Author: Azim Zahir
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000505030
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
This book examines Islam’s relationship to democratization in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives. It explores how and why an electoral democracy based in a constitution that has many liberal features but also Islam-based limitations, especially lack of religious freedom, emerged in the country by 2009. In doing so, the book interrogates a major approach to Muslim politics that assumes reformist interpretations of Islam are a positive, and even a necessary, force for liberalization and democratization in Muslim-majority contexts. This book shows reformist Islam did play certain positive roles in democratization in the Maldives. However, the book suggests reformist Islam may not be an invariably uncontroversial force in the space of politics. It argues that modern nation building in the Maldives shaped by political actors with reformist Islamic orientations, since around the 1930s, has also completely transformed Islam as a modern institutional and discursive political religion. These transformations of Islam as a modern political religion have existed as path-dependent constraints on the depth of democratization, ensuring religion-based limitations and intensifying controversy over religion vis-à-vis the state and individual rights. An original empirical contribution towards a better understanding of Islam and politics in the Maldives, this book will be of interest to academics and students working on democracy, and Islam in particular, and in the fields of political science and area studies, especially South Asian politics.
Islam and Democracy in the Maldives
Author: Azim Zahir
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000505030
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
This book examines Islam’s relationship to democratization in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives. It explores how and why an electoral democracy based in a constitution that has many liberal features but also Islam-based limitations, especially lack of religious freedom, emerged in the country by 2009. In doing so, the book interrogates a major approach to Muslim politics that assumes reformist interpretations of Islam are a positive, and even a necessary, force for liberalization and democratization in Muslim-majority contexts. This book shows reformist Islam did play certain positive roles in democratization in the Maldives. However, the book suggests reformist Islam may not be an invariably uncontroversial force in the space of politics. It argues that modern nation building in the Maldives shaped by political actors with reformist Islamic orientations, since around the 1930s, has also completely transformed Islam as a modern institutional and discursive political religion. These transformations of Islam as a modern political religion have existed as path-dependent constraints on the depth of democratization, ensuring religion-based limitations and intensifying controversy over religion vis-à-vis the state and individual rights. An original empirical contribution towards a better understanding of Islam and politics in the Maldives, this book will be of interest to academics and students working on democracy, and Islam in particular, and in the fields of political science and area studies, especially South Asian politics.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000505030
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
This book examines Islam’s relationship to democratization in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives. It explores how and why an electoral democracy based in a constitution that has many liberal features but also Islam-based limitations, especially lack of religious freedom, emerged in the country by 2009. In doing so, the book interrogates a major approach to Muslim politics that assumes reformist interpretations of Islam are a positive, and even a necessary, force for liberalization and democratization in Muslim-majority contexts. This book shows reformist Islam did play certain positive roles in democratization in the Maldives. However, the book suggests reformist Islam may not be an invariably uncontroversial force in the space of politics. It argues that modern nation building in the Maldives shaped by political actors with reformist Islamic orientations, since around the 1930s, has also completely transformed Islam as a modern institutional and discursive political religion. These transformations of Islam as a modern political religion have existed as path-dependent constraints on the depth of democratization, ensuring religion-based limitations and intensifying controversy over religion vis-à-vis the state and individual rights. An original empirical contribution towards a better understanding of Islam and politics in the Maldives, this book will be of interest to academics and students working on democracy, and Islam in particular, and in the fields of political science and area studies, especially South Asian politics.
The Maldives
Author: J. J. Robinson
Publisher: Hurst & Company
ISBN: 9781849045896
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The Maldives is a small and beautiful archipelago south of India, more renowned for luxury resorts than experiments in democracy. It is a country of contradictions, where tourists sip cocktails on the beach while on nearby islands local women are flogged for extramarital sex and blackmarket vodka costs $140 a bottle. Until 2008 the Maldives also hosted Asia's longest-serving dictator, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. A former political prisoner, Mohamed Nasheed, an environmental activist, journalist, and politician, brought Gayoom's thirty-year autocracy to a sudden end, in the Maldives' first democratic elections. Young, progressive and charismatic, President Nasheed thrust the Maldives into the spotlight as a symbol of the fight against climate change and the struggle for democracy and human rights in one of the world's strictest Islamic societies. But dictatorships are hard to defeat, enduring in a country's institutions and the minds of people conditioned to autocracy over three decades. Democracy brought turmoil, protests, violence and intense political polarization. The ousted dictatorship overthrew Nasheed's government in February 2012, supported by Islamic radicals and mutinying security forces. Amid Byzantine intrigue, the fight for democracy was just beginning.
