Various political groups were involved in the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran, which led to the downfall of the Pahlavi regime. However, Islamic Fundamentalists gradually seized power and eliminated rival ideologies in the 1980s. In the late 1990s, Iranian Reformers won the elections and oversaw the management of the film industry for two four-year administrations until 2005. As liberals and religious democrats, the Reformers supported a modern portrayal of Iranian women in movies. The findings of this research challenge (...) the previous studies that voiced optimism about the new individualistic portrayal of women in Iranian movies. The research methodology is based on Theresa de Lauretis's technologies of gender involving a narrative analysis of sixty-eight Iranian movies produced from 2001 to 2005. Given the political defeat of the Reformers in 2005, the main research question is to what extent has the portrayal of Iranian women gone beyond the ideological domination of Islamic Fundamentalism. (shrink)

Using the example of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism, and especially the writings of Sayyid Qutb, this article raises questions about discourse ethics as a mode of conflict resolution. It appears that discourse ethics is only relevant when all parties have already agreed to settle disputes deliberatively and already share the notions of rational deliberation and individual autonomy. This raises questions not only about the capability of discourse ethics to incorporate a deep plurality of worldviews, but also about its capability to (...) successfully solve disputes. When confronting situations where the willingness to deliberate is absent, discourse ethics is left standing empty handed. This, I argue, is due to both the conceptual distinction between communicative action and strategic action, as well as the abstracted nature of Habermas's discourse ethics. (shrink)

The psychological gap based on distrust and mutual ignorance between the Islamic world and the rest of the world, including Japan, has never been wider than it is today. Some might think that Islamic and other civilizations share little common ground in terms of basic values concerning humanity. Some even claim that “the clash of civilizations” is inevitable. However, it is too early to conclude that these civilizations will always be in conflict with each other. Although their theological (...) interpretations of God and the teachings of their religions show clear contrasts, there might be some common values that they can share in social life. One of the most prestigious and well-known Islamic boarding schools or Pesantren in Indonesia, Al-Mukumin of Solo in Central Java, offers fundamentalist education. Yet, the students in this school still learn about the importance of co-existence with non-Muslims through social activities and classroom instructions. Multiculturalism and the appreciation of non-Muslims are clearly emphasised in the curriculum. Based on the field research conducted in January 2013, I will attempt to picture the state of Islamic education in Indonesia and identify some values common to Islamic and other civilizations, such as Western and Japanese. (shrink)

Over the last 30 years, the growing role of political Islam has attracted attention from both the media and academia. Although it is given various names, such as "Islamic fundamentalism", "militant Islam", "political Islam", all this is due to the fact that a certain trend in Islamic movement is gaining more influence in politics and security in the global scale. The decisive moment in this was the overthrow in 1979 of the pro-Western Shah monarchy in Iran and the (...) creation of the first theocratic world in the modern world there. (shrink)

Islamic fundamentalism (Islamic neo-traditionalism) is an important component of Islamic identity struggles in the three South Asian nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The contested role, status, and legal rights of women provide a focus for comparative study, and the treatment of women in the courts showcases the problematic relation of religious and civil law. The cases of Shah Bano in India and Safia Bibi in Pakistan display (1) the radically different ways fundamentalism influences judicial processes; (2) (...) the varying challenges that confront Muslims in different polities (in India, the maintenance of Islamic identity; in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the evolution of a just and democratic Islamic state); and (3) the fact that the single gravest problem confronting Muslims regardless of political frontiers and varying structures of civil government is whether piety requires that religious law formulated in premodern cultures be regarded as fixed and binding today. (shrink)

