Rethinking Political Islam

Rethinking Political Islam

Author: Shadi Hamid

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0190649208

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Rethinking Political Islam offers a fine-grained and definitive overview of the changing world of political Islam in the post-Arab Uprising era.


Rethinking Islamism

Rethinking Islamism

Author: Meghnad Desai

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2006-10-27

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0857716336

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Despite increasingly frantic calls - especially after the London bombings of July 7, 2005 - for western leaders to 'understand Islam better', there is a still a critical distinction that needs to be made between 'Islam' as religion and 'Islamism' in the sense of militant mindset. As the author of this provocative new book sees it, it is not a more nuanced understanding of Islam that will help the western powers defeat the jihadi threat, but rather a proper understanding of Islamism: a political ideology which is quite distinct from religion. While Islamism may be draped in religious imagery and suffused by apocalyptic language, it nevertheless is similar in nature to secular ideologies of terror. And once, the author holds, this is properly appreciated, the ways to defeat it will become much better evident. Historically sophisticated and passionately argued, "Rethinking Islamism" makes a powerful case by a master theorist of political philosophy. It will be essential reading for students and policy-makers in the fields of politics, current affairs and religion.


Rethinking Islam in Europe

Rethinking Islam in Europe

Author: Zekirija Sejdini

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2022-01-19

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 3110752468

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Islamic theology had to wait a long time before being granted a place in the European universities. That happened above all in German-speaking areas, and this led to the development of new theological and religious pedagogical approaches. This volume presents one such approach and discusses it from various perspectives. It takes up different theological and religious pedagogical themes and reflects on them anew from the perspective of the contemporary context. The primary focus is on contemporary challenges and possible answers from the perspective of Islamic theology and religious pedagogy. It discusses general themes like the location of Islamic theology and religious pedagogy at secular European universities. The volume also explores concrete challenges, such as the extent to which Islamic religious pedagogy can be conceptualised anew, how it should deal with its own theological tradition in the contemporary context, and how a positive attitude towards worldview and religious plurality can be cultivated. At issue here are foundations of a new interpretation of Islam that takes into account both a reflective approach to the Islamic tradition and the contemporary context. In doing so, it gives Muslims the opportunity to take their own thinking further.


Islamic Exceptionalism

Islamic Exceptionalism

Author: Shadi Hamid

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2016-06-07

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1466866721

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In Islamic Exceptionalism, Brookings Institution scholar and acclaimed author Shadi Hamid offers a novel and provocative argument on how Islam is, in fact, "exceptional" in how it relates to politics, with profound implications for how we understand the future of the Middle East. Divides among citizens aren't just about power but are products of fundamental disagreements over the very nature and purpose of the modern nation state—and the vexing problem of religion’s role in public life. Hamid argues for a new understanding of how Islam and Islamism shape politics by examining different models of reckoning with the problem of religion and state, including the terrifying—and alarmingly successful—example of ISIS. With unprecedented access to Islamist activists and leaders across the region, Hamid offers a panoramic and ambitious interpretation of the region's descent into violence. Islamic Exceptionalism is a vital contribution to our understanding of Islam's past and present, and its outsized role in modern politics. We don't have to like it, but we have to understand it—because Islam, as a religion and as an idea, will continue to be a force that shapes not just the region, but the West as well in the decades to come.


Rethinking Islamist Politics

Rethinking Islamist Politics

Author: Salwa Ismail

Publisher: Harvard Common Press

Published: 2006-08-20

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 9781845111809

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This text revisits the main arguments and explanatory frameworks that have been used since the 1970s to understand Islamic activism, moderate as well as militant and violent, and proposes a rethinking of Islamist politics.


The Imperatives of Progressive Islam

The Imperatives of Progressive Islam

Author: Adis Duderija

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-02-03

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 1315438828

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With the proliferation of transnational Muslim networks over the last two decades, the religious authority of traditionally educated Muslim scholars, the uluma, has come under increasing scrutiny and disruption. These networks have provided a public space for multiple perspectives on Islam to be voiced, allowing "progressive" Islamic worldviews to flourish alongside more (neo)traditional outlooks. This book brings together the scholarship of leading progressive Muslim scholars, incorporating issues pertaining to politics, jurisprudence, ethics, theology, epistemology, gender and hermeneutics in the Islamic tradition. It provides a comprehensive discussion of the normative imperatives behind a progressive Muslim thought, as well as outlining its various values and aims. Presenting this emerging and distinctive school of Islamic thought in an engaging and scholarly manner, this is essential reading for any academic interested in contemporary religious thought and the development of modern Islam.


