Mirror for the Muslim Prince

Mirror for the Muslim Prince PDF Author: Mehrzad Boroujerdi
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 081565085X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 490

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Book Description
In this volume, a group of distinguished scholars reinterpret concepts and canons of Islamic thought in Arab, Persian, South Asian, and Turkish traditions. They demonstrate that there is no unitary "Islamic" position on important issues of statecraft and governance. They recognize that Islam is a discursive site marked by silences, agreements, and animated controversies. Rigorous debates and profound disagreements among Muslim theologians, philosophers, and literati have taken place over such questions as: What is an Islamic state? Was the state ever viewed as an independent political institution in the Islamic tradition of political thought? Is it possible that a religion that places an inordinate emphasis upon the importance of good deeds does not indeed have a vigorous notion of "public interest" or a systematic theory of government? Does Islam provide an edifice, a common idiom, and an ideological mooring for premodern and modern Muslim rulers alike? The nuanced reading of the Islamic traditions provided in this book will help future generations of Muslims contemplate a more humane style of statecraft.

Mirror for the Muslim Prince

Mirror for the Muslim Prince PDF Author: Mehrzad Boroujerdi
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 081565085X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 490

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this volume, a group of distinguished scholars reinterpret concepts and canons of Islamic thought in Arab, Persian, South Asian, and Turkish traditions. They demonstrate that there is no unitary "Islamic" position on important issues of statecraft and governance. They recognize that Islam is a discursive site marked by silences, agreements, and animated controversies. Rigorous debates and profound disagreements among Muslim theologians, philosophers, and literati have taken place over such questions as: What is an Islamic state? Was the state ever viewed as an independent political institution in the Islamic tradition of political thought? Is it possible that a religion that places an inordinate emphasis upon the importance of good deeds does not indeed have a vigorous notion of "public interest" or a systematic theory of government? Does Islam provide an edifice, a common idiom, and an ideological mooring for premodern and modern Muslim rulers alike? The nuanced reading of the Islamic traditions provided in this book will help future generations of Muslims contemplate a more humane style of statecraft.

Medieval Muslim Mirrors for Princes

Medieval Muslim Mirrors for Princes PDF Author: Louise Marlow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108425658
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
This anthology introduces major examples of the medieval Arabic, Persian and Turkish mirror for princes literatures in their historical and intellectual contexts. It provides access to an important body of literature, contains several new translations, and addresses parallels in neighbouring and contemporaneous traditions of political thinking.

arab muslim civilization in the mirror of the universal: philosophical perspectives

arab muslim civilization in the mirror of the universal: philosophical perspectives PDF Author: UNESCO
Publisher: UNESCO
ISBN: 9231041800
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description


Reflecting Mirrors, East and West: Transcultural Comparisons of Advice Literature for Rulers (8th - 13th century)

Reflecting Mirrors, East and West: Transcultural Comparisons of Advice Literature for Rulers (8th - 13th century) PDF Author: Enrico Boccaccini
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004498923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
In Reflecting Mirrors, East and West Enrico Boccaccini sheds new light on Mirrors for Princes, the pre-modern genre of advice literature for rulers. A popular genre in the societies that emerged from the Late Antique oecumene, Mirrors for Princes are considered here, for the first time, as a transcultural phenomenon that challenges the dichotomy of the Orient and the Occident. Traditionally, the historiographic tradition has viewed ‘European’ and ‘Middle Eastern’ Mirrors as distinct and incommensurable. Analyzing the contents and discourses in four Mirrors, ostensibly separated by space, time and language, Enrico Boccaccini convincingly draws out the surprising continuities between these texts, while also showing how they are embedded in their own historical, literary and political context.

Iranian Intellectuals and the West

Iranian Intellectuals and the West PDF Author: Mehrzad Boroujerdi
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815604334
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Mehrzad Boroujerdi challenges the way many Americans perceive present-day Iran as well as how Iranians view the West. He examines the works of thinkers seminal in defining modern Iran (virtually unknown in the U.S.) and concludes that Islam was not the primary source of their inspiration. Their efforts forge an "authentic" national identity lay at the heart of Iranian thought. These intellectuals (both religious and secular) appropriated Islam as the vehicle through which they could most effectively challenge or accommodate modernity and Westernization. Through such a fitting appropriation, Boroujerdi asserts, could modern Iranian thinkers lay the foundation for a nativist vision of an unsullied culture, seemingly free of Western influence. Drawing on the works of Michel Foucault and Edward Said, this book explore how Iranians use their own misunderstandings about the West to form their own identity and, in return, how Westerns describe Iran in negative terms to help them reaffirm the superiority of their own culture. Boroujerdi also argues that Iranian intellectuals have been deeply indebted to Western thought, which has served as the cultural reference through which they continue to struggle with issues of identity and selfhood.

The Art of Jihad

The Art of Jihad PDF Author: Malik Mufti
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438476388
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Now all but forgotten, there exists within medieval Islamic political thought a coherent "realist" tradition analogous to its Western counterpart. In The Art of Jihad, Malik Mufti begins by analyzing contemporary debates on jihad designed to highlight the lacuna occupied by realism in other cultures. He explicates the features of medieval Islamic realism; those it shares with realism everywhere—a focus on power, for example, or the ubiquity of human conflict—but also those features that are distinctive: its insistence on the political centrality of religion, its rejection of scientific certainty, its valorization of hierarchy, and its adherence to empire as the optimal ethico-political framework. These features are fleshed out through the writings of medieval political thinkers such as Ibn al-Muqaffa`, al-Jahiz, and the anonymous author of a seminal military manual, as well as political philosophers such as Ibn Rushd and Ibn Khaldun. Finally, Mufti explores the prospects for a revival of Islamic realism in the context of the political and intellectual upheavals currently besetting the Middle East.

