Reform And Its Perils In Contemporary Islam

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Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam

Author : Nadia Oweidat
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 9780197744109
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (441 download)

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Book Synopsis Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam by : Nadia Oweidat

Download or read book Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam written by Nadia Oweidat and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Who speaks for Islam? What role, if any, does scholarship play in defining the contours of Islamic law and theology? Are all Muslims equal in their right to interpret the Quran? The answers to these questions bear on both intellectual and practical concerns across the globe. For centuries, only specialized scholars and jurists ulama could adjudicate matters related to Islamic theology and jurisprudence. However, with the advent of modernity and mass education, the ulama have lost much of their exclusive interpretive control to an ever-widening group of intellectuals, academics, and even activists. The ramifications of this shift in authority gained global attention in 1995, when Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010), an Egyptian scholar of Islamic thought at the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at Cairo University as well as a practicing Muslim, was declared an apostate by the Egyptian Court of Appeals. Beyond earning Abu Zayd international fame, however, this declaration had serious consequences for his life and his career. Since the punishment for apostasy in the Islamic tradition is the death penalty, Abu Zayd's life was in danger. Furthermore, his marriage to his wife, Ebtehal Younes, a professor of French literature at Cairo University, was annulled by the court, as a Muslim woman cannot be married to a non-Muslim man. Younes equated the ruling with rape. Abu Zayd's experience of the highly publicized trial and the slander that accompanied it only strengthened his conviction that intellectual freedom is a prerequisite for progress"--

Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam

Author : Nadia Oweidat
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197744095
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (977 download)

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Book Synopsis Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam by : Nadia Oweidat

Download or read book Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam written by Nadia Oweidat and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam is an intellectual history and critical analysis of the work of prominent Muslim scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010), one of the 20th century's key Muslim reformers.

The Perils of Joy

Author : Samuli Schielke
Publisher : Syracuse University Press
ISBN 13 : 0815633009
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (156 download)

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Book Synopsis The Perils of Joy by : Samuli Schielke

Download or read book The Perils of Joy written by Samuli Schielke and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2012-12-13 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mulids, festivals in honor of Muslim "friends of God," have been part of Muslim religious and cultural life for close to a thousand years. While many Egyptians see mulids as an expression of joy and love for the Prophet Muhammad and his family, many others see them as opposed to Islam, a sign of a backward mentality, a piece of folklore at best. What is it about a mulid that makes it a threat to Islam and modernity in the eyes of some, and an indication of pious devotion in the eyes of others? What makes the celebration of a saint’s festival appear in such dramatically different contours? The Perils of Joy offers a rich investigation, both historical and ethnographic, of conflicting and transforming attitudes toward festivals in contemporary Egypt. Schielke argues that mulids are characterized by a utopian momentum of the extraordinary that troubles the grand schemes of order and perfection that have become hegemonic in Egypt since the twentieth century. Not an opposition between state and civil society, nor a division between Islamists and secularists, but rather the competition between different perceptions of what makes up a complete life forms the central line of conflict in the contestation of festive culture.

Modern Sufis and the State

Author : Katherine Pratt Ewing
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231551460
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Modern Sufis and the State by : Katherine Pratt Ewing

Download or read book Modern Sufis and the State written by Katherine Pratt Ewing and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sufism is typically thought of as the mystical side of Islam. In recent years, it has been held up as a supposedly peaceful alternative to the spread of forms of Islam associated with violence, an embodiment of democratic ideals of tolerance and pluralism. Are Sufis in fact as otherworldy and apolitical as this stereotype suggests? Modern Sufis and the State brings together a range of scholars, including anthropologists, historians, and religious-studies specialists, to challenge common assumptions that are made about Sufism today. Focusing on India and Pakistan within a broader global context, this book provides locally grounded accounts of how Sufis in South Asia have engaged in politics from the colonial period to the present. Contributors foreground the effects and unintended consequences of efforts to link Sufism with the spread of democracy and consider what roles scholars and governments have played in the making of twenty-first-century Sufism. They critique the belief that Salafism and Sufism are antithetical, offering nuanced analyses of the diversity, multivalence, and local embeddedness of Sufi political engagements and self-representations in Pakistan and India. Essays question the portrayal of Sufi shrines as sites of toleration, peace, and harmony, exploring cases of tension and conflict. A wide-ranging interdisciplinary collection, Modern Sufis and the State is a timely call to think critically about the role of public discourse in shaping perceptions of Sufism.

