Ali Mirsepassi
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814795644
- eISBN:
- 9780814764398
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814795644.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Can Islamic societies embrace democracy? This book maintains that it is possible, demonstrating that Islam is not inherently hostile to the idea of democracy. Rather, it provides new perspective on ...
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Can Islamic societies embrace democracy? This book maintains that it is possible, demonstrating that Islam is not inherently hostile to the idea of democracy. Rather, it provides new perspective on how such a political and social transformation could take place, arguing that the key to understanding the integration of Islam and democracy lies in concrete social institutions rather than pre-conceived ideas, the everyday experiences rather than abstract theories. The book provides a rare inside look into Iran, offering a deep understanding of how Islamic countries like Iran and Iraq can and will embrace democracy. It challenges readers to think about Islam and democracy critically and in a far more nuanced way than is done in black-and-white dichotomies of Islam versus Democracy or Iran versus the West. The book contributes important insights to current discussions, creating a more complex conception of modernity in the Eastern world and, with it, offers to a broad Western audience a more accurate, less clichéd vision of Iran's political reality.Less
Can Islamic societies embrace democracy? This book maintains that it is possible, demonstrating that Islam is not inherently hostile to the idea of democracy. Rather, it provides new perspective on how such a political and social transformation could take place, arguing that the key to understanding the integration of Islam and democracy lies in concrete social institutions rather than pre-conceived ideas, the everyday experiences rather than abstract theories. The book provides a rare inside look into Iran, offering a deep understanding of how Islamic countries like Iran and Iraq can and will embrace democracy. It challenges readers to think about Islam and democracy critically and in a far more nuanced way than is done in black-and-white dichotomies of Islam versus Democracy or Iran versus the West. The book contributes important insights to current discussions, creating a more complex conception of modernity in the Eastern world and, with it, offers to a broad Western audience a more accurate, less clichéd vision of Iran's political reality.
Roger S. Bagnall
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520267022
- eISBN:
- 9780520948525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520267022.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
This section concludes that although it is evident that there was widespread use of writing in everyday life in much of the Near Eastern world from a considerably earlier time, there are real risks ...
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This section concludes that although it is evident that there was widespread use of writing in everyday life in much of the Near Eastern world from a considerably earlier time, there are real risks of extrapolating what can be seen in the Hellenistic period back too uncritically into these earlier periods. It notes that during the prehistory of Hellenistic and Roman writing, everyday writing was available over the whole of the eastern Mediterranean world where Greek was in everyday use, as well as across North Africa. The chapter notes further that for a number of reasons it is harder to assess the situation in the Latin-speaking parts of Europe as definitively, and certainly, the full range of writing materials was available, with some substitutions for local conditions. It adds that this phenomenon was not limited to Greek and Latin, and finds that there was a similar body of writing in Aramaic, in a variety of regional forms, next to the range of everyday writing found in Greek and Latin.Less
This section concludes that although it is evident that there was widespread use of writing in everyday life in much of the Near Eastern world from a considerably earlier time, there are real risks of extrapolating what can be seen in the Hellenistic period back too uncritically into these earlier periods. It notes that during the prehistory of Hellenistic and Roman writing, everyday writing was available over the whole of the eastern Mediterranean world where Greek was in everyday use, as well as across North Africa. The chapter notes further that for a number of reasons it is harder to assess the situation in the Latin-speaking parts of Europe as definitively, and certainly, the full range of writing materials was available, with some substitutions for local conditions. It adds that this phenomenon was not limited to Greek and Latin, and finds that there was a similar body of writing in Aramaic, in a variety of regional forms, next to the range of everyday writing found in Greek and Latin.
Neguin Yavari
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190855109
- eISBN:
- 9780190943219
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190855109.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
In the pursuit of political thought on authoritative and efficacious rule, this chapter contains a brief introduction to those currents that shaped the eleventh century: the coming of the Turks to ...
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In the pursuit of political thought on authoritative and efficacious rule, this chapter contains a brief introduction to those currents that shaped the eleventh century: the coming of the Turks to the eastern Islamic world, and the interaction of Turkic rulers with the Abbasids and local elites, to which Nizam al-Mulk belonged, as narrated in the medieval histories with a particular élan. Drawing on new scholarship on ethnicity, ethnogenesis, and nomadic polities, it argues that normative assumptions that color medieval accounts of Saljuq tribal and political organization offer insights that have hitherto been neglected. Ethnonyms and toponyms are frequently used in medieval sources as situational constructs, camouflaging alliances and ideological proclivities.Less
In the pursuit of political thought on authoritative and efficacious rule, this chapter contains a brief introduction to those currents that shaped the eleventh century: the coming of the Turks to the eastern Islamic world, and the interaction of Turkic rulers with the Abbasids and local elites, to which Nizam al-Mulk belonged, as narrated in the medieval histories with a particular élan. Drawing on new scholarship on ethnicity, ethnogenesis, and nomadic polities, it argues that normative assumptions that color medieval accounts of Saljuq tribal and political organization offer insights that have hitherto been neglected. Ethnonyms and toponyms are frequently used in medieval sources as situational constructs, camouflaging alliances and ideological proclivities.
