Philosophers, Sufis, and Caliphs

Philosophers, Sufis, and Caliphs PDF Author: Ali Humayun Akhtar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316858111
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
What was the relationship between government and religion in Middle Eastern history? In a world of caliphs, sultans, and judges, who exercised political and religious authority? In this book, Ali Humayun Akhtar investigates debates about leadership that involved ruling circles and scholars of jurisprudence and theology. At the heart of this story is a medieval rivalry between three caliphates: the Umayyads of Cordoba, the Fatimids of Cairo, and the Abbasids of Baghdad. In a fascinating revival of Late Antique Hellenism, Aristotelian and Platonic notions of wisdom became a key component of how these caliphs debated their authority as political leaders. By tracing how these political debates impacted the theological and jurisprudential scholars and their own conception of communal guidance, Akhtar offers a new picture of premodern political authority and the connections between Western and Islamic civilizations. It will be of use to students and specialists of the premodern and modern Middle East.

Philosophers, Sufis, and Caliphs

Philosophers, Sufis, and Caliphs PDF Author: Ali Humayun Akhtar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316858111
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Get Book Here

Book Description
What was the relationship between government and religion in Middle Eastern history? In a world of caliphs, sultans, and judges, who exercised political and religious authority? In this book, Ali Humayun Akhtar investigates debates about leadership that involved ruling circles and scholars of jurisprudence and theology. At the heart of this story is a medieval rivalry between three caliphates: the Umayyads of Cordoba, the Fatimids of Cairo, and the Abbasids of Baghdad. In a fascinating revival of Late Antique Hellenism, Aristotelian and Platonic notions of wisdom became a key component of how these caliphs debated their authority as political leaders. By tracing how these political debates impacted the theological and jurisprudential scholars and their own conception of communal guidance, Akhtar offers a new picture of premodern political authority and the connections between Western and Islamic civilizations. It will be of use to students and specialists of the premodern and modern Middle East.

Philosophers, Sufis and Caliphs

Philosophers, Sufis and Caliphs PDF Author: Ali Humayun Akhtar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107182018
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
This book investigates the relationship between government and religion in Middle Eastern history from Morocco to Egypt and Iraq.

Philosophers, Sufis, and Caliphs

Philosophers, Sufis, and Caliphs PDF Author: Ali Humayun Akhtar
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781316860397
Category : Abbasids
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
What was the relationship between government and religion in Middle Eastern history? In a world of caliphs, sultans, and judges, who exercised political and religious authority? In this book, Ali Humayun Akhtar investigates debates about leadership that involved ruling circles and scholars of jurisprudence and theology. At the heart of this story is a medieval rivalry between three caliphates: the Umayyads of Cordoba, the Fatimids of Cairo, and the Abbasids of Baghdad. In a fascinating revival of Late Antique Hellenism, Aristotelian and Platonic notions of wisdom became a key component of how these caliphs debated their authority as political leaders. By tracing how these political debates impacted the theological scholars and their own conception of communal guidance, Akhtar offers a new picture of premodern political authority and the connections between Western and Islamic civilizations. It will be of use to students and specialists of the premodern and modern Middle East.

Caliphate Redefined

Caliphate Redefined PDF Author: Hüseyin Yılmaz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691174806
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
How the Ottomans refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authority The medieval theory of the caliphate, epitomized by the Abbasids (750–1258), was the construct of jurists who conceived it as a contractual leadership of the Muslim community in succession to the Prophet Muhammed’s political authority. In this book, Hüseyin Yılmaz traces how a new conception of the caliphate emerged under the Ottomans, who redefined the caliph as at once a ruler, a spiritual guide, and a lawmaker corresponding to the prophet’s three natures. Challenging conventional narratives that portray the Ottoman caliphate as a fading relic of medieval Islamic law, Yılmaz offers a novel interpretation of authority, sovereignty, and imperial ideology by examining how Ottoman political discourse led to the mystification of Muslim political ideals and redefined the caliphate. He illuminates how Ottoman Sufis reimagined the caliphate as a manifestation and extension of cosmic divine governance. The Ottoman Empire arose in Western Anatolia and the Balkans, where charismatic Sufi leaders were perceived to be God’s deputies on earth. Yılmaz traces how Ottoman rulers, in alliance with an increasingly powerful Sufi establishment, continuously refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authority, and how the caliphate itself reemerged as a moral paradigm that shaped early modern Muslim empires. A masterful work of scholarship, Caliphate Redefined is the first comprehensive study of premodern Ottoman political thought to offer an extensive analysis of a wealth of previously unstudied texts in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish.

Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment

Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment PDF Author: Ahmet T. Kuru
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108419097
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
Analyzes Muslim countries' contemporary problems, particularly violence, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment, comparing their historical levels of development with Western Europe.

