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Sufism At The Service Of Ḥadīth Commentary: Re-Framing Al-Kalābādhī'S Baḥr Al-FawāʾId In Fourth-Tenth Century Transoxiana, Fadhil Yunus Alsagoff

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī’s (d. 380/990) understudied ḥadīth commentary, the Baḥr al-fawāʾid al-mashhūr bi-maʿānī al-akhbār. The first Anglophone study of the text as a whole, this thesis situates itself within the emergent literature on ḥadīth commentaries and challenges the prevailing scholarly tendency to reduce Sufi-authored commentarial texts to the ishārī method of interpretation and to treat them solely as repositories of Sufi themes. This thesis argues that, contrary to current perceptions of the text as primarily a work of Sufism, the Baḥr al-fawaʾid is first and foremost a work of ḥadīth commentary, its main intent being to …

The Non-Biblical Source Of Medieval Usury Prohibitions, Phil Gramm, Patrick Gray, Robert B. Ekelund

Journal of New Finance

Ecclesiastical and secular prohibitions of usury—often equated with any charging of interest on a loan—and their impact on commerce and economic progress in medieval Europe have long been recognized. In this paper we revisit one aspect of the debate, namely, the use of the ancient philosophical sources and the biblical texts by ancient and medieval writers. On the basis of a close reading of the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) and a review of the secondary literature devoted to it, we argue that in the New Testament Jesus attaches no moral stigma to moneylending. It is therefore surprising that …

A Wicked Humanity Original Sin In The Theology Of John Wesley And Jonathan Edwards, Vincent Andrew Sullivan

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The source of human wickedness is not in a fault in our education, but a fault in our nature. Ignorance is not the root of human depravity; rather, there is an innate propensity in the human soul to gravitate, not towards the light, but towards the darkness. This truth, i.e., the doctrine of Original Sin, was fiercely maintained in the 18th century by John Wesley, the Father of Methodism, and by Jonathan Edwards, the last of the Puritans. Both of these men each wrote a large treatise on this same topic matter, that of Original Sin, and for the same …

Welcoming The Recovering To Worship At Westwood Baptist Church, Eric "Shawn" Stricklin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This Doctor of Ministry project addressed the relational disconnect between participants in the Reformers Unanimous addiction recovery ministry and their integration into Sunday corporate worship at Westwood Baptist Church in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Although many individuals regularly attended the recovery ministry, they did not consistently engage in the broader life of the church. The purpose of this project was to develop, implement, and evaluate a Welcome Team Training Program designed to equip volunteers with theological understanding, relational skills, and ministry confidence to foster greater congregational integration. Ten participants completed the eight-week intervention, which included biblical instruction, addiction education, guided discussion, …

Beethoven, Caspar Peucer’S Commentarius, And Enchanted Nature, Nicholas Chong

The Beethoven Journal

The posthumous inventory of Beethoven’s library includes a late Renaissance treatise by Caspar Peucer (1525–1602) entitled Commentarius de præcipuis generibus divinationum (Commentary on the main types of divination). Peucer’s text is concerned mainly with methods of predicting the future through such practices as magic, astrology, and the reading of oracles. Neither Peucer nor his treatise is mentioned in any other source associated with Beethoven. The composer also had a limited knowledge of Latin and his copy of Peucer’s text was more than two centuries old.

Previous scholarship has not explored Beethoven’s ownership of this book in any detail, except to …

Profit Distribution Mechanisms For Investment Accounts In Malaysian Islamic Banks: An Analytical Study In Light Of Shariah And Accounting Standards, Fares Djafri, Ashraf Md Hashim, Zeynelabidin Hayat

Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics

This study examines the profit distribution mechanisms for investment accounts in Malaysian Islamic banks. It analyzes the Shariah and accounting foundations that govern the relationship between the bank and investment account holders. The study identifies a set of fairness parameters rooted in Islamic legal principles and Islamic accounting standards, most notably: the requirement to predefine profit-sharing ratios, adherence to the Shariah rules of loss-bearing in mudarabah, full transparency and disclosure, proportional profit allocation based on investment amount and duration, and the governance rules relating to the use of the Profit Equalization Reserve (PER) and Investment Risk Reserve (IRR) to ensure …

