Aydogan Kars earned his Ph.D. in Religion at Vanderbilt University. His primary research field is medieval intellectual history with a focus on Sufism and theology. He has been serving as a Lecturer in the Centre for Religious Studies and the Coordinator of the Islamic Studies Program at Monash University.
Kars's book is extremely informative and it makes an excellent
contribution to the scholarly literature in this field.
Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
*J . Jaeger, CHOICE*
Unsaying God is an illuminating survey of the 'via negativa' in
Islam with a special emphasis on thirteenth- century Sufism. This
fascinating book presents the various apophatic approaches of
philosophers, theologians, mystics, savants of esoteric knowledge,
and traditionalists. The book's in-depth discussions ponder key
themes like 'oneness', 'thingness,' and 'the negation of all
discursive possibilities, including this very negation itself.'
Unsaying God is thought-provoking, extremely informative, and a
pleasure to read.
*Livnat Holtzman, author of Anthropomorphism in Islam: The
Challenge of Traditionalism 700-1350*
Unsaying God is an innovative, theoretically-informed attempt to
understand Islamic thought through the prism of negative discourses
about the nature of the divine. It is the first serious attempt to
analyze apophatic discourses ranging across philosophy, mysticism,
and theology in Islam. Kars's work, a major contribution to the
study of Islam, will prove to be essential reading for those
seeking to locate Islamic studies in wider debates on the study of
religion and literature, not least on the theme of apophasis.
*Sajjad H. Rizvi, Associate Professor of Islamic Intellectual
History, University of Exeter*
At once historical and phenomenological, Aydogan Kars's Unsaying
God unveils the great subtlety with which pre-modern Muslims of
various intellectual and spiritual persuasions articulated their
experience of the divine, both within and without the confines of
language. As such, this book represents a timely intervention in an
age where God-talk is often reduced to simplistic binaries by its
supporters and detractors alike
*Mohammed Rustom, author of Inrushes of the Spirit: The Mystical
Theology of 'Ayn al-Qudat*
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