Transcendent God, Rational World: A Māturīdī Theology By Ramon Harvey

Abstract

Ramon Harvey is Aziz Foundation Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Cambridge Muslim College. Transcendent God, Rational World: A Māturīdī Theology is his second book and is the first publication of the series ‘Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Scripture and Theology’ of which Harvey is the series editor. Harvey’s book lies at the intersection of several areas of study. In Western academic Islamic studies, it contributes to the increased interest in Islamic philosophy and kalām in the past two decades, particularly the burgeoning field of Māturīdī studies. The key studies on the Samarqandi theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) and his school being those of Mustafa Cerič,1 Ulrich Rudolph,2 Angelika Brodersen,3 Ayedh Aldosari,4 Philip Dorroll,5 and numerous Turkish academics, a list to which Harvey’s name must be added. Additionally, his book joins the chorus of Muslim voices doing constructive theology and philosophy in academia. In this capacity, it situates itself in a particular set of conversations in philosophy of religion in the Anglo-American analytic tradition. Thus, Harvey’s book is in the spirit of kalām jadīd, rooted in the academic study of Islam, and takes inspiration from Māturīdī to contribute to problems in analytic philosophy of religion in formulating a new basis for kalām.