Diversifying The Investment Assets Of Waqf Institutions, Sakhr Abdullah Alasmari

Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics

The study aimed at researching the technical and economic factors that contribute to the formation of a good diversification of investments of waqf institutions, and finding a unified model for specific ratios for the distribution of waqf investment asset classes, or identifying factors that prevent this. The descriptive approach and the comparative analytical approach have been used to track and analyze the main concepts of the study topic and show the relationship between them, with the inclusion of a comparison of waqf investment funds in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, based on annual reports published in the Saudi Capital Market …

The Impact Of Digital Transformation On The Performance Of Islamic Banks In The Gulf Cooperation Council Countries, Roukia Bouhider, Assma Guerfi

Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics

This research aims to examine the relationship between digital transformation and the performance of 25 Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries over the 2015-2023 period using the Panel-ARDL model and relying on the descriptive approach. The main independent variable is the Digital Transformation Index, in addition to the cost-toincome ratio, the total asset, the deposit-to-asset ratio, the real GDP, and the inflation rate. Return on equity (ROE) is the main performance measure. The study concludes that digital transformation in Islamic banks in the GCC countries is in its early stages, but it is increasing following the Corona pandemic …

Financing Under The Income Share Agreement (Isa) Model: Towards A Shariah-Compliant Formula For Financing University Education, Asma Bint Mohammed Al-Amari

Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics

This study examines financing under the Income Share Agreement (ISA) model as a contemporary financing instrument and seeks to introduce it as a new model at the local level. It aims to enable beneficiaries to access education in return for consideration linked to their future income. The study seeks to develop a Shariah-compliant structure by identifying its jurisprudential characterization and Shariah parameters and analyzing its contractual elements. The study concludes that the subject matter of the contract is the educational benefit rather than the transfer of ownership of money, which distinguishes it from a loan and other forms of financing …

Enabling Smart Waqf Investment Sukuk Through Blockchain Technology For Resource Sustainability And Return Development, Siham Rahmani, Mohamed Djafar Henni

Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics

This study aims to examine smart waqf investment sukuk as one of the contemporary applications of Islamic financial engineering, based on the integration of waqf objectives, Sharia-compliant investment structures, and modern digital technologies. It seeks to highlight the potential of employing blockchain technology in developing their institutional and operational digital infrastructure. The study also aims to propose a smart waqf investment sukuk model based on the Murabaha to the Purchase orderer structure, identifying its components, the roles of its stakeholders, and the mechanisms for managing the rights and operations associated with it. The study adopts a descriptive-analytical approach to establish …

Islamic Finance And Money Creation: SharīʿAh Issues And A Reform Proposal, Abdullah Al-Sulami, Ayman Saleh

Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics

This study highlights a fundamental problem confronting Islamic banking, namely the dominance of debt-based contracts, such as Murābaḥah and Tawarruq, at the expense of genuine partnership-based contracts, particularly Mushārakah and Muḍārabah. This dominance has, in turn, given rise to persistent criticism concerning the Shariah legitimacy of Islamic banking products. The study proceeds from the premise that this departure from the objectives (maqāṣid) of Islamic economics is not merely a technical or managerial choice, but rather an inevitable consequence of Islamic banks operating within a fractional reserve banking system and their inherent involvement in the mechanism of …

Science And Religion In The Imagination Of C.S. Lewis: The Quest For The Best Mental Model Of The Universe By Alister E. Mcgrath, Martina Juričková

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This is a book review of Science and Religion in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis: The Quest for the Best Mental Model of the Universe by Alister E. McGrath

What Film Is Good For: On The Values Of Spectatorship, Pablo Alzola

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Julian Hanich and Martin P. Rossouw, eds., What Film Is Good For: On the Values of Spectatorship (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2023).

Making Meaning: Free Will And The Meaning Of Life In Barbie, Bertha A. Manninen Ph.D.