This article examines dynamics of Islamic discourses in Post-New Order Indonesia, focusing on the birth of Jaringan Islam Liberal/JIL. The network which emerged in 2001 was a result of informal meeting and group discussions of young intellectuals at Jalan Utan Kayu 68 H, East Jakarta who later agreed to establish the JIL. Since its earliest foundation, the networks has been at the forefront to attack Islamic extremist and fundamentalist groups while calling for Islamic liberalism. This article tries (...) portray the emergence of the JIL and its liberalism agenda and offers the contestation on Islamic liberalism in Indonesia. As for the latter, it not only encapsulates responses of fundamentalism groups, but also important Muslim organisation, like the traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama/NU and the Modernist Muhammadiyah, and important Indonesian Muslim thinkers. This article further argues that Islamic liberalism that takes its root to Muslim activism during the New Order Indonesia has shaken the basic foundation of religion as introducing liberalism in Islamic discourses. It has invited contestation and responses for a significant Muslim groups, including the two-most important Indonesian Muslim organisations, the NU and the Muhammadiyah. As this article further demonstrates, the contestation is mainly because of different opinions among Muslims on the limit of reason to understand religion. (shrink)

Relations between East and West have changed many times over the course of history. In ancient times, a stereotype of "hostile animosity" emerged between them, because according to this stereotype, Eastern and Western people have different things - climate, environment, food, clothing, lifestyle, philosophy, laws, ethics and aesthetics. All these differences do exist, but they do not define incompatibility at all, and even more so hostility.

Obscurantism, return of the Middle Ages, fascism, clericalism …. Utter nonsense has been written on the return of religion in the Muslem world, reflecting the old Western phantasm about Islam. In fact, the phenomena grouped under the rubric of “fundamentalism” are quite heterogenous and belong to different catagories, of which only one — Islamicism — is really new. Islamic revivalism must be understood not in terms of recent Western history, emphasizing the emergence of the modern state from the secularization (...) of society, but in the historical and social context of the Muslem world. We shall call “traditional” the will to freeze society according to the memory of a past one: the society of which grandfathers speak. (shrink)

As will be made clear below, the terms extremism, fundamentalism, Islamism and Jihadism are often used interchangeably by the public, something that has negative implications for both the integration of the Muslim community into Western society, and the efficacy of counter-extremism efforts. This paper aims to provide working for these terms by understanding them independent from their misinformed socio-political contexts, and by determining how they relate to one another in what will be identified as a series of conceptual subsets. In (...) doing so, this paper will attempt to provide a framework for the usage of these terms in the governmental, academic, and public contexts, while removing some of the noise surrounding the important, and often highly sensitive contexts within which these terms are referenced. In this paper, religious extremism will defined as an ideological prerequisite to fundamentalism, Islamism and jihadism. It is a rejectionist, and dogmatic orientation that neglects balance in all elements of an individual’s ideological outlook. However, a fundamentalist, when defined in terms of faith, seeks to legitimise his or her beliefs through a non-contextual analysis of the relevant religious texts. An Islamist seeks to implement his or her fundamentalist views with a view to altering the structures of governance in accordance with the aforementioned rejectionist traits. Finally, and in relatively simple terms, a jihadist is an individual that champions the violent, global imposition of the Islamists’ beliefs. Jihadism is a subset of Islamism, Islamism is a subset of fundamentalism, and fundamentalism is a subset of extremism. (shrink)

Julia Kristeva's Teresa, My Love: An Imagined Life of the Saint of Avila confronts us with the contemporary problem of violent forms of fundamentalism, especially Islamic, as it recreates the life of Saint Theresa. The novel's psychoanalytic perspective engages our emotions and sensations, and is also therapeutic for author and reader. But most of all, it engages our thinking and deals in depth with this compelling, timely issue.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is unsecular and follows religious interpretations from Shia Islam in deciding the laws of the land. In recent decades, the strengthening of civil society in the country has shaped various political debates on human rights among secular intellectuals and reflected in the discourse of some religious figures as well. While the regime has officially adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) since 1990, different views on the Islamic human rights and (...) its social implications still exist among the conservative and reformist Shia clergy within the country. This paper examines the view of an influential conservative pro-regime clergy, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who has been concerned about the Western interpretation of human rights and engaged in its theorization based on his interpretation of Shia Islam. He has criticized the theoretical and philosophical foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and its each single item and has also proposed his own version of the Islamic Declaration of Human Rights and Obligations. While Islamic fundamentalists have no concrete theoretical support for their negative view of the Western conceptions regarding human rights, Mesbah Yazdi’s approach is based on a reading of Shia theology and Sadraean ontology. He engages in a dialogue with the Western ideologies and rejects UDHR after philosophical and theological reasoning. His stance can be viewed as a reflection of the unsecular political Shia Islam as the main characteristic of the conservative faction within the Islamic Republic of Iran which results in serious policy and social implications on the rights of the people living in the country. (shrink)

