Religiously Free States in the Muslim World

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-76
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Basic Features

This chapter begins the book’s analysis of religious freedom in Muslim-majority states by looking at the first of three categories of regimes that are defined by their political theology. This category is religiously free states. It defines the basic features of religiously free states, portraying them through the concept of positive secularism. It then looks closely at the 11 countries that fit this category. It notes that seven of these are in West Africa and identifies the historical and cultural roots of this region’s common religious freedom. This chapter begins to make the case for diversity in the Muslim world and for the possibility and presence of religious freedom in that same world.

Secular Repressive States in the Muslim World

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-113
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Important Case ◽  
Majority World ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Basic Features

This chapter continues the book’s analysis of religious freedom in Muslim-majority states by looking at the second of three categories of regimes that are defined by their political theology. This category is secular repressive states, of which there are 15. It defines the basic features of secular repressive states, portraying them through the concept of negative secularism. It looks particularly closely at Turkey, the standard-bearer of repressive secularism, and at Egypt, also an important case. It also focuses on other countries of this kind in the Arab world and in Central Asia, two regions where they are concentrated. This category of state shows that Islam is not the only source of repression in the Muslim-majority world, thus adding to the picture of diversity begun in the previous chapter.

Religiously Repressive States in the Muslim World

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-148
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Basic Features

This chapter continues the book’s analysis of religious freedom in Muslim-majority states by looking at the third of three categories of regimes that are each defined by their political theology. This category is religiously repressive states. It defines the basic features of religiously repressive states, portraying them through the concept of Islamism, a form of political ideology. It identifies Saudi Arabia and Iran as the standard-bearers of this category and focuses on other countries in this category around the world, which total 21. This chapter makes the case for “Islamoskepticism,” though it also argues that this view does not explain everything about this type of regime.

Religious Freedom in Islam

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The West ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
The World ◽  
Muslim Majority

Is Islam hospitable to religious freedom? The question is at the heart of a public controversy over Islam that has raged in the West over the past decade-and-a-half. Religious freedom is important because it promotes democracy and peace and reduces ills like civil war, terrorism, and violence. Religious freedom also is simply a matter of justice—not an exclusively Western principle but rather a universal human right rooted in human nature. The heart of the book confronts the question of Islam and religious freedom through an empirical examination of Muslim-majority countries. From a satellite view, looking at these countries in the aggregate, the book finds that the Muslim world is far less free than the rest of the world. Zooming in more closely on Muslim-majority countries, though, the picture looks more diverse. Some one-fourth of Muslim-majority countries are in fact religiously free. Among the unfree, 40% are repressive because they are governed by a hostile secularism imported from the West, and the other 60% are Islamist. The emergent picture is both honest and hopeful. Amplifying hope are two chapters that identify “seeds of freedom” in the Islamic tradition and that present the Catholic Church’s long road to religious freedom as a promising model for Islam. Another chapter looks at the Arab Uprisings of 2011, arguing that religious freedom explains much about both their broad failure and their isolated success. The book closes with lessons for expanding religious freedom in the Muslim world and the world at large.

Realizing Religious Freedom in Islam

2019 ◽  
pp. 228-242
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Transnational Networks ◽  
Universal Principle ◽  
Majority World ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Muslim Majority

This concluding chapter offers six recommendations for increasing the sphere of religious freedom in the Muslim-majority world and in the globe in general. These are drawn from the book’s foregoing analysis. The chapter calls for a “gestalt” shift by which religious freedom is recognized as a universal principle, not a Western value; for a recognition of Islam’s capacity for religious freedom; for a rejection of negative secularism; and for an expansion of religious freedom in the Muslim world. Then, the chapter turns its attention to the rise of religious freedom in the foreign policy of the United States and other Western states, recommending that these states “mainstream” religious freedom in their foreign policies. It also recommends building transnational networks involving religious freedom constituencies.

Forcing the First Amendment

Islam ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 168-194
Author(s):  
Nadia Marzouki
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Muslim World

The fifth chapter looks at how the treatment of Islam as a matter of foreign policy reveals less clear distinctions than those observed in domestic quarrels between moral registers, law, and security. The policy of exporting the principle of international religious freedom is founded mostly on a culturalist approach that opposes an intolerant Muslim world to a persecuted Christian world.

