Islam, Ethnicity, and Power Politics

2017 Political Science

Author : Rasul Bakhsh Rais
Release : 2017
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 590/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Islam, Ethnicity, and Power Politics by : Rasul Bakhsh Rais

Download or read book Islam, Ethnicity, and Power Politics written by Rasul Bakhsh Rais. This book was released on 2017. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islam, Ethnicity, and Power Politics explores how the central state apparatus, social forces, ethnic groups, political elites, and religious factions have attempted to influence the construction of identity in Pakistan, and why it has become such a contested issue. The book analyzes the issue of identity in relation to power dynamics and competing ideologies, and argues that the choice and expression of a specific identity by contending political actors serves to claim, legitimize, and challenge power. The postcolonial inheritance of ethnic diversity and cultural pluralism that is embedded deep in regional histories as well as in the multiple layers of narrow tribal, caste, and parochial affiliations have not lent easily to the coveted idea of a single national culture or a particular sense of national identity. Against a conventional view of identity, the book makes the counter-argument of multiculturalism and a layered idea of identities that is contextualized. The defining idea of the book is that the cultural diversity of Pakistan-a rich mosaic-is not the problem that it is generally conceived to be. Conversely, it argues that diversity and pluralism in Pakistan or elsewhere can be managed and made to evolve into national solidarity and political cohesion through democratic, federal, and republican politics. However, such a diverse society requires a pluralistic political framework of equality, accommodation, inclusiveness, recognition, and rights.

The Future of Political Islam

2003-05-12 Philosophy

Author : Graham E. Fuller
Release : 2003-05-12
Genre : Philosophy
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 561/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Future of Political Islam by : Graham E. Fuller

Download or read book The Future of Political Islam written by Graham E. Fuller. This book was released on 2003-05-12. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Graham E. Fuller brings a lifetime of experience in the Muslim world to shed light on how common, even universal, political behavior takes on a distinctively Islamic guise in the Muslim world. By examining the social, economic and political context, he explains that the struggle between the fundamentalists and liberals will determine the future of political Islam. This sweeping survey of trends in the Muslim world, from Morocco to the Philippines, explores the diversity of Islamic political activity and makes clear that Islamic political movements represent a broad spectrum of outlook and behavior. Whether traditional or liberal, these movements have become an important vehicle for the concerns, aspirations and grievances of vast numbers of Muslims worldwide and are a natural outgrowth of Muslim history. Fuller contends that while political Islam is the dominant intellectual current, a focus on radicalism and extremism blinds us from another trend: liberal political Islam. The issues are not what is Islam, but what Muslims want, and not whether Islam will play a central role in politics, but which Islam. As Islam has become the vocabulary for political and social expression, it has come to serve various agendas.

Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies

2005 Political Science

Author : Maya Shatzmiller
Release : 2005
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 482/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies by : Maya Shatzmiller

Download or read book Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies written by Maya Shatzmiller. This book was released on 2005. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The movement of nation building in Islamic societies away from the secular or Pan-Arab models of the early twentieth century toward a variety of "nationalisms" was accompanied by growing antagonism between the Muslim majority and ethnic or religious minorities. The papers in Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies offer a comparative analysis of how these minorities developed their own distinctive identities within the modern Islamic nation-state. The essays focus on identity formation in five minority groups - Copts in Egypt, Baha'is and Christians in Pakistan, Berbers in Algeria and Morocco, and Kurds in Turkey and Iraq. While every minority community is distinctive, the experiences of each show that a state's authoritarian rule, uncompromising attitude towards expressions of particularism, and failure to offer tools for inclusion are all responsible for the politicization and radicalization of minority identities. The place of Islam in this process is complex: while its initial pluralistic role was transformed through the creation of the modern nation-state, the radicalization of society in turn radicalized and politicized minority identities. Minority groups, though at times possessing a measure of political autonomy, remain intensely vulnerable. Contributors include Juan R.I. Cole (University of Michigan), David L. Crawford (Fairfield University), Michael Gunter (Tennessee Technological University), Azzedine Layachi (St John's University), Richard C. Martin (Emory University), Paul S. Rowe (University of Western Ontario), Maya Shatzmiller (University of Western Ontario), Charles D. Smith (University of Arizona), Pieternella van Doorn-Harder (Valparaiso University), the late Linda S. Walbridge (University of Oklahoma), and M. Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah). Announcing the series: Studies in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict General Editors: Sid Noel and Richard Vernon, co-directors of University of Western Ontario's Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict Research Group. Studies in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict is a series that examines the political dimensions of nationality in the contemporary world. The series includes both scholarly monographs and edited volumes which consider the varied sources and political expressions of national identities, the politics of multiple loyalty, the domestic and international effects of competing identities within a single state, and the causes of, and political responses to, conflict between ethnic and religious groups. The volumes are designed for use by university students, scholars and interested general readers.