Focusing on some contemporary Islamic reformers’ solutions, in particular, Abolkarim Soroush, Mohsen Kadivar, and Fazlur Rahman, to concrete issues in Muslim societies, this article examines two different methodological strategies of alternative readings of the Sunna: an archeological one and a genealogical one. In the archeological perspective, the holy text has been considered as a repository of answers to all sorts of questions. Through a pathological analysis, this view suggests solutions to correct distortions and looks for new windows seeking an (...) original interpretation of the Qur’an. The genealogical view, on the other hand, puts aside this pathology and instead insists on the idea of the contingency of any interpretation. Regardless of accuracy and validity, according to the genealogical view, all interpretations have addressed temporal and contextual questions. What is important in this perspective is not returning to an original source for finding the exact message of Allah, or correcting previous interpretations, but recurrently referring to an open-ended text in order to explore the futures of the Qur’an. (shrink)

: This essay highlights how contemporary Muslim fundamentalists reduce Islam's rich and complex intellectual legacy to a set of authoritarian rules. The three branches of classical Islamic education-theology, jurisprudence, and ethics-are particularly targeted. The reductionist pattern applied to these areas is designed to eliminate both the scholarly space of inquiry and the room for individual reflection traditionally granted to its followers by Islamic religion. The essay ends with an analysis of the language used by Osama bin Laden in (...) various documents over the last ten years that show how he has abused Islam's jurisprudential tradition to confer on him a convenient likeness of legality. (shrink)

This contribution to the global history of ideas uses biographical profiles of 18th-century contemporaries to find what Salafist and Sufi Islam, Evangelical Protestant and Jansenist Catholic Christianity, and Hasidic Judaism have in common. Such figures include Muḥammad Ibn abd al-Waḥhab, Count Nikolaus Zinzendorf, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Israel Ba’al Shem Tov. The book is a unique and comprehensive study of the conflicted relationship between the “evangelical” movements in all three Abrahamic religions and the ideas of the Enlightenment (...) and Counter-Enlightenment. Centered on the 18th century, the book reaches back to the third century for precedents and context, and forward to the 21st for the legacy of these movements. This text appeals to students and researchers in many fields, including Philosophy and Religion, their histories, and World History, while also appealing to the interested lay reader. (shrink)

Items were generated to explore the factorial structure of a construct of fundamentalism worded appropriately for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Results suggested three underlying dimensions: External versus Internal Authority, Fixed versus Malleable Religion, and Worldly Rejection versus Worldly Affirmation. The three dimensions indicate that religious fundamentalism is a personal orientation that asserts a supra-human locus of moral authority, context unbound truth, and the appreciation of the sacred over the worldly components of experience. The 15-item, 3-dimension solution was evaluated across Mexican (...) and American samples. Fit indexes point out the viability of the new inventory across these two samples henceforward referred to as the Multi-Dimensional Fundamentalism Inventory. Additional validity tests supported that the new inventory was negatively correlated with participants’ integrative complexity in a religious domain–specific way. (shrink)

This essay offers a historical account, as well as an explanation, of the recent rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Maldives.