Publisher: Hurst & Company
ISBN: 9781849045896
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The Maldives is a small and beautiful archipelago south of India, more renowned for luxury resorts than experiments in democracy. It is a country of contradictions, where tourists sip cocktails on the beach while on nearby islands local women are flogged for extramarital sex and blackmarket vodka costs $140 a bottle. Until 2008 the Maldives also hosted Asia's longest-serving dictator, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. A former political prisoner, Mohamed Nasheed, an environmental activist, journalist, and politician, brought Gayoom's thirty-year autocracy to a sudden end, in the Maldives' first democratic elections. Young, progressive and charismatic, President Nasheed thrust the Maldives into the spotlight as a symbol of the fight against climate change and the struggle for democracy and human rights in one of the world's strictest Islamic societies. But dictatorships are hard to defeat, enduring in a country's institutions and the minds of people conditioned to autocracy over three decades. Democracy brought turmoil, protests, violence and intense political polarization. The ousted dictatorship overthrew Nasheed's government in February 2012, supported by Islamic radicals and mutinying security forces. Amid Byzantine intrigue, the fight for democracy was just beginning.
Democracy, Islam, & Secularism in Turkey
Author: Ahmet Kuru
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231159323
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
While Turkey has grown as a world power, promoting the image of a progressive and stable nation, several policy choices have strained its relationship with the East and the West. Providing social, historical, and religious context for Turkey's singular behavior, the essays in Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey examine issues relevant to Turkish debates and global concerns, from the state's position on religion and diversity to its involvement in the European Union. Written by experts in a range of disciplines, the chapters explore the Ottoman toleration of diversity during its classical period; the erosion of ethno-religious diversity in modern, pre-democratic times; Kemalism and its role in modernization and nation building; the changing political strategies of the military; and the effect of possible EU membership on domestic reforms. They also conduct a cross-Continental comparison of "multiple secularisms" as well as political parties, considering the Justice and Development Party in Turkey in relation to Christian Democratic parties in Europe. The contributors tackle central research questions, such as what is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire's ethno-religious plurality and how can Turkey's assertive secularism be softened to allow greater space for religious actors. They address the military's "guardian" role in Turkey's secularism, the implications of recent constitutional amendments for democratization, and the consequences and benefits of Islamic activism's presence within a democratic system. No other collection confronts Turkey's contemporary evolution so vividly and thoroughly or offers such expert analysis of its crucial social and political systems.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231159323
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
While Turkey has grown as a world power, promoting the image of a progressive and stable nation, several policy choices have strained its relationship with the East and the West. Providing social, historical, and religious context for Turkey's singular behavior, the essays in Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey examine issues relevant to Turkish debates and global concerns, from the state's position on religion and diversity to its involvement in the European Union. Written by experts in a range of disciplines, the chapters explore the Ottoman toleration of diversity during its classical period; the erosion of ethno-religious diversity in modern, pre-democratic times; Kemalism and its role in modernization and nation building; the changing political strategies of the military; and the effect of possible EU membership on domestic reforms. They also conduct a cross-Continental comparison of "multiple secularisms" as well as political parties, considering the Justice and Development Party in Turkey in relation to Christian Democratic parties in Europe. The contributors tackle central research questions, such as what is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire's ethno-religious plurality and how can Turkey's assertive secularism be softened to allow greater space for religious actors. They address the military's "guardian" role in Turkey's secularism, the implications of recent constitutional amendments for democratization, and the consequences and benefits of Islamic activism's presence within a democratic system. No other collection confronts Turkey's contemporary evolution so vividly and thoroughly or offers such expert analysis of its crucial social and political systems.
Religion and Politics in South Asia
Author: Ali Riaz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134999852
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Religion and religio-political forces have become potent influences in the domestic politics of many countries irrespective of geographical location, stages of economic growth, and systems of governance. The growing importance of religion as a marker of identity and a tool of political mobilization is reshaping the political landscape in an unprecedented manner, and South Asia, which contains the world’s largest populations of Muslims and Hindus with significant number of Buddhists, is no exception to this fact. This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the interaction of religion and politics in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Although the specific circumstances of each country are different, in recent decades, religion, religio-political parties, and religious rhetoric have become dominant features of the political scenes in all six countries. The contributors offer a thorough examination of these developments by presenting each country's political system and the socio-economic environment within which the interactions are taking place. The analysis of the various factors influencing the process of the interactions between religion and politics, and their impact on the lives of the people of the region and global politics constitute the core of the chapters.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134999852
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Religion and religio-political forces have become potent influences in the domestic politics of many countries irrespective of geographical location, stages of economic growth, and systems of governance. The growing importance of religion as a marker of identity and a tool of political mobilization is reshaping the political landscape in an unprecedented manner, and South Asia, which contains the world’s largest populations of Muslims and Hindus with significant number of Buddhists, is no exception to this fact. This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the interaction of religion and politics in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Although the specific circumstances of each country are different, in recent decades, religion, religio-political parties, and religious rhetoric have become dominant features of the political scenes in all six countries. The contributors offer a thorough examination of these developments by presenting each country's political system and the socio-economic environment within which the interactions are taking place. The analysis of the various factors influencing the process of the interactions between religion and politics, and their impact on the lives of the people of the region and global politics constitute the core of the chapters.