Under the Banner of Islam

2021-01-22 Religion

Author : Gülay Türkmen
Release : 2021-01-22
Genre : Religion
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 83X/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Under the Banner of Islam by : Gülay Türkmen

Download or read book Under the Banner of Islam written by Gülay Türkmen. This book was released on 2021-01-22. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sunni Islam has played an ambivalent role in Turkey's Kurdish conflict--both as a conflict resolution tool and as a tool of resistance. Under the Banner of Islam uses Turkey as a case study to understand how religious, ethnic, and national identities converge in ethnic conflicts between co-religionists. Gülay Türkmen asks a question that informs the way we understand religiously homogeneous ethnic conflicts today: Is it possible for religion to act as a resolution tool in these often-violent conflicts? In search for answers to this question, in Under the Banner of Islam, Türkmen journeys into the inner circles of religious elites from different backgrounds: non-state-appointed local Kurdish meles, state-appointed Kurdish and Turkish imams, heads of religious NGOs, and members of religious orders. Blending interview data with a detailed historical analysis that goes back as far as the nineteenth century, she argues that the strength of Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms, the symbiotic relationship between Turkey's religious and political fields, the religious elites' varying conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities, and the recent political developments in the region (particularly in Syria) all contribute to the complex role religion plays in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Under the Banner of Islam is a specific story of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism in Turkey's Kurdish conflict, but it also tracks a broader narrative of how ethnic and religious identities are negotiated when resolving conflicts.

Redefining the Muslim Community

2017-04-05 Political Science

Author : Alexander Orwin
Release : 2017-04-05
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 908/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Redefining the Muslim Community by : Alexander Orwin

Download or read book Redefining the Muslim Community written by Alexander Orwin. This book was released on 2017-04-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing in the cosmopolitan metropolis of Baghdad, Alfarabi (870-950) is unique in the history of premodern political philosophy for his extensive discussion of the nation, or Umma in Arabic. The term Umma may be traced back to the Qur'ān and signifies, then and now, both the Islamic religious community as a whole and the various ethnic nations of which that community is composed, such as the Turks, Persians, and Arabs. Examining Alfarabi's political writings as well as parts of his logical commentaries, his book on music, and other treatises, Alexander Orwin contends that the connections and tensions between ethnic and religious Ummas explored by Alfarabi in his time persist today in the ongoing political and cultural disputes among the various nationalities within Islam. According to Orwin, Alfarabi strove to recast the Islamic Umma as a community in both a religious and cultural sense, encompassing art and poetry as well as law and piety. By proposing to acknowledge and accommodate diverse Ummas rather than ignoring or suppressing them, Alfarabi anticipated the contemporary concept of "Islamic civilization," which emphasizes culture at least as much as religion. Enlisting language experts, jurists, theologians, artists, and rulers in his philosophic enterprise, Alfarabi argued for a new Umma that would be less rigid and more creative than the Muslim community as it has often been understood, and therefore less inclined to force disparate ethnic and religious communities into a single mold. Redefining the Muslim Community demonstrates how Alfarabi's judicious combination of cultural pluralism, religious flexibility, and political prudence could provide a blueprint for reducing communal strife in a region that continues to be plagued by it today.

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