The first decade of the twenty-first century will amongst other things be remembered for the renewed interest in religious fundamentalism. In the past fundamentalism was related to a certain strand in the Christian Protestant tradition in the USA, but nowadays the term is used for a resurging complex ideol- ogy world-wide. Religious fundamentalism, and even religions themselves, indeed became a focal point of attention. Furthermore, the question arises of how to deal with this phenomenon in a Liberal Democracy, especially in (...) the execution of religious rights. This study investigates contemporary religious fundamentalism and endeavours to identify its features and the reasons for its growing power and destructive influence in a human rights environment. (shrink)

New Atheists and Anti-Theists (such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hutchins) affirm that there is a strong connection between being a traditional theist and being a religious fundamentalist who advocates violence, terrorism, and war. They are especially critical of Islam. On the contrary, I argue that, when correctly understood, religious dogmatic belief, present in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is progressive and open to internal and external criticism and revision. Moreover, acknowledging that human knowledge is finite and that (...) humans are fallible and have much to learn, dogmatic religious believers accept that they ought to value and seek to acquire moral and intellectual virtues, including the virtues of temperance and reasonability. (shrink)

This article is an overview of the evolution of Islamic radicalism during the 19 th - 21 st centuries. It demonstrates that nineteenth century Islamic radicalism is based on the ideas of pan-Islamism, whose main representatives are J. al-Din al-Afghani and M. Abduh. In turn, Islamic radicalism of the twentieth to twentyfirst centuries is based on the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism. Its main representatives are H. Al-Banna, S. Qutb, the Deoband movement, al-Maududi and R. Khomeyni. Pan- (...) class='Hi'>Islamic theories of the 19 th -20t h centuries are based on the thesis that people who seek liberation from colonial oppression should merge. However, scholars have different views on the union of the Muslim world. It was, once, regarded as a combination of historical circumstances and the political realities of the nineteenth century. These were further shaped by the basic idea of Islamic fundamentalism in the twentieth to twentyfirst centuries, which is Salafiyya, or a return to “pure Islam”, a revival of active faith traditions and the union of all walks of life under the Sharia law and strict interpretation and application of its rules. The instruments used by Islamic fundamentalists and radicals to implement it have been the Islam-related slogans for Takfir and Jihad. But in the 21st century, integration and globalization have started playing a significant role. Various geopolitical forces are using various tools, including the idea of Islamic radicalism. (shrink)

In his recent book Islam Evolving: Radicalism, Reformation, and the Uneasy Relationship with the Secular West, Taner Edis discusses Islamic responses to the modern world and how the West deals and should deal with them. He argues convincingly that the biggest threat to secular liberalism is not fundamentalism but an Islamic form of modernity. He attributes some of the latter's success to Western neoliberalism and to the failure of secular liberals to come up with persuasive arguments. He thus (...) puts part of the blame on the West. However, although self-criticism is an essential aspect of a well-functioning democracy, we should not take it too far. Instead, there exist convincing reasons why a secular liberal society is strongly preferable to a religious conservative one. (shrink)

This article examines the ways in which Islamic civilization has faced the challenges of the modern age and of globalization. The expansion of Islam in world history is itself a global or proto-global process with its own distinctive internal dynamics. The main challenge to modern Islam, coming from the global political culture in the form of constitutionalism and democratization and human rights, has set in motion a civilizational encounter that has significantly altered the politico-religious dynamics of the proto-global, pre-modern (...) Islamic pattern. The intermingling of these inter- and intra-civilizational processes is traced with respect to the subversion of constitutionalism by ideology during the 1945–1989 period, and the slow recovery of the rule of law since 1989. The same framework of civilizational analysis is used for understanding Islamic fundamentalism, and counter-global defensive developments in contemporary Islam. (shrink)

