Authors: Dale F. Eickelman, James Piscatori
ISBN-13: 9780691120539, ISBN-10: 0691120536
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: July 2004
Edition: 2nd Edition
In this updated paperback edition, Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori explore how the politics of Islam play out in the lives of Muslims throughout the world. They discuss how recent events such as September 11 and the 2003 war in Iraq have contributed to reshaping the political and religious landscape of Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities elsewhere. As they examine the role of women in public life and Islamic perspectives on modernization and free speech, the authors probe the diversity of the contemporary Islamic experience, suggesting general trends and challenging popular Western notions of Islam as a monolithic movement. In so doing, they clarify concepts such as tradition, authority, ethnicity, pro-test, and symbolic space, notions that are crucial to an in-depth understanding of ongoing political events.This book poses questions about ideological politics in a variety of transnational and regional settings throughout the Muslim world. Europe and North America, for example, have become active Muslim centers, profoundly influencing trends in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, and South and Southeast Asia. The authors examine the long-term cultural and political implications of this transnational shift as an emerging generation of Muslims, often the products of secular schooling, begin to reshape politics and society--sometimes in defiance of state authorities. Scholars, mothers, government leaders, and musicians are a few of the protagonists who, invoking shared Islamic symbols, try to reconfigure the boundaries of civic debate and public life. These symbolic politics explain why political actions are recognizably Muslim, and why "Islam" makes a difference indetermining the politics of a broad swath of the world.
Refreshing and instructive. . . . [This is] an excellent and much-needed book.
List of Figures | ||
Preface | ||
1 | What Is Muslim Politics? | 3 |
Imagining Politics | 5 | |
The Language of Politics | 11 | |
Doctrine and Political Action | 16 | |
Setting Boundaries | 18 | |
2 | The Invention of Tradition in Muslim Politics | 22 |
The "Modernization" of Muslim Societies | 22 | |
The Blurring of Tradition and Modernity | 28 | |
The Objectification of Muslim Consciousness | 37 | |
3 | Sacred Authority in Contemporary Muslim Societies | 46 |
The Linkage of Religion and Politics | 46 | |
Authority and the Interpretation of Symbols | 57 | |
Networks of Authority | 68 | |
4 | The "Firmest Tie" and the Ties That Bind: The Politics of Family and Ethnicity | 80 |
The Politics of Family | 83 | |
Women in the Muslim Political Imagination | 89 | |
Ethnicity | 99 | |
5 | Protest and Bargaining in Muslim Politics | 108 |
Membership and Organization | 109 | |
The Technologies and Culture of Protest | 121 | |
The Fragmentation of Authority | 131 | |
6 | Muslim Politics: A Changing Political Geography | 136 |
Transnational Linkages | 138 | |
The Civic Geography of Muslim Politics | 155 | |
Of Paradigms and Policies | 162 | |
Notes | 165 | |
Glossary | 175 | |
Annotated Bibliography | 179 | |
References | 183 | |
Index | 219 |