Defending Muḥammad in Modernity

Author : Sherali Tareen
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780268106690
Total Pages : 470 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (66 download)

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Book Synopsis Defending Muḥammad in Modernity by : Sherali Tareen

Download or read book Defending Muḥammad in Modernity written by Sherali Tareen and published by . This book was released on 2019-12-31 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking study, SherAli Tareen presents the most comprehensive and theoretically engaged work to date on what is arguably the most long-running, complex, and contentious dispute in modern Islam: the Barelvī-Deobandī polemic. The Barelvī and Deobandī groups are two normative orientations/reform movements with beginnings in colonial South Asia. Almost two hundred years separate the beginnings of this polemic from the present. Its specter, however, continues to haunt the religious sensibilities of postcolonial South Asian Muslims in profound ways, both in the region and in diaspora communities around the world. Defending Muḥammad in Modernity challenges the commonplace tendency to view such moments of intra-Muslim contest through the prism of problematic yet powerful liberal secular binaries like legal/mystical, moderate/extremist, and reformist/traditionalist. Tareen argues that the Barelvī-Deobandī polemic was instead animated by what he calls "competing political theologies" that articulated--during a moment in Indian Muslim history marked by the loss and crisis of political sovereignty--contrasting visions of the normative relationship between divine sovereignty, prophetic charisma, and the practice of everyday life. Based on the close reading of previously unexplored print and manuscript sources in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu spanning the late eighteenth and the entirety of the nineteenth century, this book intervenes in and integrates the often-disparate fields of religious studies, Islamic studies, South Asian studies, critical secularism studies, and political theology.

Rethinking Islamic Studies

Author : Carl W. Ernst
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 1611172314
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (111 download)

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Book Synopsis Rethinking Islamic Studies by : Carl W. Ernst

Download or read book Rethinking Islamic Studies written by Carl W. Ernst and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethinking Islamic Studies upends scholarly roadblocks in post-Orientalist discourse within contemporary Islamic studies and carves fresh inroads toward a robust new understanding of the discipline, one that includes religious studies and other politically infused fields of inquiry. Editors Carl W. Ernst and Richard C. Martin, along with a distinguished group of scholars, map the trajectory of the study of Islam and offer innovative approaches to the theoretical and methodological frameworks that have traditionally dominated the field. In the volume's first section the contributors reexamine the underlying notions of modernity in the East and West and allow for the possibility of multiple and incongruent modernities. This opens a discussion of fundamentalism as a manifestation of the tensions of modernity in Muslim cultures. The second section addresses the volatile character of Islamic religious identity as expressed in religious and political movements at national and local levels. In the third section, contributors focus on Muslim communities in Asia and examine the formation of religious models and concepts as they appear in this region. This study concludes with an afterword by accomplished Islamic studies scholar Bruce B. Lawrence reflecting on the evolution of this post-Orientalist approach to Islam and placing the volume within existing and emerging scholarship. Rethinking Islamic Studies offers original perspectives for the discipline, each utilizing the tools of modern academic inquiry, to help illuminate contemporary incarnations of Islam for a growing audience of those invested in a sharper understanding of the Muslim world.

