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The Art of Jihad: Realism Islamic Political Thought
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Barnes and Noble
The Art of Jihad: Realism Islamic Political Thought
Current price: $34.95
Barnes and Noble
The Art of Jihad: Realism Islamic Political Thought
Current price: $34.95
Loading Inventory...
Size: Paperback
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Now all but forgotten, there exists within medieval Islamic political thought a coherent "realist" tradition analogous to its Western counterpart. In
, Malik Mufti begins by analyzing contemporary debates on jihad designed to highlight the lacuna occupied by realism in other cultures. He explicates the features of medieval Islamic realism; those it shares with realism everywhere—a focus on power, for example, or the ubiquity of human conflict—but also those features that are distinctive: its insistence on the political centrality of religion, its rejection of scientific certainty, its valorization of hierarchy, and its adherence to empire as the optimal ethico-political framework. These features are fleshed out through the writings of medieval political thinkers such as Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, al-Jahiz, and the anonymous author of a seminal military manual, as well as political philosophers such as Ibn Rushd and Ibn Khaldun. Finally, Mufti explores the prospects for a revival of Islamic realism in the context of the political and intellectual upheavals currently besetting the Middle East.