Following their violent suppression of the Indian Revolution of1857, the British founded and consolidated their secular empire in the IndianSubcontinent, which marginalized and bypassed religion as far as possible,particularly Islam, which had been the official religion of the Mughal ancienrégime. Contemporaneous Ottoman efforts to counter European imperialism ledto Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s policy of pan-Islamism, particularlythe call for Islamic unity against the Russian aggression against Turkey in1877. It was at this critical juncture that some Indian Muslim scholars gallantlyvolunteered to counter (...) this threat, and to preserve the Islamic faith and heritageworldwide, despite the severe problems faced by the Muslims in India itself.This study highlights the role of an eminent scholar in this movement, namelyAllama Shibli Nu’mani, who in 1914 conceived the idea offounding the world-famous Islamic research institute Darul Musannefin ShibliAcademy in his home town of Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. Shibli was veryactive and instrumental in collecting donations from the wealthy landowners among the Muslim elite in his hometown of Azamgarh for theOttoman cause, raising 3,000 rupees, which was handed to Husain HasibAfendi, the Ottoman Consul in Bombay in 1877. Furthermore, his eloquentpoetry rallied Muslims across India to support the valour and heroism displayedin the jihad by Ghazi Usman Pasha against the Russians. Shibli travelled toIstanbul in 1892 and met with the Pasha, on whose efforts Tamgha-i Majidi was granted to Shibli on 13th Muharram, 1310/7th August, 1892.This article is based on Shibli’s major works in Urdu, particularly his arousingeulogies, Turkish archival reports, newspapers and magazines, andsecondary sources in Urdu and English. (shrink)

During the last quarter of a century, Iran has undergone fundamental changes. The revolution was supported by a heterogeneous coalition of social forces, but it led to a war with Iraq and the stabilization of an Islamic regime. Since the end of the 1980s, four different types of new social actors have emerged in Iran: post-Islamist intellectuals; feminists; students as a nonrevolutionary, reformist and democratically minded group; and ethnic movements. These actors mostly (with the exception of some intellectuals) belong to (...) a generation which did not take part in the revolution; their aspirations and demands are totally different from those most characteristic of the revolutionary phase. The election of President Khatami in 1997 was a result of these changes. Since then, a stalemate has prevailed: the society is post-Islamist, whereas the decisive power centres are controlled by Islamist conservatives. (shrink)

In 1978, as the protests against the Shah of Iran reached their zenith, philosopher Michel Foucault was working as a special correspondent for _Corriere della Sera_ and _le Nouvel Observateur_. During his little-known stint as a journalist, Foucault traveled to Iran, met with leaders like Ayatollah Khomeini, and wrote a series of articles on the revolution. _Foucault and the Iranian Revolution _is the first book-length analysis of these essays on Iran, the majority of which have never before appeared in English. (...) Accompanying the analysis are annotated translations of the Iran writings in their entirety and the at times blistering responses from such contemporaneous critics as Middle East scholar Maxime Rodinson as well as comments on the revolution by feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. In this important and controversial account, Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson illuminate Foucault's support of the Islamist movement. They also show how Foucault's experiences in Iran contributed to a turning point in his thought, influencing his ideas on the Enlightenment, homosexuality, and his search for political spirituality. _Foucault and the Iranian Revolution_ informs current discussion on the divisions that have reemerged among Western intellectuals over the response to radical Islamism after September 11. Foucault's provocative writings are thus essential for understanding the history and the future of the West's relationship with Iran and, more generally, to political Islam. In their examination of these journalistic pieces, Afary and Anderson offer a surprising glimpse into the mind of a celebrated thinker. (shrink)

Foucault's indictment -- Thinking the unthinkable: the revolutionary movement in Iran -- How did Foucault make sense of the Iranian revolution? -- Misrepresenting the Revolution, misreading Foucault -- The reign of terror, women's issues, and feminist politics -- Was ist Aufklärung? The Iranian revolution as a moment of enlightenment -- Conclusion: writing the history of the present.

