Disenchanting the Caliphate : : The Secular Discipline of Power in Abbasid Political Thought / / / Hayrettin Yücesoy.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press Complete eBook-Package 2023
• VerfasserIn: Yücesoy, Hayrettin,
• Author: Yücesoy, Hayrettin,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : : Columbia University Press, , [2023]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: Columbia Studies in International and Global History
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

The political thought of Muslim societies is all too often defined in religious terms, in which the writings of clerics are seen as representative and ideas about governance are treated as an extension of commentary on sacred texts. Disenchanting the Caliphate offers a groundbreaking new account of political discourse in Islamic history by examining Abbasid imperial practice, illuminating the emergence and influence of a vibrant secular tradition.Closely reading key eighth-century texts, Hayrettin Yücesoy argues that the ulema's discourse of religious governance and the political thought of lay intellectuals diverged during this foundational period, with enduring consequences. He traces how notions of good governance and reflections on prudent statecraft arose among cosmopolitan literati who envisioned governing as an art. Competent in nonreligious branches of knowledge and trained in administrative professions, these belletrists articulated and defended secular political practices, reimagining the caliphal realm as politically constituted rather than natural. They sought to improve administrative efficiency and bolster state control for an empire made up of diverse cultures. Their ideas about moral cultivation, temporal reasoning, and governmental rationality endured for centuries as a counterpoint to religious rulership. Drawing on this history, Yücesoy critiques the concept of "Islamic political thought," calling for decolonizing debates about "secular" and "religious" politics.Theoretically rich and historically grounded, Disenchanting the Caliphate is an insightful and provocative reconsideration of key strands of political discourse in the intellectual history of Muslim societies.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- List of Early, Umayyad, and Abbasid Caliphs, 632-861 -- Introduction: Critical Reflections on "Islamic Political Thought" -- 1. Caliphal Practice -- 2. The Language of Imamate -- 3. Political Prose Revolution -- 4. The Disruptive Language of Siyasa -- 5. Deconfessionalizing the Caliph -- 6. A Theory of Imperial Law -- 7. Territorial Consciousness -- 8. Reimagining the People of the Empire -- Conclusion: Releasing Siyasa from the Imamate -- Conventions and Spelling -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index