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3History of Arabic LogicIn Islamic Thought Through Protestant Eyes, Routledge. pp. 224-235. 2021.Johannes Steuchius was a prominent Swedish Lutheran theologian and academic, a descendant of celebrated Lutheran bishops and academics. Born in 1676 in Härnösand in northern Sweden, Steuchius moved with his family to Lund in 1694 when his father, Matthias Steuchius, the renowned academic and theologian, was appointed Bishop of Lund. After completing his studies in logic and metaphysics at Uppsala University, Steuchius was given the opportunity to attend some of Europe’s foremost Protestant acade…Read more
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195Politics of the Turkish RepublicIn Islamic Thought Through Protestant Eyes, Routledge. pp. 243-253. 2021.Michael Wendeler’s disputation on the Turkish republic is a discussion of Ottoman history, political philosophy, and the concept of monarchy and tyranny. Half of his disputation concerns the identification of the Turks with the little horn which arises on the head of the fourth beast in the prophet’s vision described in the Book of Daniel 7:1–28. Giving copious historical references, Wendeler explains that this little horn cannot be referring to Christ as the Jews believe, nor to the Seleucid mo…Read more
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144Concept of Fate among the TurksIn Islamic Thought Through Protestant Eyes, Routledge. pp. 161-177. 2021.German Lutheran scholar Johann Friedrich Weitenkampf (d.1758) sets out to explain and refute the Turkish concept of fate, dividing his dissertation into two sections: the first outlining the Turkish-Muslim view of fate; and the second seeking to prove the invalidity of the Muslim concept of fate with philosophical argumentation. He begins with some brief notes on the historical origin of the Turks, turning then to the backstory of the Qur’an, which he claims can be divided into six sections or t…Read more
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227History of Arabic LogicIn Islamic Thought Through Protestant Eyes, Routledge. pp. 224-235. 2021.Johannes Steuchius’ disputatio uses Arabic logic to present an historical account of the development of philosophical thought in Arabia before and after the emergence of Islam. Steuchius first proposes that philosophy drew its origins from the East. His evidence for this claim is that many of the Greek philosophers, considered the forefathers of European philosophy, began cultivating their philosophical thinking as a result of exposure to ancient Eastern philosophy. After the introduction of Gre…Read more
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93History of Rational Philosophy among the Arabs and TurksIn Islamic Thought Through Protestant Eyes, Routledge. pp. 181-194. 2021.In his disputatio, Johann Peter von Ludewig provides a history of rational philosophy among the Arabs and sets out to contextualize the Turks’ attitude to it. Like many Lutheran scholars of the time, Ludewig believed that Islam, as a religion, impeded the development of rational philosophy in the Arab world. However, unlike those philosophers, he examines external influences that may have fed the interest of Arab Muslims in rational philosophy, especially dialectic. Unlike Orthodox Lutherans, su…Read more
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527Islamic Thought Through Protestant EyesRoutledge. 2021.Early modern Protestant scholars closely engaged with Islamic thought in more ways than is usually recognized. Among Protestants, Lutheran scholars distinguished themselves as the most invested in the study of Islam and Muslim culture. Mehmet Karabela brings the neglected voices of post-Reformation theologians, primarily German Lutherans, into focus and reveals their rigorous engagement with Islamic thought. Inspired by a global history approach to religious thought, Islamic Thought Through Prot…Read more
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327What is Political about Political Islam?In Clayton Crockett & Catherine Keller (eds.), Political Theology on Edge, Fordham University Press. pp. 214-234. 2021.Mehmet Karabela draws upon Carl Schmitt’s analysis more explicitly to interrogate and understand how Islamic and Western scholars have conceptualized an “apolitical” Islam that could then be politicized. He applies Schmitt’s friend/enemy distinction as characteristic of the political to the study of Islam and shows how Islam has always been political and religious at the same time in this context. Liberalism posits a separate realm of religion and politics that it charges Islam and other politic…Read more
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45The Dialectical Discourse in Classical Ottoman Literature: Maşuk between Âşık and Rakîb in the Game of LoveJournal of Turkish Literature 10 (10): 7-19. 2013.
