Orsolya Varsányi - Arabic Christian Notions of Human & Divine Will

CSI Monday Majlis (6th May 2024) with guest speaker Orsolya Varsányi on "Arabic Christian Notions of Human and Divine Free Will: In ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī’s Kitāb al-masāʾil wa-l-ajwiba"
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Abstract:
The examination of ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī’s concept of freedom promises a fresh perspective on how Arabic Christian theologians handled this notion. Scholarship often connects these discussions to the Syriac concept of ḥērūṯā or positions them within Christian-Muslim debates. My analysis reveals a distinct approach in ʿAmmār’s work: Islamic influences are present on a terminological level, however, how he interprets and contextualizes freedom demonstrates engagement with Syriac traditions and shows parallels to Patristic and Greek philosophical ideas. Through a close reading of extensive passages, I reconstruct the meanings he assigns to key terms. These terms are then grouped into thematic categories for clearer analysis.
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Bio:
Orsolya Varsányi holds a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, and she is currently a part-time senior researcher at the Institute for Hungarian Studies (IHS), Budapest, and part-time librarian at the Oriental Collection of the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (OC).
She is involved in research on Arabic sources regarding the history of peoples in the Migration Period, and in this framework, she is about to publish a Chrestomathy on the Hephthalites (IHS). She is also part of a research group that works on the late 18th-century Grammatica linguae Mauro-Arabicae by the Hungarian court interpreter, Ferenc Dombay. Her research interests include ninth-century Arabic Christian apology and Early Modern European perceptions of Islam, and it is in these two fields that she has published most of her scholarly output. Prior to her present positions, she taught at the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University for 17 years.
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