Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
Scruples before Religion: Muslim Waraʿ of the Formative Period
This thesis studies the conceptual history of waraʿ and its role as a normative paradigm existing in the formative centuries of the Islamic world. To do so, I consider the Hellenic concepts that ground Near Eastern understandings of virtue and piety before the rise of Islam. This, I then use to cont...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Thesis |
| Published: |
AUC Knowledge Fountain
2026
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613433524912128 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Laaroussi, Omar |
| author_browse | Laaroussi, Omar |
| author_facet | Laaroussi, Omar |
| author_sort | Laaroussi, Omar |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | This thesis studies the conceptual history of waraʿ and its role as a normative paradigm existing in the formative centuries of the Islamic world. To do so, I consider the Hellenic concepts that ground Near Eastern understandings of virtue and piety before the rise of Islam. This, I then use to contextualise a focused discussion on the textual history of waraʿ before moving on to discuss its properties in a ascetic social-world through the analysis of those very texts. I attempt to place those properties in conversation with modern philosophers’ work on disciplinary regimes and their impacts upon the self. In Chapter One, I discuss approaches to virtue and piety in the Greco-Roman world, as well as their effects on Abrahamic concepts, by considering the distinction between religio and superstitio in piety followed by the difference between the vita activa and vita contempletiva in virtue. I compare this to Quranic discourse and ḥadīth before moving to a discussion of the networks that were associated with writings on zuhd and waraʿ. I use that to describe both the features that are shared among the books of waraʿ, as well as the author-specific identities that inform the differences among the texts (Chapter 2). I follow that with an analysis of the texts as artifacts of normative thinking in a decentralised social-world and their relationship to a Foucauldian view of discipline (Chapter 3). I conclude by reflecting on the short-lived emphasis of waraʿ and its sublation by larger trends of fiqh and Sufism. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:fount.aucegypt.edu:etds-3803 |
| institution | American University in Cairo (Egypt) |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:36:04.472Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from AUC Knowledge Fountain — bepress |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateRange | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| publisher | AUC Knowledge Fountain |
| publisherStr | AUC Knowledge Fountain |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | AUC Knowledge Fountain — bepress |
| spelling | oai:fount.aucegypt.edu:etds-3803 Scruples before Religion: Muslim Waraʿ of the Formative Period Laaroussi, Omar This thesis studies the conceptual history of waraʿ and its role as a normative paradigm existing in the formative centuries of the Islamic world. To do so, I consider the Hellenic concepts that ground Near Eastern understandings of virtue and piety before the rise of Islam. This, I then use to contextualise a focused discussion on the textual history of waraʿ before moving on to discuss its properties in a ascetic social-world through the analysis of those very texts. I attempt to place those properties in conversation with modern philosophers’ work on disciplinary regimes and their impacts upon the self. In Chapter One, I discuss approaches to virtue and piety in the Greco-Roman world, as well as their effects on Abrahamic concepts, by considering the distinction between religio and superstitio in piety followed by the difference between the vita activa and vita contempletiva in virtue. I compare this to Quranic discourse and ḥadīth before moving to a discussion of the networks that were associated with writings on zuhd and waraʿ. I use that to describe both the features that are shared among the books of waraʿ, as well as the author-specific identities that inform the differences among the texts (Chapter 2). I follow that with an analysis of the texts as artifacts of normative thinking in a decentralised social-world and their relationship to a Foucauldian view of discipline (Chapter 3). I conclude by reflecting on the short-lived emphasis of waraʿ and its sublation by larger trends of fiqh and Sufism. 2026-06-15T07:00:00Z thesis application/pdf https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/2744 https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/3803/viewcontent/omar_laaroussi_thesis.pdf Theses and Dissertations AUC Knowledge Fountain waraʿ zuhd asceticism islam din religio scruples virtue piety sufism Applied Ethics Ethics in Religion Islamic Studies Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion |
| spellingShingle | waraʿ zuhd asceticism islam din religio scruples virtue piety sufism Applied Ethics Ethics in Religion Islamic Studies Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Laaroussi, Omar Scruples before Religion: Muslim Waraʿ of the Formative Period |
| title | Scruples before Religion: Muslim Waraʿ of the Formative Period |
| title_full | Scruples before Religion: Muslim Waraʿ of the Formative Period |
| title_fullStr | Scruples before Religion: Muslim Waraʿ of the Formative Period |
| title_full_unstemmed | Scruples before Religion: Muslim Waraʿ of the Formative Period |
| title_short | Scruples before Religion: Muslim Waraʿ of the Formative Period |
| title_sort | scruples before religion muslim waraʿ of the formative period |
| topic | waraʿ zuhd asceticism islam din religio scruples virtue piety sufism Applied Ethics Ethics in Religion Islamic Studies Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion |
| url | https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/2744 https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/3803/viewcontent/omar_laaroussi_thesis.pdf |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT laaroussiomar scruplesbeforereligionmuslimwaraʿoftheformativeperiod |