Description
Book SynopsisThis book investigates the relationship between government and religion in Middle Eastern history. By tracing how political debates about leadership impacted the theological scholars and their own conception of communal guidance, it offers a new picture of premodern political authority and the connections between Western and Islamic civilizations.
Trade Review'Ali Humayun Akhtar's Philosophers, Sufis, and Caliphs explores the interface and interplay between Sufism, philosophy, and politics in the medieval Islamic world. Examining diverse fields in the history of ideas - from metaphysics to politics, cosmology to psychology, and Sufism to philosophical theology - Akhtar examines how scholarly religious authority affected and was affected by political leadership between the tenth and twelfth centuries. The extensively researched chapters on the Spanish Sufi metaphysicians … are particularly valuable for placing their thought in the context of the dialectic of scholars with local monarchs and emirs.' Leonard Lewisohn, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter
'This is a ground-breaking treatment of the intricate connections between politics and religious thought in the Islamic world over the course of three centuries. Ali Humayun Akhtar offers fresh insights on a half dozen of the most important Muslim thinkers of al-Andalus, including Ibn Masarra, Ibn Hazm, and Ibn Tufayl. His portrait of how Islamic thought developed in the region is a landmark.' Ken Garden, Tufts University, Massachusetts
'… a brilliant and well-researched book … summarizes some of the most important discussions about religious and philosophical history occurring today between American, European, and Middle Eastern scholars.' Allen Fromherz, The American Historical Review
'… the work is substantial thanks to the erudition of the author …' Lahouari Addi, Reading Religion
'… a novel and stimulating work that should be consulted by anyone with an interest in Andalusian intellectual history.' Peter Adamson, Journal of Arabic Literature
Table of ContentsList of figures; Acknowledgments; Introduction: politics, law, and authority in the Abbasid and Fatimid; Part I. Philosophical Caliphs and their Impact on the Scholars: 1. Rival caliphs in Baghdad and Cairo; 2. A third caliphate in Cordoba; 3. Political reform among the later Abbasids; Part II. Philosophical Sufis among Scholars and their Impact on Political Culture: 4. Sufi metaphysics in the twelfth century; 5. A new political model and its Sufi; 6. The transformation of caliphal politics; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
