Simon Róbert

The Social Anatomy of Islam


Ijmāc1

If we have previously called umma and sharica “virtual” realities, that adjective applies at least as much to ijmac, the consensus of the Muslim community, and to the role that it plays in deciding unresolved questions of sharica. As it was more or less impossible to obtain the agreement of the theocratic community, especially on questions that called for professional expertise, the consensus of respected experts on religious law is accepted in lieu of that of the community (according to several, e.g. ash-Shāfīc, the agreement of the community is required in general questions – e.g. divine worship, almsgiving etc. – and the unanimous opinion of experts on religious law decides specialist legal problems).2 Differences between agreements of early and later times are accounted for by the growth of the former easily organised community into one of huge dimensions (the Greek polis with its few thousand citizens could practise direct democracy, and the subjects of nation-states could influence decisions after a fashion by public opinion, but by this time, under representative democracy, decisions can only be taken by means of parties and parliaments), and furthermore, the appearance of ever more complex legal problems requires professional expertise.

The Social Anatomy of Islam

Tartalomjegyzék


Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó – Felsőbbfokú Tanulmányok Intézete

Online megjelenés éve: 2024

ISBN: 978 615 574 253 8

This work analyses some essential features of the classical as well modern Islamic society. Islam cannot be regarded as a religion in the strict sense of the word, because civil change marginalized it and made it into societally insignificant movement in the private sphere. Some consider it a kind of a politically organized formation, but politically unified Islamic society disintegrated from the second half of the ninth century, independent units came into being reproducing the original model. Others are of the opinion that Islam is an ideology. This, however, would mean that during one and a half millennium the Muslims gave wrong answers to the different challenges. Some consider Islam as a culture, but this concept is a category of civil society subjected to permanent change. Therefore, we shall interpret Islam as society-integrating network which organized its own society, the umma on the principle of repristination or retraditionalisation.The main topics treated in the first part of our work are: the problem of genesis; the hermeneutics of the main concepts of Political Islam counterpointed by the categories of Ibn Khaldún’s power-state; integration and stratification of society; forms of changes (reform, revolt, revolution). The second part is dealing with the problems of modern Islam, taking into account revivalist movements from the Khárijites to the Islamic State.

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/simon-the-social-anatomy-of-islam//

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