The aim of this article is to analyze how the Spanish newspapers covered an international event such as the Egyptian spring from 2011 to 2013. From the perspective of the representation of Arab-Islamic issues, this study carries out a quantitative content analysis on the four reference newspapers in Spain (ABC, El Mundo, El País, and La Vanguardia) to find out whether there was an Islamophobic or Islamophilic treatment during the Egyptian revolution. The results of the 3,045 articles analyzed show that (...) Spanish newspapers were remarkably interested in Egyptian events and that cultural discourses were not relevant in the coverage. However, it is necessary to specify these outcomes by newspaper, because each paper proposed its own take on the matter based on information provided by press agencies. (shrink)

This book helps the reader understand what lies behind the use of monster images in relation to terrorism, exploring why media and government officials present or frame terrorists as monsters, but also why terrorists themselves sometimes try to act as such. Marco Pinfari argues that portraying terrorists as unmanageable monsters typically serves specific political agendas that, in turn, are designed to legitimize specific counter-terrorist policies. For terrorists, acting in ways that can be perceived as uncontrollable and inhumane is a rational (...) tactic that has many precedents in the history of terrorism. By exploring the rational processes that lie behind the portrayal of terrorists as inhumane, brutish and monstrous beings, this book challenges several common perceptions of the nature of contemporary terrorism. (shrink)

In this probing examination of the meaning and function of culture in contemporary society, Lawrence Cahoone argues that reason itself is cultural, but no less reasonable for it. While recent political and philosophical movements have recognized that cognition, the self, and politics are embedded in culture, most fail to appreciate the deep changes in rationalism and liberal theory this implies, others leap directly into relativism, and nearly all fail to define culture. Cultural Revolutions systematically defines culture, gauges the consequences (...) of the ineradicably cultural nature of cognition and action, yet argues that none of this implies relativism. After showing where other &“new culturalists&” have gone wrong, Cahoone offers his own definition of culture as teleologically organized practices, artifacts, and narratives and analyzes the notion of cultural membership in relation to race, ethnicity, and &“primordialism.&” He provides a theory of culture&’s role in how we form our sense of reality and argues that the proper conception of culture dissolves &“the problem&” of cultural relativism. Applying this perspective to Islamic fundamentalism, Cahoone identifies its conflict with the West as representing the break between two of three historically distinctive forms of reason. Rather than being &“irrational,&” he shows, fundamentalism embodies a rationality only recently devalued&—but not entirely abandoned&—by the West. The persistence of plural forms of reason suggests that modernization in various world cultures is compatible with continued, even magnified, cultural differences. (shrink)

In this probing examination of the meaning and function of culture in contemporary society, Lawrence Cahoone argues that reason itself is cultural, but no less reasonable for it. While recent political and philosophical movements have recognized that cognition, the self, and politics are embedded in culture, most fail to appreciate the deep changes in rationalism and liberal theory this implies, others leap directly into relativism, and nearly all fail to define culture. Cultural Revolutions systematically defines culture, gauges the consequences (...) of the ineradicably cultural nature of cognition and action, yet argues that none of this implies relativism. After showing where other "new culturalists" have gone wrong, Cahoone offers his own definition of culture as teleologically organized practices, artifacts, and narratives and analyzes the notion of cultural membership in relation to race, ethnicity, and "primordialism." He provides a theory of culture's role in how we form our sense of reality and argues that the proper conception of culture dissolves "the problem" of cultural relativism. Applying this perspective to Islamic fundamentalism, Cahoone identifies its conflict with the West as representing the break between two of three historically distinctive forms of reason. Rather than being "irrational," he shows, fundamentalism embodies a rationality only recently devalued--but not entirely abandoned--by the West. The persistence of plural forms of reason suggests that modernization in various world cultures is compatible with continued, even magnified, cultural differences. (shrink)

The view that Islamicate science went into decline while European science was getting started is still commonly held among historians of science and almost universal in general history and popular presentations. Different versions of the decline thesis make it start in the 11 th century with the work of Ibn al-Haytham and al-Ghaz ā l ī ; in the 13 th century with the sack of Baghdad, or at latest with the beginning of the “Scientific Revolution” in Europe. However, it (...) is now increasingly apparent that Islamicate science was healthy well into the period of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals. There are many reasons for the continued attraction of the decline theses. In addition to the inaccessibility of sources, these include mistaking the nature of credentialing in Islamicate science, and mistaking the nature of the sources in which original science was appearing. In this paper, I will sketch a more appropriate social structure for understanding Islamicate science by describing the institutional structures for training scientists and awarding credentials, and the practices of recording and transmitting research in writing. Taking the Safavid scholar Bahā ʾ al-D ī n al- ʿ Ā mil ī as an example, I will suggest that these structures supported an active research community well into the early modern period, further undermining the decline thesis. (shrink)

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)

Starting from the impact of biblical teachings on Islam, the first part of this article attempts to show the divergent paths that Christianity and Islam have taken when confronted with the three dimensions of time (_chronos, kairos, krisis_). The article aims to elucidate the distinct onto-theologies of the two religious discourses by analysing various examples that illustrate this divergence. Consequently, the onto-theology of Islam can be encapsulated as “One unites in two,” in contrast to the onto-theology of Christianity, which can (...) be formulated as “One divides into two.” In the second part of the article, one of the political implications of the onto-theology of “One united in two” is examined in depth in a socio-political context, showing how the conceptualisation of such a context can only be done adequately if its onto-theological dimension is taken into account. (shrink)