1368

1368 PDF Author: Ali Humayun Akhtar
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781503638136
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"With the goal of understanding China's future in a changing international landscape, this book offers a new picture of China's rise since the Age of Exploration and its historical impact on the modern world. The establishment of the Great Ming dynasty in 1368 was a monumental event in world history. A century before Columbus, Beijing sent a series of diplomatic missions across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean that paved the way for China's first modern global era. In 1368, Ali Humayun Akhtar maps China's ascendance from the embassies of Admiral Zheng He to the arrival of European mariners and the shock of the Opium Wars. In Akhtar's new picture of world history, China's current rise evokes an earlier epoch, one that sheds light on where Beijing is heading today. Spectacular accounts in Persian and Ottoman Turkish describe palaces of silk and jade in Beijing's Forbidden City. Malay legends recount stories of Chinese princesses in Melaka with gifts of porcelain and gold. During Europe's Age of Exploration, Iberian mariners charted new passages to China that the Dutch and British East India Companies transformed into lucrative tea routes. Among the ships' passengers were Italian Jesuits, whose linguistic skills facilitated book projects with local mapmakers and botanists published in Amsterdam. But there was a shift during the British Industrial Revolution, one that pointed to Europe's high-tech future. Across the British Empire, the rise of steam engines and factories allowed the export of the very commodities once imported from China. By the end of the Opium Wars and the arrival of Commodore Perry in Japan, Chinese and Japanese reformers called for their own industrial revolutions, one that would accelerate in the twentieth century. What has the world learned from China since the Ming, and how did China reemerge in the 1970s as a manufacturing superpower? Akhtar's book provides much-needed context for understanding China's rise today and the future of its connections with the West and a resurgent Asia"--

Models of Desire in Graeco-Arabic Philosophy

Models of Desire in Graeco-Arabic Philosophy PDF Author: Bethany Somma
Publisher: Studies in Platonism, Neoplato
ISBN: 9789004460836
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
This study argues that late ancient Greek and medieval Islamic philosophers interpret human desire along two frameworks in reaction to Aristotle's philosophy. The investigation of the model dichotomy unfolds historically from the philosophy of Plotinus through the Graeco-Arabic translation movement in 8th-10th century Baghdad to 12th century al-Andalus with the philosophy of Ibn Bagga and Ibn Tufayl. 0Diverging on desire's inherent or non-inherent relation to the desiring subject, the two models reveal that the desire's role can orient opposed accounts of human perfection: logically-structured demonstrative knowledge versus an ineffable witnessing of the truth. Understanding desire along these models, philosophers incorporated supra-rational aspects into philosophical accounts of the human being.

When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World

When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World PDF Author: Hugh Kennedy
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Presents a history of the Abbasid dynasty, the founders of Baghdad, and discusses the politics, military conquests, court life, palace bureacracy, culture, and arts which characterized the era.

Islamic Political Thought

Islamic Political Thought PDF Author: Gerhard Bowering
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691164827
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
A concise and authoritative introduction to Islamic political ideas In sixteen concise chapters on key topics, this book provides a rich, authoritative, and up-to-date introduction to Islamic political thought from the birth of Islam to today, presenting essential background and context for understanding contemporary politics in the Islamic world and beyond. Selected from the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, and focusing on the origins, development, and contemporary importance of Islamic political ideas and related subjects, each chapter offers a sophisticated yet accessible introduction to its topic. Written by leading specialists and incorporating the latest scholarship, the alphabetically arranged chapters cover the topics of authority, the caliphate, fundamentalism, government, jihad, knowledge, minorities, modernity, Muhammad, pluralism and tolerance, the Qur'an, revival and reform, shariʿa (sacred law), traditional political thought, ‘ulama' (religious scholars), and women. Read separately or together, these chapters provide an indispensable resource for students, journalists, policymakers, and anyone else seeking an informed perspective on the complex intersection of Islam and politics. The contributors are Gerhard Bowering, Ayesha S. Chaudhry, Patricia Crone, Roxanne Euben, Yohanan Friedmann, Paul L. Heck, Roy Jackson, Wadad Kadi, John Kelsay, Gudrun Krämer, Ebrahim Moosa, Armando Salvatore, Aram A. Shahin, Emad El-Din Shahin, Devin J. Stewart, SherAli Tareen, and Muhammad Qasim Zaman. A new afterword discusses the essays in relation to contemporary political developments.

Medieval Islamic Political Thought

Medieval Islamic Political Thought PDF Author: Patricia Crone
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748696504
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
This book presents general readers and specialists alike with a broad survey of Islamic political thought in the six centuries from the rise of Islam to the Mongol invasions.