Author: Azzam Tamimi
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 9780814782613
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
Western civilization tends to view secularism as a positive achievement. From this perspective, benefits of secularizing trends include the separation of church and state, the rule of law, and freedom from organized religion. In the Arab Middle East, however, Islamist intellectuals increasingly cite Western-inspired secularism as the source of the region's social dislocation and political instability. While secularism in the West led to the spread of democratic values, in the Muslim world it has been associated with dictatorship, the violation of human rights, and the abrogation of civil liberties. Islam and Secularism in the Middle East examines the origins and growth of the movement to abolish the secularizing reforms of the past century by creating a political order guided by Shariah law. Contributors explain the Islamic rejection of secularism as a failed Western Christian ideal and also discuss how secularization was pioneered by those who thought Muslims could only advance politically by emulating Western practices, including the renunciation of religion.
Author: Nurullah Ardıc̦
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415671663
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
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Book Description
This book examines the process of secularisation in the Middle East in the late 19th century and early 20th century that transformed the Ottoman Empire and led to the abolition of the Caliphate.
Author: Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674261445
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 346
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Book Description
What should be the place of Shari‘a—Islamic religious law—in predominantly Muslim societies of the world? In this ambitious and topical book, a Muslim scholar and human rights activist envisions a positive and sustainable role for Shari‘a, based on a profound rethinking of the relationship between religion and the secular state in all societies. An-Na‘im argues that the coercive enforcement of Shari‘a by the state betrays the Qur’an’s insistence on voluntary acceptance of Islam. Just as the state should be secure from the misuse of religious authority, Shari‘a should be freed from the control of the state. State policies or legislation must be based on civic reasons accessible to citizens of all religions. Showing that throughout the history of Islam, Islam and the state have normally been separate, An-Na‘im maintains that ideas of human rights and citizenship are more consistent with Islamic principles than with claims of a supposedly Islamic state to enforce Shari‘a. In fact, he suggests, the very idea of an “Islamic state” is based on European ideas of state and law, and not Shari‘a or the Islamic tradition. Bold, pragmatic, and deeply rooted in Islamic history and theology, Islam and the Secular State offers a workable future for the place of Shari‘a in Muslim societies.
Author: al-Azmeh Aziz al-Azmeh
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474447481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
This book is a translation of Aziz al-Azmeh's seminal work Al-'Ilmaniya min mandhur mukhtalif that was first published in Beirut in 1992. Both celebrated and criticised for its reflections on Arab secularisation and secularism in the modern history of the Arab World, it is the only study to date to approach its subject as a set of historical changes which affected the regulation of the social, political and cultural order, and which permeated the concrete workings of society, rather than as an ideological discussion framed from the outset by the assumed opposition between Islam and secularism. The author takes a comprehensive analytical perspective to show that an almost imperceptible yet real, multi-faceted and objective secularising process has been underway in the Arab world since the 1850s. The early onset was the result of adapting to systemic novelties introduced at the time and a reaction to the perceived European advance and local retardation. The need for meaningful reform, and the actions taken in order to put in place a new organisation of state and society based on modern organisational and educational criteria, rather than older, religious traditions, stemmed from the perceived weakness of Arab polities and from an internal drive to overcome this situation. The book follows these themes into the close of the 20th century, marked with the rise of Islamism. A preface to the English translation takes a retrospective look at the theme from the vantage point of social, political and intellectual issues of relevance today.
Author: Soner Cagaptay
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134174489
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
This book examines Turkish and Balkan nationalism, arguing that the legacy of the Ottomon millet system which divided the Ottoman population into religious compartments called millets, shaped Turkey’s understanding of nationalism during the interwar period.
Author: M. Hakan Yavuz
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815630159
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
In the first book of its kind, M. Hakan Yavuz and John L. Esposito explore recent reformations of Islam and culture in Turkey and the successful Islamist modernist Fethullah Gülen movement. As one of the most significant religious movements to emerge in Turkey in the past fifty years, the Gülen movement combines a devotion to Islam with love for modern learning. especially modern science. This groundbreaking work focuses on and explains the nexus of complex historical and political developments that have contributed to the transformation of Islam in Tukey and to the movement's sphere of influence stretching into the Balkans and central Asia through the establishment of schools outside Turkey. The book cogently traces the origin of Gülen's ideology and his early efforts to propagate his views through educational activities. It details the various strategies employed by Gülen's followers to put his ideas into practice, both in Turkey and around the world. Contributors describe its intellectual and religious formation, its spread across Turkey and Central Asia, and its influence on citizens outside the movement, including leading Turkish politicians.
Author: Hussein Ali Agrama
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226010686
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 297
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Book Description
What, exactly, is secularism? What has the West's long familiarity with it inevitably obscured? In this work, Hussein Ali Agrama tackles these questions. Focusing on the fatwa councils and family law courts of Egypt just prior to the revolution, he delves deeply into the meaning of secularism itself and the ambiguities that lie at its heart.
Author: Ahmet Kuru
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231159323
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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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.
Author: Hayat Alvi
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030170500
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
This book analyzes the political economy of the MENA region with a focus on pre-revolutionary political and economic conditions, the 2011 revolution itself, and post-revolutionary political processes in Tunisia. The author places particular emphasis on the political role of women, Islam, and democracy after the revolution, and argues that post-Revolution Tunisia serves as an ideal model for the MENA region to follow. This volume will interest scholars, students, researchers, and everyone who is interested in the politics of MENA and political economy.
Author: Olivier Roy
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231141024
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152
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Book Description
"The denunciation of fundamentalism in France, embodied in the law against the veil and the deportation of imams, has shifted into a systematic attack on all Muslims and Islam. This hostility is rooted in the belief that Islam cannot be integrated into French - and, consequently, secular and liberal - society. However, as Olivier Roy makes clear in this book, Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for Muslims to live concretely in a secularized world while maintaining their identities as "true believers." They have formulated a language that recognizes two spaces: that of religion and that of secular society." "Roy's rare portrait of the realities of immigrant Muslim life offers a necessary alternative to the popular specter of an "Islamic threat." Supporting his arguments with his extensive research on Islamic history, sociology, and politics, Roy demonstrates the limits of our understanding of contemporary Islamic religious practice in the West and the role of Islam as a