Islamizing Intimacies

Author : Nancy J. Smith-Hefner
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824893034
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Islamizing Intimacies by : Nancy J. Smith-Hefner

Download or read book Islamizing Intimacies written by Nancy J. Smith-Hefner and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2021-05-31 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great transformations presently sweeping the Muslim world involves not just political and economic change but the reshaping of young Muslims’ styles of romance, courtship, and marriage. Nancy J. Smith-Hefner takes up the personal lives and sexual attitudes of educated Muslim Javanese youth in the city of Yogyakarta to explore the dramatic social and ethical changes taking place in Indonesian society. Drawing on more than 250 interviews over a fifteen-year period, her vivid, well-crafted ethnography is full of insights into the real-life struggles of young Muslims and framed by a deep understanding of Indonesia’s wider debates on gender and youth culture. The changes among Muslim youth reflect an ongoing if at times unsteady attempt to balance varied ideals, ethical concerns, and aspirations. On the one hand, growing numbers of young people show a deep and pervasive desire for a more active role in their Islamic faith. On the other, even as they seek a more self-conscious and scripture-based profession of faith, many educated youth aspire to personal relationships similar to those seen among youth elsewhere—a greater measure of informality, openness, and intimacy than was typical for their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Young women in particular seek freedom for self-expression, employment, and social fulfillment outside of the home. Smith-Hefner pays particular attention to their shifting roles and perspectives because it is young women who have been most dramatically affected by the upheavals transforming this Muslim-majority country. Although deeply personal, the changing aspirations of young Muslims have immense implications for social and public life throughout Indonesia. The fruit of a longitudinal study begun shortly after the fall of the authoritarian New Order government and the return to democracy in 1998–1999, the book reflects Smith-Hefner’s nearly forty years of anthropological engagement with the island of Java and her continuing exploration into what it means to be both “modern” and Muslim. The culture of the new Muslim youth, the author shows, through all its nuances and variations, reflects the inexorable abandonment of traditions and practices deemed incompatible with authentic Islam and an ongoing and profound Islamization of intimacies.

Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment

Author : Ahmet T. Kuru
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108419097
Total Pages : 323 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment by : Ahmet T. Kuru

Download or read book Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment written by Ahmet T. Kuru and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-08 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes Muslim countries' contemporary problems, particularly violence, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment, comparing their historical levels of development with Western Europe.

Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur'an

Author : Suha Taji-Farouki
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780197200032
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur'an by : Suha Taji-Farouki

Download or read book Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur'an written by Suha Taji-Farouki and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-26 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the writings of ten Muslim intellectuals, working in the Muslim world and the West, who employ contemporary critical methods to understand the Qur'an. Their work points to a new trend in Muslim interpretation, characterised by a direct engagement with the Word of God while embracing intellectual modernity in a global context. The volume situates and evaluates their work and responses to it among Muslim and non-Muslim audiences.

The Stillborn God

Author : Mark Lilla
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 030747271X
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis The Stillborn God by : Mark Lilla

Download or read book The Stillborn God written by Mark Lilla and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-09-23 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant account of religion's role in the political thinking of the West, from the Enlightenment to the close of World War II.The wish to bring political life under God's authority is nothing new, and it's clear that today religious passions are again driving world politics, confounding expectations of a secular future. In this major book, Mark Lilla reveals the sources of this age-old quest-and its surprising role in shaping Western thought. Making us look deeper into our beliefs about religion, politics, and the fate of civilizations, Lilla reminds us of the modern West's unique trajectory and how to remain on it. Illuminating and challenging, The Stillborn God is a watershed in the history of ideas.

Reclaiming Islamic Tradition

Author : Kendall Elisabeth Kendall
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 1474403123
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (744 download)

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Book Synopsis Reclaiming Islamic Tradition by : Kendall Elisabeth Kendall

Download or read book Reclaiming Islamic Tradition written by Kendall Elisabeth Kendall and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent events in the Islamic world have brought to our attention the formidable potency of the classical Islamic tradition. Debates over reform, revival, and change in the Islamic world, whether of a political, religious, or economic nature, revolve around an engagement with Islamic history, thought, and tradition. This book examines such debates by exploring modern texts, groups, and figures that stake out some sort of claim to pre-modern traditions in disciplines as diverse as Islamic law, Qur'anic exegesis, politics, literature, and jihad. It challenges the tendency to locate modern scholars and groups in the Islamic world on an ideal spectrum running in a linear way from 'modernism' to 'Islamism.' It provides new insights into the complex religious landscape of the Islamic world, drawing attention to important scholars and intellectuals, some of whom have received little or no attention in western scholarship. It provides an examination of how the classical Islamic heritage functions in today's Islamic world in regions as diverse as the Middle East, Iran, and the Indian subcontinent. In its scope and coverage, this book transcends an increasing tendency towards bifurcation between classical and contemporary Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.

