Islam Between Culture and Politics

Bassam Tibi offers a radical solution to the problems faced by Islam in a rapidly changing and globalizing world. He argues that Islam is being torn between the pressure for cultural innovation and a defensive move towards the politicization of its symbols for non-religious ends. Tibi proposes a depoliticization of the faith and the introduction of reforms to embrace secular democracy, pluralism, civil society, and individual human rights. The alternative to this is the impasse of fundamentalism.

Bassam Tibi is Professor of International Relations G÷ttingen.

Preface

ix

Acknowledgements

xvi

Introduction: Islam between Culture and Politics: the Scope and Implications

1

(1)

The issues: what is political Islam?

1

(3)

Islam and cultural modernity

4

(2)

Is semi-modernity manageable?

6

(2)

An important distinction: globalisation and universalisation

8

(3)

Ignorance and confusion

11

(1)

From Islamic modernism to fundamentalism

12

(1)

From the caliphate to the secular nation-state- and back to an Islamic order?

13

(3)

The place of this book in my study of Islam: the formative years

16

(2)

The cultural study of Islam

18

(6)

Part I Religion, Culture and Development-Islam between Past and Present

Introductory remarks

24

(4)

Religion, Culture and Social Reality: Islam as a Cultural System, and its Diversity

28

(25)

The tension between belief and reality

28

(6)

The symbolic clothing of reality

34

(3)

What is Islam? Unity and diversity in historical perspective: religion between doctrine and reality

37

(8)

Islam between divine law, everyday spirituality and a rational view of the world

45

(8)

Cultural Patterns and the Perception of Change in Islam. A Religious Model for Reality: the Islamic Worldview

53

(16)

The historical background: the Islamic religious view of the world, its sources and its goal

56

(3)

The Islamic sources of the prevailing cultural patterns

59

(4)

Islamic law (Shari'a): a social regulative or a stumbling block?

63

(3)

The exposure to the industrial West in the modern age

66

(3)

Culture and Social Change: Tradition and Innovation in Cultural Analysis

69

(18)

The study of culture at the crossroads

70

(2)

Evolution and modernisation

72

(3)

Religious reformation and cultural innovation

75

(3)

Who are the instigators of cultural innovations?

78

(6)

Part II The Context: the Politicisation of Islam in the Global Age

Introductory remarks

84

(3)

The Dichotomy of Structural Globalisation and Fragmenting Cultural Self-Assertion: the Case of Islamic Civilisation

87

(29)

Cultural, economy and politics in the global age

87

(3)

Islam at the crossroads: competing civilisational models for the future

90

(3)

An interplay is not a mechanism: modernisation, culture and development

93

(3)

Bringing culture into international studies: what is development in a global context?

96

(3)

Civilisations do matter!

99

(2)

Civilisation-awareness, politicisation of religion and its impact

101

(1)

Modernisation and secularisation: religion, culture, social change and politics

102

(4)

Is the politics of Islamic revival a spiritual mobilisation?

106

(4)

Islam between secularisation and de-secularisation

110

(3)

From secularisation to profanation?

113

(3)

The Politicisation of Religion: Political Islam as a Defensive-Cultural Response to Global Challenges. A Social-Scientific Interpretation

116

(15)

The socio-political constraints. The political revitalisation of Islam

119

(7)

al-nizam al-Islami as a backward-looking political utopia of political Islam

126

(5)

From Religious Belief to Political Commitment: the Fundamentalist Revolt against the Secular Order. Between Cultural Modernity and Neo-Absolutism

131

(17)

A clear distinction: Islam is not Islamism. Cultural relativist confusions

132

(4)

The background: the predicament with modernity

136

(2)

Culture and knowledge

138

(3)

Islam and the West: a cultural revolt?

141

(2)

Conclusion

143

(3)

Part III The Framework: the Means of Politicisation. The Revival of the Shari'a and the Islamisation of Education

Introductory remarks

146

(2)

Social Change and the Potential for Flexibility in Islamic Law: the Shari's between Ethics and Politicisation

148

(19)

Legal differences and cultural diversity

148

(5)

The roots and patterns. Islamic law as Shari'a

153

(6)

The reform of Islamic law and the potential for flexibility in the Islamic notion of law

159

(8)

Institutions of Learning and Education in Islam: between the Cultural Accommodation of Change, Religious Orthodoxy and the Politics of Cultural Islamisation

167

(24)

Learning in Islam and Islamic institutions of education

168

(6)

The Universitas Litterarum as a European educational institution: its universalisation and incursion into the Islamic civilisation

174

(5)

The crisis of Muslim education and the related cultural perceptions

179

(9)

Part IV The Topicality: Islam and the West between Inter-Civilisational Dialogue and Political Antagonisation

Introductory remarks

188

(3)

Islam Matters to the West! Islam and Europe, Islam in Europe: Islamic Migration between Cultural Assimilation, Political Integration and Communitarian Ghettoisation

191

(19)

Islam in Europe: the Euro-Mediterranean dimension

192

(3)

Is the global village an international system or an international society?

195

(2)

Islam and the West in the Euro-Mediterranean region. Inherited burdens and new patterns

197

(3)

Islam in the West: culture and politics

200

(3)

Dialogue needs to be reason-based. The politicisation of cultural-religious beliefs leads to confrontation

203

(1)

An urgent distinction: cultural pluralism is not communitarian multiculturalism

204

(2)

What Islam in Europe? Conclusions

206

(4)

Islam and the West in the Age of Conflict among Civilisations: the Alternative of Intercultural Dialogue as a Means of Conflict Resolution

210

(21)

Why do Europeans know so little about Islam?

211

(3)

Religion and politics in Europe and Islam

214

(2)

Between polemics and analysis: understanding world politics and the heterogeneity of civilisations

216

(2)

Islam: civilisational unity in cultural diversity

218

(4)

Islam and the claim for a de-Westernisation of the world

222

(2)

The options: head-on collision or bridge-building between the civilisations

224

(2)

An alternative to fundamentalism in Europe: Euro-Islam as an opening for migrants

226

(2)

Is an Islamic-Western peace of civilisations possible? Cultural dialogue without self-denial

228

(3)

Notes

231

(35)

Name Index

266

(2)

Subject Index

268

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Islam Between Culture and Politics

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials