Description
Book SynopsisHayrettin Yücesoy 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.
Trade ReviewDisenchanting the Caliphate breaks ground for radically new conversations in world history, political theory, empire studies, and Middle Eastern and Global South Studies. At once erudite, astutely conceived, and sparkling with insight, this book is a must read for anyone seeking to de-eurocentrize public and scholarly assumptions about the world's interconnected past and present. -- Laura Doyle, author of
Inter-imperiality: Vying Empires, Gendered Labor, and the Literary Arts of AllianceGibbon’s flourish about ‘Mahomet, sword in one hand, Koran in the other’ long served as metonym for the diachronic Caliphate. Yücesoy provocatively but convincingly disputes whether ‘Islamic political thought’ was inflexibly Islamic. Αlongside religious scholars he highlights Umayyad and Abbasid bureaucrat-literati, who propounded ethical and managerial principles of governance. -- Garth Fowden, author of
Before and After Muḥammad: The First Millennium RefocusedA revision of revisionist scholarship, Yücesoy’s book is theoretically engaged and philologically endowed. It unravels the contentions between what he calls the “secular ethos of
adab-siyasa” and “scholastic” political knowledge during the eighth century. This work is a contribution to understanding the early background within which the former was to be absorbed by the latter. -- Wael Hallaq, Columbia University
In
Disenchanting the Caliphate, Yücesoy pierces the wall of biased binaries erected by Western colonial scholarship. Behind the wall, we are treated to the creative, open-ended process—unfolding during the High Caliphate—that bundled relational practices of power-knowledge into a secular discipline of political civility. -- Armando Salvatore, author of
The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and CivilityYucesoy has produced a valuable work which scholars of political thought in the Muslim world and on secularism will benefit greatly from. * Middle East Monitor *
Table of ContentsPreface
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