The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought

Author : Ibrahim Abu-Rabi'
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1405178485
Total Pages : 696 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought by : Ibrahim Abu-Rabi'

Download or read book The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought written by Ibrahim Abu-Rabi' and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thoughtreflects the variety of trends, voices, and opinions in thecontemporary Muslim intellectual scene. Challenges Western misconceptions about the modern Muslim worldin general and the Arab world in particular. Consists of 36 important essays written by contemporary Muslimthinkers and scholars. Covers issues such as Islamic tradition, modernity,globalization, feminism, the West, the USA, reform, andsecularism. Helps readers to situate Islamic intellectual history in thecontext of Western intellectual trends.

Contemporary Islamic Discourse in the Malay-Indonesian World

Author : Azhar Ibrahim
Publisher : Strategic Information and Research Development Centre
ISBN 13 : 9670960649
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (79 download)

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Book Synopsis Contemporary Islamic Discourse in the Malay-Indonesian World by : Azhar Ibrahim

Download or read book Contemporary Islamic Discourse in the Malay-Indonesian World written by Azhar Ibrahim and published by Strategic Information and Research Development Centre. This book was released on 2022-11-24 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While many books have probed the role of Islam in political and social change in Southeast Asia over the past three decades, few have focused on the power of the religious discourse itself in shaping this transformation. Contemporary Islamic Discourse in the Malay–Indonesian World captures the interplay between religion and social thought in comparative case studies from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Drawing on a critical sociology of knowledge and a profound understanding of historical contexts, the central focus is on Muslim intellectuals who have grappled with the impact of modernity in these societies, between those seeking to reform Islam’s role and those who take a hardline defensive stance. The discussion deals successively with the role of religious traditionalism, the upsurge of dakwah revivalism and the public sphere, attitudes towards democracy and pluralism, and finally the ideas advanced by liberal Islam and its opponents. Above all, Azhar Ibrahim offers the reader a creative way of understanding the modern Islamic discourse and its relationship to the remaking of society at large. ‘Azhar Ibrahim’s book cuts through the noise of much discourse on Islam and puts perspective to a vast amount of materials, effectively constructing their actual social and historical meaning. It should be read by all those seeking an in-depth understanding of contemporary Southeast Asia, even beyond the particular issues of Islam and Muslims’. — Shaharuddin Maaruf Academy of Malay Studies, University of Malaya ‘This book is a must read for all those interested in a critical evaluation of the force and implications of religious traditionalism, conservatism and revivalism on the development of plural and democratic Muslim societies in Southeast Asia, and the challenges they pose to critical voices struggling for the relevance of ethical and humanist traditions of Islam’. — Noor Aisha binte Abdul Rahman Department of Malay Studies, National University of Singapore

Creating Medieval Cairo

Author : Paula Sanders
Publisher : American Univ in Cairo Press
ISBN 13 : 9789774160950
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (69 download)

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Book Synopsis Creating Medieval Cairo by : Paula Sanders

Download or read book Creating Medieval Cairo written by Paula Sanders and published by American Univ in Cairo Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In many areas it breaks new ground, asks new questions, and gives a far more sophisticated, nuanced presentation of preservation and conservation issues for Egypt than I have seen elsewhere . . .. [C]overs familiar territory in a totally new manner." - Jere Bacharach, University of Washington This book argues that the historic city we know as Medieval Cairo was created in the nineteenth century by both Egyptians and Europeans against a background of four overlapping political and cultural contexts: namely, the local Egyptian, Anglo-Egyptian, Anglo-Indian, and Ottoman imperial milieux. Addressing the interrelated topics of empire, local history, religion, and transnational heritage, historian Paula Sanders shows how Cairo's architectural heritage became canonized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book also explains why and how the city assumed its characteristically Mamluk appearance and situates the activities of the European-dominated architectural preservation committee (known as the Comité) within the history of religious life in nineteenth-century Cairo. Sanders explores such varied topics as the British experience in India, the Egyptian debate over religious reform, and the influence of The Thousand and One Nights on European notions of the medieval Arab city. Offering fresh perspectives and keen historical analysis, this volume examines the unacknowledged colonial legacy that continues to inform the practice of and debates over preservation in Cairo.

