The Politics of Muslim Intellectual Discourse in the West
This book is a case study in the literary, psychoanalytic, and theological encounters between diasporic Muslim intellectuals and secular western modernity. It centres on the simultaneous search for the possibility of both a reformation of Islamic fundamentalism and a transformation of the exclusionary limitations of western public institutions. With roots in original research in the fields of comparative religion and cultural studies, and drawing on sources in English, French, and Arabic, the author introduces and elaborates the concept of "Western-Islamic public sphere". This concept defines what is at stake in the formative play of public representations where traditionalist foundations and modernist adaptations meet, clash, and produce discourse around their common disequilibrium. The Western-Islamic public sphere (which is secular but not secularist and which is Islamic but not Islamist), within which a critical Islamic intellectual universe can unfold, deals hermeneutically with texts and politically with lived practices. It emerges from within the arc of two alternative, conflicting, yet equally dismissive suspicions defined by a view that critical Islam is the new imperial rhetoric of hegemonic orientalism and the opposite view that critical Islam is just fundamentalism camouflaged in liberal rhetoric. This innovative and original scholarly apparatus offers a third view -- one that arises in its practice from ethical commitment to intellectual engagement, creativity, and imagination as a portal to the open horizons of conflictual history.
Intellectual Discourse and the Politics of Modernization
In this thought-provoking study, Ali Mirsepassi explores the concept of modernity, exposing the Eurocentric prejudices and hostility to non-Western culture that have characterized its development. Focusing on the Iranian experience of modernity, he charts its political and intellectual history and develops a new interpretation of Islamic Fundamentalism through the detailed analysis of the ideas of key Islamic intellectuals. The author argues that the Iranian Revolution was not a simple clash between modernity and tradition but an attempt to accommodate modernity within a sense of authentic Islamic identity, culture and historical experience. He concludes by assessing the future of secularism and democracy in the Middle East in general, and in Iran in particular. A significant contribution to the literature on modernity, social change and Islamic Studies, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students of social theory and change, Middle Eastern Studies, Cultural Studies and many related areas.
Islamic Democratic Discourse
This wide-ranging set of essays explores the multi-faceted relationship between Islam and democracy. Each essayist's unique viewpoint on contemporary Islam provides insight into Islamic political thought and its connection to Western democracy.
Political Islam, Iran, and the Enlightenment
Ali Mirsepassi's book presents a powerful challenge to the dominant media and scholarly construction of radical Islamist politics, and their anti-Western ideology, as a purely Islamic phenomenon derived from insular, traditional and monolithic religious 'foundations'. It argues that the discourse of political Islam has strong connections to important and disturbing currents in Western philosophy and modern Western intellectual trends. The work demonstrates this by establishing links between important contemporary Iranian intellectuals and the central influence of Martin Heidegger's philosophy. We are also introduced to new democratic narratives of modernity linked to diverse intellectual trends in the West and in non-Western societies, notably in India, where the ideas of John Dewey have influenced important democratic social movements. As the first book to make such connections, it promises to be an important contribution to the field and will do much to overturn some pervasive assumptions about the dichotomy between East and West.
Neo-Muslim Intellectuals in the West and Their Contributions to Islamic Thought and the Formation of Western Islam
"This study is an exploration of the contributions made by neo-Muslim intellectuals to Islamic thought and the development of Islam in the West. It focuses on the works of contemporary neo-Muslim intellectuals that enjoy a wide circulation, especially among Muslim migrants in the West and throughout the Muslim world. Through their intellectual vision, they impart a certain understanding of Islam, which is acceptable in the Western context and culture. They produce a new Islamic literature which can be classified as a Western Islamic literature." "The author presents an overview of the estimated numbers of converts in different European countries and presents detailed profiles of the main protagonists of the study. He reviews the contributions of neo-Muslim intellectuals to Western Islamic literature. He discusses their contributions to Islamic political thought and to Islamic politics. He studies the attitudes of these converts towards Western civilization. In conclusion, he analyses their views on non-Islamic religions, particularly their polemical views on Christianity." --Book Jacket.
