Rushain Abbasi, “The Prophet and the Profane: An Inquiry into the Boundaries of Prophetic Authority”
When: Monday, November 18th
What: Workshop Session hosting Rushain Abbasi (PhD Candidate, NELC), who will workshop a chapter of his dissertation entitled, “The Prophet and the Profane: An Inquiry into the Boundaries of Prophetic Authority”. Dr. Dana Lee (Research Fellow, Program in Islamic Law) will join us as a discussant.
In this chapter, Rushain looks at a variety of discussions of prophetic authority by premodern Muslim scholars (across multiple genres) in order to demonstrate that the dominant understanding among Sunni scholars was that the Prophet held no particular authority within the secular realm and that his function was an entirely religious one. He then uses this as an opportunity to further explore how they used this position to differentiate the religious and secular realm in a variety of ways.
Where: Barker 114 (6:00 – 7:30pm) as usual. Dinner will be served. If you wish to attend, kindly RSVP to Armaan Siddiqui [asiddiqi@g.harvard.edu] and we’ll send you a copy of Rushain’s paper.