradition as a discussion about the nature of truth across the centuries and the different theological positions developed through history. We will also examine a section from Rāmānuja’s Vedāntasāra.
Reading: Rāmānuja, The Vedāntasūtras with the Commentary of Rāmaṇuja translated by G. Thibauty, Sacred Books of the East Series (MLBD: Delhi, 1976).
Hindu Theology: Session One – Introduction and Scriptural Authority in Hindu Traditions
This series of seminars examines the idea and possibility of Hindu theology. It would survey the history and constructive theological thinking in Hindu traditions. For some scholars both terms ‘Hindu’ and ‘theology’ are impositions upon South Asia of western categories while for others we can speak about ‘Hindu theology’ in a coherent way. While the course would certainly wish to problematise the category, the main focus would be textual and hermeneutical. If a discipline is defined by its object and/or its method then we might say that theology is a discipline whose object is not a theos but rather ‘revelation.’ Such a definition does not necessarily entail intellectual commitments to theism or the truth of ‘revelation’ but rather roots the discipline in a textual history which develops different kinds of reasoning. Hindu theology would therefore focus on the interpretative and commentarial traditions in the history of Hinduism and encourage critical reasoning about them. In practical terms this would mean that the course would concentrate on classical and medieval periods, particularly the Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava theological traditions that have come down to us in Sanskrit commentaries and independent works. It is hoped that the seminars will provoke theological and philosophical reflections on the meaning of the text studied. The seminar series raises questions about the nature of theology, the nature of reasoning, and the task of theological reading in the contemporary context.
The first seminar will introduce the traditions and themes of the series which will be text historical and thematic. We will raise the question of the coherence of the category ‘Hindu theology’ and the nature and practice of theological reasoning and then begin our examination of Hindu theology through a discussion of the textual sources of Hinduism regarded as primary (śruti) and secondary revelation (smṛti). We will also consider the idea of ongoing revelation in Hinduism with particular reference to the medieval tantric traditions. The discussion will focus on two core Upaniṣads, the earliest, the Bṛhadāranyaka, and the latest, the Śvetāśvatara.
Reading: Clooney, Francis. ‘Restoring “Hindu Theology” as a Category in Indian Intellectual Discourse’ in Flood (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism (Blackwell, 2003), pp. 447–77 Olivelle, Patrick. The Early Upanishads (OUP 2000)
Mystical Traditions in Comparative Perspective: Session One – Islamic mystical traditions‚ Sufis in India
Mysticism is a term that has fallen out of use in recent years, partly due to the critique of essentialism in the history of religions, partly due to the recognition that mysticism is particular to tradition and culture and partly due to the orientation to understand religion in terms of a politics of culture that sees religion purely in constructivist terms. The abstraction ‘mysticism’ is a problematic category that has been developed from Christian mystical theology (in contrast to dogmatic or natural theology). Viewing other religions through the lens of ‘mysticism’, particularly the religions of India and China, has tended to give a distorted picture to the West, underlined by Radhakrishnan’s claim, among others, that the east is ‘spiritual’ while the west is ‘material’. Of course, the historical reality of religious traditions is much more complex than this. Nevertheless, religious traditions are interested in, and develop, keen senses of inwardness that lay stress upon a direct understanding or experience of transcendence. While acknowledging the problematic nature of the category ‘mysticism,’ this series of seminars intends to explore the mystical traditions of specific religions in dialogue with Hinduism. The series is seen as an exercise in comparative theology. Short lectures on the mystical traditions would be followed by a response from a Hindu perspective and general discussion.