Redefining the Muslim community : ethnicity, religion, and politics in the thought of Alfarabi / Alexander Orwin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Orwin, Alexander, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fārābī--Political and social views.

Fārābī.

Ummah (Islam).

Islam and state.

Ethnicity--Political aspects.

Ethnicity.

Islamic philosophy.

Philosophy, Medieval.

Political and social views.

Physical Description:

viii, 250 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017]

Summary:

Writing in the cosmopolitan metropolis of Baghdad, Alfarabi (870-950) is unique in the history of premodern political philosophy for his extensive discussion of the nation, or Umma in Arabic. The term Umma may be traced back to the Qur'an and signifies, then and now, both the Islamic religious community as a whole and the various ethnic nations of which that community is composed, such as the Turks, Persians, and Arabs. Examining Alfarabi's political writings as well as parts of his logical commentaries, his book on music, and other treatises, Alexander Orwin contends that the connections and tensions between ethnic and religious Ummas explored by Alfarabi in his time persist today in the ongoing political and cultural disputes among the various nationalities within Islam. According to Orwin, Alfarabi strove to recast the Islamic Umma as a community in both a religious and cultural sense, encompassing art and poetry as well as law and piety. By proposing to acknowledge and accommodate diverse Ummas rather than ignoring or suppressing them, Alfarabi anticipated the contemporary concept of "Islamic civilization," which emphasizes culture at least as much as religion. Enlisting language experts, jurists, theologians, artists, and rulers in his philosophic enterprise, Alfarabi argued for a new Umma that would be less rigid and more creative than the Muslim community as it has often been understood, and therefore less inclined to force disparate ethnic and religious communities into a single mold.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The Nation in Plato and Aristotle: An Obstacle to Virtuous Rule 15

Chapter 2 From Speechlessness to Civilization: The Evolution of the Umma 45

Chapter 3 Philosophy and the Umma: An Uneasy Coexistence 66

Chapter 4 Another Kind of Umma: The Origin of the Islamic Umma 86

Chapter 5 The Mission of the Virtuous Umma: Ethnic Accommodation Within Islam 113

Chapter 6 Between City and Empire: The Political Significance of the Umma 136

Chapter 7 The Umma Among the Ignorant Associations: Nationalism and the Threat of War 174.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-242) and index.

ISBN:

9780812249040

0812249046

OCLC:

960292623