Companies are increasingly engaging in corporate activism, defined as taking a public stance on controversial sociopolitical issues. Whereas prior research focuses on consumers’ brand perceptions, attitudes, and purchase behavior, we identify a novel consumer response to activism, unethical consumer behavior. Unethical behavior, such as lying or cheating a company, is prevalent and costly. Across five studies, we show that the effect of corporate activism on unethical behavior is moderated by consumers’ political ideology and mediated by desire for punishment. When the (...) company’s activism stand is [incongruent/congruent] with the consumer’s political ideology, consumers experience [increased/decreased] desire to punish the company, thereby [increasing/decreasing] unethical behavior toward the company. More importantly, we identify two moderators of this process. The effect is attenuated when the company’s current stance is inconsistent with its political reputation and when the immorality of the unethical behavior is high. (shrink)

Awḥad al-Dīn Kirmānī and the Controversy of the Sufi Gaze By RidgeonLloyd, 289 pp. Price HB £105.00. EAN 978–1138057135.

This book is a comparative study of two major Shīʿī thinkers Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī from the Fatimid Egypt and Mullā Ṣadrā from the Safavid Iran, demonstrating the mutual empowerment of discourses on knowledge formation and religio-political authority in certain Ismaʿili and Twelver contexts. The book investigates concepts, narratives, and arguments that have contributed to the generation and development of the discourse on the absolute authority of the imam and his representatives. To demonstrate this, key passages from primary texts in Arabic (...) and Persian are translated and closely analyzed to highlight the synthesis of philosophical, Sufi, theological, and scriptural discourses. The book also discusses the discursive influence of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī as a key to the transmission of Ismaʿili narratives of knowledge and authority to later Shīʿī philosophy and its continuation to modern and contemporary times particularly in the narrative of the guardianship of the jurist in the Islamic Republic of Iran. (shrink)

The book is the first dedicated volume in English on some aspects of Ḥamīd Dīn Kirmānī's and Mullā Ṣadrā's political thought.Kirmānī was a key Isma'ili figure who represented and advocated "moderate" Isma'ili thought during the imamate of the Fatimid imam/caliph in Cairo, al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allah. Mullā Ṣadrā is the most eminent Shi'Imami philosopher in the last four hundred years and the founder of the school of transcendent philosophy who has received huge attention in Muslim and in Western academia.In her extremely (...) useful study, Sayeh Meisami addresses the philosophical link between the theoretical and practical philosophies of the two thinkers, particularly the... (shrink)

Intellectual encounters between Europe and the Middle East have a long and rich history. During the last two centuries these encounters have accelerated, creating valuable opportunities to study the evolution of political concepts and dissemination of political ideas. This article examines one example of such encounters, showing how a liberal Persian intellectual of the late nineteenth century has borrowed and manipulated concepts from a French Romanticist of the late seventeenth century. Guided by theoretical insights from Quentin Skinner and Fred Dallmayr, (...) this article demonstrates the importance of context to the development of political thought, and refutes the conventional suggestion that Middle Eastern liberals have been the passive recipients of Western ideas. (shrink)

Over the last few decades the study of Shīʿī Islam has witnessed a growing interest in specific aspects and perspectives of Shīʿī philosophers and theologians. The monograph authored by Sayeh Meisami focuses on the views of two of the most influential thinkers in Shīʿī, namely the eleventh century Ismāʿīlī thinker Ḥāmid al-Kirmānī and the Twelver mystic and thinker Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, better known as Mullā Ṣadrā. Throughout the five chapters, the textual comparative analysis of their thought shows how multifaceted epistemological (...) and cosmological keys are transmitted from al-Kirmānī to Mullā Ṣadra, and ultimately become interwoven with their respective theories about the legitimacy of the Imām. Epistemology, cosmology, and political theory thus become, in the author’s analysis, the fil rouge that characterize the development of Shīʿī mystical and political philosophies up to the advent of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic of Iran. (shrink)

Medieval Islamic philosophers were occupied with questions of cosmology, predestination and salvation and human responsibility for actions. For Ismailis, the related notions of religious leadership, namely the imamate, and the eschatological role of the prophets and imams were equally central. These were also a matter of doctrinal controversy within the so-called Iranian school of Ismaili philosophical theology. Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani (d. after 411/1020) was one of the most important theologians in the Fatimid period, who rose to prominence during the (...) reign of the imam-caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 386/996–411/1021). He is renowned for blending the Neoplatonic philosophical heritage with Ismaili religious tradition. This book provides an analysis of al-Kirmani’s thought and sheds new light on the many layers of allusion which characterise his writings. Through a translation and analytical commentary of the eighth chapter of al-Kirmani’s Kitab al-Riyad (Book of Meadows), which is devoted to the subject of divine preordination and human redemption, Maria De Cillis shows readers first-hand his theologically distinctive interpretation of qada’ and qadar (divine decree and destiny). Here, al-Kirmani attempts to harmonise the views of earlier renowned Ismaili missionaries, Abu Hatim Ahmad b. Hamdan al-Razi (d. 322/934), Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Nasafi (d. 331/942) and Abu Ya'qub Ishaq b. Ahmad al-Sijistani (d. c. 361/971). De Cillis skilfully guides the reader through al-Kirmani’s metaphysical and esoteric correspondences, offering new insights into Shi’i/Ismaili philosophical thought which will be of great interest to those in the field of Shi’i studies and, more broadly, to scholars of medieval philosophy. (shrink)