Download or read book Medieval Islamic Sectarianism written by Christine D. Baker and published by Past Imperfect. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book asks readers to re-examine their view of the Islamic world and the development of sectarianism in the Middle East by shining a light on the complexity and diversity of early Islamic society. The focus here is on the tenth century, a period in Middle Eastern history that has often been referred to as the "Shiʿi Century," when two Shiʿi dynasties rose to power: the Fatimids of North Africa and the Buyids of Iraq and Iran. Historians often call the period after the Shiʿi Century the "Sunni Revival" because that was when Sunni control was restored, but these terms present a misleading image of a unified medieval Islam that was predominately Sunni. While Sunni Islam eventually became politically and numerically dominant, Sunni and Shiʿi identities took centuries to develop as independent communities. When modern discussions of sectarianism in the Middle East reduce these identities to a 1400-year war between Sunnis and Shiʿis, we create a false narrative.
Download or read book The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters written by Muhsin J. al-Musawi and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction, Muhsin J. al-Musawi offers a groundbreaking study of literary heritage in the medieval and premodern Islamic period. Al-Musawi challenges the paradigm that considers the period from the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 as an "Age of Decay" followed by an "Awakening" (al-nahdah). His sweeping synthesis debunks this view by carefully documenting a "republic of letters" in the Islamic Near East and South Asia that was vibrant and dynamic, one varying considerably from the generally accepted image of a centuries-long period of intellectual and literary stagnation. Al-Musawi argues that the massive cultural production of the period was not a random enterprise: instead, it arose due to an emerging and growing body of readers across Islamic lands who needed compendiums, lexicons, and commentaries to engage with scholars and writers. Scholars, too, developed their own networks to respond to each other and to their readers. Rather than addressing only the elite, this culture industry supported a common readership that enlarged the creative space and audience for prose and poetry in standard and colloquial Arabic. Works by craftsmen, artisans, and women appeared side by side with those by distinguished scholars and poets. Through careful exploration of these networks, The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters makes use of relevant theoretical frameworks to situate this culture in the ongoing discussion of non-Islamic and European efforts. Thorough, theoretically rigorous, and nuanced, al-Musawi's book is an original contribution to a range of fields in Arabic and Islamic cultural history of the twelfth to eighteenth centuries.
Download or read book Sectarianism in Islam written by Adam R. Gaiser and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-24 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sectarian divisions within the Islamic world have long been misunderstood and misconstrued by the media and the general public. In this book, Adam R. Gaiser offers an accessible introduction to the main Muslim sects and schools, returning to the roots of the sectarian divide in the Medieval period. Beginning with the death of Muhammed and the ensuing debate over who would succeed him, Gaiser outlines how the umma (Muslim community) came to be divided. He traces the history of the main Muslim sects and schools – the Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kharijites, Mu'tazila and Murji'a – and shows how they emerged, developed, and diverged from one another. Exploring how medieval Muslims understood the idea of 'sect', Gaiser challenges readers to consider the usefulness and scope of the concept of 'sectarianism' in this historical context. Providing an overview of the main Muslim sects while problematising the assumptions of previous scholarship, this is a valuable resource for both new and experienced readers of Islamic history.
Download or read book Medieval Islamic Sectarianism written by Christine D. Baker and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book asks readers to re-examine their view of the Islamic world and the development of sectarianism in the Middle East by shining a light on the complexity and diversity of early Islamic society. While Sunni Islam eventually became politically and numerically dominant, Sunni and Shiʻi identities took centuries to develop as independent communities. When modern discussions of sectarianism in the Middle East reduce these identities to a 1400-year war between Sunnis and Shiʻis, we create a false narrative
Download or read book In the Shadow of Sectarianism written by Max Weiss and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-30 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prologue : Shiʻism, sectarianism, modernity -- The incomplete nationalization of Jabal ʻAmil -- The modernity of Shiʻi tradition -- Institutionalizing personal status -- Practicing sectarianism -- Adjudicating society at the Jaʻfari court -- ʻAmili Shiʻis into Shiʻi Lebanese? -- Epilogue : Making Lebanon sectarian.
Download or read book Opposing the Imam written by Nebil Husayn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islam's fourth caliph, Ali, can be considered one of the most revered figures in Islamic history. His nearly universal portrayal in Muslim literature as a pious authority obscures centuries of contestation and the eventual rehabilitation of his character. In this book, Nebil Husayn examines the enduring legacy of the nawasib, early Muslims who disliked Ali and his descendants. The nawasib participated in politics and scholarly discussions on religion at least until the ninth century. However, their virtual disappearance in Muslim societies has led many to ignore their existence and the subtle ways in which their views subsequently affected Islamic historiography and theology. By surveying medieval Muslim literature across multiple genres and traditions including the Sunni, Mu'tazili, and Ibadi, Husayn reconstructs the claims and arguments of the nawasib and illuminates the methods that Sunni scholars employed to gradually rehabilitate the image of Ali from a villainous character to a righteous one.
Download or read book Understanding Sectarianism written by Fanar Haddad and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-15 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Sectarianism" is one of the most over-discussed yet under-analyzed concepts in debates about the Middle East. Despite the deluge of commentary, there is no agreement on what "sectarianism" is. Is it a social issue, one of dogmatic incompatibility, a historic one or one purely related to modern power politics? Is it something innately felt or politically imposed? Is it a product of modernity or its antithesis? Is it a function of the nation-state or its negation? This book seeks to move the study of modern sectarian dynamics beyond these analytically paralyzing dichotomies by shifting the focus away from the meaningless '-ism' towards the root: sectarian identity. How are Sunni and Shi'a identities imagined, experienced and negotiated and how do they relate to and interact with other identities? Looking at the modern history of the Arab world, Haddad seeks to understand sectarian identity not as a monochrome frame of identification but as a multi-layered concept that operates on several dimensions: religious, subnational, national and transnational. Far from a uniquely Middle Eastern, Arab, or Islamic phenomenon, a better understanding of sectarian identity reveals that the many facets of sectarian relations that are misleadingly labelled "sectarianism" are echoed in intergroup relations worldwide.