Islam in Global Politics

Author : Bassam Tibi
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136623930
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (366 download)

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Book Synopsis Islam in Global Politics by : Bassam Tibi

Download or read book Islam in Global Politics written by Bassam Tibi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines global and local politics and how Islam impacts on "civilizational" relations between different groups and polities. In particular he examines how Islamism (as opposed to Islam) becomes an immediate source of tension and conflict between the secular and the religious. Tibi rejects the "clash of civilizations" theory and argues for the revival of Islamic humanism to help bridge the gap.

Islam and the Trajectory of Globalization

Author : Louay M. Safi
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000483541
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Islam and the Trajectory of Globalization by : Louay M. Safi

Download or read book Islam and the Trajectory of Globalization written by Louay M. Safi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-10-18 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book examines the growing tension between social movements that embrace egalitarian and inclusivist views of national and global politics, most notably classical liberalism, and those that advance social hierarchy and national exclusivism, such as neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and national populism. In exploring issues relating to tensions and conflicts around globalization, the book identifies historical patterns of convergence and divergence rooted in the monotheistic traditions, beginning with the ancient Israelites that dominated the Near East during the Axial age, through Islamic civilization, and finally by considering the idealism-realism tensions in modern times. One thing remained constant throughout the various historical stages that preceded our current moment of global convergence: a recurring tension between transcendental idealism and various forms of realism. Transcendental idealism, which prioritize egalitarian and universal values, pushed periodically against the forces of realism that privilege established law and power structure. Equipped with the idealism-realism framework, the book examines the consequences of European realism that justified the imperialistic venture into Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America in the name of liberation and liberalization. The ill-conceived strategy has, ironically, engendered the very dysfunctional societies that produce the waves of immigrants in constant motion from the South to the North, simultaneously as it fostered the social hierarchy that transfer external tensions into identity politics within the countries of the North. The book focuses particularly on the role played historically by Islamic rationalism in translating the monotheistic egalitarian outlook into the institutions of religious pluralism, legislative and legal autonomy, and scientific enterprise at the foundation of modern society. It concludes by shedding light on the significance of the Muslim presence in Western cultures as humanity draws slowly but consistently towards what we may come to recognize as the Global Age. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003203360, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Routledge Handbook of Middle East Politics

Author : Larbi Sadiki
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351692593
Total Pages : 795 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis Routledge Handbook of Middle East Politics by : Larbi Sadiki

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Middle East Politics written by Larbi Sadiki and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 795 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on various perspectives and analysis, the Handbook problematizes Middle East politics through an interdisciplinary prism, seeking a melioristic account of the field. Thematically organized, the chapters address political, social, and historical questions by showcasing both theoretical and empirical insights, all of which are represented in a style that ease readers into sophisticated induction in the Middle East. It positions the didactic at the centre of inquiry. Contributions by forty-four scholars, both veterans and newcomers, rethink knowledge frames, conceptual categories, and fieldwork praxis. Substantive themes include secularity and religion, gender, democracy, authoritarianism, and new "borderline" politics of the Middle East. Like any field of knowledge, the Middle East is constituted by texts, authors, and readers, but also by the cultural, spatial, and temporal contexts within which diverse intellectual inflections help construct (write–speak) academic meaning, knowing, and practice. By denaturalizing notions of singularity of authorship or scholarship, the Handbook plants a dialogic interplay animated by multi-vocality, multi-modality, and multi-disciplinarity. Targeting graduate students and young scholars of political and social sciences, the Handbook is significant for understanding how the Middle East is written and re-written, read and re-read (epistemology, methodology), and for how it comes to exist (ontology).