For the good of the Nation

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 42-67
Author(s):  
David H. Warren
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Islamic Tradition

This article analyzes Rifaʿa al-Tahtawi’s (d. 1873) idea of Egyptiannationhood (al-ummah al-miṣriyyah) and key attendant concepts,such as civilization (tamaddun), progress (taqaddum),homeland (waṭan), and citizen (waṭanī). I revisit the intellectualorigins of his thought to move our understanding of his intellectualproduction beyond simply the influence of the European Enlightenment.Instead, I locate al-Tahtawi’s work as part of a conversationinternal to the debates of the Islamic tradition, which stretchesacross centuries and was never meant to finish.Consequently, I contextualize his conceptualization of nationhoodas an attempt to re-imagine a role for the Muslim community inIslamic political life – from which it had long been excluded –and ground Muslim political theory and practice within a normativeIslamic framework. Furthermore, I contend that al-Tahtawi’scontributions to both the conversations of his immediate contextand those of his tradition were underpinned by a shift in his generation’shorizon of expectations, namely, the shared assumptionsthrough which they received the conversations of their tradition.Underpinning this shift was the redefinition of time as progress,specifically the progress of the nation. If we conceptualize the Islamic tradition as a framework for inquiry rather than as a set ofdoctrines, then we should recognize that al-Tahtawi and his peers’new concern for the futurity of the nation represented a key additionto this framework.

For the good of the Nation

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-55
Author(s):  
David H. Warren
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Intellectual Origins ◽  
Intellectual Production ◽  
Horizon Of Expectations

This article analyzes Rifaʿa al-Tahtawi’s (d. 1873) idea of Egyptian nationhood (al-ummah al-miṣriyyah) and key attendant concepts, such as civilization (tamaddun), progress (taqaddum), homeland (waṭan), and citizen (waṭanī). I revisit the intellectual origins of his thought to move our understanding of his intellectual production beyond simply the influence of the European Enlightenment. Instead, I locate al-Tahtawi’s work as part of a conversation internal to the debates of the Islamic tradition, which stretches across centuries and was never meant to finish. Consequently, I contextualize his conceptualization of nationhood as an attempt to re-imagine a role for the Muslim community in Islamic political life – from which it had long been excluded – and ground Muslim political theory and practice within a normative Islamic framework. Furthermore, I contend that al-Tahtawi’s contributions to both the conversations of his immediate context and those of his tradition were underpinned by a shift in his generation’s horizon of expectations, namely, the shared assumptions through which they received the conversations of their tradition. Underpinning this shift was the redefinition of time as progress, specifically the progress of the nation. If we conceptualize the Islamic tradition as a framework for inquiry rather than as a set of doctrines, then we should recognize that al-Tahtawi and his peers’ new concern for the futurity of the nation represented a key addition to this framework.

For the good of the Nation

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-55
Author(s):  
David H. Warren
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Intellectual Origins ◽  
Intellectual Production ◽  
Horizon Of Expectations

This article analyzes Rifaʿa al-Tahtawi’s (d. 1873) idea of Egyptian nationhood (al-ummah al-miṣriyyah) and key attendant concepts, such as civilization (tamaddun), progress (taqaddum), homeland (waṭan), and citizen (waṭanī). I revisit the intellectual origins of his thought to move our understanding of his intellectual production beyond simply the influence of the European Enlightenment. Instead, I locate al-Tahtawi’s work as part of a conversation internal to the debates of the Islamic tradition, which stretches across centuries and was never meant to finish. Consequently, I contextualize his conceptualization of nationhood as an attempt to re-imagine a role for the Muslim community in Islamic political life – from which it had long been excluded – and ground Muslim political theory and practice within a normative Islamic framework. Furthermore, I contend that al-Tahtawi’s contributions to both the conversations of his immediate context and those of his tradition were underpinned by a shift in his generation’s horizon of expectations, namely, the shared assumptions through which they received the conversations of their tradition. Underpinning this shift was the redefinition of time as progress, specifically the progress of the nation. If we conceptualize the Islamic tradition as a framework for inquiry rather than as a set of doctrines, then we should recognize that al-Tahtawi and his peers’ new concern for the futurity of the nation represented a key addition to this framework.

