Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira
17. What Does Islam Teach About Atheism?
Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira
Ilkka Lindstedt [+]
University of Helsinki
Ilkka Lindstedt is University Lecturer in Islamic Theology at the University of Helsinki. He has worked on early Islamic history and classical Arabic literature. Recent publications include “Who Is in, Who Is out? Early Muslim Identity through Epigraphy and Theory,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 46 (2019): 147–246 as well as a chapter on the medieval Islamic world in The Cambridge History of Atheism.
Description
The chapter surveys the ways in which the Qur’an engages with notions of disbelief. The Qur'an and its exegetes did not really consider the possibility of atheism per se, although they did reflect on various facets of kufr, “disbelief,” and shirk, “associating other beings with God.” Moreover, the chapter presents a prominent medieval Muslim freethinker, Ibn al-Rawandi, who vehemently criticized aspects of formalized religion, though he cannot necessarily be called an atheist.