Master's Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: 19.25, University of Tehran, language: English, abstract: This study claims to have studied the pragmatic use and role of hermeneutics and intertextuality in translating esoteric and mystical contexts of the Quran. Thus, it examines and reviews such highly esoteric and mystic contexts by performing a comparative but descriptive analysis on two of the scholarly translations of the Quran ever produced: The classic translation of the Quran by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (1930) that was the first scholarly translation produced by a native English scholar who was also a Muslim convert, and the latest scholarly translation of the Quran by Seyyed Hossein Nasr (2015), a professor of philosophy, comparative religion and mystic teachings. The purpose of the study is to show how the effective use of an intertextual hermeneutics can help increase the functionality and naturalness of the translation that are the keys to reach to the minds of Western readers who would experience a spiritual encounter with the theophany of the religion of Islam that is its central message, the Quran. The study uses Steiner’s (1975) four-fold hermeneutic motion to perform a comparative and intertextual examination on four major Quranic themes that are Quranic hermeneutics (ta’wil), verbal/oral transmission of the Quran, Quranic intertextuality, and Quranic imagery. The significance of the study is based on two justifications; the issue of authority over a particular discourse that inevitably is realised in translating the Quranicmessage for Western audience, and the flagrant chasm that exists between hermeneutical and translational studies of the Quran. The findings suggest that using an intertextual hermeneutics or any consciousness over that can facilitate the functionality and naturalness of the translation for Western receivers of the translation that have the essence of their spirituality forged based on Judeo-Christian discourse; considering the dramatic similarities that naturally happen among Abrahamic faiths.

This book explores the way that the Torah was appreciated and interpreted as a text and symbol in Christian and Jewish sources from the Second Temple period through the Middle Ages. It tracks the development and complex interactions of three images of Torah— “God-like,” “Angelic,” and “Messianic”— which are found in late-antique Jewish and Christian materials as well as in medieval kabbalistic and Jewish philosophic sources. It provides a unique template for tracing the development of theological ideas related to the images of Torah and offers a sophisticated and innovative analysis of the relationship between mystical experience, theology, and phenomenology.

Biblical interpretation is not simply study of the Bible's meaning. This volume focuses on signal moments in the histories of scriptural interpretation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the ancient period to the early modern, and shows how deeply intertwined these religions have always been.

Jewish mysticism approaches God as no-thing or nothing, reflecting Judaism’s traditional identification of God as incorporeal. Whereas technical philosophical language often employed to discuss Jewish mysticism has a tendency to ward off otherwise interested readers, this study sufficiently breaks down the technical language of Jewish mysticism in its various expressions to allow a beginner to benefit from what may otherwise be indescribable and only approached by consideration of what is not rather than what is. Integral to the title, From Something to Nothing, is the concept that God cannot be something, because that would be restricting, so God is simply no-thing. Ironically, the conventional religious expression for the biblical notion of creation is “something from nothing”, whereas the title of this volume is its precise opposite, which may at first seem to be illogical – creation in reverse. However, in a volume dedicated to various deliberations on magic and mysticism, the ultimate reality may receive expression as nothingness, that is, no-thingness, no quality associated with things. What adds to our difficulty today is that nothingness is inextricably linked with silence. Is silence also an element or indication of an ultimate reality or its absence? Or is it merely the reflection of nothing whatsoever? This is at the heart of modern debates between atheists and believers. Believers feel that even this silence speaks to this ultimate reality, whereas atheists claim that if you cannot show it, then you do not know it. In other words, believers are victims of their own wishful thinking. From Something to Nothing memorializes Canadian mystic and scholar Zalman Schachter Shalomi, z”l, engaging in particular aspects that he addressed at some phase of his colourful and erudite life, providing the reader with a broad spectrum of both phenomenological and intellectual topics.

The poetics of intertextuality proposed in this book, based mainly on semiotics, elucidates factors determining the socio-historically elusive border between general intertextuality and citationality, and explores modes of intertextual representation.