The Concept of Evil in Muslim Theology

Extract

Cultural studies in the West are trying more and more to present a truly individualized portrait of the alien cultures with which they deal. Refinements in observation may be credited with some of our advance but true progress is mostly due to a refinement in analytical method. This in turn hinges on our ability to enter into the intimacy of alien thinking and feeling by selecting key concepts and key experiences which allow us to obtain documented insights into the less accessible ideas and attitudes. Certain theological concepts as crystallization points of reflections and emotions and, on a different level, the examination of dreams lend themselves as divining rods when it comes to probing the more recondite layers of Muslim mentality in the classical age.