Author : Richard W. Bulliet
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 199 pages
File Size : 29,42 MB
Release : 2006-03-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0231127979
The 'clash of civilisations' so often talked about in connection with relations between the West and Arab nations is, argues Richard Bulliet, no more than dangerous sophistry based on misconceptions in American government. He sets out the common ground between Islam and Christianity.
Author : Richard W. Bulliet
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 199 pages
File Size : 21,6 MB
Release : 2004-07-28
Category : History
ISBN : 0231509189
Conventional wisdom maintains that the differences between Islam and Christianity are irreconcilable. Pre-eminent Middle East scholar Richard W. Bulliet disagrees, and in this fresh, provocative book he looks beneath the rhetoric of hatred and misunderstanding to challenge prevailing—and misleading—views of Islamic history and a "clash of civilizations." These sibling societies begin at the same time, go through the same developmental stages, and confront the same internal challenges. Yet as Christianity grows rich and powerful and less central to everyday life, Islam finds success around the globe but falls behind in wealth and power. Modernization in the nineteenth century brings in secular forces that marginalize religion in political and public life. In the Christian world, this simply furthers a process that had already begun. In the Middle East this gives rise to the tyrannical governments that continue to dominate. Bulliet argues that beginning in the 1950s American policymakers misread the Muslim world and, instead of focusing on the growing discontent against the unpopular governments, saw only a forum for liberal, democratic reforms within those governments. By fostering slogans like "clash of civilizations" and "what went wrong," Americans to this day continue to misread the Muslim world and to miss the opportunity to focus on common ground for building lasting peace. This book offers a fresh perspective on U.S.-Muslim relations and provides the intellectual groundwork upon which to help build a peaceful and democratic future in the Muslim world.
Author : Richard W. Bulliet
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Page : 202 pages
File Size : 38,91 MB
Release : 2004
Category : History
ISBN : 9780231127974
The 'clash of civilisations' so often talked about in connection with relations between the West and Arab nations is, argues Richard Bulliet, no more than dangerous sophistry based on misconceptions in American government. He sets out the common ground between Islam and Christianity.
Author : Carl W. Ernst
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 17,30 MB
Release : 2005-10-12
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0807875805
Avoiding the traps of sensational political exposes and specialized scholarly Orientalism, Carl Ernst introduces readers to the profound spiritual resources of Islam while clarifying diversity and debate within the tradition. Framing his argument in terms of religious studies, Ernst describes how Protestant definitions of religion and anti-Muslim prejudice have affected views of Islam in Europe and America. He also covers the contemporary importance of Islam in both its traditional settings and its new locations and provides a context for understanding extremist movements like fundamentalism. He concludes with an overview of critical debates on important contemporary issues such as gender and veiling, state politics, and science and religion.
Author : Richard W. Bulliet
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 38,65 MB
Release : 1994
Category : History
ISBN : 9780231082181
Richard Bulliet's timely account provides the essential background for understanding the contemporary resurgence of Muslim activism around the globe. Why, asks Bulliet, did Islam become so rooted in the social structure of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in those parts of Asia and Africa to which it spread after the tenth century? In assessing the historical evolution of Islamic society, Bulliet abandons the historian's typical habit of viewing Islamic history "from the center", that is, focusing on the rise and fall of imperial dynasties. Instead, he examines the question of how and why Islam became - and continues to be - so rooted in the social structure of the vast majority of people who lived far from the political center and did not see the caliphate as essential in their lives. Focusing on Iran, and especially the cities of Isfahan, Gorgan, and Nishapur, Bulliet examines a wide range of issues, including religious conversion; migration and demographic trends; the changing functions and fortunes of cities and urban life; and the roots and meaning of religious authority. The origins of today's resurgence, notes Bulliet, are located in the eleventh century. "The nature of Islamic religious authority and the source of its profound impact upon the lives of Muslims - the Muslims of yesterday, of today, and of tomorrow - cannot be grasped without comprehending the historical evolution of Islamic society", he writes. "Nor can such a comprehension be gained from a cursory perusal of the central narrative of Islam. The view from the edge is needed, because, in truth the edge ultimately creates the center".
Author : Richard W. Bulliet
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 184 pages
File Size : 33,26 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0231148372
A boom in the production and export of cotton turned Iran into the richest region of the Islamic caliphate in the ninth and tenth centuries. Yet in the eleventh century, Iran's primacy ended as its agricultural economy entered a steep decline. Richard W. Bulliet advances several provocative explanations, for example that the boom in cotton production paralleled the spread of Islam and that Iran's agricultural decline stemmed from a significant cooling of the climate that lasted more than a century. Substantiating his argument with innovative quantitative research and scientific discoveries, Bulliet first establishes the relationship between Iran's cotton industry and Islam and then outlines the evidence for what he terms the "Big Chill." He then focuses on a lucrative but temperature-sensitive industry of cross-breeding one-humped and two-humped camels, concluding with an unusual concatenation of events that had a profound and long-lasting impact not just on the history of Iran but on the development of the world.
Author : Laura Bier
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 409 pages
File Size : 38,66 MB
Release : 2011-08-24
Category : History
ISBN : 0804779066
“Laura Bier unpacks the complicated dynamics and legacy of an historical moment in which women were understood to be crucial to modern nation-building.” —Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Do Muslim Women Need Saving? The first major historical account of gender politics during the Nasser era, Revolutionary Womanhood analyzes feminism as a system of ideas and political practices, international in origin but local in iteration. Drawing connections between the secular nationalist projects that emerged in the 1950s and the gender politics of Islamism today, Laura Bier reveals how discussions about education, companionate marriage, and enlightened motherhood, as well as veiling, work, and other means of claiming public space created opportunities to reconsider the relationship between modernity, state feminism, and postcolonial state-building. Bier highlights attempts by political elites under Nasser to transform Egyptian women into national subjects. These attempts to fashion a “new” yet authentically Egyptian woman both enabled and constrained women’s notions of gender, liberation, and agency. Ultimately, Bier challenges the common assumption that these emerging feminisms were somehow not culturally or religiously authentic, and details their lasting impact on Egyptian womanhood today. “Addresses a major void in the historical literature on Egypt. Showing how gendered politics proved central to Nasserist attempts to modernize, the book broadens our understanding of state feminism, secularism, and the postcolonial period. A very welcome addition, the work combines theoretical sophistication with rich evidence and well-crafted arguments.” —Beth Baron, author of Egypt as a Woman “Laura Bier’s well-researched and engaging text skillfully illustrates how Nasser spun ‘the woman question’ to define his Arab socialist agenda.”—Lisa Pollard, author of Nurturing the Nation
Author : Asef Bayat
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 13,44 MB
Release : 2007
Category : History
ISBN : 9780804755955
This book looks anew at the vexing question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy, examining histories of Islamic politics and social movements in the Middle East since the 1970s.
Author : Louay M. Safi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 31,95 MB
Release : 2021-10-18
Category : History
ISBN : 1000483541
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.
Author : Olivier Roy
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 11,66 MB
Release : 1994
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674291416
This powerful argument reassess radical Islam and the set of ideas and assumptions at its core. Olivier Roy offers a challenging and highly original view that no-one trying to understand Islamic fundamentalism can afford to overlook.