Save the Appearances! Toward an Arendtian Environmental Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
LAURA EPHRAIM
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Anthropogenic Contamination ◽  
Vulnerable Communities ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Critical Resources

Drawing critical resources from Hannah Arendt, this article argues for a revaluation of the appearances of nature in environmental political theory and practice. At a time when pervasive anthropogenic contamination threatens the very survival of vulnerable communities and species, it would be wrong to revive the timeworn mythos of nature as an untrammeled beauty. Instead, with Arendt’s help, I advocate an environmental politics rooted in an alternative aesthetic of nature, one that respects and seeks to protect earth’s diverse lifeforms for the sake of their strange, disquieting appearances of otherness. Earth’s living displays of alterity are valuable, I argue, for their propensity to upset the destructive logic of mass production and consumption and spur political action. In an Arendtian frame, we can better recognize interdependence between biological and political life and appreciate the role of nonhuman lifeforms in constituting spaces of appearance where human freedom and plurality may flourish.

Between Specters of War and Visions of Peace

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald M. Mara
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Democracies

This book examines how ideas of war and peace have functioned as organizing frames of reference within the history of political theory. It interprets ten widely read figures in that history within five thematically focused chapters that pair (in order) Schmitt and Derrida, Aquinas and Machiavelli, Hobbes and Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche, and Thucydides and Plato. The book’s substantive argument is that attempts to establish either war or peace as dominant intellectual perspectives obscure too much of political life. The book argues for a style of political theory committed more to questioning than to closure. It challenges two powerful currents in contemporary political philosophy: the verdict that premodern or metaphysical texts cannot speak to modern and postmodern societies, and the insistence that all forms of political theory be some form of democratic theory. What is offered instead is a nontraditional defense of the tradition and a democratic justification for moving beyond democratic theory. Though the book avoids any attempt to show the immediate relevance of these interpretations to current politics, its impetus stems very much from the current political circumstances. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century , a series of wars has eroded confidence in the progressively peaceful character of international relations; citizens of the Western democracies are being warned repeatedly about the threats posed within a dangerous world. In this turbulent context, democratic citizens must think more critically about the actions their governments undertake. The texts interpreted here are valuable resources for such critical thinking.

Domestic Colonies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Arneil
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
The State ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Peter Kropotkin

Colonization is generally defined as a process by which states settle and dominate foreign lands or peoples. Thus, modern colonies are assumed to be outside Europe and the colonized non-European. This volume contends such definitions of the colony, the colonized, and colonization need to be fundamentally rethought in light of hundreds of ‘domestic colonies’ proposed and/or created by governments and civil society organizations initially within Europe in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries and then beyond. The three categories of domestic colonies in this book are labour colonies for the idle poor, farm colonies for the mentally ill, and disabled and utopian colonies for racial, religious, and political minorities. All of these domestic colonies were justified by an ideology of domestic colonialism characterized by three principles: segregation, agrarian labour, improvement, through which, in the case of labour and farm colonies, the ‘idle’, ‘irrational’, and/or custom-bound would be transformed into ‘industrious and rational’ citizens while creating revenues for the state to maintain such populations. Utopian colonies needed segregation from society so their members could find freedom, work the land, and challenge the prevailing norms of the society around them. Defended by some of the leading progressive thinkers of the period, including Alexis de Tocqueville, Abraham Lincoln, Peter Kropotkin, Robert Owen, Tommy Douglas, and Booker T. Washington, the turn inward to colony not only provides a new lens with which to understand the scope of colonization and colonialism in modern history but a critically important way to distinguish ‘the colonial’ from ‘the imperial’ in Western political theory and practice.

The Singapore Ulama

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 561-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuty Raihanah Mostarom
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Political Choice ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Government ◽  
Common Perception

There is a common perception that Muslim religious leaders (ulama) in Singapore do not play any political role for the local Muslim community. Due to the seemingly close relationship between the government and grassroots Muslim organisations it is unsurprising that many presume that the activities of organisations such as the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) and the Singapore Islamic Scholars and Religious Teachers Association (PERGAS) are closely monitored by the government. As a result of this environment, the ulama in Singapore do not enter into the political arena. This article argues that the very act of keeping religion out of formal political life in Singapore is a conscious position taken by the local ulama and that in itself is a form of politics. Choosing not to do something is a political choice.

