Sectarianism Without Sects

Sectarianism Without Sects PDF Author: Azmi Bishara
Publisher: Hurst Publishers
ISBN: 178738750X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 549

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Book Description
This volume analyses the transformation of social sectarianism into political sectarianism across the Arab world. Using a framework of social theories and socio-historical analysis, the book distinguishes between ta’ifa, or ‘sect’, and modern ta’ifiyya, ‘sectarianism’, arguing that sectarianism itself produces ‘imaginary sects’. It charts and explains the evolution of these phenomena and their development in Arab and Islamic history, as distinct from other concepts used to study religious groups within Western contexts. Bishara documents the role played by internal and external factors and rivalries among political elites in the formulation of sectarian identity, citing both historical and contemporary models. He contends that sectarianism does not derive from sect, but rather that sectarianism resurrects the sect in the collective consciousness and reproduces it as an imagined community under modern political and historical conditions. Sectarianism Without Sects is a vital resource for engaging with the sectarian crisis in the Arab world. It provides a detailed historical background to the emergence of sect in the region, as well as a complex theoretical exploration of how social identities have assumed political significance in the struggle for power over the state.

Sectarianism Without Sects

Sectarianism Without Sects PDF Author: Azmi Bishara
Publisher: Hurst Publishers
ISBN: 178738750X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 549

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume analyses the transformation of social sectarianism into political sectarianism across the Arab world. Using a framework of social theories and socio-historical analysis, the book distinguishes between ta’ifa, or ‘sect’, and modern ta’ifiyya, ‘sectarianism’, arguing that sectarianism itself produces ‘imaginary sects’. It charts and explains the evolution of these phenomena and their development in Arab and Islamic history, as distinct from other concepts used to study religious groups within Western contexts. Bishara documents the role played by internal and external factors and rivalries among political elites in the formulation of sectarian identity, citing both historical and contemporary models. He contends that sectarianism does not derive from sect, but rather that sectarianism resurrects the sect in the collective consciousness and reproduces it as an imagined community under modern political and historical conditions. Sectarianism Without Sects is a vital resource for engaging with the sectarian crisis in the Arab world. It provides a detailed historical background to the emergence of sect in the region, as well as a complex theoretical exploration of how social identities have assumed political significance in the struggle for power over the state.

Sectarianism without Sects

Sectarianism without Sects PDF Author: Azmi Bishara
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197650325
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 549

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Book Description
This volume analyses the transformation of social sectarianism into political sectarianism across the Arab world. Using a framework of social theories and socio-historical analysis, the book distinguishes between ta'ifa, or 'sect', and modern ta'ifiyya, 'sectarianism', arguing that sectarianism itself produces 'imaginary sects'. It charts and explains the evolution of these phenomena and their development in Arab and Islamic history, as distinct from other concepts used to study religious groups within Western contexts. Bishara documents the role played by internal and external factors and rivalries among political elites in the formulation of sectarian identity, citing both historical and contemporary models. He contends that sectarianism does not derive from sect, but rather that sectarianism resurrects the sect in the collective consciousness and reproduces it as an imagined community under modern political and historical conditions. Sectarianism without Sects is a vital resource for engaging with the sectarian crisis in the Arab world. It provides a detailed historical background to the emergence of sect in the region, as well as a complex theoretical exploration of how social identities have assumed political significance in the struggle for power over the state.

Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History

Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History PDF Author: Sacha Stern
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004206493
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Sects and sectarianism are popular themes in Jewish history, but the meaning of these terms is elusive, often raising more problems than solutions. This volume, drawing on the expertise of a wide range of scholars, examines several Jewish groups from Antiquity to the present day that have been traditionally identified as ‘sects’ or as ‘sectarian’, including most famously the Qumran community and the Qaraites. It questions whether ‘sect’ and ‘sectarianism’ are appropriate or effective as historical categories for the interpretation of social and religious movements in Jewish history.

Everyday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon

Everyday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon PDF Author: Joanne Randa Nucho
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400883008
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
What causes violent conflicts around the Middle East? All too often, the answer is sectarianism—popularly viewed as a timeless and intractable force that leads religious groups to conflict. In Everyday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon, Joanne Nucho shows how wrong this perspective can be. Through in-depth research with local governments, NGOs, and political parties in Beirut, she demonstrates how sectarianism is actually recalibrated on a daily basis through the provision of essential services and infrastructures, such as electricity, medical care, credit, and the planning of bridges and roads. Taking readers to a working-class, predominantly Armenian suburb in northeast Beirut called Bourj Hammoud, Nucho conducts extensive interviews and observations in medical clinics, social service centers, shops, banking coops, and municipal offices. She explores how group and individual access to services depends on making claims to membership in the dominant sectarian community, and she examines how sectarianism is not just tied to ethnoreligious identity, but also class, gender, and geography. Life in Bourj Hammoud makes visible a broader pattern in which the relationships that develop while procuring basic needs become a way for people to see themselves as part of the greater public. Illustrating how sectarianism in Lebanon is not simply about religious identity, as is commonly thought, Everyday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon offers a new look at how everyday social exchanges define and redefine communities and conflicts.