Islam and Citizenship in Indonesia examines the conditions facilitating democracy, women's rights, and inclusive citizenship in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim majority country and the third largest democracy in the world. The book shows that Muslim understandings of Islamic traditions and ethics have co-evolved with the understanding and practice of democracy and citizen belonging. Following 32 years of authoritarian rule, in 1998 this sprawling Southeast Asian country returned to electoral democracy. The achievement brought with it, however, an upsurge in (...) both the numbers and assertiveness of Islamist militias, as well as a sharp increase in violence against religious minorities. The resulting mobilizations have pitted the Muslim supporters of an Indonesian variety of inclusive citizenship against populist proponents of Islamist majoritarianism. Seen from this historical example, the book demonstrates that Muslim actors come to know and practice Islam in a manner, not determined in an unchanging way by scriptural commands, but in co-evolution with broader currents in politics, society, and citizen belonging. By exploring these questions in both an Indonesian and comparative context, this book offers important lessons on the challenge of democracy and inclusive citizenship in the Muslim-majority world. Well written and informative, this book will be suitable for adoption in university courses on Islam, Southeast Asian Politics, Indonesian and Asian Studies, as well as courses dealing with religion, democracy, and citizen belonging in multicultural societies around the world. The book will be of interest to the general reader with an interest in Islam, citizenship, and democracy. (shrink)

This book explores philosophical ethics in Arabo-Islamic thought.

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. (shrink)

One of the common refrains in commentary about the Islamic Middle East, especially since September 11, is that Islam needs a Reformation. The assumption is that modernist, tolerant, reformist Muslims are to the fundamentalists as the Protestants of the Christian Reformation were to the medieval Catholic Church. This is very nearly the exact opposite of the truth. The Islamists are reacting against the Enlightenment modernism of the West, which they see as a threat to Islamic culture; but their (...) call for a return to an imagined purer state of Islamic society is analogous to the Protestant goal of freeing Christianity from the worldly compromises and the scholasticism of the Church. Islam does not need a Reformation. The problem is that it’s having one now. What it needs is an Enlightenment. (shrink)

This article examines dynamics of Islamic discourses in Post-New Order Indonesia, focusing on the birth of Jaringan Islam Liberal/JIL. The network which emerged in 2001 was a result of informal meeting and group discussions of young intellectuals at Jl. Utan Kayu 68 H, East Jakarta who later agreed to establish the JIL. Since its earliest foundation, the networks has been at the forefront to attack Islamic extremist and fundamentalist groups while calling for Islamic liberalism. This article tries (...) to portray the emergence of the JIL and its liberalism agenda and offers the contestation on Islamic liberalism in Indonesia. As for the latter, it not only encapsulates responses of fundamentalist groups, but also important Muslim organisation, like the traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama/NU and the Modernist Muhammadiyah, and important Indonesian Muslim thinkers. This article further argues that Islamic liberalism that takes its root to Muslim activism during the New Order Indonesia has shaken the basic foundation of religion as introducing liberalism in Islamic discourses. It has invited contestation and responses for a significant Muslim group, including the two-most important Indonesian Muslim organisations, the NU and the Muhammadiyah. As this article further demonstrates, the contestation is mainly because of different opinions among Muslims on the limit of reason to understand religion. (shrink)

The concepts of “Islamic Fundamentalism” and “Islamic Terrorism” are the usual suspects in the present political reality and discourse. After the tragic events in New York, Madrid, Istanbul, and London, one has every reason to think that Islam is somehow a part of the problem. But in terms of the issues that we currently face, we must be careful to distinguish between understanding and the creation of scapegoats. There is no doubt that a terrorist act is unjustifiable, and (...) it must be categorically condemned in every situation. We must resolutely fight against any claim to the contrary. Even so, the…. (shrink)

Discourses of race, gender and religion have scripted the terms of engagement in the war on terror. As a result, Muslim feminists and activists must engage with the dual oppressions of Islamophobia that relies on re-vitalized Orientalist tropes and representations of backward, oppressed and politically immature Muslim women as well as religious extremism and puritan discourses that authorize equally limiting narratives of Islamic womanhood and compromise their human rights and liberty. The purpose of this discussion is to examine the (...) way Muslim women have been discursively scripted from these opposing and contradictory spaces, and to explore the negotiations and contestations made by both secular and faith-centred Muslim feminists in combating these oppressive arrangements. In the first part of the discussion, I will draw on post-colonial and anti-racist feminist analyses to map out the complex interactions of race, gender, sexuality and religion in earlier imperial practices of conquest and colonization and examine how the continuing legacies of these encounters implicate the current "war on terror". In the second part of the discussion, I will examine Muslim women's feminist political engagement with and resistance to the concomitant factors of imperial and fundamentalist domination and will craft a better understanding of how these factors variously shape and are shaped by Muslim women's responses to them. (shrink)

