The Collective Pursuit of Public Weal

Abstract

There are several reasons why focusing now on Islam can substantially enrich the post-axial genealogy of intersubjective repertoires of understanding, connectivity, and communication within discursive traditions. This concerns in particular the nexus between practical and public reasoning in the construction and maintenance of the social bond. Islam is the last in the family of Abrahamic, prophetic religions. Its scriptural basis and the ensuing traditions reflect the awareness by the prophet Muhammad and his successors among the leaders of the Islamic community that they were grounding—via revelation, its recording, canonization, and authoritative interpretation—a religious civilization repristinating and remolding key elements of the previous “religions of the book,” that is, Judaism and Christianity.