scholarly journals The Problems of Ideas in the Muslim World

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 133-135
Author(s):  
Mohamed Wagialla Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Real Challenge ◽  
Original Thinker

This is a good English translation of a slim volume originally published inFrench under the title, Le Probleme des Ideas dans le Monde Musulman. Thebook is composed of 17 essays, the culmination of the intellectual life of itsauthor, the late Malik Bennabi.The book insightfully deals with a problem heretofore neglected by mostauthorities on Islamic thought: the problem of ideas in the Muslim world. Thecentral theme of the book builds on the close linkage between ideas and theircultural environment, which determines whether ideas are dead, deadly, or efficient.As an original thinker, Bennabi identifies the problem of the Muslimworld as civilizational and cultural in nature. Bennabi's contribution to modemMuslim thought lies, in principle, in his attempt to discover the universal lawsthat govern the perfonnance of human civilization from birth, growth, prosperity,expansion, decline, and disintegration and to apply these laws to the historyof ideas in the Muslim world. He postulates that the social process takesits course in the history of civilizations and cultures, revealing itself in the dynamics of three major realms: persons, objects, and ideas, the latter being thefocus of his book.Bennabi perceives the post-Muwahid or postcivilized Muslim world as lackingthe spirit of creativity and falling into a process of ad hoc borrowing ofready-made objects and ideas from the West without due concern for the preconditionsof their viability and applicability. In order to analyze this situation,the author develops a framework of analysis by which regional issues andminute details find their place and acquire their significance within a comprehensiveand integrated whole, which in itself poses a real challenge to the paradigmcurrently dominating the realm of ideas in the Muslim world ...

Architecture, Modernism and Nation-Building in Kemalist Turkey

1994 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 37-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibel Bozdoğan
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
Critical Force ◽  
Modern Architecture ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
The West ◽  
Industrial City ◽  
The Social ◽  
Great Transformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

Deeply rooted in “the great transformation” brought about by capitalism, industrialization and urban life, the history of modern architecture in the West is intricately intertwined with the rise of the bourgeoisie. Modernism in architecture, before anything else, is a reaction to the social and environmental ills of the industrial city, and to the bourgeois aesthetic of the 19th century. It emerged first as a series of critical, utopian and radical movements in the first decades of the twentieth century, eventually consolidating itself into an architectural establishment by the 1930s. The dissemination of the so-called “modern movement” outside Europe coincides with the eclipse of the plurality and critical force of early modernist currents and their reduction to a unified, formalist and doctrinaire position.

The Diaspora of the Novel

1992 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-146
Author(s):  
Artemis Leontis
Keyword(s):  
Uneven Development ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Type

Reflection on the history of the novel usually begins with consideration of the social, political, and economic transformations within society that favored the “rise” of a new type of narrative. This remains true even with the numerous and important studies appearing during the past ten years, which relate the novel to an everbroadening spectrum of ideological issues—gender, class, race, and, most recently, nationalism. Yet a history of the genre might reflect not just on the novel’s national, but also its transnational, trajectory, its spread across the globe, away from its original points of emergence. Such a history would take into account the expansion of western markets—the growing exportation of goods and ideas, as well as of social, political, and cultural forms from the West—that promoted the novel’s importation by nonwestern societies. Furthermore, it could lead one to examine the very interesting inverse relationship between two kinds of migration, both of which are tied to the First World’s uneven “development” of the Third. In a world system that draws out natural resources in exchange for technologically mediated goods, the emigration of laborers and intellectuals from peripheral societies to the centers of power of the West and the immigration of a western literary genre into these same societies must be viewed as related phenomena.

scholarly journals Caliphatism in the period of decline and collapse of the Ottoman Empire

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-337
Author(s):  
Svetlana A Kirillina ◽  
Alexandra L Safronova ◽  
Vladimir V Orlov
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
Muhammad Rashid Rida ◽  
Political Actions