Among the essential features of the oxidial mentality with its attraction to rationally-built, logical-centric knowledge are attempts to bring any phenomena under clear definitions, generalizations, concepts. Naturally, one of the aspects of "Western" perception and understanding of Islam is the desire to isolate and concentrate in the most concise and simultaneously powerful definition of the most significant features of Islam, that is, the "essence of Islam".

In this article, I shall attempt to rebuff the view that there is a necessary connection between a monotheistic religion, like Islam, and violence. Rather, I shall argue that the link between Islam and violence is a contingent one, that is, it is neither necessary nor impossible, depending on the reasons offered by a particular Islamic faith community or by individuals who exist on a continuum ranging from jihadist fundamentalists to Muslim reformists. Following such an analysis, I examine an (...) Islamic education for non-violence, in particular what Muslim reformists ought to do to ensure the achievement of such an education. (shrink)

No one can turn on the news these days without hearing of fundamentalism. Christian fundamentalists form the fastest growing sect in the United States and are arguably the most politically potent. Both the president and vice-president, as well as prominent members of the Cabinet call themselves “fundamentalists.” In the Islamic world, fundamentalism has an equal currency. Everywhere ascendant, it has, since September 11th, become linked to terrorist attacks and the actions of suicide bombers. Among the Jews of Israel, it (...) also has a growing influence. The fundamentalist “settlers” of the West Bank, most observers agree, hold the political process hostage. What, then, is fundamentalism? What do Christian, Islamic, and Jewish “fundamentalists” have in common that makes them worthy of this name? One answer is that all three religions are “religions of the book.” They all define themselves in terms of a religious text.1 There is here a certain reciprocal constitution. What makes a person a believer in one of these faiths is that he holds a certain text sacred—be this the Christian Bible, the Koran, or the Torah. Reciprocally, what makes these texts sacred is just such belief. It forms the context, the constitutive medium which allows the sacred character of these texts to appear. When the belief goes, so does this character. No one, for example, takes the ancient hymns to the Latin Gods seriously. We use the names of Jupiter (or Mars or Venus) neither to swear nor to blaspheme. Lacking the ancients’ belief, such actions would be pointless. Of course, not every believer in the sacred character of a text is a fundamentalist. Something else must be added. The thesis I am going to defend is that 2 fundamentalism is a way of reading a religious text. Those who engage in it maximize the “staying power” of this text. The price they pay, however, is that of denying the transcendence that the religions of the book claim for their texts.. (shrink)

Following Aristotle’s description of youth and brief discussion about indoctrination and parrhesia, the article historicizes Socrates’ trial as the intersection of philosophy, education and a teacher’s influence on youth. It explores the historic-political context and how contemporary Athenians might have viewed Socrates and his student’s actions, whereby his teachings were implicated in three coups led by his former students against Athenian democracy, for or which he accepted little or no responsibility. Socrates appears subversively anti-democratic. This provides grounds that challenge the (...) dominant and standard philosophical account of Socrates as one of the great teachers, perhaps the greatest in the Western tradition, and critiques the way philosophy so often presents a de-contextualized and ahistorical picture. Concerns about the influence of education, teachers and indoctrination on youth have existed since ancient times. Currently, many states, especially, but not only, democracies, are concerned about Islamic fundamentalist teachings potentially leading to terrorism. The article presents contemporary exemplars from four countries: Austria, Kenya, the UK and Saudi Arabia. The crucial question remains: to what extent is it reasonable to hold a teacher responsible for a student’s subsequent actions? (shrink)

