The Formation of Arab Reason


Book Description

Since the earliest period of Islamic history, Arab thought has been dominated by a reverence for tradition and textual analysis. In this groundbreaking work, the great contemporary Arab philosopher Mohammed Abed Al-Jabiri seeks to chart a route towards modernity via the proposition that respect for textualism and tradition are not inconsistent with rationalism and that both history and philosophy are key to the evolution of knowledge systems and ways of reasoning in Arab culture. This book has been an enormous influence within the Arab world on the 'Islam and Modernity' discourse. It is published here for the first time in English and provides a fascinating insight into the currents of contemporary Arab thought.




The Formation of Arab Reason


Book Description

"Since the earliest period of Islamic history, Arab thought has been dominated by a reverence for tradition and textual analysis. In this groundbreaking work, the great contemporary Arab philosopher Mohammed Abed Al-Jabiri seeks to chart a route towards modernity via the proposition that respect for textualism and tradition are not inconsistent with rationalism and that both history and philosophy are key to the evolution of knowledge systems and ways of reasoning in Arab culture. This book has been an enormous influence within the Arab world on the 'Islam and Modernity' discourse. It is published here for the first time in English and provides a fascinating insight into the currents of contemporary Arab thought."--Bloomsbury Publishing.




Contemporary Arab Thought


Book Description

Leading scholars discuss ideology and hotly contested post-structuralist theory.




Contemporary Thought in the Muslim World


Book Description

This book presents an intellectual history of today’s Muslim world, surveying contemporary Muslim thinking in its various manifestations, addressing a variety of themes that impact on the lives of present-day Muslims. Focusing on the period from roughly the late 1960s to the first decade of the twenty-first century, the book is global in its approach and offers an overview of different strands of thought and trends in the development of new ideas, distinguishing between traditional, reactionary, and progressive approaches. It presents a variety of themes and issues including: The continuing relevance of the legacy of traditional Islamic learning as well as the use of reason; the centrality of the Qur’an; the spiritual concerns of contemporary Muslims; political thought regarding secularity, statehood, and governance; legal and ethical debates; related current issues like human rights, gender equality, and religious plurality; as well as globalization, ecology and the environment, bioethics, and life sciences. An alternative account of Islam and the Muslim world today, counterbalancing narratives that emphasise politics and confrontations with the West, this book is an essential resource for students and scholars of Islam.




Islamic Ethics and the Trusteeship Paradigm: Taha Abderrahmane’s Philosophy in Comparative Perspectives


Book Description

Islamic Ethics and the Trusteeship Paradigm explores the emerging ethical theory of the trusteeship paradigm as developed by the Moroccan philosopher Taha Abderrahmane (b. 1944). The volume, with contributions in English and Arabic, examines the development of this modern Islamic theory of ethics and how it permeates various disciplines: philosophy, theology, legal theory, Sufism, moral theory, sociology and anthropology, communication, environment and biomedical ethics. The trusteeship paradigm aims to make ethics the compass of human thinking and action in order to overcome the predicaments humanity faces and realize a more just and balanced world. This makes of it one of the principal and profound ethical theories in Islamic scholarship that engages both classical and modern thought. Contributors: Mutaz al-Khatib, Mostafa Amakdouf, Mohamed Amine Brahimi, Assia Chekireb, Abdelmounim Choqairi, Issam Eido, Hicham El Makki, Amin El-Yousfi, Adil Et-Tahiri, Ramon Harvey, Mohammed Hashas, Eva Kepplinger, Mohamed Ourya, Harald Viersen. يدرس كتاب الأخلاق الإسلامية ونسق الائتمانية الفلسفة الأخلاقية للفيلسوف المغربي طه عبد الرحمن (و. 4491م)، والتي بدأ الاشتغال عليها منذ أواخر سبعينيات القرن الماضي. يضم الكتاب مساهمات باللغتين العربية والإنجليزية تعالج تطور النظرية وتطبيقاتها وحدودها في المجالات الآتية: الفلسفة وتاريخ الأفكار، وفلسفة الدين وعلم اللاهوت، والتشريع والفقه، والتصوف، والأخلاق، والسوسيولوجيا والأنثروبولوجيا، وعلم التواصل والبيئة، والأخلاق الطبية. يحاول نسق الائتمانية جعل الأخلاق روح الفعل والقول الإنساني بدلاً من الاكتفاء بالعقل المجرد الذي يُفقد الوجود الإنساني جوهره الأخلاقي. وبهذا يُعتبر نسق الائتمانية واحدا من أهم المدارس الفكرية التي تساهم في فتح أفق فكري إنساني أرحب انطلاقًا من الأخلاقية الإسلامية وروحها العقلانية النقدية. المساهمون: مصطفى أمقدوف، محمد أوريا، محمد أمين البراهمي، محمد حصحاص، معتز الخطيب، عبد المنعم الشقيري، آسيا شكيرب، عادل الطاهري، عصام عيدو، هارالد فيرسن، إيفا كابلينغر، هشام المكي، رامون هارفي، أمين اليوسفي.