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154Wittgenstein's Ladder - Political TheologyPolitical Theology Network. 2019.…I see my list on political theology functioning like Wittgenstein’s ladder metaphor in his Tractatus. Once graduate students read and grasp these important texts, they should “throw away the ladder”, so to speak, and deconstruct all they have learned about political theology to illuminate contemporary problems on their own. Once they reach the top, they can throw away the ladder.
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787Review of Islamist Thinkers in the Late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic (review)Insight Turkey 19 (1): 225-27. 2017.
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311Lovers in the Age of the Beloveds: Classical Ottoman Divan Literature and the Dialectical Tradition (Ādāb al-Baḥth)In Michael Beard Hanadi Al-Samman Alireza Korangy, Hanadi al-Samman & Michael Beard (eds.), The Beloved in Middle East Literatures: The Culture of Love and Languishing, I.b.tauris. pp. 285-300. 2017.This chapter analyzes traditional archetypes of divan literature—‘āşık (lover), ma‘şūk (beloved), and rakīb (opponent)—to show the presence of a dialectical discourse in classical Ottoman divan love poems. In both style and content divan poems display a comprehensive understanding of the postclassical Islamic philosophical conception of dialectic and argumentation theory, known as ādāb al-baḥth wa al-munāẓara. The focus on Ottoman love poetry and argumentation theory in this paper aims to demons…Read more
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111To Carl Schmitt: Letters and Reflections by Jacob Taubes (review)Dialogue 54 (2): 380-382. 2015.
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89Philosophical Inquiries: An Introduction to Problems of Philosophy Nicholas Rescher Pittsburgh University Press, 2010 (Review) (review)Dialogue 50 (1): 217-220. 2011.
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4667The development of dialectic and argumentation theory in post-classical Islamic intellectual historyDissertation, McGill University. 2011.This dissertation is an analysis of the development of dialectic and argumentation theory in post-classical Islamic intellectual history. The central concerns of the thesis are; treatises on the theoretical understanding of the concept of dialectic and argumentation theory, and how, in practice, the concept of dialectic, as expressed in the Greek classical tradition, was received and used by five communities in the Islamic intellectual camp. It shows how dialectic as an argumentative discourse d…Read more
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56Working out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Subject Formation in Colonial Modernity (review)Canadian Journal of History 47 (3): 696-698. 2012.
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407Beşir Fuad and His Opponents: The Form of a Debate over Literature and Truth in Nineteenth-Century IstanbulJournal of Turkish Literature 8 (1): 96-106. 2011.One and a half months after Victor Hugo died in 1885, Beşir Fuad published a biography of him, in which Fuad defended Emile Zola’s naturalism and realism against Hugo’s romanticism. This resulted in the most important dispute in nineteenth-century Turkish literary history, the hakikiyyûn and hayâliyyûn debate, with the former represented by Beşir Fuad and the latter represented by Menemenlizâde Mehmet Tahir. This article focuses on the form of this debate rather than its content, and this focus …Read more
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480The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and IslamPhilosophy East and West 62 (4): 605-608. 2012.The majority of The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam has been published previously in different forms, but this edition has been completely revised by the author, the well-known French medievalist and intellectual historian Rémi Brague. It was first published in French under the title Au moyen du Moyen Âge in 2006. The book consists of sixteen essays ranging from Brague’s early years at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) i…Read more
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570Book Reviews Mehmet Karabela, Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review/Revue canadienne de philosophie, FirstView Article
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477The Art of Dialectic between Dialogue and Rhetoric: The Aristotelian Tradition (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 52 (4): 841-42. 2014.
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65Introduction to Africana Philosophy, Lewis Gordon, Cambridge University Press, 2008 (review)Canadian Journal of African Studies 45 (3): 605-608. 2011.
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176Ibn al-RawandiIn Ibrahim Kalin (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam, Oxford University Press. 2014.Abū al-Ḥusayn Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā Ibn al-Rāwandī(815–860 or 910), perhaps one of the most controversial figures in early Islamic history, is frequently called the “arch-heretic” (zindīq or mulḥid) of Islam. He was born in Khurasan around 815 CE. but flourished among intellectuals in ninth century in Baghdad. Around the year 854, he left Baghdad to escape political persecution and died either in 860 or in 910, according to some sources. The details of his early life are unknown, and documentation of I…Read more
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Queen's UniversityOther
Montréal, Quebec, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Philosophical Traditions |
Arabic and Islamic Philosophy |