This book is a study of overlooked themes in Iran's contemporary political and intellectual history. It investigates the way Iranian Muslim intellectuals have discussed politics and democracy. As a history of Iranian Islamism and its transformation to post-Islamism, this work demonstrates that Muslim intellectuals have enriched the Iranian society epistemologically, aesthetically, ethically, and politically. This book examines the internal conflicts of the Islamist ideology as the intellectual underpinnings of the 1979 Revolution, its contribution to the formation of the post-revolutionary state, (...) and the post-Islamist response to the democratic deficits of the post-revolutionary state. Seeking to overcome the shortcomings of historiographical approaches, this book demonstrates the intellectual and political agency of Muslim intellectuals from the 1960s to the present. (shrink)

Contrary to the general and common idea that Islam etymologically means submission, surrendering, servitude or even slavery, this paper tries to prove just the opposite, that Islam is a protest, an opposition and a revolution. The term Aslama, in fact, is ambiguous. It means to surrender to God, not to yield to any other power. It implies a double act : first, a rejection of all non-Transcendental yokes; and second, an acceptance of the Transcendental Power. Islam, by this function, is (...) a double act of negation and affirmation. This double act is expressed in the utterance “I witness that there is no god except the God.”. (shrink)

The history of sciences in Moslim countries is contemplated. The reasons of initial flourishing and subsequent decline of Moslim science are discussed. It is conjectured that one of them may consist in the lack of analogue of protestant revolution the Moslim World.

Which Spirit to Serve? The Stirring of the Living Loving God -- The Basis of the New Speech Thinking -- Grammatical Organons in Rosenstock-Huessy and Rosenzweig -- On God as an Indissoluble Name and an Indispensable Pole of the Real -- The Sundered and the Whole: Rosenzweig's Distinction between Pagans and the Elect -- Rosenstock-Huessy's Incarnatory Christianity -- The Ages of the Church and Redemption through Revolution -- The Modern Humanistic Turn of the French Revolution in Rosenstock-Huessy -- Beyond the (...) Idol of the Nation, Part 1: Rosenstock-huessy in the Aftermath of the Great War -- Beyond the Idol of the Nation, Part 2: Rosenzweig -- Beyond the Idol of Art, Part 1: Rosenzweig and the Role of Art in Redemption -- Beyond the Idol of Art, Part 2: Rosenstock-Huessy and Art in Service to Revolution -- Beyond the Prophets of Modernity: Rosenstock-Huessy and Rosenzweig on Nietzsche and Marx -- Rosenzweig on Why Allah Is Not Yahweh, the Loving, Revealing, Redeeming God -- Rosenstock-Huessy on Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism -- Pagan, Jew, Christian -- or, Three Lives in One Love. (shrink)

Hegel’s philosophy is in tension with liberalism, containing both liberalizing tendencies and rejecting liberal norms. I explore this tension by investigating the relationship between religion, fanaticism, and world history in Hegel’s discussion of Islam. Drawing on recent work that considers Hegel’s treatment of race and world history, I show that he views Islam as a form of fanaticism that is antithetical to Christian Europe. This rejection of Islam stands in contrast to his treatment of the French Revolution, which is a (...) fanaticism that can be incorporated into world history. I conclude that Hegel does not provide resources for narrating a history of a more inclusive Europe, but that interrogating his philosophy offers strategies for thinking askew the liberal “problem-space” and reconsidering identities formed in opposition to the Islamic fanatic. Such an interrogation reveals the assumptions at work in contemporary debates about the liberalization of Islam. (shrink)

In 2011, the Middle East saw more people peacefully protesting long entrenched dictatorships than at any time in its history. The dictators of Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen were deposed in a matter of weeks by nonviolent marches. Imprecisely described as 'the Arab Spring', the revolution has been convulsing the whole region ever since. Beyond an uneven course in different countries, Philosophy of Nonviolence examines how 2011 may have ushered in a fundamental break in world history. The break, the book argues, (...) is animated by nonviolence as the new spirit of the philosophy of history.Philosophy of Nonviolence maps out a system articulating nonviolence in the revolution, the rule of constitutional law it yearns for, and the demand for accountability that inspired the revolution in the first place. Part One--Revolution, provides modern context to the generational revolt, probes the depth of Middle Eastern-Islamic humanism, and addresses the paradox posed by nonviolence to the 'perpetual peace' ideal. Part Two--Constitutionalism, explores the reconfiguration of legal norms and power structures, mechanisms of institutional change and constitution-making processes in pursuit of the nonviolent anima. Part Three--Justice, covers the broadening concept of dictatorship as crime against humanity, an essential part of the philosophy of nonviolence. It follows its frustrated emergence in the French revolution, its development in the Middle East since 1860 through the trials of Arab dictators, the pyramid of accountability post-dictatorship, and the scope of foreign intervention in nonviolent revolutions. Throughout the text, Professor Mallat maintains thoroughly abstract and philosophical arguments, while substantiating those arguments in historical context enriched by a close participation in the ongoing Middle East revolution. (shrink)