Journal of Religion & Film

Greta Gerwig’s 2023 film Barbie highlights both the empowerment and drawbacks of one of Mattel’s most famous toys. Although Barbie’s feminist messages have taken center stage, the film also has several theological dimensions and touches upon what it means to live a meaningful life. I will argue that Barbie can be interpreted as a defense of the free will theodicy in response to both the logical and evidential versions of the problem of evil. One common challenge to the theodicy is that even granting that free will is a great good, it is not so good as to be worth …

Moving On: Purgatorial Seriality And Unanswered Prayer In Lost’S “Ab Aeterno”, Christian Wilken

Journal of Religion & Film

“Ab Aeterno” (Lost, 6.09) distills the series’ religious logic with unusual explicitness by staging theodicy not as doctrine but as narrative procedure. This article argues that the episode converts Catholic sacramental form (confession, absolution, and penitential address) into a serial ethics of endurance in which closure is structurally deferred. Richard Alpert’s confession establishes a subject who seeks an authorized word that would stabilize suffering, yet the priest’s refusal (“I can’t”) installs a theology of unanswered prayer that becomes the template for Richard’s long durée of waiting. Jacob’s “cork” parable then supplies a katechontic justification of restraint: evil is not abolished …

Between Icon And State: Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan The Terrible, Milja Radovic

Journal of Religion & Film

Remembering the 80th anniversary of Sergei Eisenstein’s film Иван Грозный (Ivan the Terrible, 1944/1945), it is crucial to re-examine Eisenstein’s work, including his last film that became an unintentional ‘testament’ to cinema. Eisenstein’s mastery has been pivotal for understanding cinema and film language, the way this language operates, constructs and deconstructs and communicates historical realities. This paper focuses on a film that was made in two parts, Part I in 1944 and part II in 1945, to investigate Eisenstein’s approach to the subject of history, nation and religion. The research considers how this master of cinema contemplated intricate ideas and …

Affirmative Transcendence: The Ethics Of Mazu And The Internal Expansion Of The Confucian Moral Imagination, Yu Pei

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper proposes and defends the concept of affirmative transcendence through a systematic analysis of the 2012 Chinese television drama Mazu (38 episodes, CCTV). Affirmative transcendence names a structure in which the protagonist achieves sacred status (shen 神) not by negating her human relationships but by maintaining them while exhibiting a mode of moral perception that exceeds the limits of role-based ethics. The paper argues that what is analytically distinctive about this structure is its internal character: the tradition is not rejected but exceeded, and the exceeding is accomplished through resources the tradition itself provides. The paper identifies two …

A Metaphorical Passage To God: Simone Weil And Robert Bresson, V. G. Voigt Hogg Phd

Journal of Religion & Film

VOIGT HOGG_Abstract (REVISED)_Journal of Religion & Film_30 April 2026

This article contrasts the metaphysical and religious philosopher Simone Weil’s concepts of attachment and detachment with auteur director Robert Bresson’s method of subtraction. It argues for a commonality in their philosophy and cinema, that guides the reader or viewer respectively, to perceive a metaphorical passage to God through the lived experience of suffering. The article considers by what means does Weil and Bresson share a mutual commitment to understanding the state of the soul in affliction, while also acknowledging an opposition in the interpretation of detachment in relation to suicide. The …

Documenting The Ineffable: A Comparative Analysis Of Mystical Representation In Kimiavi’S The Garden Of Stones And Western Sufi Documentary, Hessam Abedini

Journal of Religion & Film

This article examines how documentary film attempts to represent mystical experience through comparative analysis of Parviz Kimiavi's The Garden of Stones (1976) and American documentaries featuring Samuel Lewis, particularly Sunseed (1973). Rather than assuming terms like "sacred" or "authentic," the study grounds its analysis in empirical definitions from William James, historical scholarship by Carl Ernst and Annemarie Schimmel, and literary theory from Fatemeh Keshavarz. Through detailed examination of specific scenes—Darvish Khan hanging stones from dead trees, Lewis leading ecstatic dances—the article demonstrates how different cinematic strategies approach documentary's epistemological limits when confronting ineffable experience.