Islam, State, and Modernity


Book Description

This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to one of the most significant Arab thinkers of the late 20th century and the early 21st century: the Moroccan philosopher and social theorist Mohammed Abed al-Jabri. With his intellectual and political engagement, al-Jabri has influenced the development of a modern reading of the Islamic tradition in the broad Arab-Islamic world and has been, in recent years, subject to an increasing interest among Muslims and non-Muslim scholars, social activists and lay men. The contributors to this volume read al-Jabri with reference to prominent past Arab-Muslim scholars, such as Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali, al-Shatibi, and Ibn Khaldun, as well as contemporary Arab philosophers, like Hassan Hanafi, Abdellah Laroui, George Tarabishi, Taha Abderrahmane; they engage with various aspects of his intellectual project, and trace his influence in non-Arab-Islamic lands, like Indonesia, as well. His analysis of Arab thought since the 1970s as a harbinger analysis of the ongoing “Arab Spring uprising” remains relevant for today's political challenges in the region.




Narratives of Arab Secularism


Book Description

This book offers a new interpretation of the rich narratives of Arab secularism, contending that secularism as a set of ideas and a social movement is destined to loom large on the political and legal horizon of most Arab states. Youssef M. Choueiri provides a study of three moments in the development of secularism in the Arab World, the Machiavellian, the Alfierian and the Gramscian. It is within such a scope that secularism in its interaction with state-building projects, women’s emancipation and religion is treated as an intellectual current and a discursive entity embedded in the political process of its diverse societies. Through the chapters, Choueiri demonstrates how secularism occupies a pivotal presence in the religious and political life of the Arab world, exploring such interrelated configurations as indigenous contributions, diverse reforms and the impact of Western states. He concludes that secularism has become a moral prerequisite and a required vehicle in creating the necessary conditions for the success of democracy in the Middle East. Narratives of Arab Secularism tackles the complexity and contemporary ramifications of the subject in a way that no previous single study has been able to. It will be relevant to both students and academics dealing with topics related to the Middle East including religion, politics, anthropology and history. Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.




Genocide Culture


Book Description

This book considers different stages of Kurdish history, oppression, and genocide through a critical lens, offering an historiography of Iraq and colonialism. Divided into two parts, the first part conceptualizes the coined term “genocide culture” and examines dominant Iraqi cultural practices that fostered genocide. The second part contextualizes the experiences of the Kurdish community to examine the effects of cultural practices and the role of “civilian actors” in fueling the extermination of targeted groups. Through semi-structured interviews, primary archival documents, and nonparticipant observation, the author studies the links between everyday cultural practices and microaggression in general and the nexus between the state and the general population in the implementation of macroaggression and genocide. The audience will include scholars and students interested in genocide studies and the relation of both genocide and culture to histories of colonialism, as well as those working in the fields of violence and cultural psychology, sociology, history, international relations, ethnic conflict, and Middle Eastern studies.




Desiring Arabs


Book Description

Sexual desire has long played a key role in Western judgments about the value of Arab civilization. In the past, Westerners viewed the Arab world as licentious, and Western intolerance of sex led them to brand Arabs as decadent; but as Western society became more sexually open, the supposedly prudish Arabs soon became viewed as backward. Rather than focusing exclusively on how these views developed in the West, in Desiring Arabs Joseph A. Massad reveals the history of how Arabs represented their own sexual desires. To this aim, he assembles a massive and diverse compendium of Arabic writing from the nineteenth century to the present in order to chart the changes in Arab sexual attitudes and their links to Arab notions of cultural heritage and civilization. A work of impressive scope and erudition, Massad’s chronicle of both the history and modern permutations of the debate over representations of sexual desires and practices in the Arab world is a crucial addition to our understanding of a frequently oversimplified and vilified culture. “A pioneering work on a very timely yet frustratingly neglected topic. . . . I know of no other study that can even begin to compare with the detail and scope of [this] work.”—Khaled El-Rouayheb, Middle East Report “In Desiring Arabs, [Edward] Said’s disciple Joseph A. Massad corroborates his mentor’s thesis that orientalist writing was racist and dehumanizing. . . . [Massad] brilliantly goes on to trace the legacy of this racist, internalized, orientalist discourse up to the present.”—Financial Times




Islam, State, and Modernity


Book Description

This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to one of the most significant Arab thinkers of the late 20th century and the early 21st century: the Moroccan philosopher and social theorist Mohammed Abed al-Jabri. With his intellectual and political engagement, al-Jabri has influenced the development of a modern reading of the Islamic tradition in the broad Arab-Islamic world and has been, in recent years, subject to an increasing interest among Muslims and non-Muslim scholars, social activists and lay men. The contributors to this volume read al-Jabri with reference to prominent past Arab-Muslim scholars, such as Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali, al-Shatibi, and Ibn Khaldun, as well as contemporary Arab philosophers, like Hassan Hanafi, Abdellah Laroui, George Tarabishi, Taha Abderrahmane; they engage with various aspects of his intellectual project, and trace his influence in non-Arab-Islamic lands, like Indonesia, as well. His analysis of Arab thought since the 1970s as a harbinger analysis of the ongoing “Arab Spring uprising” remains relevant for today's political challenges in the region.