The overall oppressive effect on women's rights of religious fundamentalism has been well documented in the literature. When looking at women's resistance to fundamentalism, it is important to examine not only organized efforts but individual women's agency in subverting or co-opting these movements toward their own ends. Using a series of narratives, the authors discuss four strategies used by Iranian women to negotiate the patriarchal practices of Islamic fundamentalism. These women crafted agency by responding to the demands of family (...) and state through collaboration, acquiescence, co-optation, and subversion. Their narratives of agency show how some women negotiated the economic hardship and gender oppression brought on by the Iranian revolution and how these negotiations affected women's options when filtered through the rhetoric of Islamic fundamentalism. The purpose of the article is to contribute further to the feminist discourse that has moved beyond victimization narratives. (shrink)

Mohammed Arkoun is one of the Muslim world's foremost thinkers. His efforts to liberate Islamic history from dogmatic constructs have led him to a radical review of traditional history. Drawing on a combination of pertinent disciplines ? history, sociology, psychology and anthropology ? his approach subjects every system of belief and non-belief, every tradition of exegesis, theology and jurisprudence to a critique aimed at liberating reason from the grip of dogmatic postulates. By treating Islam as a religion as well (...) as a time-honoured tradition of thought, Arkoun's work aims at overcoming the limitations of descriptive, narrative and chronological modes in history by recommending that the entire development of Islamic thought ? from Quranic to present-day fundamentalist discourses ? be subjected to a critical analysis guided by these categories. The expected outcome of such a strategy is an emancipated political reason working hand in hand with a truly creative imagination for a radical re-construction of mind and society in the contemporary Muslim world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Islam: Religion, History, and CivilizationZain AliIslam: Religion, History, and Civilization. By Seyyed Hossein Nasr. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2003. Pp. 224. Paper $9.71."Islam," writes Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "is like a vast tapestry," and in his book Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization he aims to survey the masterpiece that is Islam. The present work is part of a trilogy including Ideal and Realities of Islam and The Heart (...) of Islam. Nasr states that the common theme in the trilogy "is the universalist perspective and respect for other religions" (p. xxiv). In addition, Nasr clarifies that his approach, as with all of his Islamic writings, is to write from an Islamic perspective, which he terms "traditional Islam" (p. xxiii). Nasr stands opposed to either the secular modernist or fundamentalist perspectives, both of which he regards as forms of extremism.This book, initially published as part of Our Religions, edited by A. Sharma, is significantly revised and includes a new introduction and bibliography. It can best be described as a primer on Islam, consisting of eight chapters that focus on a variety of pertinent themes.Chapter 1 deals with the self-understanding of Islam and the Islamic world. Islam, Nasr notes, sees itself as a return to the primordial faith of humanity, a faith that affirms the unity and oneness of God. This chapter also presents an overview [End Page 495] of the various ethnic and cultural groupings within the Muslim world, and charts the spread and demographic growth of Islam.Chapter 2 introduces the notion of al-din, an Arabic term that corresponds closely to the word "religion." Nasr contrasts the two words, where religion means "to bind" while al-din means "debt" (p. 25). Thus, religion, as framed by Islam, involves the notion of debt, in particular humanity's debt to the Divine. The chapter also discusses the significance of the Qur'an and Muhammad as the messenger of God.Chapter 3 begins with an exposition of the nature of Divinity, which is at the heart of Islamic doctrine. As Nasr explains, the Divine is understood as being "at once the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Perfect Good" (p. 59). The remainder of the chapter deals with various Islamic doctrines and beliefs, including prophecy and revelation, human nature, the Qura'nic view of men and women, and eschatology.Chapter 4 deals with the content, codification, and schools of Shariah, the Divine Law of Islam. There is also an interesting discussion of Sufism, which Nasr claims "is like the heart of the body of Islam" (p. 81). Controversially, Nasr claims that "the spread of Islam outside of the Arab and Persian worlds up to the present day has been mostly through Sufism" (p. 87).Chapter 5 delves into the central pillars of Islam, which accompany the belief in God and in Muhammad as the messenger of God. The pillars are salah (canonical prayer), sawn (fasting), hajj (pilgrimage), and zakah (religious tax or charity). Associated with these pillars is the notion of jihad, and here Nasr writes, "jihad... is usually mistranslated into English as 'holy war,' but literally means 'exertion' or 'effort' in the path of God" (p. 91). Also covered are the topics of family, ethics, and economic and political institutions.Chapter 6 presents the historical evolution of Islam beginning with the migration of Muhammad to Medina, and the events leading to the divide between Sunnis and Shiites.Chapter 7 discusses the early Islamic community, who found themselves in the "throes of disputes over such issues as whether human beings are saved by faith or works, whether there is freewill or determinism, and questions concerning the sacred text as the Word of God" (p. 154). Nasr then explores the various schools of theology and philosophy that arose in order to address these questions of faith.Chapter 8, the final chapter of the book, attempts to evaluate the place of Islam in the contemporary world. Nasr concludes by noting that despite the challenges of secular modernism and fundamentalism the vast majority of Muslims remain committed to the truth of Islam, and bear witness to the Oneness of God and the Oneness of humanity.The one quibble... (shrink)

