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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Disenchanting the Caliphate: The Secular Discipline of Power in Abbasid Political Thought

Disenchanting the Caliphate: The Secular Discipline of Power in Abbasid Political Thought

Yücesoy, Hayrettin

Hardcover

Series: Columbia Studies in International and Global History

IslamGeneral Middle Eastern HistoryGeneral Political Science

ISBN10: 0231209401
ISBN13: 9780231209403
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: Aug 8 2023
Pages: 392
Weight: 1.72
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

The political thought of Muslim societies is all too often defined in religious terms, in which the writings of clerics are seen as representative and ideas about governance are treated as an extension of commentary on sacred texts. Disenchanting the Caliphate offers a groundbreaking new account of political discourse in Islamic history by examining Abbasid imperial practice, illuminating the emergence and influence of a vibrant secular tradition.

Closely reading key eighth-century texts, Hayrettin Yücesoy argues that the ulema's discourse of religious governance and the political thought of lay intellectuals diverged during this foundational period, with enduring consequences. He traces how notions of good governance and reflections on prudent statecraft arose among cosmopolitan literati who envisioned governing as an art. Competent in nonreligious branches of knowledge and trained in administrative professions, these belletrists articulated and defended secular political practices, reimagining the caliphal realm as politically constituted rather than natural. They sought to improve administrative efficiency and bolster state control for an empire made up of diverse cultures. Their ideas about moral cultivation, temporal reasoning, and governmental rationality endured for centuries as a counterpoint to religious rulership. Drawing on this history, Yücesoy critiques the concept of Islamic political thought, calling for decolonizing debates about secular and religious politics.

Theoretically rich and historically grounded, Disenchanting the Caliphate is an insightful and provocative reconsideration of key strands of political discourse in the intellectual history of Muslim societies.

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