Download or read book The Formation of Islam written by Jonathan Porter Berkey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Berkey's 2003 book surveys the religious history of the peoples of the Near East from roughly 600 to 1800 CE. The opening chapter examines the religious scene in the Near East in late antiquity, and the religious traditions which preceded Islam. Subsequent chapters investigate Islam's first century and the beginnings of its own traditions, the 'classical' period from the accession of the Abbasids to the rise of the Buyid amirs, and thereafter the emergence of new forms of Islam in the middle period. Throughout, close attention is paid to the experiences of Jews and Christians, as well as Muslims. The book stresses that Islam did not appear all at once, but emerged slowly, as part of a prolonged process whereby it was differentiated from other religious traditions and, indeed, that much that we take as characteristic of Islam is in fact the product of the medieval period.
Download or read book Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions written by Shahzad Bashir and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions tells the story of the Nurbakhshiya, an Islamic messianic movement that originated in fifteenth-century central Asia and Iran and survives to the present in Pakistan and India. In the first full-length study of the sect, Shahzad Bashir illumines the significance of messianism as an Islamic religious paradigm and illustrates its centrality to any discussion of Islamic sectarianism. By tracing Nurbakhshi activity in the Middle East and central and southern Asia through more than five centuries, Bashir brings to view the continuities and disruptions within Islamic civilization across regions and over time. Bashir effectively captures the way Nurbakhshis have understood and debated the meaning of their tradition in various geographical and temporal contexts. Bashir provides a detailed biography of the movement's founder, Muhammad Nurbakhsh (d. 1464). Born to a Twelver Shi'i family, Nurbakhsh declared himself the mahdi, or the Muslim messiah, as an adept of the Kubravi Sufi order under the influence of the teachings of the great Sufi master Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1240). Nurbakhsh's religious worldview, which Bashir treats in depth in this volume, offers a
Download or read book Kingdoms of Faith written by Brian A. Catlos and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A magisterial, myth-dispelling history of Islamic Spain spanning the millennium between the founding of Islam in the seventh century and the final expulsion of Spain's Muslims in the seventeenth In Kingdoms of Faith, award-winning historian Brian A. Catlos rewrites the history of Islamic Spain from the ground up, evoking the cultural splendor of al-Andalus, while offering an authoritative new interpretation of the forces that shaped it. Prior accounts have portrayed Islamic Spain as a paradise of enlightened tolerance or the site where civilizations clashed. Catlos taps a wide array of primary sources to paint a more complex portrait, showing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews together built a sophisticated civilization that transformed the Western world, even as they waged relentless war against each other and their coreligionists. Religion was often the language of conflict, but seldom its cause -- a lesson we would do well to learn in our own time.
Download or read book Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought written by M. Cook and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-01-06 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together essays on topics related to Islamic law, this book is composed of articles by prominent legal scholars and historians of Islam. They exemplify a critical development in the field of Islamic Studies: the proliferation of methodological approaches that employ a broad variety of sources to analyze social and political developments.
Download or read book The Shrines of the Alids in Medieval Syria written by Stephennie Mulder and published by Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the relationship between Sunnis and Shi'is as expressed in the patronage and architecture of shrines, and links them to the wider, pan-Islamic landscape of interconnected pilgrimage sites created from these acts of patronage.
Download or read book The Beginnings of Islamic Law written by Lena Salaymeh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-14 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a major and innovative contribution to our understanding of the historical unfolding of Islamic law. Scrutinizing its historical contexts, Salaymeh proposes that Islamic law is a continuous intermingling of innovation and tradition. The book's interdisciplinary approach provides accessible explanations and translations of complex materials and ideas.
Download or read book Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law written by Ignaz Goldziher and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book description for the previously published "Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law" is not yet available.
Download or read book Among the Ruins written by Christian C. Sahner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible history of Syria's cultural and religious past documents such issues as the role of Christianity in society, the emergence of the Ba'ath party, and the arrival of Islam, and traces the origins of the current civil war.
Download or read book Sectarianization written by Nader Hashemi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-15 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Middle East descends ever deeper into violence and chaos, 'sectarianism' has become a catch-all explanation for the region's troubles. The turmoil is attributed to 'ancient sectarian differences', putatively primordial forces that make violent conflict intractable. In media and policy discussions, sectarianism has come to possess trans-historical causal power. This book trenchantly challenges the lazy use of 'sectarianism' as a magic-bullet explanation for the region's ills, focusing on how various conflicts in the Middle East have morphed from non-sectarian (or cross-sectarian) and nonviolent movements into sectarian wars. Through multiple case studies -- including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and Kuwait -- this book maps the dynamics of sectarianisation, exploring not only how but also why it has taken hold. The contributors examine the constellation of forces -- from those within societies to external factors such as the Saudi-Iran rivalry -- that drive the sectarianisation process and explore how the region's politics can be de-sectarianised. Featuring leading scholars -- and including historians, anthropologists, political scientists and international relations theorists -- this book will redefine the terms of debate on one of the most critical issues in international affairs today.
Download or read book The Culture of Sectarianism written by Ussama Makdisi and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2000-07-03 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh interpretation of the development of sectarian identities and communal violence in Lebanon from the 1840s to the 1860s, challenging those who have viewed sectarian violence as an Islamic reaction against westernization or as the product of social and economic inequities among religious groups.