Democracy and Unfreedom: Revisiting Tocqueville and Beaumont in America

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 466-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara M. Benson
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Democracy In America ◽  
Jacksonian America

This essay reexamines the famous 1831 prison tours of Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont. It reads the three texts that emerged from their collective research practice as a trilogy, one conventionally read in different disciplinary homes ( Democracy in America in political science, On the Penitentiary in criminology, and Marie, Or Slavery: A Novel of Jacksonian America in literature). I argue that in marginalizing the trilogy’s important critique of slavery and punishment, scholars have overemphasized the centrality of free institutions and ignored the unfree institutions that also anchor American political life. The article urges scholars in political theory and political science to attend to this formative moment in mass incarceration and carceral democracy.

scholarly journals Ziarah Makam Antara Tradisi dan Praktek Kemusyikan

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-87
Author(s):  
Subri Subri
Keyword(s):  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Inanimate Object ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
The Past ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract: Graves or tombs in the paradigm of belief are the final terminal of life after world life, even though the grave or tomb is considered as an inanimate object but it is one of the representations of socio-cultural phenomena in the Muslim community from the past until now, including people in Bangka Belitung. The tomb or tomb is a representation of the past and present patterns of thinking of the community in obtainingsolutions to various kinds of life problems both economic, social, political and cultural problems.Even more than that, he also as a representation of the attitude of religiosity of the community in interpreting the relationship between humans as beings with God as creator. The graves or tombs of the Kyai, Alim Ulama, the Habaibs and even the trustees have been interpreted as mediators between humans and God by means of a superstition. Tawassul is a way to utilize the mediator.Theoretically, Islam does emphasize the existence of mediators / wasilah between humans and God, but the cult of their tombs indicates that there has been a difference between theory and practice. Abstrak: Kuburan atau makam dalam paradigm keyakinan merupakan terminal akhir dari kehidupan setelah kehidupan dunia, meskipun kuburan atau makam itu dianggap sebagai benda mati namun ia salah satu representasi dari fenomena sosial budaya pada kalangan masyarakat muslim dari dulu hingga sekarang, termasuk masyarakat di Bangka Belitung. Kuburan atau makam tersebut merupakan representasi dari pola berpikir masyarakat yang lalu dan sekarang dalam memperoleh solusi dari macam ragam masalah kehidupan baik masalah perekonomian, sosial, politik dan budaya. Bahkan lebih dari itu, ia juga sebagai representasi sikap religiusitas masyarakat dalam memaknai hubungan antara manusia sebagai makhluk dengan Tuhan sebagai pencipta. Kuburan atau makam para Kyai, Alim Ulama, para Habaib bahkan para wali telah dimaknai sebagai mediator antara manusia dengan Tuhan dengan cara bertawassul. Tawassul adalah cara untuk memanfaatkan mediator itu. Secara teoritis, Islam memang menegaskan adanya mediator / wasilah antara manusia dengan Tuhan, tapi pengkultusan terhadap makam-makam mereka tersebut mengindikasikan bahwa telah terjadi perbedaan antara teori dan prakteknya.

scholarly journals The Role Of Ethno-Confessional Leaders In The Political Life Of Society

2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (01) ◽  
pp. 364-373
Author(s):  
Khurshid A. Mirzakhmedov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
World Religion ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
The Media ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Media Reports

In the article, the authors are based on the verdict that the main and most important element of world religion is the phenomenon of the prophets. However, at the beginning of the New century as a world. Similarly, in regional terms, the media reports about false prophets and insults to religious prophets, including the great prophet Muhammad, which negatively affects the feelings of believers in the Muslim world. According to the authors of the article, this seriously depresses the international political situation, since the cult of the Holy prophets is recognized as the meaning-forming basis of the Muslim faith. The article proves that the goal of Islam in the formation and development of the socio-cultural life of Muslims is based on the strengthening of spiritual and cultural identity, based on the priority of recognizing the Majesty of the prophet Muhammad, that any skepticism or insults is a threat to the entire system of Islam's ideology. The authors note that the life of the great Muhammad is generally accepted as an example of the righteous organization of the personal and collective life of the Muslim community, which forms the highest qualities of spiritual and moral culture among believers.

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