Temptations of Power

Temptations of Power

Author: Shadi Hamid

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-03-17

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0199314071

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In 1989, Francis Fukuyama famously announced the "end of history." The Berlin Wall had fallen; liberal democracy had won out. But what of illiberal democracy--the idea that popular majorities, working through the democratic process, might reject gender equality, religious freedoms, and other norms that Western democracies take for granted? Nowhere have such considerations become more relevant than in the Middle East, where the uprisings of 2011 swept the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups to power. In Temptations of Power, Shadi Hamid draws on hundreds of interviews with leaders and activists from across the region to advance a new understanding of how Islamist movements change over time. He puts forward the bold thesis that repression "forced" Islamists to moderate their politics, work in coalitions, de-emphasize Islamic law, and set aside the dream of an Islamic state. Meanwhile, democratic openings in the 1980s--and again during the Arab Spring--pushed Islamists back toward their original conservatism. With the uprisings of 2011, Islamists found themselves in an enviable position, but one for which they were unprepared. Groups like the Brotherhood combine the features of both political parties and religious movements, leading to an inherent tension they have struggled to resolve. However pragmatic they may be, their ultimate goal remains the Islamization of society. When the electorate they represent is conservative as well, they can push their own form of illiberal democracy while insisting they are carrying out the popular will. This can lead to overreach and significant backlash. Yet, while the Egyptian coup and the subsequent crackdown were a devastating blow for the Islamist "project," obituaries of political Islam are premature. As long as the battle over the role of religion in public life continues, Islamist parties in countries as diverse as Egypt, Tunisia, and Jordan will remain an important force whether in the ranks of opposition or the halls of power. But what are the key factors driving their evolution? A timely and provocative reassessment, Hamid's account serves as an essential compass for those trying to understand where the region's varied Islamist groups have come from and where they might be headed.


New Thinking in Islam

New Thinking in Islam

Author: Katajun Amirpur

Publisher: Gingko Library

Published: 2016-11-15

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 190994274X

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In Rethinking Islam, Katajun Amirpur argues that the West’s impression of Islam as a backward-looking faith, resistant to post-Enlightenment thinking, is misleading and—due to its effects on political discourse—damaging. Introducing readers to key thinkers and activists—such as Abu Zaid, a free-thinking Egyptian Qur’an scholar; Abdolkarim Soroush, an academic and former member of Khomeini’s Cultural Revolution Committee; and Amina Wadud, an American feminist who was the first woman to lead the faithful in Friday Prayer—Amirpur reveals a powerful yet lesser-known tradition of inquiry and dissent within Islam, one that is committed to democracy and human rights. By examining these and many other similar figures’ ideas, she reveals the many ways they reject fundamentalist assertions and instead call for a diversity of opinion, greater freedom, and equality of the sexes.


Rethinking Islamism beyond jihadi violence

Rethinking Islamism beyond jihadi violence

Author: Elisa Orofino

Publisher: Vernon Press

Published: 2023-05-23

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 164889626X

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For several years now, Islamism has been associated with 'jihadism' and violent extremism both in academia and in contemporary political debates. However, this association can be misleading: Islamism has much deeper roots than 'jihadi terrorism' and it stands as a powerful and complex ideology inspiring thoughts, actions and groups all over the world. Emerging as a protest-for-justice ideology claiming freedom against Western colonisation of the Muslim world, Islamism has triggered both individuals and groups worldwide since the early 1900s. Almost as a sacred ideology – based on the need to revive Islam as the only saving grace for Muslims around the world – Islamism started to be widely associated with 'jihadism' after 9/11. Before then, Islamism was not automatically related to terrorism but to resistance. Given that terrorists are only a small and definite portion of Islamists, this volume aims to re-focus research on Islamism beyond 'jihadism' by collecting relevant contributions on Islamist but non-violent organisations. More precisely, this volume innovatively contributes to current academic debates by exploring the origins of Islamism and the differences between 'jihadism', the evolution of Islamism over time and places and the role played by the most influential non-'jihadist' Islamist organisations active today as powerful non-state actors.


The Symbolic Scenarios of Islamism

The Symbolic Scenarios of Islamism

Author: Andrea Mura

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2015-09-28

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1472443896

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The Symbolic Scenarios of Islamism initiates a dialogue between the discourse of three of the most discussed figures in the history of the Sunni Islamic movement - Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Osama bin Laden - and contemporary debates across religion and political theory. Redressing the inefficiency of the terms in which the debate on Islam and Islamism is generally conducted, the book examines the role played by tradition, modernity, and transmodernity as major ‘symbolic scenarios’ of Islamist discourses, highlighting the internal complexity and dynamism of Islamism.