Considered the second face of Illumination philosophy after the Shaykh al-Ishraq Suhrawardi (1154-1191), Muhammad Ibn Mahmud Shams al-Din al-Shahrazuri (d. after 1288), in most part, hold fast to Suhrawardi’s illuminationist doctrines. As a case study on celestial bodies, the allegiance may well be at question level.The nine celestial spheres and sublunary world held managed by ten separated intelligences. Suhrawardi depicted the celestial spheres in his allegorical works. Suhrawardi usually speaks of eleven symbols, for instance, eleven mountains in “The Red Intellect” (...) and the eleven layers of a basin in “The Sound of Gabriel’s Wing”. But the eleven celestial bodies, including ether and zamharir rule out Divine Pedestal (al-kursi) and Divine Throne (al­’arsh) of Muhyiddin al-Andalusi. Surprisingly, in his mystic work called Kitab al-Rumuz wa-l-Amthal al-Lahutiyya fil-Anwar al-Mujarradat al-Malakutiyya, Shams al-Din al-Shahrazuri nor except in passing has considered the celestial bodies. In al-Rumuz of Shahrazuri, the number of celestial beings has not been mentioned. Speaking of Divine Pedestal (al-kursi) and Divine Throne (al­’arsh) of Ibn Arabi, Shahrazuri does not consider zamharir and ether. (shrink)

The place of philosophy in Iranian society is prominent. Philosophy is discussed in popular media as well as specialized journals, and in seminaries, research centers, and universities. Philosophy in Iran is often divided into Western and Islamic. Sometimes these are taken to be rivals. The methods of instruction differ to some extent, as well as the languages needed for advanced study. The question of the nature of Islamic philosophy is itself a controversial topic in Iran, and positions on this issue (...) are often driven by ideological trends. The study of philosophy in the Islamic seminaries has its own history. Today Islamic philosophy may be considered a philosophical tradition that is being carried on with increasing interaction with the study of Western philosophy in Iran. (shrink)

On the assumption that theistic religious commitment takes place in the face of evidential ambiguity, the question arises under what conditions it is permissible to make a doxastic venture beyond one’s evidence in favour of a religious proposition. In this paper I explore the implications for orthodox theistic commitment of adopting, in answer to that question, a modest, moral coherentist, fideism. This extended Jamesian fideism crucially requires positive ethical evaluation of both the motivation and content of religious doxastic ventures. I (...) suggest that, even though the existence of horrendous evil does not resolve evidential ambiguity in favour of atheism, there are reasonable value commitments that would preclude those who hold them from satisfying extended Jamesian fideist conditions for committing themselves to classical theism. I then begin a discussion of a possible revisionary theistic alternative (in the Christian tradition) which – one might hope – may meet those conditions. An earlier, shorter, version of this paper was delivered as a keynote address at the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

Despite the obvious link between spirituality, religiosity and ethical judgment, a definition for the nature of this relationship remains elusive due to conceptual and methodological limitations. To address these, we propose an integrative Spiritual-based model derived from categories presumed to be universal across religions and cultural contexts, to guide future business ethics research on religiosity. This article aims to empirically test in the context of Islam. It examines how different Muslims' views of God influence their ethical judgments in organizations, and (...) how this process is mediated by their religious practice and knowledge. Comprising focus group and vignette designs, the study was carried out with a random sample of 427 executives and management professionals from Saudi. After data collection, the study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The findings confirmed that a view of God based on hope might be more closely associated with unethical judgments than a view based on fear or one balancing hope and fear. Furthermore, religious practice and knowledge were found to mediate the relationship between Muslims' different views of God and their ethical judgments. These results provide unique theoretical insights into religiosity's influence on ethical judgment, with important implications for management. (shrink)