Reactions against established religion can take several forms, including apostasy and atheism. The Gnostic and Manichean currents have been subversive currents, going against the established Churches.
The transgression of established norms is also a common feature of Shi’i currents, which generally use esoteric exegesis of the Qur’an as a way to dissociate themselves from Sunni Islam, or of Shi’i thinkers using such exegesis in order to renew their own tradition. Sufism often pursues a similar goal, trying to give more depth and meaning to a religion that may becoming purely legalistic.
APOSTASY AND ISLAMIC-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS
Christian Décobert studies the question of apostasy in the 13th-15th centuries. Charges and trials in apostasy (usually involving neoconverts to Islam) were often accompanied by anti-Christian acts of violence. The goal here is to understand this phenomenon in the historical, sociological and religious context of these times
THE POLITICAL DIMENSION OF SHI’I ISLAM: DIVINE AND HUMAN SOVEREIGNTY
Shi’i theories of guidance and leadership, with their political implications, are also forms of subversion, certainly in relation to Sunni Islam, but also within the Shi’i community, especially when Shi’ism became a state religion, as is was the case in Safavid Iran (16th-17th centuries), and when critics came from thinkers who have ambiguous relationships with the political and religious authorities. Having studied the various metaphysical constitutions of the religious doctrines of divine and human sovereignty in the major period of modern Imami philosophy (17th century), Christian Jambet further investigates the concept of direction or guidance. More specifically, he seeks to identify and describe the reasons why the philosopher demands a guide, becomes a guide himself, or demonstrates the need for the guide.
THE HUMAN SOUL AND "SAVOIR-VIVRE" IN MUSLIM MYSTICISM
Islamic mysticism, while claiming to be genuinely of Sunni obedience, has from its origins been marked by an ambiguous attitude towards the norms and doctrines of the established religion. Such is the case with questions of eschatology in ancient Sunni mystical literature, a theme explored by Pierre Lory. Here, the goal is to precisely studying how the use of notions designating the human soul (nafs, rûh, etc.) does evaluate; how these are related to concrete ascetical practices. Additionally, the research deals with the survival of soul after death as developed within the hadith literature, as well as the role of the intermediate dimension known as barzakh, of oneiric and visionary connections with the dead. Finally, the state of the resurrected, the nature of the bodies of resurrection, and the temporality of the afterlife are studied through ancient treatises on Sufism. The aims is to show how the mystics of this period, while claiming – even sincerely – to be very highly committed to Sunni orthodoxy, developed an original conception of temporality, where the "now", the "coming" and the "already there" intertwine in a deliberately ambiguous discourse.
– The adab due to God (inner attitude, obligatory and supererogatory spiritual practices, "pillars" of faith);
– the adab governing social relations (family, brotherhood, relationships with the master, close and distant entourage, society, power and money);
– the adab, which one should observe towards oneself ("examination of conscience", stations and states, lifestyles and pathways, attitudes in the face of adversity, illness or death).
THE QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS MODERNISM IN ISLAM
A particular form of innovation in religious matters is Muslim modernism, one of the leading figures of which is Rashid Rida, to whom Rainer Brunner has already devoted several studies. Rainer Brunner is interested in Islamic intellectual history, especially modernism and modern appropriations of classical concepts. He is also exploring Shi’i Islam, Sunni-Shi’i relations, the development of law (including public law), confessional relations within Islam, and the origin and development of the Salafiyya, the role of politics in theological reasoning, and Islam in Europe and the various problems related to Muslim presence in a secular environment.
In order to put these developments in context, he is planning, together with Stefan Reichmuth (University of Bochum), a study on the history of the Islamic world between the 16th and 19th centuries, offering an overview of the historical and intellectual development of Muslim countries.