Democratic Transition in the Muslim World
Author: Alfred Stepan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231184304
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Contributors to this book are particularly interested in expanding our understanding of what helps, or hurts, successful democratic transition attempts in countries with large Muslim populations. Crafting pro-democratic coalitions among secularists and Islamists presents a special obstacle that must be addressed by theorists and practitioners. The argument throughout the book is that such coalitions will not happen if potentially democratic secularists are part of what Al Stepan terms the authoritarian regime's "constituency of coercion" because they (the secularists) are afraid that free elections will be won by Islamists who threaten them even more than the existing secular authoritarian regime. Tunisia allows us to do analysis on this topic by comparing two "least similar" recent case outcomes: democratic success in Tunisia and democratic failure in Egypt. Tunisia also allows us to do an analysis of four "most similar" case outcomes by comparing the successful democratic transitions in Tunisia, Indonesia, Senegal, and the country with the second or third largest Muslim population in the world, India. Did these countries face some common challenges concerning democratization? Did all four of these successful cases in fact use some common policies that while democratic, had not normally been used in transitions in countries without significant numbers of Muslims? If so, did these policies help the transitions in Tunisia, Indonesia, Senegal and India? If they did, we should incorporate them in some way into our comparative theories about successful democratic transitions.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231184304
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Contributors to this book are particularly interested in expanding our understanding of what helps, or hurts, successful democratic transition attempts in countries with large Muslim populations. Crafting pro-democratic coalitions among secularists and Islamists presents a special obstacle that must be addressed by theorists and practitioners. The argument throughout the book is that such coalitions will not happen if potentially democratic secularists are part of what Al Stepan terms the authoritarian regime's "constituency of coercion" because they (the secularists) are afraid that free elections will be won by Islamists who threaten them even more than the existing secular authoritarian regime. Tunisia allows us to do analysis on this topic by comparing two "least similar" recent case outcomes: democratic success in Tunisia and democratic failure in Egypt. Tunisia also allows us to do an analysis of four "most similar" case outcomes by comparing the successful democratic transitions in Tunisia, Indonesia, Senegal, and the country with the second or third largest Muslim population in the world, India. Did these countries face some common challenges concerning democratization? Did all four of these successful cases in fact use some common policies that while democratic, had not normally been used in transitions in countries without significant numbers of Muslims? If so, did these policies help the transitions in Tunisia, Indonesia, Senegal and India? If they did, we should incorporate them in some way into our comparative theories about successful democratic transitions.
The Failure of Political Islam
Author: Olivier Roy
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674291416
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
This powerful argument reassess radical Islam and the set of ideas and assumptions at its core. Olivier Roy offers a challenging and highly original view that no-one trying to understand Islamic fundamentalism can afford to overlook.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674291416
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
This powerful argument reassess radical Islam and the set of ideas and assumptions at its core. Olivier Roy offers a challenging and highly original view that no-one trying to understand Islamic fundamentalism can afford to overlook.
The Caliphate of Man
Author: Andrew F. March
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674987837
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
A political theorist teases out the century-old ideological transformation at the heart of contemporary discourse in Muslim nations undergoing political change. The Arab Spring precipitated a crisis in political Islam. In Egypt Islamists have been crushed. In Turkey they have descended into authoritarianism. In Tunisia they govern but without the label of “political Islam.” Andrew March explores how, before this crisis, Islamists developed a unique theory of popular sovereignty, one that promised to determine the future of democracy in the Middle East. This began with the claim of divine sovereignty, the demand to restore the sharīʿa in modern societies. But prominent theorists of political Islam also advanced another principle, the Quranic notion that God’s authority on earth rests not with sultans or with scholars’ interpretation of written law but with the entirety of the Muslim people, the umma. Drawing on this argument, utopian theorists such as Abū’l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quṭb released into the intellectual bloodstream the doctrine of the caliphate of man: while God is sovereign, He has appointed the multitude of believers as His vicegerent. The Caliphate of Man argues that the doctrine of the universal human caliphate underpins a specific democratic theory, a kind of Islamic republic of virtue in which the people have authority over the government and religious leaders. But is this an ideal regime destined to survive only as theory?