Love in the Middle East: The contradictions of romance in the Facebook World

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Friedland ◽  
Janet Afary ◽  
Paolo Gardinali ◽  
Cambria Naslund
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Young People ◽  
Mate Selection ◽  
Romantic Love ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Western World ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Social Fact ◽  
Muslim Majority

Romantic love is a social fact in the Muslim world. It is also a gender politics impinging on religious and patriarchal understandings of female modesty and agency. This paper analyzes the rise of love as a basis of mate selection in a number of Muslim-majority countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, Tunisia, and Turkey where we have conducted Web-based anonymous surveys of Facebook users. Young people increasingly want love in their married lives, but they and the communities in which they live remain uncomfortable with the mating practices through which such love has traditionally been achieved in the Western world. The paper explores the religious contradictions and the gender politics of modern heterosexual love.

scholarly journals Humanitarian Crisis and the Arduous Path to Principled Pluralism: A Politico-Theological Analysis on Indian and Turkish Foreign Policies (2014-2019)

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-312
Author(s):  
Hadza min Fadhli Robby
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
Foreign Policies

This research aims to analyze the influence of political theology in the foreign policy of Indian and Turkish from 2014 to 2019. India and Turkey used political theology as one of the essential considerations for the conduct of foreign policies during the humanitarian crisis. Both countries were trying to conduct “politics of salvation” to protect their fellow faithful from the oppression in the neighboring regions. While conducting its politics of salvation in their foreign policies, India and Turkey were trying to protect their fellow faithful from the oppression from the constructed others. This research argues that the politics of salvation in its foreign policy will influence both countries’ religious freedom and secularism. This research would like to utilize the concept of “politics of principled pluralism” that Robert Joustra developed. In its analysis, this research engages with several articles from news outlets and research journals to construct arguments on the conduct of the foreign policy of India and Turkey in times of humanitarian crisis. This research found that India and Turkey had tried to implement their version of “politics of salvation” that deteriorate religious freedom and inclusive democracy.

Political Theology in Nineteenth-Century West Africa: Al-Ḥājj ʿUmar, the Bayān mā waqaʿa, and the Conquest of the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Amir Syed
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
West African ◽  
The Political ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Muslim Intellectuals ◽  
Legal Justification ◽  
New Vision ◽  
Muslim Communities

Abstract In 1862, al-Ḥājj ʿUmar Fūtī Tall (d. 1864) conquered a prominent Muslim polity of the Middle Niger valley, the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi. Several months earlier, he had penned a long polemical work, Bayān mā waqaʿa, where he outlined his conflict with Ḥamdallāhi's ruler, Aḥmad III (d. 1862), and presented a legal justification for his eventual conquest. Al-Ḥājj ʿUmar was one of several West African Muslim intellectuals who articulated a new vision of power in the region. These intellectuals linked legitimate political rule with mastery over Islamic knowledge that they claimed only they had. Yet these linkages between religious authority and political power remain understudied. Al-Ḥājj ʿUmar's Bayān offers one example of political theology in nineteenth-century West Africa. In this article, I trace his arguments and explain how he constructs his authority and claims to sovereignty in this work. In the process, I conceptualize two theoretical frameworks — the ‘political geography of belief’ and the ‘political theology of knowledge’ — to demonstrate how a careful engagement with Arabic sources can help develop new approaches to the study of Muslim communities in African history and beyond.

Seven Seeds of Freedom

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-205
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Full Bloom ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Religion And State

This chapter looks at potentialities for freedom in the Islamic tradition, identifying these potentialities as “seeds of freedom,” which are concepts or practices that express religious freedom in a significant way but that fall short of a full human right of religious freedom that is articulated in its many dimensions, enshrined in law, protected in contemporary political orders, and broadly accepted by Muslims. Nurtured, these seeds might grow into religious freedom in full bloom. These include verses in the Qur’an and their interpretation; the life of the Prophet Muhammad; the history of Muslim toleration of non-Muslims; liberal Islam; contemporary Muslim advocates of religious freedom; freedom in law and institutions in Muslim-majority states; and the history of the separation of religion and state.

Digital romance: the sources of online love in the Muslim world

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramina Sotoudeh ◽  
Roger Friedland ◽  
Janet Afary
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Physical Spaces ◽  
The Relationship

Social media creates new virtual public spaces where young women and men living in socially conservative non-Western societies can communicate in order to meet and engage in forbidden intimacies. In this essay, using survey data on thousands of Facebook users from Muslim-majority countries, we look at the relationship between romance in public physical spaces and cyberspaces. To what extent do Facebook users make use of the Internet to pursue romance? And what are the attributes of individuals who use it in this way?

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