Taw?Tur in Islamic Thought

<p><i>Tawatur </i>is the concept that information yields certainty if acquired through a sufficient number of independent channels. <i>Tawatur in Islamic Thought</i> is an attempt to unravel the twisted historical threads of the conception and usage of <i>tawatur</i> across diverse Islamic disciplines, in light of both Western academia and debates within Muslim scholarship. <br><br>In the process, numerous salient questions in Islamic thought are tackled, such as epistemic certitude, scholarly consensus (<i>ijma?</i>), and the rationalism–traditionalism relationship. The study culminates in the question of the extent to which <i>tawatur </i>was used by Muslim scholars to define the boundaries of Islam and of orthodoxy. <br><br><i>Tawatur in Islamic Thought</i> shows that the majority voices in Muslim scholarship, across sectarian boundaries, reached a steady-state conception of a two-tiered orthodoxy, corresponding to two tiers of <i>tawatur</i>—an outer tier that includes all who affirm a definitive kernel of Islam and an inner tier that is more exclusive.</p>