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674987837
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
A political theorist teases out the century-old ideological transformation at the heart of contemporary discourse in Muslim nations undergoing political change. The Arab Spring precipitated a crisis in political Islam. In Egypt Islamists have been crushed. In Turkey they have descended into authoritarianism. In Tunisia they govern but without the label of “political Islam.” Andrew March explores how, before this crisis, Islamists developed a unique theory of popular sovereignty, one that promised to determine the future of democracy in the Middle East. This began with the claim of divine sovereignty, the demand to restore the sharīʿa in modern societies. But prominent theorists of political Islam also advanced another principle, the Quranic notion that God’s authority on earth rests not with sultans or with scholars’ interpretation of written law but with the entirety of the Muslim people, the umma. Drawing on this argument, utopian theorists such as Abū’l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quṭb released into the intellectual bloodstream the doctrine of the caliphate of man: while God is sovereign, He has appointed the multitude of believers as His vicegerent. The Caliphate of Man argues that the doctrine of the universal human caliphate underpins a specific democratic theory, a kind of Islamic republic of virtue in which the people have authority over the government and religious leaders. But is this an ideal regime destined to survive only as theory?
The Maldivian Legal System
Author: Husnu Al Suood
Publisher: Maldives Law Institute
ISBN: 9991588604
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
This book is aimed at providing law students, legal practitioners and other researchers with an introduction to the Maldivian legal system. The book is divided into ten chapters incorporating all aspects of the Maldivian legal system. Chapter 1 makes a thorough investigation of the ancient legal system of the Maldive Islands. This chapter also briefly looks at the ancient political system of the country with a view to understand the background in which the legal system operated and developed over the course of history. As this has not been the subject of any previous study, this chapter will not only benefit law students and legal researchers, but also be of use to those who are interested in studying the ancient kingdom of the Maldive Islands. Chapter 2 follows the development of the Maldivian legal system during the 20th century. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the factors that triggered the legal system’s transformation from an ancient simplicity to a modern complexity. Chapter 3 explains the sources of Maldivian law from which laws are derived an applied by the courts. Chapter 4 examines the court system. In this chapter, various courts and their powers are examined in detail. Chapter 5, 6 and 7 focuses on the actual people who drive the legal system - the judges, prosecutors and the legal profession. As such, these chapters analyze the constitutional role of the judges, judicial service, legal and prosecutorial service of the state and the legal profession. Chapter 8 traces the development and present status of legal education in the Maldives. Chapter 9 and 10 provides an outline of the criminal and civil procedure followed by the courts to administer justice.
Publisher: Maldives Law Institute
ISBN: 9991588604
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
This book is aimed at providing law students, legal practitioners and other researchers with an introduction to the Maldivian legal system. The book is divided into ten chapters incorporating all aspects of the Maldivian legal system. Chapter 1 makes a thorough investigation of the ancient legal system of the Maldive Islands. This chapter also briefly looks at the ancient political system of the country with a view to understand the background in which the legal system operated and developed over the course of history. As this has not been the subject of any previous study, this chapter will not only benefit law students and legal researchers, but also be of use to those who are interested in studying the ancient kingdom of the Maldive Islands. Chapter 2 follows the development of the Maldivian legal system during the 20th century. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the factors that triggered the legal system’s transformation from an ancient simplicity to a modern complexity. Chapter 3 explains the sources of Maldivian law from which laws are derived an applied by the courts. Chapter 4 examines the court system. In this chapter, various courts and their powers are examined in detail. Chapter 5, 6 and 7 focuses on the actual people who drive the legal system - the judges, prosecutors and the legal profession. As such, these chapters analyze the constitutional role of the judges, judicial service, legal and prosecutorial service of the state and the legal profession. Chapter 8 traces the development and present status of legal education in the Maldives. Chapter 9 and 10 provides an outline of the criminal and civil procedure followed by the courts to administer justice.