Though Ali Shariati is well-known as the “ideologue” of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, this essay considers Shariati conversely as a student of revolution. It begins by posing a distinction between the apprentice and the autodidact through reference to Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan and introduces a third term, the collaborator, that is crucial to Shariati’s account of counter-pedagogy. The essay then reconstructs Shariati’s critique of the pedagogical state. There, he recalls resisting interpellation by learning from other pasts, refusing instruction, (...) and learning from others. Finally, I show changes in how Shariati conceptualized self-transformation, from an autodidactic process of soul-searching to a collaborative process that gives soul to a collective. On becoming immersed in the sounds of his compatriots grieving the martyrs of struggle, Shariati attests to being a student of history: the curriculum of a people becoming, the history of struggle, and its instructors, those who modeled it, pivoted around a refusal to be instructed. Overall, this essay develops an account of media environments as informal pedagogical spaces. (shrink)

Mansour Fahmy, one of the dramatic figures in modern Arab philosophical and social thought. He was the reformist and enlightenment figure in modern Arab history. He is also the owner of a notable current that was subjected to a violent attack that silenced him for a long time and forced him to "hide" physically. However, this did not eliminate the new opinions and positions that came at the beginning of the twentieth century towards the issue of women. He is the (...) first to write with a scientific methodology - from the point of view of sociology - on Islamic discourse and its dealings with women. he sought to differentiate between religion and the religious establishment, between the personality of the Prophet Muhammad and what later prevailed in the books of jurisprudence and others. When he discussed the headscarf issue, he concluded that it was the product of traditions and customs that the Hijab is not from the Islamic religion. Islamic law has nothing to do with the Hijab. Mansour Fahmy's creativity was at one of the sensitive stages in Egypt's modern history in which the political, social, national, cultural, and revolution clashed in each one. All this, in turn, identified the problem of Mansour Fahmy's intellectual personality in the battles of thought and politics. This research's main task is to redraw the features of his actual personality and the reality of his intellectual, social, and political positions. Besides, this study seeks to uncover the effect of philosophy on crystallizing Mansour Fahmy's critical personality and its role in laying the foundations of the critical vision with its practical, reformist, and enlightening dimensions. (shrink)

Why did the scientific revolution take place in the West and not in China or the Islamic world? How did humanity's progress in science and technology, which had been moving along at a relatively steady pace for tens of thousands of years, end up taking such an unprecedented leap? Subjecting the history of thought and technology to a novel interpretation based on the relationship between theory and practice, Ahmet Selami Çalışkan argues that the industrial revolution and modern science-and the scientific (...) revolution that preceded both-did not alone suffice to sort out the philosophical problems of their day or to produce the institutions of the modern age. Both required a new sort of human: Homo economicus faber. Tracing the historical emergence of this figure and its persistence in our own age, this book offers an innovative and holistic assessment of the economic, cultural, and political effects of centuries of interaction between East and West and their repercussions in our world today. (shrink)

The ArgumentDuring the later European Renaissance, some scholars began to write about the history of scientific disciplines. Some of the issues and problems they faced in constructing their narratives have had long-term effects on the history of science. One of these issues was how to relate scholars from the Islamic traditions of scientific scholarship to those of antiquity and of postclassical Europe. Recent historians of science have rejected a once-common Western opinion that the contribution of these Islamic scientists had lain (...) mainly in their preservation of ancient texts that were then handed over to Western scholars, who mastered them and then moved beyond them as part of the scientific revolution. This article examines the first effort to write a history of mathematics, theLives of the Mathematiciansby Bernardino Baldi (1553–1617), to determine how he treated this issue in his work. Baldi's efforts are especially important here because he was also an early European scholar of Arabic.An examination of the work shows that Baldi did not share the negative views held by later Europeans about these non-European scientists. However, despite his knowledge of Arabic he had no active contacts with ongoing mathematical scholarship in Arabic. As a consequence, his narrative does follow the chronology of those later Europeans who would limit consideration of these mathematicians to approximately the ninth to the fourteenth centuries. In Baldi's writings, then, we can see the later narrative shape used by Western historians of science until recent years, but not the subsidiary role accorded to non-European scholars. (shrink)

