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The Iranian Metaphysicals : Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny / Alireza Doostdar.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]Copyright date: ©2018Description: 1 online resource (312 p.) : 1 b/w illusContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691163789
  • 9781400889785
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 130.955 23
LOC classification:
  • BF1434.I74 D66 2018
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Note on Transliteration -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1. RAMMAL -- Crossing the Line -- Popular Nonsense -- Legal Censure -- Do Jinn Exist? -- Virtuous Caution -- A Scholar-Rammal -- The Hesitant Officer -- Metaphysical Pleasures -- The Fantastic -- Rammali Refashioned -- Suppress, accommodate, sublimate -- PART 2. SCIENTIST -- Quantum Understanding -- Empirical Spirits -- Scientific Virtues -- Wings of Imagination -- Cosmic Mystics -- Specters of Doubt -- Becoming Witness -- Authority in Experience -- Experiments in Synthesis -- PART 3. FRIEND OF GOD -- A Protector Lost -- Whips for the Wayfarers -- Discretion and Publicity -- The Politics of Veneration -- Metaphysics of Vision -- Technospiritual Reflexivity -- Hagiographies Unbound -- Conclusion -- Note on the Cover Image -- Notes -- References -- Index
Summary: What do the occult sciences, séances with the souls of the dead, and appeals to saintly powers have to do with rationality? Since the late nineteenth century, modernizing intellectuals, religious leaders, and statesmen in Iran have attempted to curtail many such practices as "superstitious," instead encouraging the development of rational religious sensibilities and dispositions. However, far from diminishing the diverse methods through which Iranians engage with the immaterial realm, these rationalizing processes have multiplied the possibilities for metaphysical experimentation. The Iranian Metaphysicals examines these experiments and their transformations over the past century. Drawing on years of ethnographic and archival research, Alireza Doostdar shows that metaphysical experimentation lies at the center of some of the most influential intellectual and religious movements in modern Iran. These forms of exploration have not only produced a plurality of rational orientations toward metaphysical phenomena but have also fundamentally shaped what is understood as orthodox Shi'i Islam, including the forms of Islamic rationality at the heart of projects for building and sustaining an Islamic Republic. Delving into frequently neglected aspects of Iranian spirituality, politics, and intellectual inquiry, The Iranian Metaphysicals challenges widely held assumptions about Islam, rationality, and the relationship between science and religion.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400889785

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Note on Transliteration -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1. RAMMAL -- Crossing the Line -- Popular Nonsense -- Legal Censure -- Do Jinn Exist? -- Virtuous Caution -- A Scholar-Rammal -- The Hesitant Officer -- Metaphysical Pleasures -- The Fantastic -- Rammali Refashioned -- Suppress, accommodate, sublimate -- PART 2. SCIENTIST -- Quantum Understanding -- Empirical Spirits -- Scientific Virtues -- Wings of Imagination -- Cosmic Mystics -- Specters of Doubt -- Becoming Witness -- Authority in Experience -- Experiments in Synthesis -- PART 3. FRIEND OF GOD -- A Protector Lost -- Whips for the Wayfarers -- Discretion and Publicity -- The Politics of Veneration -- Metaphysics of Vision -- Technospiritual Reflexivity -- Hagiographies Unbound -- Conclusion -- Note on the Cover Image -- Notes -- References -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

What do the occult sciences, séances with the souls of the dead, and appeals to saintly powers have to do with rationality? Since the late nineteenth century, modernizing intellectuals, religious leaders, and statesmen in Iran have attempted to curtail many such practices as "superstitious," instead encouraging the development of rational religious sensibilities and dispositions. However, far from diminishing the diverse methods through which Iranians engage with the immaterial realm, these rationalizing processes have multiplied the possibilities for metaphysical experimentation. The Iranian Metaphysicals examines these experiments and their transformations over the past century. Drawing on years of ethnographic and archival research, Alireza Doostdar shows that metaphysical experimentation lies at the center of some of the most influential intellectual and religious movements in modern Iran. These forms of exploration have not only produced a plurality of rational orientations toward metaphysical phenomena but have also fundamentally shaped what is understood as orthodox Shi'i Islam, including the forms of Islamic rationality at the heart of projects for building and sustaining an Islamic Republic. Delving into frequently neglected aspects of Iranian spirituality, politics, and intellectual inquiry, The Iranian Metaphysicals challenges widely held assumptions about Islam, rationality, and the relationship between science and religion.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 27. Sep 2021)