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The plight of religious minorities in the Middle East is often
attributed to the failure of secularism to take root in the region.
Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges this assessment by
examining four cornerstones of secularism--political and civil
equality, minority rights, religious freedom, and the legal
separation of private and public domains. Drawing on her extensive
fieldwork in Egypt with Coptic Orthodox Christians and
Bahais--religious minorities in a predominantly Muslim
country--Saba Mahmood shows how modern secular governance has
exacerbated religious tensions and inequalities rather than reduced
them. Tracing the historical career of secular legal concepts in
the colonial and postcolonial Middle East, she explores how
contradictions at the very heart of political secularism have
aggravated and amplified existing forms of Islamic hierarchy,
bringing minority relations in Egypt to a new historical impasse.
Through a close examination of Egyptian court cases and
constitutional debates about minority rights, conflicts around
family law, and controversies over freedom of expression, Mahmood
invites us to reflect on the entwined histories of secularism in
the Middle East and Europe. A provocative work of scholarship,
Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges us to rethink the
promise and limits of the secular ideal of religious equality.
"Politics of Piety" is a groundbreaking analysis of Islamist
cultural politics through the ethnography of a thriving, grassroots
women's piety movement in the mosques of Cairo, Egypt. Unlike those
organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the
state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are
commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape.
Saba Mahmood's compelling exposition of these practices challenges
this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are
indelibly linked within the context of such movements.
Not only is this book a sensitive ethnography of a critical but
largely ignored dimension of the Islamic revival, it is also an
unflinching critique of the secular-liberal assumptions by which
some people hold such movements to account. The book addresses
three central questions: How do movements of moral reform help us
rethink the normative liberal account of politics? How does the
adherence of women to the patriarchal norms at the core of such
movements parochialize key assumptions within feminist theory about
freedom, agency, authority, and the human subject? How does a
consideration of debates about embodied religious rituals among
Islamists and their secular critics help us understand the
conceptual relationship between bodily form and political
imaginaries? "Politics of Piety" is essential reading for anyone
interested in issues at the nexus of ethics and politics,
embodiment and gender, and liberalism and postcolonialism.
In a substantial new preface, Mahmood addresses the controversy
sparked by the original publication of her book and the scholarly
discussions that have ensued.
This volume interrogates settled ways of thinking about the
seemingly interminable conflict between religious and secular
values in our world today. What are the assumptions and resources
internal to secular conceptions of critique that help or hinder our
understanding of one of the most pressing conflicts of our times?
Taking as their point of departure the question of whether critique
belongs exclusively to forms of liberal democracy that define
themselves in opposition to religion, these authors consider the
case of the “Danish cartoon controversy” of 2005. They offer
accounts of reading, understanding, and critique for offering a way
to rethink conventional oppositions between free speech and
religious belief, judgment and violence, reason and prejudice,
rationality and embodied life. The book, first published in 2009,
has been updated for the present edition with a new Preface by the
authors.
In a remarkably short period of time, religious freedom has
achieved broad consensus as an indispensable condition for peace.
Faced with widespread reports of religious persecution, public and
private actors around the world have responded with laws and
policies designed to promote freedom of religion. But what
precisely is being promoted? What are the cultural and
epistemological assumptions underlying this response, and what
forms of politics are enabled in the process? The fruits of the
three-year Politics of Religious Freedom research project, the
contributions to this volume unsettle the assumption - ubiquitous
in policy circles - that religious freedom is a singular
achievement, an easily understood state of affairs, and that the
problem lies in its incomplete accomplishment. Taking a global
perspective, the contributors delineate the different conceptions
of religious freedom predominant in the world today, as well as
their histories and social and political contexts. Together, the
contributions make clear that the reasons for persecution are more
varied and complex than is widely acknowledged, and that the
indiscriminate promotion of a single legal and cultural tool meant
to address conflict across a wide variety of cultures can have the
perverse effect of exacerbating the problems that plague the
communities cited as falling short.
Feminist theory and reflections on sexuality and gender rarely
make contact with contemporary continental philosophy of religion.
Where they all come together, creative and transformative thinking
occurs. In Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion,
internationally recognized scholars tackle complicated questions
provoked by the often stormy intersection of these powerful forces.
The essays in this book break down barriers as they extend the
richness of each philosophical tradition. They discuss topics such
as queer sexuality and religion, feminism and the gift, feminism
and religious reform, and religion and diversity. The contributors
are Helene Cixous, Sarah Coakley, Kelly Brown Douglas, Mark D.
Jordan, Catherine Keller, Saba Mahmood, and Gianni Vattimo."
The plight of religious minorities in the Middle East is often
attributed to the failure of secularism to take root in the region.
Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges this assessment by
examining four cornerstones of secularism--political and civil
equality, minority rights, religious freedom, and the legal
separation of private and public domains. Drawing on her extensive
fieldwork in Egypt with Coptic Orthodox Christians and
Bahais--religious minorities in a predominantly Muslim
country--Saba Mahmood shows how modern secular governance has
exacerbated religious tensions and inequalities rather than reduced
them. Tracing the historical career of secular legal concepts in
the colonial and postcolonial Middle East, she explores how
contradictions at the very heart of political secularism have
aggravated and amplified existing forms of Islamic hierarchy,
bringing minority relations in Egypt to a new historical impasse.
Through a close examination of Egyptian court cases and
constitutional debates about minority rights, conflicts around
family law, and controversies over freedom of expression, Mahmood
invites us to reflect on the entwined histories of secularism in
the Middle East and Europe. A provocative work of scholarship,
Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges us to rethink the
promise and limits of the secular ideal of religious equality.
In a remarkably short period of time, religious freedom has
achieved broad consensus as an indispensable condition for peace.
Faced with widespread reports of religious persecution, public and
private actors around the world have responded with laws and
policies designed to promote freedom of religion. But what
precisely is being promoted? What are the cultural and
epistemological assumptions underlying this response, and what
forms of politics are enabled in the process? The fruits of the
three-year Politics of Religious Freedom research project, the
contributions to this volume unsettle the assumption - ubiquitous
in policy circles - that religious freedom is a singular
achievement, an easily understood state of affairs, and that the
problem lies in its incomplete accomplishment. Taking a global
perspective, the contributors delineate the different conceptions
of religious freedom predominant in the world today, as well as
their histories and social and political contexts. Together, the
contributions make clear that the reasons for persecution are more
varied and complex than is widely acknowledged, and that the
indiscriminate promotion of a single legal and cultural tool meant
to address conflict across a wide variety of cultures can have the
perverse effect of exacerbating the problems that plague the
communities cited as falling short.
This volume interrogates settled ways of thinking about the
seemingly interminable conflict between religious and secular
values in our world today. What are the assumptions and resources
internal to secular conceptions of critique that help or hinder our
understanding of one of the most pressing conflicts of our times?
Taking as their point of departure the question of whether critique
belongs exclusively to forms of liberal democracy that define
themselves in opposition to religion, these authors consider the
case of the "Danish cartoon controversy" of 2005. They offer
accounts of reading, understanding, and critique for offering a way
to rethink conventional oppositions between free speech and
religious belief, judgment and violence, reason and prejudice,
rationality and embodied life. The book, first published in 2009,
has been updated for the present edition with a new Preface by the
authors.
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