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930) is Muhammad Iqbal's major philosophic work: a series of profound reflections on the perennial conflict among science, religion, and philosophy, culminating in new visions of the unity of human knowledge, of the human spirit, and of God. Iqbal's thought contributed significantly to the establishment of Pakistan, to the religious and political ideals of the Iranian Revolution, and to the survival of Muslim identity in parts of the former USSR. It now serves as (...) new bridge between East and West and between Islam and the other Religions of the Book. With a new Introduction by Javed Majeed, this edition of The Reconstruction opens the teachings of Iqbal to the modern, Western reader. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Islamic intellectual history, the renewal of Islam in the modern world, and political theory of Islam's relationship to the West. (shrink)

This article analyzes the interpretation proposed by Michel Foucault of the Iranian Revolution, i.e. the popular uprisings and revolts that took place in Iran in 1978 and their consequences in the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, with the aim of systematizing the thought of the philosopher about this question and of going further in a highly potent matrix in his production which unfortunately has been partly eclipsed by the shallow and hasty criticisms it received. For this purpose, I (...) will proceed to the exam of the problematic cores and the conceptual categories arising from what can be called Foucault’s dossier Iran accounting for the relationship between the subject, politics and history. Likewise, I will highlight the main axes of that interpretation following the link with the researches and central lines that Foucault is developing at that moment, in particular, the relationship he establishes between life, government and truth and the reformulation of the problem of power in terms of the problem of government which will enable him to deploy that aspect of his analyses of power and politics relating to resistance, freedom and the critique of the present. Finally, I will propose an assessment in perspective, underlining the scope and the potentialities of the Foucauldian ideas about these events. (shrink)

Nearly four decades after a revolution, experiencing one of the longest wars in contemporary history, facing political and ideological threats by regional radicals such as ISIS and the Taliban, and having succeeded in negotiations with six world powers over her nuclear program, Iran appears as an experienced Muslim country seeking to build bridges with its Sunni neighbours as well as with the West. "Ethics of War and Peace in Iran and Shi'i Islam explores the wide spectrum of theoretical approaches and (...) practical attitudes concerning the justifications, causes and conduct of war in Iranian-Shi'i culture. By examining primary and secondary sources, and investigating longer lasting factors and questions over circumstantial ones, Mohammad Jafar Amir Mahallati seeks to understand modern Iranian responses to war and peace. His work is the first in its field to look into the ethics of war and peace in Iran and Shi'i Islam. It provides a prism through which the binary source of the Iranian national and religious identity informs Iranian responses to modernity. By doing so, the author reveals that a civilization-conscious soul in modern Iran is re-emerging. (shrink)

_The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam_ is Muhammad Iqbal's major philosophic work: a series of profound reflections on the perennial conflict among science, religion, and philosophy, culminating in new visions of the unity of human knowledge, of the human spirit, and of God. Iqbal's thought contributed significantly to the establishment of Pakistan, to the religious and political ideals of the Iranian Revolution, and to the survival of Muslim identity in parts of the former USSR. It now serves as new (...) bridge between East and West and between Islam and the other Religions of the Book. With a new Introduction by Javed Majeed, this edition of _The Reconstruction_ opens the teachings of Iqbal to the modern, Western reader. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Islamic intellectual history, the renewal of Islam in the modern world, and political theory of Islam's relationship to the West. (shrink)

Unconventionally fusing the the history of faith and reason in Islam, this book traces the Qur'an-inspired intellectual revolution that took off in the Islamic world of the seventh century, revealing its highlights and following it through to its sixteenth-century demise.

In a society transitioning to democracy from an authoritarian regime, drafting a new constitution is an important step in the establishment of a civil and democratic state. Indeed, the demand of Tunisians to write a new constitution reflects their ambitions, aspirations and hopes; but reality shows a huge gap between the expectations of the majority of Tunisians and the result of the drafting process. The Tunisian transition is characterized by a fierce debate between the secular and the religious forces. This (...) unfolding confrontation forms the backdrop to the process of drafting a new constitution, amid anxiety surrounding the place of Islam in the new political system. However, fears of the resurrection of a new theocratic dictatorship are mitigated by a dynamic civil society in which voices that were silenced or misused by the former regime of Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali are becoming distinctly vocal. Their action has become increasingly visible, evolving around the place of religion, law and gender in the new constitutional framework. This article focuses on the debate on religion, law and gender in post-revolution Tunisia. (shrink)