The article analyses the historical role of the movement for defenсe of the Caliphate, which emerged in various regions of the Muslim world as a response to weakening and fall of the Ottoman Empire. The authors also focus on the social and political discussions of the 1920s - 1930s about the destiny of Muslim unity and the role of the future Caliphate. The article also deals with the transformation of conceptions of the Caliphate in the works of eminent ideologists and politicians of the Muslim world - Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Muhammad Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad. The authors give an overview of the history of Caliphatist congresses and conferences of 1920s - 1930s. The aims and tasks of the Caliphatist movement among the Muslims of South Asia are also under study. The article examines the reaction of the South Asian princely elites to the weakening of the Ottoman state and explores the interrelation between pro-Ottoman sentiments of Caliphatists and the radicalization of anti-colonial struggle of Indian Muslims. A special attention is given to the role of leaders of Indian Caliphatists in preparation of the antiBritish uprisings in North-Western Hindustan. The authors also examine common and specifi c features of views and political actions of advocates and supporters of the Caliphate in the Middle East and in the Islamic communities of South Asia. The analysis of the source data reveales several patterns of reaction of Muslims in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia to the repudiation of the Caliphate by the Republican Turkey.

Contemporary Islamism

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Matthew Cleary ◽  
Rebecca Glazier
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social

Islamism proposes a vision of a society united by religion above all else – a vision that the West has difficulty theorizing and even comprehending. This vision and the social movements that have accompanied it are firmly rooted in the Muslim world’s history and traditions. This paper adopts a frame analytic perspective to examine and understand the progression of political Islam from the nationalism of the interwar period and beyond to the radical jihadism of today. In so doing, it contributes to the literature on framing by providing an analytically rich and theoretically valuable example of framing tactics in social movements. It also contributes to the growing literature on political Islam (Islamism) by providing a new and insightful perspective on its emergence and acceptance in the Muslim world.

Metal Mirrors from Altai Sites of the Xiongnu Time

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-375
Author(s):  
Alexey A. Tishkin ◽  
Nikolay N. Seregin
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Metal Alloys ◽  
Visual Examination ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Made In ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Abstract Metal mirrors are important indicators when reconstructing the history of the ancient peoples of Altai on the basis of archaeological materials. Among the latter there are imported products, recorded in the mounds of the Xiongnu time (2nd century BC – 1st century AD). The article gives an overview of the results of a comprehensive study of the mirrors. Only one mirror was found intact, and the rest are represented by fragments. This collection of 19 archaeological items is divided into two groups, reflecting the direction of contacts of the Altai population in this period. The first demonstrates Chinese products that could have entered the region indirectly from the Xiongnu who dominated Inner Asia. Some of them were made in the previous period, but were used for a long time. The analyses of metal alloys from the Yaloman-II site supplements the conclusions made during the visual examination. The second group, through its origin, is associated with the cultures of the so-called Sarmatian circle, whose sites were located to the west of the Altai. A separate section of the article is devoted to a discussion of reconstruction of some aspects of the social history of the nomads and their world.

Conservative Liberalism as a Disciplinary Revolution

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Kenneth Dyson
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Time Consistency ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Exclusive Property ◽  
Franz Böhm ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Internal Fragmentation ◽  
Porous Boundaries

This chapter examines economic and monetary discipline. It notes that conservative liberals accorded great importance to law as the source of discipline, as exemplified by Franz Böhm, Louis Brandeis, and Maurice Hauriou. The chapter considers discipline in the history of liberalism, noting that it is not the exclusive property of conservative liberalism—though it is its predominant characteristic. It considers the social, economic, and political functions of rules, notably the work of Friedrich Hayek; the Currency and Banking Schools; the difficulties that arise in the choice, design, and use of rules; the reinforcement provided by credibility and time-consistency literature since the 1970s; the legitimacy and accountability problems of unelected power; the question of when discipline becomes the enemy of democracy and liberty; and the respective roles of the state and the market as sources of destabilizing shocks. The chapter stresses the rich and revealing use of metaphor by conservative liberals: their rejection of engineering metaphors for those of gardening, architecture, health and medicine, and religion. Ordo-liberalism is characterized as an open-ended tradition, with internal fragmentation and porous boundaries, its membership including migrants as well as natives. The notion of a mainstream is defined by a social process of selecting key texts as essential references and citations.

