Abstract
Cultural diversity in Islam contradicts the political notion of Islam as a monolithic unity and of Muslims as one umma. This notion can be found equally — albeit for different motives and with varying degrees of emphasis — in both Islamophobic writings and in the fundamentalist apologia of the Islamists. In contrast, I maintain: Islamic symbols are contingent upon both time and place, and the form they take varies accordingly. Social behaviour also changes, both directed by these symbols and at the same time affecting them. Nevertheless, we can also speak of an Islamic scriptural canon binding for all Muslims but slightly modified through this real and manifest diversity. In this sense, the diversity is connected to varying perceptions of the canon contingent upon time and place. While acknowledging the cultural diversity in Islam I maintain that there is a specific Islamic view of the world shared by all Muslims.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
On this Islamic worldview and on its politicisation, see B. Tibi, ‘The Worldview of Sunni Arab Fundamentalists’, in M. Marty/S. Appleby (eds), Fundamentalisms and Society, Chicago, 1993, pp. 73–102.
These processes of internal differentiation within the Islamic religious system form the subject of Part II, pp. 74ff., in B. Tibi, The Crisis of Modern Islam: a Preindustrial Culture in the Scientific-Technological Age, trans. Judith von Sivers, Salt Lake City, 1988, pp. 55ff.
For more on this subject, see Charles Lindholm, The Islamic Middle East: an Historical Anthropology, Oxford, 1996, pp. 259ff.
Barrie Axford, The Global System: Economics, Politics and Culture, New York, 1995.
The perception of these vexed questions in the works of six modern Islamic thinkers is analyzed by Rotraud Wielandt, Offenbarung und Geschichte im Denken moderner Muslime, Wiesbaden, 1971; on this book, see my review article in the collection of articles
B. Tibi, Internationale Politik und Entwicklungsländer-Forschung. Materialien zu einer ideologiekritischen Entwicklungssoziologie, Frankfurt/M., 1979, pp. 136–40.
See B. Tibi, ‘War and Peace in Islam’, in Terry Nardin (ed.), The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives, Princeton, NJ, 1996, pp. 128–45.
See also H.A.R. Gibb and H. Bowen, Islamic Society and the West: a Study of the Impact of Western Civilisation on Moslem Culture in the Near East, 2 vols., London, 1950 and 1957.
Najib Armanazi, Al shar’ al-duwali fi al-Islam (International Law in Islam), new printing, London, 1990 (Original Damascus, 1930). On democratic peace, see
Bruce Russet, Grasping the Democratic Peace, Princeton, NJ, 1993.
See also B. Tibi, ‘Democracy and Democratization in Islam: a Quest of Islamic Enlightenment’, in Michèle Schmiegelow (ed.), Democracy in Asia, New York, 1997, pp. 127–46.
On the European expansion, see chapter 6, on Arab jihad chapter 1, on Ottoman jihad chapter 4, in B. Tibi, Kreuzzug and Djihad. Der Islam und die christliche Welt, Munich, 1999;
and also Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 3 vols, Chicago, 1974, here vol. 3;
see also Bernard Lewis, The Middle East and the West, 2nd printing, New York, 1966.
An example of such an Islamic answer is the major work originally published in 1930 and still influential today, available in reprint, by Shakib Arslan, Limatha ta’akhara al-Muslimun wa Lmatha tagaddama ghairuhum? (English translation, Our Decline and Its Causes, 2nd printing, London, 1952).
An exhaustive account of this situation is given by Maxime Rodinson, Muhammed, Lucerne and Frankfurt/M., 1975, chapters 1 and 2 (originally in French, Paris, 1961).
On this debate, see B. Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1998.
Johan Bouman, Gott und Mensch im Koran. Eine Strukturform religiöser Anthropologie anhand des Beispiels Allah und Muhammad, Darmstadt, 1977, p. 226.
This shari’a legal position was representatively propounded by Sabir Tu’aima, al-Sharia al-Islamiyya fi asr alilm (Islamic Law in the Age of Science), Beirut, 1979, pp. 208ff. A reconstruction of Islamic international law is provided in the classical work by Najib Armanazi, al-Shar’ al-duwali fi al-Islam (referenced in note 9).
See Nasr H. Abu-Zaid, al-Ta fkir fi al-zaman al-tak fir (Thinking in the Age of Accusation of Unbelief), Cairo, 1995. On the Abu-Zaid affair and on its broader context, see
B. Tibi, Fundamentalismus im Islam, Darmstadt, 2000, chapter 7. On the dismissal of critique of Islamic fundamentalism in the diaspora, see
Abu-Zaid, Leben mit dem Islam, Freiburg, 1999, P. 197. In fact this is an indication of hypocrisy.
