Oliver Leaman

Biographic Data

ID459520
NAMEOliver Leaman
GIVEN NAMESOliver
FAMILY NAMELeaman
SIGNATURELEAMAN O
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Kentucky
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS74
TOTAL CITATIONS22
AUTHOR COUNT70
EDITOR COUNT4
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1978
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2023
H-INDEX3

  • The Book of Job in Jewish Life and Thought: Critical Essays

    Oliver LeamanARTICLEThe Journal of Religion2023

  • Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Critique of Religious Discourse: Naqd Khitab al-Dini

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Qur'anic Studies2022

  • Reintroducing Philosophy: Thinking as the Gathering of Civilization, According to Contemporary, Islamicate and Ancient Sources . By Anthony F. Shaker

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Islamic Studies2022

    This book covers a great deal of ground. It includes the constant presence of Heidegger, excerpts from Islamic, Indian and Chinese philosophy, and a great number of modern European and American thinkers from Kant up to today. It was my intention to concentrate on Shaker’s account of Islamic philosophy, since for readers of this journal that presumably would be of most interest. He writes a good deal on Mullā Șadrā and a range of other thinkers wi…

  • History of Islamic Philosophy

    Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Oliver LeamanBOOKHistory of Islamic Philosophy2020

  • Dialectical Encounter: Contemporary Turkish Muslim Thought in Dialogue by Taraneh R. Wilkinson

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEIlahiyat Studies2020

    (First paragraph) This is a highly intelligent book; it concentrates on two contemporary Turkish theologians (Recep Alpyağıl and Şaban Ali Düzgün) but actually does a lot more than that. It provides an accurate snapshot of the state of the discipline of theology as interpreted by higher education institutions in Turkey in modern times, and given the significant role of religion in the country in recent years under the AKP regime this has wider re…

  • Ibn Miskawayh, the Soul, and the Pursuit of Happiness: The Truly Happy Sage

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Islamic Studies2020Cited by: 1

    Ibn Miskawayh is an interesting thinker, and there certainly needs to be a decent account of his life and thought, but I am not sure that this is really the book that does it. It has some virtues, chief of which is the way in which the author ties together the ethical and historical work of its subject. Ibn Miskawayh, like most of his contemporaries, was someone who wrote on a wide range of topics, something that impresses the author, and there c…

  • Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur'an and the Bible: Text and Commentary

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Qur'anic Studies2019

  • Ramon Harvey, The Qur'an and the Just Society

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Qur'anic Studies2019

  • Interpreting Averroes: Critical Essays Edited by Peter Adamson and Matteo Di Giovanni

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Islamic Studies2019

    This is a very integrated series of chapters, unusual in a collection by different authors, and seeks to put Ibn Rushd (Averroes) within his cultural context. There is a great deal of detail on the political and intellectual flavour of the times, on his philosophical predecessors and on those within his contemporary world with whom he was in disagreement. The emphasis throughout is on epistemology, quite appropriately since this is such an import…

  • A Philosophy of Loneliness by Lars Svendsen

    Oliver LeamanBOOKPhilosophy East and West2018

    Reviewed by: A Philosophy of Loneliness by Lars Svendsen Oliver Leaman (bio) A Philosophy of Loneliness. By Lars Svendsen. Translated by K. Pierce. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. Pp 182. Paper $19.99. ISBN 978–1-78023–747-3. This is an entertaining and intelligent book on a subject we often have preconceptions about, which the author takes delight in showing to be false. It is an interesting blend of philosophy and social science, wh…

  • Averroes, Kant and the Origins of the Enlightenment: Reason and Revelation in Arab Thought

    Oliver LeamanARTICLEBustan The Middle East Book Review2017

    There is some very interesting material in this book. It includes an excellent account of modern Arab enlightenment movements broadly defined, and their connections to attempts to establish a role for the use of reason in modern Islamic thought. The discussion of the concept of enlightenment in the Islamic world is limited to the Arab world and ignores everywhere else, but it is good to have an account of that cultural environment, and this book …

  • L’Islam: Religione dell’Occidente, by Massimo Campanini

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEIlahiyat Studies2016

    First Paragraph:This is a concise but rich book, full of ideas and arguments, and it is based on the thesis, as its title suggests, that Islam is a Western religion. It is not clear to me what precisely that means for the author but I think it is supposed to mean that Islam is not to be viewed as an exotic Eastern religion alien to Western culture. There were after all many links with Europe even before the years of mass immigration and this is a…

