Prophetic Spirituality: Towards an Understanding of the Paradigmatic Meaning of Prophecy for the Study of Muslim Piety

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue invites the contributions of scholars who are interested to explore the paradigmatic meaning of prophecy in Muslim spirituality. Classically defined as the reception of revelation (waḥy) from God, prophecy (nubuwwa) stands as the constitutive fact of Islam as a religion and its distinctive mark. The central significance of prophecy for an understanding of Muslim thought and practice has been recognized in recent academic research. However, specialists of Sira or Hadith on the one hand, and specialists of philosophical or theological prophetology on the other, generally either focus on the issue of authenticity and socio-political history, or on the history of Muslim rationality. Congruently, specialists of history, doctrines and practises of Muslim piety and spirituality tend to refer to prophecy only with regard to certain periods, movements and currents. As a consequence, the two subjects – prophecy and spirituality - seem to constitute two unrelated blocs in academic research on Islam.

We are looking for scholarly interrogations of the paradigmatic meaning of prophecy in Islamic spirituality, particularly in a systematic and conceptual way: How does prophecy inform Islamic spirituality? How does Islam articulate a prophetic form of experience of the divine? In the current research on the role of references to the Prophet Muhammad in the history of Islamic religiosity, various notions have been proposed: in an analogy to Biblical and Antiquity Studies (D. E. Aune 1983: 160), Stefan Reichmuth uses the expression “prophetic piety” (2017) to denote “the pious practice and devotion attached to the person of the Prophet” (DFG-ANR Project “The Presence of the Prophet in Early Modern and Modern Islam” 2017-2020), whereas Tilman Nagel introduces the expression “muḥammadan spirituality” (1994: 482) to describe the transition from “Sunni piety” to a spirituality characterized by its strong reference to the Muḥammadan personality in the 6th/12th century. Important as they are, these and similar notions are meant to denote a specific historical development in the history of Muslim thought and culture. This Special Issue proposes the notion of “prophetic spirituality” as an analytical concept not only to describe the forms of devotion towards the figure of Muhammad, but above all, to denote a paradigm in Islamic thought and practice which informs conceptions of reality, of the nature of man and of the meaning of religion. Hence, “prophetic spirituality” describes the constitutive and complex interrelation of prophetology (doctrine of prophecy) and spirituality (experience of the divine) in Islamic thought and practice.

These interrogations can be explored by analysing Islamic sources in view of four proposed research fields: 

1. The spiritual significance and meaning of prophecy and, in particular, of Muhammadan prophethood as related, for example, to conceptions of the Prophet’s pre-existence, of his role in the history of salvation, of prophetic light, of universal intercession, of connectivity with the prophet, etc. (cf. F. Meier 1985, M. Chodiekwicz 1986, C. Ernst 2010, U. Rubin 2011, S. Pagani 2021 and others).
2. The spiritual experiences of the prophets, reflecting, for example, on spiritual interpretations of events in the lives of prophets narrated in the Qur’an or in the Hadith, such as the Night Journey, revelations, exodus, etc. (cf. R. Nettler 2003, D. Gril 2007, F. Colby 2009, E. Toprakyaran 2014 and others).
3. The spiritual dimension of prophetic teachings, manifested, for example, in spiritual interpretations of hadith, of prophetic practices and behaviour, virtues, etc. (A. Schimmel 1985, P. Bachman 2005, D. Gril 2011, T. Chouiref 2020 and others).
4. The prophetic form and meaning of Islamic spiritual teachings and practices, in reference to, for example, the Prophet in Sufi teaching and practice, the significance of following the Sunna in Islamic spirituality, the prophetic model as inspiration for Islamic spirituality, devotion to the Prophet, etc. (A. Schimmel 1985, M. Chodkiewicz 1994, V. Hoffman 1999, D. Gril 2006, J.-J. Thibon 2017, S. Reichmuth 2017, J. Zaleski 2021 and others).

These four research fields are meant to describe the principal aspects that qualify the analytical concept of “prophetic spirituality”. This concept serves to evince the prophetic form of experience of the divine as the distinctive Islamic form of spirituality in both its particular and its universal scope.  

In order to explore these four research fields, the following approaches can be applied:

• Hermeneutical: What are the conditions of understanding prophetic spirituality? In what sense does prophetic spirituality constitute an Islamic hermeneutics of the human condition, of the world and of sacred scriptures, as well as an interpretative tradition?
• Comparative and interreligious: What does prophetic spirituality disclose about other spiritual traditions and vice versa?
• History of religious ideas: How were the teachings, symbols, practises, etc. of prophetic spirituality reinterpreted and actualised in varying historical and cultural contexts?
• Theological reflection (exegetical, systematic, historical, practical): How can the study of prophetic spirituality inform contemporary Islamic thought and life? How can it contribute to render Islamic life-worlds intelligible and empowered for dialogue in the modern world?

We invite you to refer to one of these approaches in your proposal.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Ruggero Sanseverino
Dr. Besnik Sinani
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• prophecy
• spirituality
• piety
• Sufism
• Sunna
• sira
• hadith
• revelation
• tradition
• veneration