Watt, Islam I (referenced in note 13), p. 170; see also R. Bell and W.M. Watt, Introduction to the Qur’an, 2nd printing, Edinburgh, 1977.
On the early epoch of the Islamic schism between Sunna and Shi’a, see S.H.M. Jafri, The Origins and Early Development of Shi’a Islam, London, 1979. See also
Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi’i Islam, New Haven, 1985.
On modern Koranic exegesis, see J.M.S. Baljon, Modern Muslim Koran Interpretation (1880–1960), Leiden, 1968;
and J.J.G. Jansen, The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt, Leiden, 1974.
Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe, New York, 1982, chapter IX.
See Charles C. Adams, Islam and Modernism in Egypt: a study of the Early Modern Reform Movement, 2nd printing, New York, 1968 (originally published in 1933).
See W.M. Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology, 5th printing, Edinburgh, 1979, pp. 37ff.
Herbert A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, Averroës on Intellect, New York, 1992.
See also the essays in honour of Muhsin Mandi, ed. by Charles Butterworth, The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, Cambridge, MA, 1992.
See B. Tibi, ‘Islam and Secularization, Religion and the Functional Differentiation of the Social System’, in Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, vol. 66 (1980), pp. 207–22.
See also B. Tibi, ‘Culture and Knowledge’, in Theory, Culture (Sr Society, vol. 12, 1 (1995), pp. 1–24;
and most recently B. Tibi, ‘Secularization and De-Secularization in Modern Islam’, in Religion, Staat und Gesellschaft, vol. 1, 1 (2000), pp. 95–117.
On right-wing radical militant Islam see G.H. Jansen, Militant Islam, New York, 1979; and my book on political Islam referenced above in note 15, as well as Emmanuel Sivan, Radical Islam New Haven, 1985.
See W.M. Watt, Muhammad. Prophet and Statesman, 4th printing, Oxford, 1978.
See Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, 5th printing, Oxford, 1979;
and N.J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law, 3rd printing, Edinburgh, 1978; as well as chapter 7 of this book.
On the tensions between scriptural fiqh and rational philosophy in Islam see B. Tibi, Der wahre Imam. Der Islam von Mohammed bis zur Gegenwart, Munich, 1996, Part 2.
See Subhi al-Salih, Ma’alim al-sharia al-Islamiyya (Basic Features of Islamic Law), Beirut, 1975, p. 116.
On this, see Maxime Rodinson, Islam et capitalisme, Paris, 1966, new German edition with a lengthy introduction by B. Tibi, Frankfurt/Main, 1986.
For a reform-Islamic critical view of the caliphate, see M. S. al-Ashmawi, alKhilafa al-Islamiyya (Islamic caliphate), Cairo, 1990. The standard work on this subject remains
Thomas W. Arnold, The Caliphate, 2nd printing, London, 1965 (originally published in 1924 ).
On both of these aspects of the encounter between the Middle East and the West under new global conditions, see B. Tibi, Arab Nationalism: between Islam and the Nation-State, 3rd edition, London, 1997, pp. 53ff. and 70ff.
See David B. Ralston, Importing the European Army: the Introduction of European Military Techniques and Institutions into the Extra-European World, Chicago, 1990, chapters 3 and 4.
Also Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd edition, Oxford, 1979, chapter 3, The Impact of the West’, pp. 40–73; and Tibi, Arab Nationalism (referenced in note 46), Part II.
Rifa’a R. al-Tahtawi, Takhlis al-ibriz ila talkhis Barfis (The Refinement of Gold: toward the Summarising Description of Paris), (originally published in 1834), German trans. Karl Stowasser, Ein Muslim entdeckt Europa. Die Reise eines Ägypters im 19. Jahrhundert nach Paris, Munich, 1989, p. 150.
See B. Tibi, ‘The Failed Export of the Islamic Revolution into the Arab World’, in Frédéric Grare (ed.), Islamism and Security: Political Islam and the Western World, Geneva, 1999, pp. 63–101.
See B. Tibi, ‘Post-Bipolar Order in Crisis: the Challenge of Politicised Islam’, in Millennium: Journal of International Studies (ed. LSE), vol. 29, 3 (2000), pp. 843–59.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2001 Bassam Tibi
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tibi, B. (2001). Cultural Patterns and the Perception of Change in Islam. A Religious Model for Reality: the Islamic Worldview. In: Islam between Culture and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230514140_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230514140_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-75121-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-51414-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)