'This is an important book. … one that scholars of the early modern period will no doubt read avidly. … In its nuances and detailed reading of the long seventeenth century, El-Rouayheb's book contains numerous insights into the significance and nature of both earlier and later periods and should be read by intellectual historians of Islam, regardless of the period in which they specialize.' Justin Stearns, Journal of the American Oriental Society
Part I. 'The Path of the Kurdish and Persian Verifying Scholars': 1. Kurdish scholars and the reinvigoration of the rational sciences; 2. A discourse of method: the evolution of ādāb al-bahth; 3. The rise of 'deep reading'; Part II. 'Saving Servants from the Yoke of Imitation': 4. Maghrebi 'theologian-logicians' in Egypt and the Hejaz; 5. The condemnation of 'imitation' (taqlīd); 6. Al-Hasan al-Yūsī and two theological controversies in seventeenth-century Morocco; Part III. 'The Imams of Those Who Proclaim the Unity of Existence': 7. The spread of mystical monism; 8. Monist mystics and neo-Hanbalī traditionalism; 9. In defense of wahdat al-wujūd.