  • The Corpus Coranicum Project and the Issue of Novelty

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Qur'anic Studies2013

    Methodological approaches in the study of religion tend to fall into two broad camps. The religion itself often produces its own methods of how to approach an accurate understanding of the text and its original context; religions tend also to like to use their own methods to decide what the authoritative version of their scriptures are. In addition, there have been a number of approaches to central religious texts which treat sceptically the trad…

  • Religions in Global Society

    P Beyer, Oliver Leaman et al.BOOKReligions in Global Society2013

    Peter Beyer, a distinguished sociologist of religion, presents a way of understanding religion in a contemporary global society - by analyzing it as a dimension of the historical process of globalization. Introducing theories of globalization and showing how they can be applied to world religions, Beyer reveals the nature of the contested category of ‘religion’: what it means, what it includes and what it implies in the world today. Written with …

  • Holy War in Judaism: The Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea, by Reuven Firestone

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEIlahiyat Studies2013

  • Averroes and His Philosophy

    Oliver LeamanBOOKAverroes and His Philosophy2013

    Despite his important stature in the history of philosophy, Averroes is a thinker whose work has been left largely unexplored in this century. It is the aim of this book to rectify this omission, and to argue that his philosophical output is of considerable philosophical as well as historical significance

  • History of Islamic Philosophy

    Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Oliver LeamanBOOKHistory of Islamic Philosophy2013

  • The Balkan exception: Problems and possibilities in Islamic thought

    Oliver LeamanARTICLEIslam and Christian–Muslim…2012References: 1

    There has been much discussion recently about what a Balkan Islamic theology consists of, and how it compares to wider moves in theological schools outside of the region. An examination of some of the contemporary trends in the region will provide some perspective on where that form of thought seems to be going. I will argue that the very diverse influences that have existed for so long, and continue to exist today, may prevent the development of…

  • Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides' Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andalusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu

    Oliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2012Cited by: 2

  • Die Rezeption der aristotelischen politischen Philosophie bei Marsilius von Padua: Eine Untersuchung zur ersten Diktion des Defensor pacis

    Oliver LeamanARTICLEMedieval Encounters2011Cited by: 1

  • Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, by Andrew Rippin

    Open AccessOliver LeamanARTICLEIlahiyat Studies2010

    Firs Paragraph:A question it is always interesting to pose is what makes a textbook successful. This book by Andrew Rippin is much used as an introductory text on Islam and Muslims, my students certainly think highly of it, and yet the market is full of such books, guides to the material that one would expect to find in such a book. What we get with Rippin though is no “Islam for Dummies.” Much of the discus-sion takes place at a pretty high leve…

  • Adaptations and Innovations: Studies on the Interaction Between Jewish and Islamic Thought and Literature From the Early Middle Ages to the Late Twentieth Century, Dedicated to Professor Joel L. Kraem…

    Oliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Islamic Studies2010

    Joel Kraemer is a distinguished member of the scholarly community who has done much to illuminate cultural life in the world of Islamic and Jewish culture in the Middle Ages. This collection of essays is extensive and covers a great deal of territory, and first of all it might be helpful to describe what the contents are, so readers can decide what might be relevant in the book. Binyamin Abrahamov discusses the theological background to Saadia Ga…

  • Islamic Philosophical Theology

    Oliver LeamanCHAPTERThe Oxford handbook of…2009

  • An Introduction to Islamic Philosophy * By Massimo Campanini, with translation by Caroline Higgitt

    Oliver LeamanARTICLEJournal of Islamic Studies2009

    This book has many virtues. It is concise, clear and moves at a rapid pace. The author has a good grasp of the central issues in Islamic philosophy and does a sound job in expounding them here. He also has the advantage of being based in Italy and so is more aware of continental trends in understanding Islamic philosophy than are most of those living in the English-speaking world. I particularly appreciated his emphasis on the arguments in Islami…

  • The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology

    Open AccessMuhammad Abdel Haleem, Khalid Yahya Blankinship et al.BOOKThe Cambridge Companion to…2008

    This series of critical reflections on the evolution and major themes of pre-modern Muslim theology begins with the revelation of the Koran, and extends to the beginnings of modernity in the eighteenth century. The significance of Islamic theology reflects the immense importance of Islam in the history of monotheism, to which it has brought a unique approach and style, and a range of solutions which are of abiding interest. Devoting especial atte…