Disenchanting the Caliphate: The Secular Discipline of Power in Abbasid Political Thought

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Critical Reflections on “Islamic Political Thought” -- 1. Caliphal Practice -- 2. The Language of Imamate -- 3. Political Prose Revolution -- 4. The Disruptive Language of Siyasa -- 5. Deconfessionalizing the Caliph -- 6. A Theory of Imperial Law -- 7. Territorial Consciousness -- 8. Reimagining the Believers as Imperial Subjects -- Conclusion: Releasing Siyasa from the Imamate -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

Introduction: critical reflections on "Islamic political thought" -- Caliphal practice -- The language of Imamate -- Political prose revolution -- The disruptive language of Siyasa -- Deconfessionalizing the Caliph -- A theory of imperial law -- Territorial consciousness -- Reimagining the believers as imperial subjects -- Conclusion: Releasing Siyasa from the Imamate.

"Politics in Muslim societies during the millennium after the death of Muhammad is too often depicted as shaped by strict religious norms and texts, and associated with reified concepts such as the caliphate. This supposition is complemented by the narrative that only after the impact of either the Mongolian imperial intervention in the 13th century or the Western colonial rule in the 19th century that secular political norms appeared in Muslim societies, a story that entrenches a 'clash of civilizations' divide for both Muslims and Westerners alike. Relying on primary sources, this book focuses on the specific instance of the Abbasid Empire (750-1258) to challenge this deep-seated assumption. Yucesoy demonstrates how pre-Mongol Muslim intellectual history presented visions of cosmopolitan and temporal political morality and government rationality that endured for centuries as a counterpoint to the notion of religious governance. The book makes a new sense of intellectual history through forward-looking, decolonial, and non-ulama-focused lenses that deconstruct and historicize the "Islamic" in the colonial-era label "Islamic political thought, and calls for a new historiography that appreciates the caliphate as an integral part of the global history of empires"-- Provided by publisher.