In institutional settings affecting the formulation and implementation of international foreign and security policy, nation-states are influenced by Western standards of jurisprudence without explicit concern for religiously grounded legal frameworks. The question at issue here is whether there is a role for Islamic law in the formulation of international law, given recent literature examining this conjunction. For some, cultural symmetry requires attention to Islamic law, e.g., the Islamic law of nations, in the same way Western modernity evolved (...) contemporary international law out of a concept of a “law of nations”. In a historical period of asserted fundamentalist Islamic ideology as well as post-9/11 neo-conservative political ideology, there is ample need for negotiation of culture, including philosophical foundations of law, in which case attention to Islamic jurisprudence may well be a positive development to advance the cause of an evolving international legal order. (shrink)

This article discusses ways in which feminist scholars draw upon agency in relation to the complex subject matter of women's engagement in so-called `fundamentalist' movements. While postcolonial critiques generally reject the term `fundamentalism', and in particular the way it is linked to Islam, feminist perspectives have a vested interest in looking at contemporary developments in different religions from the perspective of women's lives. Against the patriarchal reputations of fundamentalist movements, feminist scholarship increasingly tends to emphasize women's agency, thereby effectively breaking (...) with widespread notions of `false consciousness'. After briefly discussing two such examples, the question is raised whether this emphasis on agency does not risk evacuating structural constraints in the construction of subjectivity, thus neutralizing the productive tension, at the heart of women's studies, between structure and agency. In conclusion, the article joins other calls for new ways of thinking about subjectivity. (shrink)

Following Aristotle’s description of youth and brief discussion about indoctrination and parrhesia, the article historicizes Socrates’ trial as the intersection of philosophy, education and a teacher’s influence on youth. It explores the historic-political context and how contemporary Athenians might have viewed Socrates and his student’s actions, whereby his teachings were implicated in three coups led by his former students against Athenian democracy, for or which he accepted little or no responsibility. Socrates appears subversively anti-democratic. This provides grounds that challenge the (...) dominant and standard philosophical account of Socrates as one of the great teachers, perhaps the greatest in the Western tradition, and critiques the way philosophy so often presents a de-contextualized and ahistorical picture. Concerns about the influence of education, teachers and indoctrination on youth have existed since ancient times. Currently, many states, especially, but not only, democracies, are concerned about Islamic fundamentalist teachings potentially leading to terrorism. The article presents contemporary exemplars from four countries: Austria, Kenya, the UK and Saudi Arabia. The crucial question remains: to what extent is it reasonable to hold a teacher responsible for a student’s subsequent actions? (shrink)