Gendered Morality

Gendered Morality PDF Author: Zahra M. S. Ayubi
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231549342
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Islamic scriptural sources offer potentially radical notions of equality. Yet medieval Islamic philosophers chose to establish a hierarchical, male-centered virtue ethics. In Gendered Morality, Zahra Ayubi rethinks the tradition of Islamic philosophical ethics from a feminist critical perspective. She calls for a philosophical turn in the study of gender in Islam based on resources for gender equality that are unlocked by feminist engagement with the Islamic ethical tradition. Developing a lens for a feminist philosophy of Islam, Ayubi analyzes constructions of masculinity, femininity, and gender relations in classic works of philosophical ethics. In close readings of foundational texts by Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, Nasir-ad Din Tusi, and Jalal ad-Din Davani, she interrogates how these thinkers conceive of the ethical human being as an elite male within a hierarchical cosmology built on the exclusion of women and nonelites. Yet in the course of prescribing ethical behavior, the ethicists speak of complex gendered and human relations that contradict their hierarchies. Their metaphysical premises about the nature of the divine, humanity, and moral responsibility indicate a potential egalitarian core. Gendered Morality offers a vital and disruptive new perspective on patriarchal Islamic ethics and metaphysics, showing the ways in which the philosophical tradition can support the aims of gender justice and human flourishing.

Private Sins, Public Crimes

Private Sins, Public Crimes PDF Author: Martin Mittelmeier
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300275684
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
A groundbreaking scholarly study of crime and punishment in Qajar Iran Drawing on a rich array of primary sources in multiple languages, Farzin Vejdani argues that the ambiguity in defining the boundaries between private and public in Qajar Iran often corresponded with the jurisdictional friction between government authorities and religious scholars regarding who had the authority to police and punish public crimes. This ambiguity had implications for the spaces in which illicit acts were carried out: “private” parties in domestic residences where music, alcohol, and prostitution were present were often tolerated by local police officials but raised the ire of religious authorities and their followers, who raided these residences, ironically in violation of strong Islamic norms of privacy. Crimes that were manifest but remained unpunished triggered a crisis of legitimacy that often coincided with upstart Islamic religious scholars challenging the state’s authority. Even when the government had every intention of punishing a crime, convicted criminals sought shelter in sanctuaries—including shrines, mosques, royal stables, and telegraph offices—which were even more inviolable than private residences. This inviolability, grounded in both Islamic prohibitions of violence on sacred grounds and Iranian imperial traditions of redress, allowed criminals to negotiate a lesser sentence, safe passage for voluntary exile, or forgiveness.

Reformation, Resistance, and Reason of State (1517-1625)

Reformation, Resistance, and Reason of State (1517-1625) PDF Author: Sarah Mortimer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192659669
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
The period 1517-1625 was crucial for the development of political thought. During this time of expanding empires, religious upheaval, and social change, new ideas about the organisation and purpose of human communities began to be debated. In particular, there was a concern to understand the political or civil community as bounded, limited in geographical terms and with its own particular structures, characteristics and history. There was also a growing focus, in the wake of the Reformation, on civil or political authority as distinct from the church or religious authority. The concept of sovereignty began to be used, alongside a new language of reason of state--in response, political theories based upon religion gained traction, especially arguments for the divine right of kings. In this volume Sarah Mortimer highlights how, in the midst of these developments, the language of natural law became increasingly important as a means of legitimising political power, opening up scope for religious toleration. Drawing on a wide range of sources from Europe and beyond, Sarah Mortimer offers a new reading of early modern political thought. She makes connections between Christian Europe and the Muslim societies that lay to its south and east, showing the extent to which concerns about the legitimacy of political power were shared. Mortimer demonstrates that the history of political thought can both benefit from, and remain distinctive within, the wider field of intellectual history. The books in The Oxford History of Political Thought series provide an authoritative overview of the political thought of a particular era. They synthesize and expand major developments in scholarship, covering canonical thinkers while placing them in a context of broader traditions, movements, and debates. The history of political thought has been transformed over the last thirty to forty years. Historians still return to the constant landmarks of writers such as Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Marx; but they have roamed more widely and often thereby cast new light on these authors. They increasingly recognize the importance of archival research, a breadth of sources, contextualization, and historiographical debate. Much of the resulting scholarship has appeared in specialist journals and monographs. The Oxford History of Political Thought makes its profound insights available to a wider audience. Series Editor: Mark Bevir, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

Secrecy and Tradecraft in Educational Administration

Secrecy and Tradecraft in Educational Administration PDF Author: Eugenie A. Samier
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136698361
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
During the last couple of decades, there has been an expansion in a number of related and overlapping fields producing evidence of covert activities: toxic cultures, destructive leadership styles, micropolitics, ethical problems in organisations and administration, abusive power and authority, and many other topics of dysfunctional management and leadership studies that frequently make reference to secretive and deceptive behaviour. In this book, Eugenie A. Samier draws on a range of disciplines including education, psychology, administration and management studies and organizational theory to provide a comprehensive examination of the ways in which organisational leaders and administrators carry out their roles in a secretive or deceptive manner. Samier presents a theory of covert administration that can be used to: provide an analysis and interpretation of secretive and deceptive activity inform decision-making both theoretically and practically offer a means of diagnosing errant management using secretive and deceptive practices provide a general set of guidelines for determining when clandestine activities may be legitimate and moral. Alongside a detailed presentation of the theory of covert administration, the book explores covert administration in practice, factors leading to it, and the results of attempts to combat its many forms. It will be key reading for researchers and postgraduates with an interest in the field, as well as administrators and policy makers.