Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit

Discover the essence of the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit and what it has contributed to societies across the ages 

In Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit, author and expert, Bruce B. Lawrence, delivers a spiritual elan filtered through cultural practices and artefacts. Neither juridical nor creedal, the book expresses a desire for the just and the beautiful. The author sets out an original and fascinating theory, that Islamicate cosmopolitanism marks a new turn in global history. An unceasing, self-critical pursuit of truth, hitched to both beauty and justice, its history is marked by male elites who were scientific exemplars in the pre-modern period. 

In the modern period, these exemplars include women as well as men, artists as well as scientists. The Islamicate Cosmopolitans have had special impact across the Afro-Eurasian ecumene at the heart of civilized exchange between multiple groups with competing yet convergent interests. The Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit is a boundary busting challenge to those who think of the world merely in terms of an “Arab” Middle East.  

Readers will also benefit from: 

• A thorough introduction to the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit across time and space 
• An exploration of premodern Afro-Eurasia and Persianate Culture in the Indian Ocean 
• A practical discussion of the future of the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit 

Perfect for all students of Islamicate civilization, both traditional and progressive, Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit will also earn a place in the libraries of general readers of world history and those grounded in the larger history of Islamicate Asia will find a perspective that centers their own contribution to the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit. 

BRUCE B. LAWRENCE is Marcus Family Humanities Distinguished Professor of Religion Emeritus at Duke University and Adjunct Professor of the Alliance of Civilizations Institute, Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul. His research focuses on contemporary Islam as religious ideology, south Asian Sufism, and Islamicate cosmopolitanism.

Acknowledgments ix

Preamble xii

Overview: A Manifesto in Three Words and Six Chapters xv

1 Tracing Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit Across Time and Space 1

2 Eastward Into India 8

3 Westward Into Spain 22

4 Premodern Afro-Eurasia 46

5 Persianate Culture Across the Indian Ocean 66

6 Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit Beyond 2020 92

Conclusion 121

Bibliography 125

Index 142

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