Sectarianization

Sectarianization PDF Author: Nader Hashemi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190862661
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
As the Middle East descends ever deeper into violence and chaos, 'sectarianism' has become a catch-all explanation for the region's troubles. The turmoil is attributed to 'ancient sectarian differences', putatively primordial forces that make violent conflict intractable. In media and policy discussions, sectarianism has come to possess trans-historical causal power. This book trenchantly challenges the lazy use of 'sectarianism' as a magic-bullet explanation for the region's ills, focusing on how various conflicts in the Middle East have morphed from non-sectarian (or cross-sectarian) and nonviolent movements into sectarian wars. Through multiple case studies -- including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and Kuwait -- this book maps the dynamics of sectarianisation, exploring not only how but also why it has taken hold. The contributors examine the constellation of forces -- from those within societies to external factors such as the Saudi-Iran rivalry -- that drive the sectarianisation process and explore how the region's politics can be de-sectarianised. Featuring leading scholars -- and including historians, anthropologists, political scientists and international relations theorists -- this book will redefine the terms of debate on one of the most critical issues in international affairs today.

The New Sectarianism

The New Sectarianism PDF Author: Geneive Abdo
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190233141
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The ensuing clash--between Islamism and Nationalism, Shi'a and Sunni, and other factions within these communities--

Age of Coexistence

Age of Coexistence PDF Author: Ussama Makdisi
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520385764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
"Flawless . . . [Makdisi] reminds us of the critical declarations of secularism which existed in the history of the Middle East."—Robert Fisk, The Independent Today's headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi's Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious diversity created a modern culture of coexistence amid Ottoman reformation, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism. Moving from the nineteenth century to the present, this groundbreaking book explores, without denial or equivocation, the politics of pluralism during the Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Arab world. Rather than judging the Arab world as a place of age-old sectarian animosities, Age of Coexistence describes the forging of a complex system of coexistence, what Makdisi calls the "ecumenical frame." He argues that new forms of antisectarian politics, and some of the most important examples of Muslim-Christian political collaboration, crystallized to make and define the modern Arab world. Despite massive challenges and setbacks, and despite the persistence of colonialism and authoritarianism, this framework for coexistence has endured for nearly a century. It is a reminder that religious diversity does not automatically lead to sectarianism. Instead, as Makdisi demonstrates, people of different faiths, but not necessarily of different political outlooks, have consistently tried to build modern societies that transcend religious and sectarian differences.

Islam and Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

Islam and Sectarian Violence in Pakistan PDF Author: Eamon Murphy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351709615
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
This book analyses the growth of sectarian-based terrorist violence in Pakistan, one of the Muslim majority states most affected by sectarian violence, ever since it was established in 1947. Sectarian violence among Muslims has emerged as a major global security problem in recent years. The author argues that the upsurge in sectarian violence in Pakistan, particularly since the late 1970s, has had less to do with theological differences between the various sects of Islam, but is a consequence of the specific political, social, economic, demographic and cultural changes that have taken place in Pakistan since it was established as an independent state. A major theme of the book is the increasing violence, extent and expressions of sectarian conflict which have emerged as new forms of sectarian terrorism. The volume provides an in-depth empirical case study which addresses some major theoretical questions raised by Critical Terrorism Studies researchers in respect of the links between religion and sectarian terrorism in Pakistan and more widely. This book will be of much interest to students of critical terrorism studies, Asian politics and history, religious studies and International Relations in general.

Compassionate Communalism

Compassionate Communalism PDF Author: Melani Cammett
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801478936
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
On the basis of years of research into the varying welfare distribution strategies of Christian, Shia Muslim, and Sunni Muslim political parties in Lebanon, Cammett shows how and why sectarian groups deploy welfare benefits.

Understanding 'Sectarianism'

Understanding 'Sectarianism' PDF Author: Fanar Haddad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197536042
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
"Sectarianism" is one of the most over-discussed yet under-analyzed concepts in debates about the Middle East. Despite the deluge of commentary, there is no agreement on what "sectarianism" is. Is it a social issue, one of dogmatic incompatibility, a historic one or one purely related to modern power politics? Is it something innately felt or politically imposed? Is it a product of modernity or its antithesis? Is it a function of the nation-state or its negation? This book seeks to move the study of modern sectarian dynamics beyond these analytically paralyzing dichotomies by shifting the focus away from the meaningless '-ism' towards the root: sectarian identity. How are Sunni and Shi'a identities imagined, experienced and negotiated and how do they relate to and interact with other identities? Looking at the modern history of the Arab world, Haddad seeks to understand sectarian identity not as a monochrome frame of identification but as a multi-layered concept that operates on several dimensions: religious, subnational, national and transnational. Far from a uniquely Middle Eastern, Arab, or Islamic phenomenon, a better understanding of sectarian identity reveals that the many facets of sectarian relations that are misleadingly labelled "sectarianism" are echoed in intergroup relations worldwide.