Egyptian International Labor Migration and Social Processes: Toward Regional Integration

1988 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph R. Sell
Keyword(s):  
Regional Integration ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
International Labor ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Labor Migration

This article reviews evidence that contemporary Egyptian international labor migration to oil-rich Arab countries has followed a classic social process which starts with a homo economicus phase, advances into a goal reorientation phase, and ends with the establishment of diaspora communities in destination societies. The history of Egyptian migration, current estimates of migration, the role of Egyptians in selected Arab countries, and emergent processes all were found to support the predictions of the social process model. Particularly important support comes from the finding that all social classes participated in this migration. Conclusions suggest the likelihood that Egyptian migration processes will promote economic and perhaps social integration in the region.

scholarly journals The Social Construction of Historical Traumas: The Polish Experience of the Uses of History in an Intelligentsia-dominated Polity

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 911-931
Author(s):  
Tomasz Zarycki ◽  
Tomasz Warczok
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
The West ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Polish Experience ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Identity ◽  
And Control

The article argues that Poland’s mainstream national historical narrative, at least as far as the last two centuries of history of the country is concerned, is full of ‘traumatic’ motives which are regularly used and developed in diverse current political and intellectual contexts. Polish history is imagined to a large extent as an endless chain of 200 years of suffering, caused, among other things, by occupations, wars and exploitation, which are usually seen as not fully recognized in other countries, in particular in the West. The article attempts first of all to explain this specific nature of Poland’s historical identity by the privileged role of the intelligentsia, understood as a specific type of elite based on possession and control of cultural capital. It reconstructs the historical rise of the intelligentsia and its impact on the mainstream narrative in question, pointing to a selective choice of potential ‘traumas’ which are assigned a national status. They may be seen as tools to build positions in what can be called the Polish ‘field of power’, to use the notion coined by Pierre Bourdieu. The particular configuration and recent history of the field of power in Poland is reconstructed in order to explain different strategies of what can be called the social and political construction of historical traumas in Poland.

Islam without Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad S. Dallal
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Ganges

Replete with a cast of giants in Islamic thought and philosophy, Ahmad S. Dallal’s pathbreaking intellectual history of the eighteenth-century Muslim world challenges stale views of this period as one of decline, stagnation, and the engendering of a widespread fundamentalism. Far from being moribund, Dallal argues, the eighteenth century--prior to systematic European encounters--was one of the most fertile eras in Islamic thought. Across vast Islamic territories, Dallal charts in rich detail not only how intellectuals rethought and reorganized religious knowledge but also the reception and impact of their ideas. From the banks of the Ganges to the shores of the Atlantic, commoners and elites alike embraced the appeals of Muslim thinkers who, while preserving classical styles of learning, advocated for general participation by Muslims in the definition of Islam. Dallal also uncovers the regional origins of most reform projects, showing how ideologies were forged in particular sociopolitical contexts. Reformists’ ventures were in large part successful--up until the beginnings of European colonization of the Muslim world. By the nineteenth century, the encounter with Europe changed Islamic discursive culture in significant ways into one that was largely articulated in reaction to the radical challenges of colonialism.

Wallace Stegner's Arabian Discovery: Imperial Blind Spots in a Continental Vision

2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-438
Author(s):  
ROBERT VITALIS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
American Identity ◽  
The West ◽  
Western History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Oil Company ◽  
Blind Spots

In 1956 Wallace Stegner wrote a history of the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco), but it was only published fifteen years later——in Beirut. The book complicates the view of Stegner as a destroyer of American western myths and a forerunner of the social and environmental turn in western history. Stegner shared with those who bought his services some problematic ideas about American identity and history in the context of the Cold War. His forgotten history of oil exploration in Saudi Arabia reveals the blind spots in his ““continental vision,”” an inability or unwillingness to see the moment as part of the long, unbroken past of the U.S. West. Stegner's journey, from chronicler of the despoiling of the West by eastern oil and copper barons to defender of cultural diversity and the collective commons, stopped, as it has for many other Americanists, at the water's edge.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document