List 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.
This book investigates the relationship between government and religion in Middle Eastern history from Morocco to Egypt and Iraq.
Ali Humayun Akhtar is an Assistant Professor at Bates College, Maine. He is also the Robert M. Kingdon Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Akhtar holds a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from New York University.
'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
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