The analysis corrects historical misunderstandings about …

Church-Based Qualitative Research, David R. Dunaetz

Great Commission Research Journal

Qualitative research is collecting, analyzing, and interpreting subjective data to answer an important research question. It can be contrasted with quantitative research, which focuses on collecting numerical (relatively objective) data to test specific hypotheses. It is an attractive form of research in church contexts because it does not require training in statistics and can be conducted in almost all ministry settings. It is especially appropriate for topics that are under-researched, poorly understood, or involve concepts that are difficult to measure. Common problems associated with church-based qualitative research include overly broad research questions, weak descriptions of what has been observed, shallow …

Maximizing The Use Of Interpreters In Shortterm Medical Missions, Barbara L. Loach

Great Commission Research Journal

In the debate over the effectiveness of short-term medical missions (STMM), the role of interpreters has received cursory attention. However, the perceived quality of care and the actual care that patients receive, and therefore their receptivity to the organization and the presentation of the gospel by faith-based STMMs, hinges greatly on employing trained interpreters who can reliably communicate on behalf of all parties involved. Each barrier to cross-cultural communication —verbal, non-verbal, and cultural—can and should be addressed to have a successful mission outreach; providing adequate training for all participants in STMM, especially for interpreters, is critical to mediate the communication …

When Everything Moves Faster Than The Soul: Spirituality In A Fast-Paced World, Pablo Marzilli

Great Commission Research Journal

This article analyzes one of the main characteristics of the hypermodern era in which we live: social acceleration. We live in an extremely individualistic era that forces us to be highly efficient and productive in everything we do. This social phenomenon leads to a sense of being overwhelmed; our culture demands that we maximize the use of our time, to the point where we feel that we are less productive than we actually are, even though this is objectively impossible. This culture of acceleration, which makes us live at a dizzying pace, also influences the church and reshapes our daily …

Understanding Evangelism: Biblical Foundations, Historical Developments, And Contemporary Issues By J.D. Payne, D. A. Horton

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Formed Together: A Value-Based Model Of Mutual Spiritual Formation For Pentecostal Pastors And Churches Under 500, W. T.A. Mcmillan

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock” (Acts 20:28) is both a warning and an invitation. It insists that the pastor's inner life and the congregation's shared life cannot be pulled apart without doing damage to both. This dissertation grows out of that conviction and out of years of pastoral ministry in Pentecostal churches where the pressure to perform often overwhelms the slow work of being formed. It asks a simple but searching question: How do Assemblies of God pastors serving congregations under 500 in attendance understand the connection between their own spiritual health and the spiritual …

Sanctified Rhythms Of Rest: Reclaiming Sabbath And Spiritual Retreat For Pastoral Renewal And Burnout Mitigation In The Georgia Assemblies Of God, Philip Sosebee

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

“Sanctified Rhythms of Rest: Reclaiming Sabbath and Spiritual Retreat for Pastoral Renewal and Burnout Mitigation in the Georgia Assemblies of God” explored how intentional rhythms of Sabbath observance, solitude and silence, and spiritual retreat shaped the lived experiences of credentialed ministers within the Georgia District of the Assemblies of God. Pastoral burnout, emotional exhaustion, and unsustainable ministry expectations continue to affect ministers across denominational contexts, raising questions regarding the role of biblically grounded rhythms of rest in fostering pastoral renewal and sustainability. Using a six-month longitudinal hermeneutic phenomenological design, twenty-nine credentialed ministers participated in the intentional practice of weekly Sabbath …

Front Cover

Spiritan Horizons

No abstract provided.

Fr. Henri Le Floch Cssp—The Forgotten Pioneer Of Poullart Studies. Part I, Eamonn Mulcahy Cssp

Spiritan Horizons

No abstract provided.

Animating Spiritan Education Through Communities Of Practice, Steve Hansen Phd, Anne Marie Witchger Hansen Phd

Spiritan Horizons

No abstract provided.

Forming Students For Mission Trips, William H. Christy Cssp

Spiritan Horizons

No abstract provided.

Powerful Pulpits: Black Preachers As Cultish Leaders In The Axman Murders, 1909-1912, Lauren N. Henley

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

Southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas experienced a series of disturbingly similar ax murders from November 1909 to August 1912. In nearly every case, a black family living within a mile of the Sunset Limited line of the Southern Pacific Railroad was brutally slaughtered in their own home, victims of a surreptitious assailant. Eventually, a young black woman would take credit for some of the crimes, ushering in the language of “religious fanaticism” as a potential motive. This confession sparked an intense period of criminalization of black male preachers, with a particular focus on Pentecostal leaders in southwestern Louisiana. This article …