am Department for Religious Studies, Yale University (New Haven)
am Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University
hentschel@ifk.ac.at
Present Sufi Approaches to the Qur’an
How do present-day Sufis interpret the Qur’an and how do they translate its meaning into their respective everyday realities? To answer these questions, 14 Sufis from different traditions and cultural contexts (Uzbekistan, Iran, Israel/Palestine, Morocco, Pakistan, and others) will be interviewed. The research project, its data collection and analysis are characterized by dynamic interdisciplinarity and multifaceted methodology.
Through qualitative, half-structured interviews, the subjective meanings and experiences of the Sufis, selected for their heterogeneity, are collected. These results will be discussed in a comparative and contrastive manner, while focusing on the following questions:
How does the Sufic striving towards an experience of transcendency of individual and collective reality constructions affect the Sufis’ respective interpretations of the Qur’an? Which influence does the engagement with the Qur’an have on the Sufic self-reflection and social positioning?
Yunus Valerian Hentschel studied Islamic Studies, Arabic, and Political Science in Vienna, Cairo, and Damascus. Currently, he is working on his dissertation on “Present Sufi Approaches to the Qur’an“. For his research, he has been interviewing Sufis from multiple cultural backgrounds. Yunus Hentschel has been a Lecturer for Islamic Studies and Arabic at the University of Vienna since 2015.
Rezension: Christian Mauder, Thomas Würz, Stefan Zinsmeister (Hg.), Koran in Franken. Überlegungen und Beispiele für Koranrezeption in fremden Kontexten, Würzburg 2016, in: WZKM, Band 108, Wien 2018; gem. mit Khalid El-Abdaoui (Hg.), Die Vielfalt Islamischer Wirklichkeiten. Neue Ansätze in den Islamischen Studien an der Universität Wien, Berlin 2017; „Der Lichtvers als Anleitung zum Verständnis des Koran: Ein Beispiel sufischer Koranhermeneutik“, in: El-Abdaoui und Hentschel (Hg.), Die Vielfalt Islamischer Wirklichkeiten. Neue Ansätze in den Islamischen Studien an der Universität Wien, Berlin 2017, S. 143 – 153.
Sufische Interpretationen des Koran bestechen durch ihre unkonventionellen und vielschichtigen Reflexionen. Diese resultieren aus dem Anspruch, die innere Bedeutung koranischer Verse zu dekodieren und so ihre Impulse in die jeweiligen religiösen und sozialen Diskurse zu übertragen, die mitunter als ephemer und uneigentlich verstanden werden.