Islam and Good Governance A Political Philosophy of Ihsan
This book advances an Islamic political philosophy based on the concept of Ihsan, which means to do beautiful things. The author moves beyond the dominant model of Islamic governance advanced by modern day Islamists. The political philosophy of Ihsan priv
- PDF / 4,862,898 Bytes
- 294 Pages / 419.58 x 612.28 pts Page_size
- 10 Downloads / 255 Views
Islam and Good Governance “In this insightful, passionate book, Muqtedar Khan focuses on the importance of the Islamic principle of Ihsan in revitalizing Muslim life and thought globally in the contemporary world. He observes—correctly—that although this concept has traditionally animated Islamic ethics and mysticism, it has rarely been deployed in the political sphere. Khan goes on to make a compelling case for addressing this deficiency and to demonstrate how striving for beauty and excellence—as implied by the term Ihsan— will allow Muslims to govern themselves effectively in accordance with the highest ideals of their tradition. In an age marked by shallow religio-nationalist identities and the cheap instrumentalization of religion, Khan offers a way out of this morass by going back to foundational Islamic values, primarily Ihsan and foregrounding it for application in today’s polarized and amoral world. This is a book that deserves to be read widely by both Muslim and non-Muslim readers who share an equal concern for the attrition of moral and ethical values today, particularly in the public sphere, and can be read with profit even in the hard-nosed worlds of academia and policymaking.” —Asma Afsaruddin, Professor of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA “Muqtedar Khan’s Islam and Good Governance offers a political philosophy that is both refreshing and timely. In this era of fixation on identity politics, Khan rejects the standard choice between religious and secular identities as superficial. He focuses instead on process—the necessary means for achieving good governance, and finds it in cultivation of core Islamic values of love and mercy.” —Tamara Sonn, Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor in the History of Islam at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University, USA “Muqtedar Khan’s Islam and Good Governance is a noteworthy contribution to the literature on Islamic political thought. By mending the concept of Ihsan, doing beautiful deeds, to political practice, he champions a praxis in the public sphere that is more virtuous and pensive. The reader comes away with a better appreciation of the shortcomings of identity politics, and the astuteness of mystical readings of Islam. Islam and Good Governance advances the view that politics must bend the knee to morality.” —Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University, USA
“Muqtedar Khan’s new work bridges the worlds of Islamic spirituality and politics. A great deal of research on Sufism has gone towards helping us locate Sufis as full social beings, politically active and engaged in their societies. This has helped us move beyond the older and inaccurate association of Sufis as being ‘apolitical’ or ‘otherworldly,’ characterizations which were often rooted in Protestant caricatures. Much less frequently have we seen political scientists, and politically science trained scholars take seriously the role of Sufism i
Data Loading...