The Impossible State
Author: Wael B. Hallaq
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231530862
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
Wael B. Hallaq boldly argues that the "Islamic state," judged by any standard definition of what the modern state represents, is both impossible and inherently self-contradictory. Comparing the legal, political, moral, and constitutional histories of premodern Islam and Euro-America, he finds the adoption and practice of the modern state to be highly problematic for modern Muslims. He also critiques more expansively modernity's moral predicament, which renders impossible any project resting solely on ethical foundations. The modern state not only suffers from serious legal, political, and constitutional issues, Hallaq argues, but also, by its very nature, fashions a subject inconsistent with what it means to be, or to live as, a Muslim. By Islamic standards, the state's technologies of the self are severely lacking in moral substance, and today's Islamic state, as Hallaq shows, has done little to advance an acceptable form of genuine Shari'a governance. The Islamists' constitutional battles in Egypt and Pakistan, the Islamic legal and political failures of the Iranian Revolution, and similar disappointments underscore this fact. Nevertheless, the state remains the favored template of the Islamists and the ulama (Muslim clergymen). Providing Muslims with a path toward realizing the good life, Hallaq turns to the rich moral resources of Islamic history. Along the way, he proves political and other "crises of Islam" are not unique to the Islamic world nor to the Muslim religion. These crises are integral to the modern condition of both East and West, and by acknowledging these parallels, Muslims can engage more productively with their Western counterparts.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231530862
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
Wael B. Hallaq boldly argues that the "Islamic state," judged by any standard definition of what the modern state represents, is both impossible and inherently self-contradictory. Comparing the legal, political, moral, and constitutional histories of premodern Islam and Euro-America, he finds the adoption and practice of the modern state to be highly problematic for modern Muslims. He also critiques more expansively modernity's moral predicament, which renders impossible any project resting solely on ethical foundations. The modern state not only suffers from serious legal, political, and constitutional issues, Hallaq argues, but also, by its very nature, fashions a subject inconsistent with what it means to be, or to live as, a Muslim. By Islamic standards, the state's technologies of the self are severely lacking in moral substance, and today's Islamic state, as Hallaq shows, has done little to advance an acceptable form of genuine Shari'a governance. The Islamists' constitutional battles in Egypt and Pakistan, the Islamic legal and political failures of the Iranian Revolution, and similar disappointments underscore this fact. Nevertheless, the state remains the favored template of the Islamists and the ulama (Muslim clergymen). Providing Muslims with a path toward realizing the good life, Hallaq turns to the rich moral resources of Islamic history. Along the way, he proves political and other "crises of Islam" are not unique to the Islamic world nor to the Muslim religion. These crises are integral to the modern condition of both East and West, and by acknowledging these parallels, Muslims can engage more productively with their Western counterparts.
Destination Paradise
Author: Francesca Borri
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1609808444
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
A breathtaking work of political reportage steeped in a deep understanding of the roots of Islamist terrorism. Western tourists are not always aware that the Maldives, a tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean, is a Muslim country, or that the Republic of Maldives is the non-Arab country with the world's highest number of foreign fighters per capita. Despite being considered a luxury tourist destination, the Maldives is in fact one of the most over-populated countries, devastated by poverty, social segregation, heroin, and criminality. Tourists living in one tiny bright enclave, the people in the vast darkness. All the wealth coming from tourism is concentrated in the hands of a few businessmen who collude with the despotic government. The Maldives is a fertile breeding ground for ISIS, which enlists more of its foreign fighters per capita from there than anywhere else. Francesca Borri spent time with them, and with their families and friends, all of whom are drivers, waiters, cleaners in tourist resorts. And she let them speak. As she writes, "While the rest of the world watched the Olympics, everyone here was watching the battle of Aleppo. And rooting for al-Qaeda."
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1609808444
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
A breathtaking work of political reportage steeped in a deep understanding of the roots of Islamist terrorism. Western tourists are not always aware that the Maldives, a tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean, is a Muslim country, or that the Republic of Maldives is the non-Arab country with the world's highest number of foreign fighters per capita. Despite being considered a luxury tourist destination, the Maldives is in fact one of the most over-populated countries, devastated by poverty, social segregation, heroin, and criminality. Tourists living in one tiny bright enclave, the people in the vast darkness. All the wealth coming from tourism is concentrated in the hands of a few businessmen who collude with the despotic government. The Maldives is a fertile breeding ground for ISIS, which enlists more of its foreign fighters per capita from there than anywhere else. Francesca Borri spent time with them, and with their families and friends, all of whom are drivers, waiters, cleaners in tourist resorts. And she let them speak. As she writes, "While the rest of the world watched the Olympics, everyone here was watching the battle of Aleppo. And rooting for al-Qaeda."