Political Quietism in Islam: Sunni and Shi’i Practice and Thought

Anthology Editor: Saud al-Sarhan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9780755645046
Weight: 
Pages: 280pp
Year:  Jul 2021
Price: RM211

In recent years, Islam – whether via the derivatives of 'Political Islam' or 'Islamism' – has come to be seen as an 'activist' force in social and political spheres worldwide. What such representations have neglected is the strong countervailing tradition of political quietism. Political quietism in Islam holds that it is not for Muslims to question or oppose their leaders. Rather, the faithful should concentrate on their piety, prayer, religious rituals and personal quest for virtue.

This book is the first to analyze the history and meaning of political quietism in Islamic societies. It takes an innovative cross-sectarian approach, investigating the phenomenon and practice across both Sunni and Shi'i communities. Contributors deconstruct and introduce the various forms of political quietisms from the time of the prophetic revelations through to the contemporary era. Chapters cover issues ranging from the politics of public piety among the women preachers in Saudi Arabia, through to the legal discourses in the Caucasus, the different Shi'i communities in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Pakistan, and the Gülen movement in Azerbaijan. The authors describe a wide range of political quietisms and assess the continuing significance of the tradition, both to the study of Islam and to the modern world today.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Saud al-Sarhan, The King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Saudi Arabia; and Faisal Abullhassan, Johns Hopkins University, USA
Part I – The Concept of Political Quietism: Its Problematics and the Islamic Context
1 – Making Sense of 'Political Quietism'-An Analytical Intervention
Jan-Peter Hartung, University of Göttingen, Germany
2 – Expressions of Political Quietism in Islamic History
Ebrahim Moosa, University of Notre Dame, USA; and Nicholas Roberts, Sewanee: The University of the South, USA
Part II – Political Quietism in Classical Islam
3 – The Rightly-Guided Caliphs: The Range of Views Preserved in Hadith
Robert Gleave, University of Exeter, UK; and Christopher Melchert, University of Oxford, UK
4 – “Patience in Our Situation Is Better than Sedition”: The Shift to Political Quietism in the Sunni Tradition
Saud al-Sarhan, The King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Saudi Arabia
5 – Quietism and Political Legitimacy in Imami Shi'i Jurisprudence: al-Sharif al-Murtada's Treatise on the Legality of Working for the Government Reconsidered
Robert Gleave, University of Exeter, UK
Part III – Political Quietism in Modern and Contemporary Islamic Thought
6 – “I'm Only a Village Farmer and a Dervish': Between Political Quietism and Spiritual Leadership: Early Modern Shi'i Sufism and the Challenge of Modernity
Alessandro Cancian, The Institute of Ismaili Studies, UK
7 – Legal Discourses on Hijra in the Caucasus after the Fall of the Caucasus Imamate: Risalat al-sharifa by the Dagestani Scholar 'Abd al-Rahman al-Thughuri
Mogamed Gizbulaev, Princeton University, USA
8 – Constitutionalism as Quietist Strategy: The Case of Tunisia
Jeremy Kleidosty, University of Helsinki, Finland
9 – “Dropping a Thick Curtain of Forgetting and Disregard”: Modern Shi'i Quietism Beyond Politics
Rainer Brunner, The French National Center for Scientific Research, France
10 – Public Piety and the Politics of Preaching Among Female Preachers in Riyadh
Laila Makboul, University of Oslo, Norway
11 – The Gülen Movement in Azerbaijan: Political Quietism or Taqiyya?
Fuad Aliyve, ADA University, Azerbaijan
12 – The Neo-Traditionalist Critique of Modernity and the Production of Political Quietism
Walaa Quisay, University of Oxford, UK